Prove it. Show me news links that "Thousands of people in the US are held in indefinite detention". If they were, then NPR, Democracy Now, The Daily Show, MSNBC, and Fox would be screaming about it.
Between serving the public's interest, and serving one's own interest at the expense of the public? This is intended as a serious question--I like Snowden's idea, but how would we determine the difference between someone who's alerting us to government malfeasance, versus someone who's ideologically bent on disrupting government regardless of whether there's malfeasance or malevolent intent involved?
We can just kill all the voters! Or all those who disagree with us! Hey, great idea!!!!!!!!!!! This democracy/republic/oligarchy is for the dogs! No, what I want is a totalitarian dictatorship based solely on our rational, logical belief system. As long as everyone does what we believe is right (and we reserve the right to torture and then execute anyone who disagrees with us, along with their immediate family to set an example) then we don't have any problems with anyone! Government will do exactly what we expect it to, and death to all others! Including those who don't fall under the umbrella of "we".
Charles Stross doesn't have the market share to command that kind of leverage over Amazon. Writers like James Patterson and Nora Robertson (and to a degree, Stephen King, do). Unfortunately, there are only ten authors or so in the U.S. alone (all mega-authors) who could command that kind of leverage on Amazon, but they make their money through mass-market appeal and selling on volume alone. Stross is a well-respected writer in a literary genre, but he does not come anywhere close to gathering the amount of market share he'd need to bend Amazon to his will. He'd need to sell books on the level of volume that Stephen King does, and he comes nowhere even close. Most published authors are in the same boat as Stross.
Festering yet flexible pile of poo... you know, ironically enough that does make me want to go buy a Surface Pro 3 and dabble my toes back in the MS waters. I love my Mac products (and I stick horrifyingly absurd and inappropriate stickers all over my mac products just to eliminate the douche factor), but if MS has designed a "festering yet flexible" type product, then that might be enough to get me to play in both pools again.
So, how do we go after these guys then? The reason that the terrorists hide amongst civilians is threefold: 1) they know we're (supposedly) reluctant to target civilians; 2) they want to hide their identity from us, and from everyone else; and 3) they want to intimidate their innocent countrymen (Don't rat us out or we'll kill you and your family). They actively seek out and co-opt/corrupt the local law enforcement, so we can't really rely on the police systems in place. How do we stop them from coming after us? Even if we pull out of the ME entirely, apologize for everything we've done, and pay blood money to everyone we've ever done harm to, we're still going to be targets because of our cultural influence. Look at Boko Haram... groups like that don't just stop at national borders. If you're a hardcore nationalist/religious fascist, you won't be satisfied until you're directly striking the source of all that you imagine to be evil.
Do you remember the bloody baby that the firefighter held, that was pulled out of the wreckage? There were five others like that. And those were just the ones under 2 years of age. You willing to do something like that to further your beliefs? If so, you're no better than the enemy that's in your head.
Why would the House cave to the White House? Particularly the House Leadership? To Obama? Nahh... methinks they're using this as an excuse to gin up support, plus set up things for a Republican President.
Have to second this--while there is such a thing as "Sound" cloud architecture, it exists only in theory because it's astronomically expensive to put into practice, enormously difficult to keep going, and (here's the killer) completely fails to account for human stupidity. To get metaphorical: Amazon is the best at cloud architecture because they've got massive amounts of RAID arrays on steroids, but they cannot account for human stupidity and/or ignorance. Most cloud providers run on a far less complex set-up of RAID arrays with tape backups. They basically run a mainframe in a cost effective manner, and have traded a certain amount of risk in exchange. This means they *will* go down at some point, despite their claims to the contrary, because they are running a mainframe system. And all systems fail.
You don't need a penis-shaped bicycle, just a bicycle made out of nightmares shoving up through your sphincter. If that's not penile fantasy, I don't know what is.
Why do you believe that ascension is the goal of our existence? I'll leave it to others to rebut the specifics of your claims, but I am going to take you on over the imputation that we are going to achieve transcendence and that in doing so all of our problems will be solved and everything should be perfect.
From a philosophical perspective, your points bear similarity to the experiences of immersion into the Godhead that NDE survivors report. But in that state, there's no needs or wants or suffering. Everything's perfect, everything's known, and that means everything's stagnant and static. Perfection is a dead end, especially when time and dimension become completely irrelevant (under the assumption that this is indeed our ultimate fate--which no one can prove or disprove).
Here's where I'm going with this: setting aside rebuttals involving claims of pseudoscience and falsifiable tests for differing levels of intelligence, I believe you're wrong because if we do assume that there is a higher level of existence where transcendence is possible, then the reason we're here is to avoid being perfect, to learn and develop as isolated imperfect beings in ways that cannot be done if we're an ascended and aware portion of an omniscient Godhead. Claims that we're going to ascend on a given date sound great, and in ways do correlate with NDE claims that there is no beginning or end and all things are known, but then why are they always in the future? Why always on specific dates that come and go with no change? Why haven't they already happened, if indeed they're possible? If such mass ascensions are possible, then they've had all of eternity, or at least the last 5000 years of recorded history to happen. My answer is that those claims are delusional, that if there is an omniscient emergent Godhead (of a Spinozan nature, maybe), then we're fragments that have been expelled and will continue to be in order to learn and grow on our own as individuals, to cycle over and over again, within a zoned, defined parameter that we experience as the universe. And when our cycle is complete, we return our data to the source, and then start over again.
What I'm claiming is certainly psuedoscience/mental masturbation based on my own observations and thoughts, and the only way I can personally falsify my hypothesis is by dying. But I just cannot accept that mass enlightenment is due to the entire human race in 2024, or that ascension and enlightenment is the goal of our existence and that we should welcome it. Seems a damn waste of time if it is, since we'll go right back to that state of existence upon death (dependent if there is an afterlife). Rather, to be imperfect would be a more reasonable goal.
Selective, efficient killer robots only make sense in the context of using them in limited skirmishes/small wars. For the really BIG wars, killer robots would be horribly inefficient, because the point of the big wars is to eliminate as much of your enemy as possible--civilians included. Both the Axis and the Allies were actively involved in targeting each other's civilian populations via total war. In that regard, there isn't anything much cheaper and effective, or cost-efficient, than nuclear-tipped ICBMs. Anything less merely prolongs the conflict and ensures more agony suffered by all over a long period of time.
"Tack Store" is ancient Native American phrase for "black hole that takes all your money". As someone who comes from horse culture, I can see your point, and will concede the debate. Won't give up the dream though, because it's just too cool to imagine Elephants working in North America:)
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This was deep... I'm going to have to spend some time staring at the stars tonight and contemplate this. Thank you.
Isn't that essentially what we're doing right now, through Congress's inaction on a budget plan?
Okay, I'm ready to take a leap of faith and say that I'd like to know more about what you're talking about. Are you in the puget sound area?
That is a valid point.
Prove it. Show me news links that "Thousands of people in the US are held in indefinite detention". If they were, then NPR, Democracy Now, The Daily Show, MSNBC, and Fox would be screaming about it.
Between serving the public's interest, and serving one's own interest at the expense of the public? This is intended as a serious question--I like Snowden's idea, but how would we determine the difference between someone who's alerting us to government malfeasance, versus someone who's ideologically bent on disrupting government regardless of whether there's malfeasance or malevolent intent involved?
We can just kill all the voters! Or all those who disagree with us! Hey, great idea!!!!!!!!!!! This democracy/republic/oligarchy is for the dogs! No, what I want is a totalitarian dictatorship based solely on our rational, logical belief system. As long as everyone does what we believe is right (and we reserve the right to torture and then execute anyone who disagrees with us, along with their immediate family to set an example) then we don't have any problems with anyone! Government will do exactly what we expect it to, and death to all others! Including those who don't fall under the umbrella of "we".
Charles Stross doesn't have the market share to command that kind of leverage over Amazon. Writers like James Patterson and Nora Robertson (and to a degree, Stephen King, do). Unfortunately, there are only ten authors or so in the U.S. alone (all mega-authors) who could command that kind of leverage on Amazon, but they make their money through mass-market appeal and selling on volume alone. Stross is a well-respected writer in a literary genre, but he does not come anywhere close to gathering the amount of market share he'd need to bend Amazon to his will. He'd need to sell books on the level of volume that Stephen King does, and he comes nowhere even close. Most published authors are in the same boat as Stross.
You just made my day with that. Thank you :-) I needed the laugh.
Also, my sweat is fowl
So you have poultry roosting in your armpits then?
Festering yet flexible pile of poo... you know, ironically enough that does make me want to go buy a Surface Pro 3 and dabble my toes back in the MS waters. I love my Mac products (and I stick horrifyingly absurd and inappropriate stickers all over my mac products just to eliminate the douche factor), but if MS has designed a "festering yet flexible" type product, then that might be enough to get me to play in both pools again.
Good point!
So, how do we go after these guys then? The reason that the terrorists hide amongst civilians is threefold: 1) they know we're (supposedly) reluctant to target civilians; 2) they want to hide their identity from us, and from everyone else; and 3) they want to intimidate their innocent countrymen (Don't rat us out or we'll kill you and your family). They actively seek out and co-opt/corrupt the local law enforcement, so we can't really rely on the police systems in place. How do we stop them from coming after us? Even if we pull out of the ME entirely, apologize for everything we've done, and pay blood money to everyone we've ever done harm to, we're still going to be targets because of our cultural influence. Look at Boko Haram... groups like that don't just stop at national borders. If you're a hardcore nationalist/religious fascist, you won't be satisfied until you're directly striking the source of all that you imagine to be evil.
Do you remember the bloody baby that the firefighter held, that was pulled out of the wreckage? There were five others like that. And those were just the ones under 2 years of age. You willing to do something like that to further your beliefs? If so, you're no better than the enemy that's in your head.
McVeigh knew he was going to take out a day-care center. Anyone remember the photos of those babies being pulled out of the wreckage? I still do.
Why would the House cave to the White House? Particularly the House Leadership? To Obama? Nahh... methinks they're using this as an excuse to gin up support, plus set up things for a Republican President.
Have to second this--while there is such a thing as "Sound" cloud architecture, it exists only in theory because it's astronomically expensive to put into practice, enormously difficult to keep going, and (here's the killer) completely fails to account for human stupidity. To get metaphorical: Amazon is the best at cloud architecture because they've got massive amounts of RAID arrays on steroids, but they cannot account for human stupidity and/or ignorance. Most cloud providers run on a far less complex set-up of RAID arrays with tape backups. They basically run a mainframe in a cost effective manner, and have traded a certain amount of risk in exchange. This means they *will* go down at some point, despite their claims to the contrary, because they are running a mainframe system. And all systems fail.
I almost shit myself laughing when I read this--thank you, sir, thank you :-)
Because at some point, you enter the tube. When you do, the light you reflect gets sucked in with you rather than released out.
You don't need a penis-shaped bicycle, just a bicycle made out of nightmares shoving up through your sphincter. If that's not penile fantasy, I don't know what is.
Why do you believe that ascension is the goal of our existence? I'll leave it to others to rebut the specifics of your claims, but I am going to take you on over the imputation that we are going to achieve transcendence and that in doing so all of our problems will be solved and everything should be perfect.
From a philosophical perspective, your points bear similarity to the experiences of immersion into the Godhead that NDE survivors report. But in that state, there's no needs or wants or suffering. Everything's perfect, everything's known, and that means everything's stagnant and static. Perfection is a dead end, especially when time and dimension become completely irrelevant (under the assumption that this is indeed our ultimate fate--which no one can prove or disprove).
Here's where I'm going with this: setting aside rebuttals involving claims of pseudoscience and falsifiable tests for differing levels of intelligence, I believe you're wrong because if we do assume that there is a higher level of existence where transcendence is possible, then the reason we're here is to avoid being perfect, to learn and develop as isolated imperfect beings in ways that cannot be done if we're an ascended and aware portion of an omniscient Godhead. Claims that we're going to ascend on a given date sound great, and in ways do correlate with NDE claims that there is no beginning or end and all things are known, but then why are they always in the future? Why always on specific dates that come and go with no change? Why haven't they already happened, if indeed they're possible? If such mass ascensions are possible, then they've had all of eternity, or at least the last 5000 years of recorded history to happen. My answer is that those claims are delusional, that if there is an omniscient emergent Godhead (of a Spinozan nature, maybe), then we're fragments that have been expelled and will continue to be in order to learn and grow on our own as individuals, to cycle over and over again, within a zoned, defined parameter that we experience as the universe. And when our cycle is complete, we return our data to the source, and then start over again.
What I'm claiming is certainly psuedoscience/mental masturbation based on my own observations and thoughts, and the only way I can personally falsify my hypothesis is by dying. But I just cannot accept that mass enlightenment is due to the entire human race in 2024, or that ascension and enlightenment is the goal of our existence and that we should welcome it. Seems a damn waste of time if it is, since we'll go right back to that state of existence upon death (dependent if there is an afterlife). Rather, to be imperfect would be a more reasonable goal.
Pray tell what are you talking about, in regards to multiple different types of intelligence? And what does 2024 have to do with anything?
Selective, efficient killer robots only make sense in the context of using them in limited skirmishes/small wars. For the really BIG wars, killer robots would be horribly inefficient, because the point of the big wars is to eliminate as much of your enemy as possible--civilians included. Both the Axis and the Allies were actively involved in targeting each other's civilian populations via total war. In that regard, there isn't anything much cheaper and effective, or cost-efficient, than nuclear-tipped ICBMs. Anything less merely prolongs the conflict and ensures more agony suffered by all over a long period of time.
That's even MORE evil... I like it! Can I subscribe to your newsletter? I need to go buy stock in mortuaries now! And furnaces!
"Tack Store" is ancient Native American phrase for "black hole that takes all your money". As someone who comes from horse culture, I can see your point, and will concede the debate. Won't give up the dream though, because it's just too cool to imagine Elephants working in North America :)