1) All inflatable structures are essentially thin-walled latex balloons that will pop under the slightest stress.
2) Rigid structures in orbit are constantly stricken by space junk, but do not fail because of their thick armor plating.
3) Nobody is tracking the larger space junk.
4) Nobody has ever conducted experiments to learn more about the specific risk posed by the smaller space junk, meteoroids, etc.
5) And, of course, because the opinion of a random/.er always trumps the opinion of people studying a problem as part of a business plan to profit from successfully solving the problem.
I dunno about the "obscene" part, on account of humans having a pretty good track record of constantly figuring out how to do more with less. So I'm not really all that worried about overpopulation. But I do agree that it's pretty annoying, with all these children out there looking for homes and love, to spend so much money making another one.
Fair enough. I was mostly just riffing on the superficial absurdity of getting the baby you want by destroying the baby you have, as implied in the article summary.
I also felt compelled to comment, on account of I find the essential creepiness of breeding our own kind for the purpose of harvesting them pretty fucking hilarious.
The sperm was created from embryonic stem cells... The hope here is to assist couples who are having difficulties with conception.
So let me get this straight: you want to help a couple make a baby... by making a baby somewhere else, destroying it, harvesting its biological material, and using that material to make another baby, which you then give to the baby-challenged couple?
I guess the big advantages to working for the Department of Redundancy Department is, you get double funding for everything, and there's always someone else around to do your work for you. But it does seem kind of wasteful, sometimes.
I find that for satisfying my own curiosity about things where factual accuracy is appreciated but not vital, such as the general nature, history, and operation of air-to-air missiles, Wikepedia is a powerful and satisfying tool.
For all other purposes, I generally ignore Wikipedia altogether.
Remember how after Oklahoma, and before Oklahoma, thousands of white Americans, many of them named "Timothy" and "McVeigh", attacked embassies, warships, police stations, malls, restaurants, and churches; and routinely hijacked airplanes for the purposes of hostage-taking and wholesale slaughter?
The funny thing is, I'd actually understand why it was so hard for me to rent a truck, if my name were Joe McVeigh and every day a different McVeigh was in the news for driving a truck bomb into a building full of civilians.
I wouldn't bitch about being discriminated against. I'd change my name. What's in a name, if it's going to be associated with a bunch of asshats whose primary life skill seems to be to turn the hand of everyone else against them and anybody even superficially like them?
What if they were trivial to hack and destroy, but the most effective and expeditious methods all involved broadcast radio emmissions?
Thus, the mines could be trivially deactivated during peacetime, but anybody who tried it during war time would have to swith on a giant "please bomb me now" beacon.
But of course Marxist theory is based on faith in the fundamental goodness of human nature. As we have seen from implementations of his theory around the world, this faith turned out to be ill-founded.
It's not enough to say that people should act in an altruistic manner, "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need". And it's not enough to simply believe that people will choose altruism if given the choice... indeed, it's not enough to believe that people will act altruistically even in a society which actively and forcefully limits all non-altruistic options.
So if the apostles succeeded where Marx failed, it wasn't because of their faith in the altruistic principles themselves. Nor was it because of their faith in the essential goodness of human nature, something they would've denied anyway. Was it because of their faith in a God who gave them a fulfilling reason to act against their worse natures? Maybe. I'm sure you have a different theory, though.
Actually, I think that a grassroots movement, that started locally and built on its local successes, would catapult a third party to power within a single generation... provided that third party had a comprehensive and compelling platform.
As it is, none of the third parties in America today seem to be focusing on convincing local electorates to empower them in local elections. It also seems like their platforms are not particularly compelling to local electorates. To me, this says that the third parties are fundamentally unable to address the real concerns of real people across many different subcultures and regional priorities.
It's questionable that the two major national parties do this, of course. But they did at one time, and still make it a point to act like they do today. I don't see that from the Greens and the Libertarians, for example. Sure, they say that they're addressing real concerns of real people across the board, but the real people consistently disagree.
I figure, if the Green or Libertarian agenda was truly a superior and more desireable agenda, they should have no trouble getting elected to PTA boards, city councils, county supervisor positions, etc. We would see maybe little or no third party presence at the national level, but plenty of third party action at the city, county, and eventually state level. And that's where the national third party action begins... or would begin, if they actually had something more compelling than the status quo to offer.
It's a cop-out to say that only big business can promote a national political agenda successfully. Local politics are almost always driven by the citizens themselves, individually and in groups. A Green candidate with a real platform should have no problem campaigning competitively at the local level: all he needs besides a good platform is a few thousand people who agree that his platform is good. That can be accomplished by word of mouth and hard work during the campaign period... if the platform really is compelling.
You're absolutely right. But that's generally not how political success is measured in America. Personally, I think the parliamentary system is a good system, and it obviously works well in many cultures. The American system is a little different, though. Generally speaking, in America political success is measured in terms of which candidate, campaigning on which platform, wins the election. The winner of the election is judged "successful". The other candidates are judged "unsuccessful" even if their platforms are substantially similar.
Also, in the parliamentary system much of the necessary political compromise is deferred until after the election, when the various factions consider their strength and form coalitions accordingly. In the American system, on the other hand, the necessary political compromise is undertaken prior to the elections, when the party platforms are initially developed. Thus, by the time of the election itself, each candidate is already representing his faction's compromise platform. Greens looking for success according to the parliamentary system would actually be Democrats, working to include Green values in the Democratic platform. The actual Green party, meanwhile, presents its own idea of a good compromise platform, and tends to be much less successful than the Democrats according to the American model. I've already given my theory about why this is so.
In reality, both the Early Christian and the Marxist implementations included a faith-based components: The Apostles' faith in the FSM; the Marxist's faith in the essential goodness of human nature.
Slashdot Mirror
Ah but would it be a +1 Sarcasm, or a -1 Sarcasm?
Perhaps one of each would be best.
Brilliant!
This idea excited me so much I almost had a star-gasm.
Heh. I was totally using the sarcasm tag.
For all I know, so was the OP...
Your opinion makes sense to me, on account of:
/.er always trumps the opinion of people studying a problem as part of a business plan to profit from successfully solving the problem.
1) All inflatable structures are essentially thin-walled latex balloons that will pop under the slightest stress.
2) Rigid structures in orbit are constantly stricken by space junk, but do not fail because of their thick armor plating.
3) Nobody is tracking the larger space junk.
4) Nobody has ever conducted experiments to learn more about the specific risk posed by the smaller space junk, meteoroids, etc.
5) And, of course, because the opinion of a random
I think your analogy strains to the breaking point fairly early on.
I dunno about the "obscene" part, on account of humans having a pretty good track record of constantly figuring out how to do more with less. So I'm not really all that worried about overpopulation. But I do agree that it's pretty annoying, with all these children out there looking for homes and love, to spend so much money making another one.
Fair enough. I was mostly just riffing on the superficial absurdity of getting the baby you want by destroying the baby you have, as implied in the article summary.
I also felt compelled to comment, on account of I find the essential creepiness of breeding our own kind for the purpose of harvesting them pretty fucking hilarious.
Where do you suppose "embryonic stem cells" come from? (Hint: They come from an existing embryo, which is destroyed in the harvesting process.)
Google is your friend.
"adult stem cells" is your boon companion on the research adventure you are about to undertake.
So let me get this straight: you want to help a couple make a baby... by making a baby somewhere else, destroying it, harvesting its biological material, and using that material to make another baby, which you then give to the baby-challenged couple?
I guess the big advantages to working for the Department of Redundancy Department is, you get double funding for everything, and there's always someone else around to do your work for you. But it does seem kind of wasteful, sometimes.
I thought I was the only person who felt this way. Well met!
I find that for satisfying my own curiosity about things where factual accuracy is appreciated but not vital, such as the general nature, history, and operation of air-to-air missiles, Wikepedia is a powerful and satisfying tool.
For all other purposes, I generally ignore Wikipedia altogether.
Clearly you don't understand the language of this subculture.
Remember how after Oklahoma, and before Oklahoma, thousands of white Americans, many of them named "Timothy" and "McVeigh", attacked embassies, warships, police stations, malls, restaurants, and churches; and routinely hijacked airplanes for the purposes of hostage-taking and wholesale slaughter?
The funny thing is, I'd actually understand why it was so hard for me to rent a truck, if my name were Joe McVeigh and every day a different McVeigh was in the news for driving a truck bomb into a building full of civilians.
I wouldn't bitch about being discriminated against. I'd change my name. What's in a name, if it's going to be associated with a bunch of asshats whose primary life skill seems to be to turn the hand of everyone else against them and anybody even superficially like them?
Why not assume that only 99% of the mines work okay, but that 99% is way better than 0%?
What if they were trivial to hack and destroy, but the most effective and expeditious methods all involved broadcast radio emmissions?
Thus, the mines could be trivially deactivated during peacetime, but anybody who tried it during war time would have to swith on a giant "please bomb me now" beacon.
I don't understand what the amount of your gas tax has to do with any of the other things you mentioned.
How much of that $8.00/gallon is taxes imposed by your government, and how much of it is the retailer's cost and profit margin?
You're very right, of course.
But of course Marxist theory is based on faith in the fundamental goodness of human nature. As we have seen from implementations of his theory around the world, this faith turned out to be ill-founded.
It's not enough to say that people should act in an altruistic manner, "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need". And it's not enough to simply believe that people will choose altruism if given the choice... indeed, it's not enough to believe that people will act altruistically even in a society which actively and forcefully limits all non-altruistic options.
So if the apostles succeeded where Marx failed, it wasn't because of their faith in the altruistic principles themselves. Nor was it because of their faith in the essential goodness of human nature, something they would've denied anyway. Was it because of their faith in a God who gave them a fulfilling reason to act against their worse natures? Maybe. I'm sure you have a different theory, though.
Actually, I think that a grassroots movement, that started locally and built on its local successes, would catapult a third party to power within a single generation... provided that third party had a comprehensive and compelling platform.
As it is, none of the third parties in America today seem to be focusing on convincing local electorates to empower them in local elections. It also seems like their platforms are not particularly compelling to local electorates. To me, this says that the third parties are fundamentally unable to address the real concerns of real people across many different subcultures and regional priorities.
It's questionable that the two major national parties do this, of course. But they did at one time, and still make it a point to act like they do today. I don't see that from the Greens and the Libertarians, for example. Sure, they say that they're addressing real concerns of real people across the board, but the real people consistently disagree.
I figure, if the Green or Libertarian agenda was truly a superior and more desireable agenda, they should have no trouble getting elected to PTA boards, city councils, county supervisor positions, etc. We would see maybe little or no third party presence at the national level, but plenty of third party action at the city, county, and eventually state level. And that's where the national third party action begins... or would begin, if they actually had something more compelling than the status quo to offer.
It's a cop-out to say that only big business can promote a national political agenda successfully. Local politics are almost always driven by the citizens themselves, individually and in groups. A Green candidate with a real platform should have no problem campaigning competitively at the local level: all he needs besides a good platform is a few thousand people who agree that his platform is good. That can be accomplished by word of mouth and hard work during the campaign period... if the platform really is compelling.
You're absolutely right. But that's generally not how political success is measured in America. Personally, I think the parliamentary system is a good system, and it obviously works well in many cultures. The American system is a little different, though. Generally speaking, in America political success is measured in terms of which candidate, campaigning on which platform, wins the election. The winner of the election is judged "successful". The other candidates are judged "unsuccessful" even if their platforms are substantially similar.
Also, in the parliamentary system much of the necessary political compromise is deferred until after the election, when the various factions consider their strength and form coalitions accordingly. In the American system, on the other hand, the necessary political compromise is undertaken prior to the elections, when the party platforms are initially developed. Thus, by the time of the election itself, each candidate is already representing his faction's compromise platform. Greens looking for success according to the parliamentary system would actually be Democrats, working to include Green values in the Democratic platform. The actual Green party, meanwhile, presents its own idea of a good compromise platform, and tends to be much less successful than the Democrats according to the American model. I've already given my theory about why this is so.
As soon as they finish paving the way, of course.
Nobody drives to bleeding-edge technology on dirt roads anymore. Not since they paved the way to pavement.
Fair points.
In reality, both the Early Christian and the Marxist implementations included a faith-based components: The Apostles' faith in the FSM; the Marxist's faith in the essential goodness of human nature.
I call shenanigans.
I'm not getting what I want out of FOSS, even though I've been putting in all I want for years.
Certainly more amusing than what happened whenever somebody tried to implement his ideas without the faith-based component...