Okay, I've got a decent camera. Assuming I can find a high enough viewpoint that's far away from light pollution on a clear sky, how could I get a photo of Andromeda in the night sky with my camera? And where on the net could I go to find information on how to locate it in the sky? Because that would be absolutely AMAZING to get a photo of Andromeda in the night sky.
while the attacker is standing on his head, drinking a glass of water, and whistling "Yankee Doodle".
Anyone who can successfully code a virus for Linux while doing everything you just specified above is a walking holy terror and needs to be shot on sight before he (or she) decides the world is boring and it needs to be more "interesting".
Thanks for telling the story. How much of that, I wonder, is a superiority complex on the part of the father? Completely un-founded and unscientific opinion on my part... I just have to wonder why people take that viewpoint of "my kid's not doing anything wrong" and get defensive...
we would all be machines. Same mindset, same rationale, same everything. And you would be completely right in your statement, "I have seen no reason to believe that any of those professions have made any progress whatsoever towards rigor and objectiveness". However, you are wrong. You are displaying sentimental bias towards established sciences with over a century of accumulated data, studies, established rigor, processes, and controls.
The truth is, humans are complicated creatures and consciousness is damn near impossible to quantify. We have egos, subconsciousness, and worst of all - individuality, which makes laboratory-based attempts to quantify, isolate, and predict psychological behavior very difficult. But, social scientists like psychologists and sociologists have contributed greatly to our collective knowledge through rigorous studies with statistical tools that meet very strict guidelines. You are correct in that there are plenty of sloppy studies out there, but bear in mind that the material sciences have plenty of those as well. I'm sure you can find all sorts of sloppy social studies to support your personal bias/belief that social sciences are quackery. But have you ever considered challenging your beliefs and looking at experiments that are rigorous and have been tested and found to be valid and thorough?
You do make a good point - we as nerds/geeks/freaks/spazoids/trolls/what-in-gawds-name-is-THAT! should be interested in social engineering and organizational theory because we as humans do form uber-organisms (corporations, cliques, fan clubs, etc) and the biology of such gestalt entities is just as fascinating as biology is. However I suspect that underlying currents of materialist-influenced misogyny still pervade the mostly boy-dominated domain of Geekdom, and therefore there will still be the over-emphasis on investigating physical/material-based phenomena with observable results. Too many of my fellow geeks that I know view social sciences and psychology as being voodoo and "girl stuff"
I find your story interesting. The 'sociopathic kids', you mention that they're harder on their friends than in actual competition. Would it then be a fair assumption to say that they're in it to inflict pain on their friends rather than compete? And to complete the thought: would they be less interested in competing against strangers because their opponent is a stranger and thus the infliction of pain is less gratifying?
And what exactly do the parents convey that lead you to your assumption? Anything specific? I'm asking because this intrigues me and I'd like to know more about how you arrived at your conclusions.
That's a good way of looking at it. I don't agree much with your first sentence... but I'm pretty sure you could pull out proof to support your stance. However, you make a very good point about the margin and the research. I'll have to consider this.
No, I believe that the military/industrial complex exists because there's a very large portion of our citizenry who believe in having a powerful military to defend our interests, and find the concepts and ideas of warfare glorious. And I'm not talking about politicians or people in power here: I'm talking about the 20 year veteran of the military who served in the Army and can rattle off tank specifications from memory, and has a subscription to Soldier of Fortune and the AUSA magazine. Or the rural conservative who spends a large amount of his take home pay on guns because he's an avid gun enthusiast, and reliably votes Conservative because he works at a Lockheed Martin plant.
It is these people who demand and empower the military/industrial complex because it is an extension of how they view the world and how they believe the world should be.
Who do you think elected said very noisy and ill-informed subset of the politicians? It wasn't a bunch of thoughtful, sober, rational individual citizens who acted in concert to promote harmonious civil discourse, now was it?
This is the single biggest threat to our freedom as individuals: the desire of the state to form a broad security apparatus, in order to protect itself from lawsuits filed by aggrieved citizens.
I don't believe there's some super-secret cabal out to restrict our freedoms and turn us all into mindless meme-spouting "Citizens" living in a modern-day panopticon. What this is, is the result of an ill-informed populace, fearful of terrorists, criminals, and anything/everything that could possibly disrupt their lives demanding that their leadership Do Something . So the government is placed in the impossible position of trying to predict potential future attacks/assaults/cataclysms, because a clear majority of its constituents has told it that this is necessary. And when they fail, the survivors/aggrieved parties file lawsuits because clearly the government has failed in its duties to predict and prevent bad things from happening to its people.
So now we have entities like the TSA in the US, which exists solely as a giant resource-sucking time waster of a stop-gap prevention against class action lawsuits against the government in case another 9/11 type attack occurs. That is all it is: an insurance policy the government has taken out against the possible threat of legal action from its citizens should the unthinkable occurs. We all know that the TSA isn't going to stop terrorists - it's so the government can say "See, we did everything we could to prevent it and it still happened". And in this case, I'm going to step into the blame game and blame US, not the government. I have Karma to burn, so here goes: the vast majority of us citizens, regardless of country, want security and safety - NOT freedom. We want to know that when we get into our cars and go to work, we are insulated from the random elements of chaos that make up the world we live in. And when that protective bubble gets popped, we get angry because by God/FSM/Entropy/Satan, we want our security! And so we sue our government because 'THEY' should have been able to stop it with all their resources and manpower. And our government finds itself having to establish all these 'safeguards' simply so we can regain some measure of belief in the illusion of security we demand the government provide us.
I'm no libertarian, but this is one case in which I agree with their ethos: leave us the hell alone and don't build a nanny/father state to protect us. Yes, it's scary to live in a world in which anything could happen, but the alternative to me is unthinkable: some faceless entity doing everything it can to remove risk from my life and give me the illusion of control/safety, because most of my fellow citizens want that. I'd rather face up to my limitations and fallacies on my own, thank-you-very-much; I don't need my issues with needing control to be enabled.
So before we go into another round of 'how much blame can we heap on the government', let's think for a moment that the government is nothing more than a reflection of its people, and their values.
It's like minding a retarded three-year with an affinity for eating animal droppings and one day he doesn't immediately run for the dog poo. Wait, did aliens abduct him and replace him with a clone almost indistinguishable but for the unexpected bit about not being a drooling window-licker and if so, can we make sure they never bring back the original?
I'm never going to be able to look at three-year-olds, retards, OR dog poo again without thinking of this!
Your post is intriguing. I'm going to argue that this isn't 'indoctrination'; rather, this is the product created to serve a particular market: new parents over the age of 35 with one or two children. For these folks, they've had children late in life because they put their career first. Now they're at a point where they feel they have enough money to have children. But because they're late in life, it's harder to have kids. So, once they actually do get a kid, they will gravitate towards being over-protective because of how hard it was to have a child, how much older they are as parents, etc. In my experience, I've found that these parents are more prone towards overprotecting and worrying about the world. They're usually the ones that want to coddle and protect and control everything, because their whole lives have been about control. From there, it's only a short step to 'indoctrination' as you put it - or simply a large population subset with the mentality that it's better to keep track of everyone because control is good and chaos is bad. If it works for them, it must work for everyone.
But gravity is a force. As a force - does it push, or pull? We know that it exerts a force over matter... but what are the implications if it pushes rather than pulls?
If there are no gravitational waves to be found? If we search the entire spectrum, and we don't find any, then I assume that falsifies the grav-wave theory (and the entire Honorverse). At that point, what is the next step/theory? In a related note, does gravity pull, or push? I think I remember reading somewhere that Einstein said gravity pushed, rather than pulled.
Slashdot Mirror
I AM a naturally-bred man-bear-pig, you insensitive clod! Reset your scale to a measurement more appropriate!
Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go feed my mother..
Thank you for posting this. I hadn't realized those limitations and it's insightful. Wish I had points to mod you up.
oh ye gods that just made my friday. Treehugging trolling werewolves.
Where are these people and what is it exactly they are saying?
Okay, I've got a decent camera. Assuming I can find a high enough viewpoint that's far away from light pollution on a clear sky, how could I get a photo of Andromeda in the night sky with my camera? And where on the net could I go to find information on how to locate it in the sky? Because that would be absolutely AMAZING to get a photo of Andromeda in the night sky.
Copulate with a bear trap and die.
Okay, THAT is just about the funniest damn thing I've read in the last couple of days.
while the attacker is standing on his head, drinking a glass of water, and whistling "Yankee Doodle".
Anyone who can successfully code a virus for Linux while doing everything you just specified above is a walking holy terror and needs to be shot on sight before he (or she) decides the world is boring and it needs to be more "interesting".
Does McAfee have one?
Thanks for telling the story. How much of that, I wonder, is a superiority complex on the part of the father? Completely un-founded and unscientific opinion on my part... I just have to wonder why people take that viewpoint of "my kid's not doing anything wrong" and get defensive...
we would all be machines. Same mindset, same rationale, same everything. And you would be completely right in your statement, "I have seen no reason to believe that any of those professions have made any progress whatsoever towards rigor and objectiveness". However, you are wrong. You are displaying sentimental bias towards established sciences with over a century of accumulated data, studies, established rigor, processes, and controls.
The truth is, humans are complicated creatures and consciousness is damn near impossible to quantify. We have egos, subconsciousness, and worst of all - individuality, which makes laboratory-based attempts to quantify, isolate, and predict psychological behavior very difficult. But, social scientists like psychologists and sociologists have contributed greatly to our collective knowledge through rigorous studies with statistical tools that meet very strict guidelines. You are correct in that there are plenty of sloppy studies out there, but bear in mind that the material sciences have plenty of those as well. I'm sure you can find all sorts of sloppy social studies to support your personal bias/belief that social sciences are quackery. But have you ever considered challenging your beliefs and looking at experiments that are rigorous and have been tested and found to be valid and thorough?
And there are no responses to this. How sad...
You do make a good point - we as nerds/geeks/freaks/spazoids/trolls/what-in-gawds-name-is-THAT! should be interested in social engineering and organizational theory because we as humans do form uber-organisms (corporations, cliques, fan clubs, etc) and the biology of such gestalt entities is just as fascinating as biology is. However I suspect that underlying currents of materialist-influenced misogyny still pervade the mostly boy-dominated domain of Geekdom, and therefore there will still be the over-emphasis on investigating physical/material-based phenomena with observable results. Too many of my fellow geeks that I know view social sciences and psychology as being voodoo and "girl stuff"
I find your story interesting. The 'sociopathic kids', you mention that they're harder on their friends than in actual competition. Would it then be a fair assumption to say that they're in it to inflict pain on their friends rather than compete? And to complete the thought: would they be less interested in competing against strangers because their opponent is a stranger and thus the infliction of pain is less gratifying?
And what exactly do the parents convey that lead you to your assumption? Anything specific? I'm asking because this intrigues me and I'd like to know more about how you arrived at your conclusions.
That's a good way of looking at it. I don't agree much with your first sentence... but I'm pretty sure you could pull out proof to support your stance. However, you make a very good point about the margin and the research. I'll have to consider this.
No, I believe that the military/industrial complex exists because there's a very large portion of our citizenry who believe in having a powerful military to defend our interests, and find the concepts and ideas of warfare glorious. And I'm not talking about politicians or people in power here: I'm talking about the 20 year veteran of the military who served in the Army and can rattle off tank specifications from memory, and has a subscription to Soldier of Fortune and the AUSA magazine. Or the rural conservative who spends a large amount of his take home pay on guns because he's an avid gun enthusiast, and reliably votes Conservative because he works at a Lockheed Martin plant. It is these people who demand and empower the military/industrial complex because it is an extension of how they view the world and how they believe the world should be.
Thanks for the heads up and the fact check. I stand corrected :-)
Thank you! I'm happy to report that this was one of the few useful emanations to erupt from the sewers of my psyche today.
Who do you think elected said very noisy and ill-informed subset of the politicians? It wasn't a bunch of thoughtful, sober, rational individual citizens who acted in concert to promote harmonious civil discourse, now was it?
This is the single biggest threat to our freedom as individuals: the desire of the state to form a broad security apparatus, in order to protect itself from lawsuits filed by aggrieved citizens.
I don't believe there's some super-secret cabal out to restrict our freedoms and turn us all into mindless meme-spouting "Citizens" living in a modern-day panopticon. What this is, is the result of an ill-informed populace, fearful of terrorists, criminals, and anything/everything that could possibly disrupt their lives demanding that their leadership Do Something . So the government is placed in the impossible position of trying to predict potential future attacks/assaults/cataclysms, because a clear majority of its constituents has told it that this is necessary. And when they fail, the survivors/aggrieved parties file lawsuits because clearly the government has failed in its duties to predict and prevent bad things from happening to its people.
So now we have entities like the TSA in the US, which exists solely as a giant resource-sucking time waster of a stop-gap prevention against class action lawsuits against the government in case another 9/11 type attack occurs. That is all it is: an insurance policy the government has taken out against the possible threat of legal action from its citizens should the unthinkable occurs. We all know that the TSA isn't going to stop terrorists - it's so the government can say "See, we did everything we could to prevent it and it still happened". And in this case, I'm going to step into the blame game and blame US, not the government. I have Karma to burn, so here goes: the vast majority of us citizens, regardless of country, want security and safety - NOT freedom. We want to know that when we get into our cars and go to work, we are insulated from the random elements of chaos that make up the world we live in. And when that protective bubble gets popped, we get angry because by God/FSM/Entropy/Satan, we want our security! And so we sue our government because 'THEY' should have been able to stop it with all their resources and manpower. And our government finds itself having to establish all these 'safeguards' simply so we can regain some measure of belief in the illusion of security we demand the government provide us.
I'm no libertarian, but this is one case in which I agree with their ethos: leave us the hell alone and don't build a nanny/father state to protect us. Yes, it's scary to live in a world in which anything could happen, but the alternative to me is unthinkable: some faceless entity doing everything it can to remove risk from my life and give me the illusion of control/safety, because most of my fellow citizens want that. I'd rather face up to my limitations and fallacies on my own, thank-you-very-much; I don't need my issues with needing control to be enabled.
So before we go into another round of 'how much blame can we heap on the government', let's think for a moment that the government is nothing more than a reflection of its people, and their values.
It's like minding a retarded three-year with an affinity for eating animal droppings and one day he doesn't immediately run for the dog poo. Wait, did aliens abduct him and replace him with a clone almost indistinguishable but for the unexpected bit about not being a drooling window-licker and if so, can we make sure they never bring back the original?
I'm never going to be able to look at three-year-olds, retards, OR dog poo again without thinking of this!
So claims the AC. If you're gonna post something like this, have the cojones to sign your UID to it.
Your post is intriguing. I'm going to argue that this isn't 'indoctrination'; rather, this is the product created to serve a particular market: new parents over the age of 35 with one or two children. For these folks, they've had children late in life because they put their career first. Now they're at a point where they feel they have enough money to have children. But because they're late in life, it's harder to have kids. So, once they actually do get a kid, they will gravitate towards being over-protective because of how hard it was to have a child, how much older they are as parents, etc. In my experience, I've found that these parents are more prone towards overprotecting and worrying about the world. They're usually the ones that want to coddle and protect and control everything, because their whole lives have been about control. From there, it's only a short step to 'indoctrination' as you put it - or simply a large population subset with the mentality that it's better to keep track of everyone because control is good and chaos is bad. If it works for them, it must work for everyone.
Thinking wastes energy and adds to entropy. Better to run on instinct, programming, or blind hormone-induced rage.
But gravity is a force. As a force - does it push, or pull? We know that it exerts a force over matter... but what are the implications if it pushes rather than pulls?
absolutely brilliant :-D
If there are no gravitational waves to be found? If we search the entire spectrum, and we don't find any, then I assume that falsifies the grav-wave theory (and the entire Honorverse). At that point, what is the next step/theory? In a related note, does gravity pull, or push? I think I remember reading somewhere that Einstein said gravity pushed, rather than pulled.