Anybody who watches MSNBC will tell you that they're left-leaning, sometimes to the point of uselessness. They've become the mirror-image of fox, but even those on the left know this. We take it with a grain of salt. Fox's demographic rarely seems to do the same.
Also, I can't really speak for ABC, NBC or CBS (I don't get those where I live) but if you think CNN is in any way a left-leaning network you're totally insane. They're the closest thing to an impartial network left in the country, and they always criticize both sides fairly equally. As for NPR, it is what it is- the most intelligent source of news and commentary available. You might not like their bias, but they're always rigorous and transparent.
In This Thread: Express your superiority over straw-man parents with pat condemnations, supported by anecdotal evidence! Cast aspersion on the motives of medical professionals! Espouse cult-like belief in naturalistic practices! Argue small-mindedly with the parents of ADD-affected children! Make everyone get off your lawn!
Or, alternatively, shut your mouth when it comes to things you know nothing of.
And chances are, you can. Look up a BAC calculator, or even get a cheap breathalyzer and test yourself one day. You'll find that one glass of wine shouldn't be enough to put you up to.05, unless you weigh almost nothing. Even a female who weighs 100lbs would be well below.05 so long as that one drink was spaced over an hour or so.
For those of you who've forgotten this fellow, he's a former Bush speechwriter and author of the terribly misleading "Courting Disaster: How the CIA Kept America Safe and How Barack Obama Is Inviting the Next Attack".
The New Yorker did a piece on that book, investigating some of the claims made within and revealing many to be clearly false. Basically the book was a defense of "enhanced interrogation". One claim that I recall off the top of my head is that information obtained by the CIA through enhanced interrogation was instrumental in preventing a conspiracy to hijack several planes flying from London in 2006. Yet according to the head of Scotland Yard's anti-terrorism unit, all the intelligence involved was gathered in the uk. Thiessen's version of events is flatly contradicted.
This guy has been one of the primary fonts of misinformation and foolishness in the media since then. He has no credibility, and should be regarded only as a bellwether of neoconservative opinion.
This is what I took from it (and I by no means read the whole thing):
-Specific examples of incidents in which the afghan police and army proved themselves to be both incompetent and corrupt:
Anybody who's been paying attention had been given this impression, but if I'd heard a lot of specific examples before now, I don't remember them. Incidents like a firefight between the police and the army; an instance of a police official fraudulently reporting a combat situation in order to secure more ammo to sell on the black market; the fact that coalition troops reported some of their own victories as being the work of Afghans.
These incidents illustrate that the Afghan authorities, far from being ready to take over counter-terrorism operations, are in fact indifferent, incompetent, and insidious.
-Predator drone revelations:
I'm not sure that this had been reported anywhere: that predators occasionally crash into each other, that one time one simply lost contact and went rogue, and that risky operations have to be undertaken to retrieve weapons from the downed drones. I don't doubt that predator's have their uses, although in a situation where the enemy doesn't really possess proper anti-air weapons it's hard to say why a real plane wouldn't make more sense. What caught my attention here is, given that the government has been seeking regulatory approval to operate drones in our airspace, shouldn't we be informed that these things have a tendency to fly into eachother?
I'm gonna leave it at those two for now because that's all I can think of off the top of my head, having only read a summary of the documents on the NYT site. But these are important pieces of context in understanding how the war had been prosecuted up until 2008.
Well, one could argue that the service the lawyers provide here is to test the boundaries of the law- to raise arguments that expose the practical realities of vague legislation. Was Google covered under safe-harbor? it's up to the lawyers to show us all the reasons they are or aren't, according to the law.
Rights of Man "detailed a representative government with enumerated social programs to remedy the numbing poverty of commoners through progressive tax measures." Or so says wikipedia, I guess it could be wrong. But if it's accurate, then you have to admit, those are essentially socialist policies.
In the same vein as the AC, I have to respond: What happens when we eliminate the capacity for depression? Maybe something random, like necrosis. Maybe nothing at all. But the fact is, we don't 100% understand things like depression or even violent behavior. What is the result when someone is completely physically incapable of depression? How would they react to situations any normal person would find depressing? This next idea is kind of wild, but: What if losing our capacity for depression means that we no longer avoid situations that depression was meant to guard against? E.G. Why not leave your spouse if you wont feel bad without them, and why not strangle your children if jail wouldn't be depressing? Even more subtly, is it possible to feel truly happy without sometimes feeling depressed? If we can't feel depressed, isn't there a risk of becoming unmotivated? Will we no longer be able to empathize with those who DO get depressed, assuming not everyone wants eugenics? Will we forgo the art that comes from depression? Would we miss it?
Sorry, I ramble! If you do respond, and I hope you do, please don't feel like you gotta answer all of those. It's my nature to play devil's advocate, so I was brainstorming possible downsides. The thing is, I've gone through depression myself, and lots of doctors told me that there were pills to make it all go away- but I always had to wonder, at what cost? I don't think we really know. And until we do, it's best to give that kind of genetic engineering a wide berth, IMHO.
Excuse me, but shut right the fuck up. As of 4:02 am EST he got modded 0: Insightful, which is more than he deserves for stereotyping people by, of all things, whether or not they've used products from a specific brand. "The amount of stupidity by Apple users [...] is outstanding" is a fucking TROLL; it's a baseless condemnation of tens of millions of people.
At this moment, you're modded +2: Informative for your post. What does that say about your idiot theory that apple fanbois abuse the moderation system? The post is a mixture of wacky conspiracy ("the fanboys seem to have some back-channel") and bizarre, anachronistic blather ("Ye have spoken well"? what the fuck?). It deserves a 1: Offtopic at best.
For the record, this post deserves offtopic or even troll as well, and I know it. I just needed to vent. Also for the record, I have a couple of apple products around the house, and I also have modpoints. If reality reflected your delusions, I'd have modded you down.
I refuse to accept that behavior can be absolutely governed by genes (and your article makes a very similar point). Besides, if we shut off the gene for violence, assuming such a thing exists, what would the result look like? It might be unable to detect or react to danger, or it might exhibit some mutant form of restraint so paralyzing that it can't do anything at all.
Disease is one thing, but manipulating behavior through genetics seems dangerous. Perhaps when we have a complete understanding of our DNA, the time will be right.
If you're right (and you probably are) about this ridiculous "performance art" garbage these people are pulling, then let's just end art forever. Call it a day. No more art, people. Nothing to see here.
Again, I hear that speech a little differently. I think what he's saying is this:
A) Selection bias has become a legitimate problem in our political discourse
B) If we decide to remedy this problem, we need to find some way to expose people to opposing viewpoints.
C) Links to dissenting websites are one way to expose people to these viewpoints.
D) If websites won't do this voluntarily, a regulatory agency may be able to force them to do so.
I really think that a lot of people misunderstand this guy. A lot of politicians would say "okay, we're mandating equal representation, because it has to be done." He says, "One option is mandating equal representation. We should think about it. Maybe congress should hold hearings to decide the merits and practicality of it."
That's a world of difference. This is a guy thinking about problems, and brainstorming ways that they might be solved. He's not afraid to suggest an idea that might be completely wrong; all that matters is that we think about it. He might be easy to demonize for that, but I encourage you to demonize and refute the ideas, instead.
are you referring to his article from 2001, "The Daily We"? From that piece:
it will be useful to offer a few ideas, if only by way of introduction to questions that are likely to engage public attention in coming years.
and a little further down:
Websites might use links and hyperlinks to ensure that viewers learn about sites containing opposing views[...] Here, too, the ideal situation would be voluntary action. But if this proves impossible, it is worth considering both subsidies and regulatory alternatives.
He really doesn't say anywhere that the FCC should mandate equal representation. He only says that it's something worth thinking about. Perhaps it's naive of me, but I see a huge difference there. It reads not like a policy recommendation or even a statement of personal preference, but rather more like a brainstorming session. I applaud that kind of thought.
And no, the FCC shouldn't mandate equal representation.
It's jargon associated with a product. If someone were drinking mountain dew in a story, would it be reported that they "did the dew"? When anchors read comments off facebook (an idiot practice, but that's beside the point) do they say "Sooperstaar380 facebooked that the policy 'is balls'"? No, they say that "Sumers took sips from a mountain dew as we discussed the project", or "Sooperstaar380 posted the following on his facebook page."
Reporters have shown a tendency to get swept up in the enthusiasm surrounding twitter, but using the company's jargon in reportage is a tacit endorsement of the company, and frankly just reads as unprofessional.
Drivers who do switch off their engines may do so inefficiently. For example, a driver may switch off the engine, only to start it up a short time later. In such cases, more fuel may be consumed in restarting the engine.
So it seems like they're at least aware of the intricacies involved in maximizing fuel efficiency. Their idea seems to be that, if the signal is on a timer, they can use that information (which is unavailable to the driver) to maximize efficiency.
I have a problem with you failing in Afghanistan in order to pursue a nonsense invasion in Iraq. If you didn't want to focus on the real threat, you shouldn't have asked other countries to come along.
I'm really somewhat torn on this one. Usually I'd agree that we should collect and disseminate as much data about as many subjects as we possibly can. And that would be my position here- if I could only conceive of a single use for these numbers. You make the claim that tracking opinions about science over the years is useful, but I've thought about it and I don't see how it is. What action will anyone take, when they discover this information? No program or plan will change anyone's mind. People who choose religion over science won't be convinced otherwise, no matter what education programs we institute, because there's no coherent argument to be made refuting faith. The science "literacy" problem, at least at the level addressed by the survey questions, is absolutely intractable at this point.
For the record, I'm not talking about lying or covering anything up. I'm just saying, if this data isn't released into the media then good riddance. There's nothing new in there, nothing worth talking about, and nothing that will spur anyone to productive action. And it's one less thing to argue about, one less endless fight to be engaged in right this second.
Reason and logic have failed. Discussion has failed. Compromise has failed and compassion has largely gone by the wayside. I just don't want to argue with (or about) the other guys anymore! It's enough already!
if it's so useless, just include it and the people reading the results will ignore it.
Ignore it? The atheists will publicly lament the ignorance of Christians. The Christians will cry persecution and renew the fight for a faith-based "science" curriculum. Everyone will shout at everyone else and we'll all be just as dumb by dinner as we were at dawn.
I'm all for the importance of knowledge. Facts! let's learn 'em. But the value added by opinion polls like this one is dubious at best. We already know the shape of the data (I would have guessed that evolution would score a little lower, but there ain't no real surprises here). Furthermore, it doesn't fucking matter who believes what! Information about science is out there, it's in the schools, it's on the news. Nobody is convincing anybody at this point, so why should we care how many people agree with the science? Let's learn more about the universe, and spend less time yelling the findings at each other. Don't we fight enough already?
The obvious answer, as someone else pointed out, is that split screen would be more demanding on the machine and more difficult to code. What's too bad is that developers don't seem to be willing to grab hold of some of the opportunities that online only might present. What I'm talking about is giving each player a different, incomplete part of the total information, encouraging a sort of communicative, true-co-operative experience we rarely see. For example: Our warrior and our archer encounter a group of doppelgangers- identical monsters, but only one of them is the true foe. Now, one character (the archer, say.) is incapacitated somehow, but he can still see the fight. As it happens, our archer has the preternatural ability to spot the main foe (it appears in a different color on his screen). If he can successfully direct the warrior to that foe, the fight will be over quickly and our characters can progress. If not, the battle will be incredibly difficult. In splitscreen, the warrior would only have to glance at the archer's play window, but with online-only, communication becomes an essential feature. Another example: Written instructions could be presented for safely navigating a trap-filled chamber. Problem is, the instructions are in two different in-game languages. Each player can only read a different half of the instructions, with the other half appearing as gibberish. Only through trust and patient discussion could the characters progress.
I think there's a lot of room for developers to translate what is essentially a limitation into unique puzzles and situations which help a player to feel like he's really co-operating with someone, even if that someone isn't in the room.
Slashdot Mirror
Anybody who watches MSNBC will tell you that they're left-leaning, sometimes to the point of uselessness. They've become the mirror-image of fox, but even those on the left know this. We take it with a grain of salt. Fox's demographic rarely seems to do the same.
Also, I can't really speak for ABC, NBC or CBS (I don't get those where I live) but if you think CNN is in any way a left-leaning network you're totally insane. They're the closest thing to an impartial network left in the country, and they always criticize both sides fairly equally. As for NPR, it is what it is- the most intelligent source of news and commentary available. You might not like their bias, but they're always rigorous and transparent.
In This Thread: Express your superiority over straw-man parents with pat condemnations, supported by anecdotal evidence! Cast aspersion on the motives of medical professionals! Espouse cult-like belief in naturalistic practices! Argue small-mindedly with the parents of ADD-affected children! Make everyone get off your lawn!
Or, alternatively, shut your mouth when it comes to things you know nothing of.
And chances are, you can. Look up a BAC calculator, or even get a cheap breathalyzer and test yourself one day. You'll find that one glass of wine shouldn't be enough to put you up to .05, unless you weigh almost nothing. Even a female who weighs 100lbs would be well below .05 so long as that one drink was spaced over an hour or so.
For those of you who've forgotten this fellow, he's a former Bush speechwriter and author of the terribly misleading "Courting Disaster: How the CIA Kept America Safe and How Barack Obama Is Inviting the Next Attack".
The New Yorker did a piece on that book, investigating some of the claims made within and revealing many to be clearly false. Basically the book was a defense of "enhanced interrogation". One claim that I recall off the top of my head is that information obtained by the CIA through enhanced interrogation was instrumental in preventing a conspiracy to hijack several planes flying from London in 2006. Yet according to the head of Scotland Yard's anti-terrorism unit, all the intelligence involved was gathered in the uk. Thiessen's version of events is flatly contradicted.
This guy has been one of the primary fonts of misinformation and foolishness in the media since then. He has no credibility, and should be regarded only as a bellwether of neoconservative opinion.
can so readily and advantageously applied[sic]
You feel superior to me as mere mental compensation to the reality that[sic]
meritous[sic]
Those who live in glass houses should not throw stones, you pompous ass
This is what I took from it (and I by no means read the whole thing):
-Specific examples of incidents in which the afghan police and army proved themselves to be both incompetent and corrupt:
Anybody who's been paying attention had been given this impression, but if I'd heard a lot of specific examples before now, I don't remember them. Incidents like a firefight between the police and the army; an instance of a police official fraudulently reporting a combat situation in order to secure more ammo to sell on the black market; the fact that coalition troops reported some of their own victories as being the work of Afghans.
These incidents illustrate that the Afghan authorities, far from being ready to take over counter-terrorism operations, are in fact indifferent, incompetent, and insidious.
-Predator drone revelations:
I'm not sure that this had been reported anywhere: that predators occasionally crash into each other, that one time one simply lost contact and went rogue, and that risky operations have to be undertaken to retrieve weapons from the downed drones. I don't doubt that predator's have their uses, although in a situation where the enemy doesn't really possess proper anti-air weapons it's hard to say why a real plane wouldn't make more sense. What caught my attention here is, given that the government has been seeking regulatory approval to operate drones in our airspace, shouldn't we be informed that these things have a tendency to fly into eachother?
I'm gonna leave it at those two for now because that's all I can think of off the top of my head, having only read a summary of the documents on the NYT site. But these are important pieces of context in understanding how the war had been prosecuted up until 2008.
I know I can't speak for everyone, but for me, "he doesn't drink at all" suggests alcoholic more than upstanding citizen
Well, one could argue that the service the lawyers provide here is to test the boundaries of the law- to raise arguments that expose the practical realities of vague legislation. Was Google covered under safe-harbor? it's up to the lawyers to show us all the reasons they are or aren't, according to the law.
Just playing advocate's advocate
That was the hangover album. He got better.
Rights of Man "detailed a representative government with enumerated social programs to remedy the numbing poverty of commoners through progressive tax measures." Or so says wikipedia, I guess it could be wrong. But if it's accurate, then you have to admit, those are essentially socialist policies.
In the same vein as the AC, I have to respond: What happens when we eliminate the capacity for depression? Maybe something random, like necrosis. Maybe nothing at all. But the fact is, we don't 100% understand things like depression or even violent behavior. What is the result when someone is completely physically incapable of depression? How would they react to situations any normal person would find depressing? This next idea is kind of wild, but: What if losing our capacity for depression means that we no longer avoid situations that depression was meant to guard against? E.G. Why not leave your spouse if you wont feel bad without them, and why not strangle your children if jail wouldn't be depressing?
Even more subtly, is it possible to feel truly happy without sometimes feeling depressed? If we can't feel depressed, isn't there a risk of becoming unmotivated? Will we no longer be able to empathize with those who DO get depressed, assuming not everyone wants eugenics? Will we forgo the art that comes from depression? Would we miss it?
Sorry, I ramble! If you do respond, and I hope you do, please don't feel like you gotta answer all of those. It's my nature to play devil's advocate, so I was brainstorming possible downsides. The thing is, I've gone through depression myself, and lots of doctors told me that there were pills to make it all go away- but I always had to wonder, at what cost? I don't think we really know. And until we do, it's best to give that kind of genetic engineering a wide berth, IMHO.
Excuse me, but shut right the fuck up. As of 4:02 am EST he got modded 0: Insightful, which is more than he deserves for stereotyping people by, of all things, whether or not they've used products from a specific brand. "The amount of stupidity by Apple users [...] is outstanding" is a fucking TROLL; it's a baseless condemnation of tens of millions of people.
At this moment, you're modded +2: Informative for your post. What does that say about your idiot theory that apple fanbois abuse the moderation system? The post is a mixture of wacky conspiracy ("the fanboys seem to have some back-channel") and bizarre, anachronistic blather ("Ye have spoken well"? what the fuck?). It deserves a 1: Offtopic at best.
For the record, this post deserves offtopic or even troll as well, and I know it. I just needed to vent. Also for the record, I have a couple of apple products around the house, and I also have modpoints. If reality reflected your delusions, I'd have modded you down.
I refuse to accept that behavior can be absolutely governed by genes (and your article makes a very similar point). Besides, if we shut off the gene for violence, assuming such a thing exists, what would the result look like? It might be unable to detect or react to danger, or it might exhibit some mutant form of restraint so paralyzing that it can't do anything at all.
Disease is one thing, but manipulating behavior through genetics seems dangerous. Perhaps when we have a complete understanding of our DNA, the time will be right.
Maaaan...
Art is so fucking stupid since Warhol
If you're right (and you probably are) about this ridiculous "performance art" garbage these people are pulling, then let's just end art forever. Call it a day. No more art, people. Nothing to see here.
Again, I hear that speech a little differently. I think what he's saying is this:
A) Selection bias has become a legitimate problem in our political discourse
B) If we decide to remedy this problem, we need to find some way to expose people to opposing viewpoints.
C) Links to dissenting websites are one way to expose people to these viewpoints.
D) If websites won't do this voluntarily, a regulatory agency may be able to force them to do so.
I really think that a lot of people misunderstand this guy. A lot of politicians would say "okay, we're mandating equal representation, because it has to be done." He says, "One option is mandating equal representation. We should think about it. Maybe congress should hold hearings to decide the merits and practicality of it."
That's a world of difference. This is a guy thinking about problems, and brainstorming ways that they might be solved. He's not afraid to suggest an idea that might be completely wrong; all that matters is that we think about it. He might be easy to demonize for that, but I encourage you to demonize and refute the ideas, instead.
it will be useful to offer a few ideas, if only by way of introduction to questions that are likely to engage public attention in coming years.
and a little further down:
Websites might use links and hyperlinks to ensure that viewers learn about sites containing opposing views[...] Here, too, the ideal situation would be voluntary action. But if this proves impossible, it is worth considering both subsidies and regulatory alternatives.
He really doesn't say anywhere that the FCC should mandate equal representation. He only says that it's something worth thinking about. Perhaps it's naive of me, but I see a huge difference there. It reads not like a policy recommendation or even a statement of personal preference, but rather more like a brainstorming session. I applaud that kind of thought.
And no, the FCC shouldn't mandate equal representation.
It's jargon associated with a product. If someone were drinking mountain dew in a story, would it be reported that they "did the dew"? When anchors read comments off facebook (an idiot practice, but that's beside the point) do they say "Sooperstaar380 facebooked that the policy 'is balls'"? No, they say that "Sumers took sips from a mountain dew as we discussed the project", or "Sooperstaar380 posted the following on his facebook page."
Reporters have shown a tendency to get swept up in the enthusiasm surrounding twitter, but using the company's jargon in reportage is a tacit endorsement of the company, and frankly just reads as unprofessional.
Drivers who do switch off their engines may do so inefficiently. For example, a driver may switch off the engine, only to start it up a short time later. In such cases, more fuel may be consumed in restarting the engine.
So it seems like they're at least aware of the intricacies involved in maximizing fuel efficiency. Their idea seems to be that, if the signal is on a timer, they can use that information (which is unavailable to the driver) to maximize efficiency.
you say that like it's a bad thing. "Oh no, I might inadvertently become exposed to a different point of view!"
You're right, those particular bills were "for the public, despite the public" and "against the public, because of the public" respectively
I have a problem with you failing in Afghanistan in order to pursue a nonsense invasion in Iraq. If you didn't want to focus on the real threat, you shouldn't have asked other countries to come along.
I'm really somewhat torn on this one. Usually I'd agree that we should collect and disseminate as much data about as many subjects as we possibly can. And that would be my position here- if I could only conceive of a single use for these numbers. You make the claim that tracking opinions about science over the years is useful, but I've thought about it and I don't see how it is. What action will anyone take, when they discover this information? No program or plan will change anyone's mind. People who choose religion over science won't be convinced otherwise, no matter what education programs we institute, because there's no coherent argument to be made refuting faith. The science "literacy" problem, at least at the level addressed by the survey questions, is absolutely intractable at this point.
For the record, I'm not talking about lying or covering anything up. I'm just saying, if this data isn't released into the media then good riddance. There's nothing new in there, nothing worth talking about, and nothing that will spur anyone to productive action. And it's one less thing to argue about, one less endless fight to be engaged in right this second.
Reason and logic have failed. Discussion has failed. Compromise has failed and compassion has largely gone by the wayside. I just don't want to argue with (or about) the other guys anymore! It's enough already!
No, but it's certainly a solid proof of concept, if you're willing to take his word for it.
if it's so useless, just include it and the people reading the results will ignore it.
Ignore it? The atheists will publicly lament the ignorance of Christians. The Christians will cry persecution and renew the fight for a faith-based "science" curriculum. Everyone will shout at everyone else and we'll all be just as dumb by dinner as we were at dawn.
I'm all for the importance of knowledge. Facts! let's learn 'em. But the value added by opinion polls like this one is dubious at best. We already know the shape of the data (I would have guessed that evolution would score a little lower, but there ain't no real surprises here). Furthermore, it doesn't fucking matter who believes what! Information about science is out there, it's in the schools, it's on the news. Nobody is convincing anybody at this point, so why should we care how many people agree with the science? Let's learn more about the universe, and spend less time yelling the findings at each other. Don't we fight enough already?
The obvious answer, as someone else pointed out, is that split screen would be more demanding on the machine and more difficult to code. What's too bad is that developers don't seem to be willing to grab hold of some of the opportunities that online only might present. What I'm talking about is giving each player a different, incomplete part of the total information, encouraging a sort of communicative, true-co-operative experience we rarely see. For example: Our warrior and our archer encounter a group of doppelgangers- identical monsters, but only one of them is the true foe. Now, one character (the archer, say.) is incapacitated somehow, but he can still see the fight. As it happens, our archer has the preternatural ability to spot the main foe (it appears in a different color on his screen). If he can successfully direct the warrior to that foe, the fight will be over quickly and our characters can progress. If not, the battle will be incredibly difficult. In splitscreen, the warrior would only have to glance at the archer's play window, but with online-only, communication becomes an essential feature.
Another example: Written instructions could be presented for safely navigating a trap-filled chamber. Problem is, the instructions are in two different in-game languages. Each player can only read a different half of the instructions, with the other half appearing as gibberish. Only through trust and patient discussion could the characters progress.
I think there's a lot of room for developers to translate what is essentially a limitation into unique puzzles and situations which help a player to feel like he's really co-operating with someone, even if that someone isn't in the room.