That they had the right to impose a fine up to 10% of MS *global income* ? If they wanted money, they could have (if my calculations are correct) more than $10 million per day. Instead they went for a moderate "you are guilty, but we will fine you only for the money you make in EU" punishment... It's a warning: MS might choose to simply pay the fines each day and accept that they only have a 70% profit margin in EU (as opposed to 80% in the rest of the world). Even if they imposed the largest possible fine MS would still be very much profitable though..
All very reasonable points, but... What guarantee do we have that it's all not just window-dressing, to make the scheme more palatable to the masses and easier for useful idiots and other apologists to justify?
I mean, there's means and there's motive, and we know that EU Commissioners are just human beings, not saints. It's not like they're somehow more righteous and competent than any other politician.
And he scored a governorship, sure, by playing to the local demands of the citizens of his state. It's not like he represented a strong national third party, that had a comprehensive platform and was working successfully to put in third party governors in several states, all supporting the same national agenda... A third party mayor here, an independent governor there, does not a national political party make.
If all these third parties were trying to do was to score the occasional state governorship every so often, that'd be fine by me. But that's not all they're trying to do. They're also trying to gain credibility as national political parties that are competent to engage in all three branches of federal government.
What they're not trying to do, however (or at least it doesn't really seem like it), is to grow and mature in such a way that their local success forms the foundation for regional success, which forms the foundation for statewide success, which forms the foundation for nationwide success. I'm saying, wake me up when they start trying that. The fluke governorship of Jesse Ventura doesn't even come close.
You keep insisting that the real question should be "should one act ethically?". But you keep ignoring the fact that ethical acts do not exist in a vacuum. What may be ethical in one situation may be unethical in another. Not to mention the fact that some situations incur ethical obligations, whereas others don't.
It is neither ethical nor unethical to lick a lollipop rather than biting into it. It may be ethical to restrain a young child against their will, even though it is often unethical to restrain a mature adult against their will. Then again, it is sometimes supremely ethical to restrain a mature adult against their will.
It's not enough to ask "should one act ethically?". You must further specify the situation in which the question arises. You must discuss what is ethical behavior, properly understood, in the situation in question. If we're talking about ethical treatment of animals, you must discuss whether or not animals incur the same ethical obligations as humans do, and of course you must discuss the closely related question of whether or not humans are functionally animals from an ethical point of view.
And if you're going to insist that animals must be treated ethically because humans are animals too, then you're simply begging the question. First, you must convince us that animals and humans are ethically the same, before you can use that as a basis for convincing us that animals and humans are entitled to the same ethical treatment.
I think "third parties" in the U.S. are mostly ignored because they tend to be either single-issue parties, or extremist parties, or both. The two major national parties have two major advantages: comprehensive platforms that encompass all areas of domestic and foreign policy in some depth; and a tendency to compromise their extremist ideals in favor of a more middle-of-the-road policy that is generally palatable to a majority of citizens. This is the kind of winning combination that the Greens and the Libertarians just don't have.
I think another big factor in the failure of the third parties at the national level is their consistent inability or unwillingness to establish themselves strongly at the local and regional levels, and then build to national prominence from there. I'm sick and tired of the Greens demanding to be taken seriously at the national level, when they can't even be bothered to get themselves taken seriously at the level of the local PTA.
I mean, sure, Gavin Newsom is the Green mayor of San Franscisco. But that's a pretty extreme case, and it's not supported by any sort of consistent success in other local and regional political contests. Wake me up when these third parties can carry a city council, a county board of supervisors, a state legislature or governorship, a federal Representative or two, a Senator... Show me a third party that actually put some time and effort into growing up and maturing into a national party, the way the current national parties have, and I'll show you a third party worth taking seriously in the national presidential elections.
Until that day, though, I see no reason not to ignore them. You don't get to be a politician just by wanting or demanding to be a politician. You have to make yourself useful, first, either to your constituents or to your chosen special interests. The third parties self-righteously refuse to do the latter, and seem fundamentally incapable of doing the former. And that's why they get ignored. Frankly, I wouldn't have it any other way.
Is it too much to ask that an article with the headline "A Set of RFI Responses for Sherlock Holmes" actually be about RFIs written as if by Sherlock Holmes, or a set of responses written as if by prospective clients of Sherlock Holmes?
Why should he be voted out, if his constituents are happy with him?
The point of getting rid of the king wasn't so that we could automatically elect a different king every 2|4|6 years; it was so that we could elect a new king whenever we felt like it.
I don't see anything sad about the practice of not electing a new king if we don't feel like it, so long as the option is still there.
You may be right about that. Maybe the problem is not producing good teachers after all. Thanks for your input. You've given me something to think about.
It is very, very sad that our ancestors fought to free us from the power of a hereditary king only for us to turn around and start electing hereditary representatives.
It's kind of hard to walk off with tons of senstive information when it's being transmitted over an encrypted channel.
I think it really is about telecommuting, and laptop computers. More and more, sensitive data is portable, and more people are taking advantage of that to move sensitive data from "secure" environments to "convenient" environments.
Having some asshat steal a computer full of data doesn't really happen that often to people who keep their computers locked in an office at their employer's campus.
One day a new grad student shows up to start their graduate school career and a week later they're standing in front of 40 undergrads trying to explain the difference between a joule and a watt.
Which they really shouldn't have any trouble doing, on account of how they've dedicated their lives to mastering that particular field of knowledge.
I mean, they've had the difference between a joule and a watt taught to them at least once in their life. They've devoted themselves to the study of the nature and application of joules and watts. They've probably produced several essays, experiments, theses, and reports based on their understanding of--and love for--the difference between joules and watts.
Seriously, any grad student should be able to explain the basic concepts of their major to undergrads. After all, they just lived through the process themselves, just last year...
It really seems like the problem isn't so much "universities not producing competent teachers" as it is rather "universities not producing enthusiastic subject-matter experts, given a sizeable pool of people who wanted to study that subject matter in the first place".
It isn't as if science is going to send us for heaven for paying it lip service.
True, but it does consistently reward us for methodically searching for interesting things in unusual places.
Think of it as a form of assay: You assay every square mile of territory, not because you like assaying, or you think there's something worth mining in every square mile of territory, but to find out which square miles have something worth mining.
I'm not paying for science for the sake of science. I'm paying for a thorough assay of the territory.
What gets me is that the reporter does absolutely no legwork on this story.
Presumably there were many prestigious scientists besides Hawking at this conference. None of them are mentioned in the article. Their reactions are neither sought nor recorded in the article.
Since the conference happened some time ago, there should already be reports on record of the Pope saying such a controversial and anti-scientific thing. No such reports are referenced in the article.
If the Pope hosted a conference of prestigious scientists, I'd expect the press to be there. And if the Pope made a controversial and anti-scientific statement to these scientists, I'd expect the press to report on it, and the scientists to speak out about it.
And yet the reporter can't even be bothered to give us the name or the date of the conference.
Seriously, there are passages of the Bible with better corroboration than this article.
Or he believed he was telling the truth, but in reality he was telling a falsehood. This would make him insane, just as I would be insane if I truly beleived I were made of ice cream.
Or he knew he wasn't telling the truth. This would make him a liar.
What other options are there? He was telling a joke? You'd think he would've explained the punchline some time before he was executed for it, yeah?
And what possible overlap could there be? He really is god, but also a little bit insane? He believed that he was god, but also knowingly lied about it? He lied about being god, even though he really was god?
I feel like I'm finding more flaws in your logic than in McDowell's...
But why would we accept your unsubstantiated opinion against the consensus opinion of people who do not about climate?
Are these the same people who are baffled by the falling Arctic Sea level?
Why should we trust the consensus opinion of these people, when there's obviously still so much about the global climate they just don't understand yet?
The issue of conflicting moral codes is an important one, and I -really- wish more people would give serious debate/thought/etc on how to resolve those conflicts!
Excellent! I hope you are enjoying our conversation as much as I am.
As it stands now, I guess thats what the law is for.
Ah, but is the morality of the law superior to your own morality? What happens when the law contradicts your morality?
Tolerance also comes in to play
Would you say that tolerance is a universal moral obligation, common to everybody? Or would you say that am I free to discard tolerance when crafting my own moral standard?
if I see someone run over a squirrel, something I consider morally objectionalbe,
If they don't consider it morally objectionable, is it truly morally objectionable?
I dont go hunt them down and slash thier tires or anything like that.
If I didn't think slashing their tires was morally objectionable, would it be immoral for me to slash their tires?
By the same token, if someone sees my girlfriend show her face in public and they are morally opposed to it because of religion, i expect them to be tolerant of her differing set of values.
Why do you expect this? If their value system does not permit tolerance for your girlfriend's attire, isn't it intolerance on your part to expect them to renounce their value system in favor of yours?
As mentioned in another post, my personal morality stems from a desire to see the greatest good to the greatest number.
Would you say that this makes your personal morality superior to the morality of someone who wants, say, the greatest good to a limited number at the expense of everyone else?
Not all are as altruistic, both among the theists and non-theists.
Would you say that the moral value of altruism is superior to the moral value of selfishness? How would you resolve your moral conflict with Wall Street's Gordon Gekko, who says that "greed is good", and who is supported by the law?
Your comments about cereal-box morality are very true, and I think we agree in that matter. As for acts of faith, the followers rarely follow the teachings. How many christians follow the example in deuteronomy 28:53, or would be prepared too?
Start reading at Deuteronomy 28:1. Verse 28:53 is a curse, presented along with many other curses that make up the bulk of the passage, as the natural result of doing evil instead of good.
The Highway Patrol tells us that if we are caught in a high-speed collision without a seatbelt, we will go flying through the windshield and smear all over the roadway. This doesn't mean we should all be prepared to go flying through the windshield. The Highway Patrol also tells us that if they catch us without a seatbelt, they'll fine us. This doesn't mean we should all be prepared to pay fines. It also doesn't mean that there is something wrong with the Highway Patrol's morality for "cursing" us with a fine or a gruesome death if we don't wear a seatbelt, nor that we are not carefully studying the teachings of the Highway Patrol if we're not prepared to pay fine and/or smear ourselves all over the pavement. In fact, careful study of the Highway Patrol's warnings about the dangers of driving without a seatbelt leads us to put our seatbelt on. Far from causing us to live out the consequences of not wearing a seatbelt, careful study of the Highway Patrol's teaching prepares us to avoid those consequences. Careful study of Deuteronomy 28 will have similiar results.
Would you want them too? I'm glad my parents didnt/wouldnt...
Of course not. I'd much prefer people avoided the consequences of evil deeds by not doi
My moral obligation comes from only one place: me.
How do you resolve conflicts when someone else's moral standard contradicts yours?
Where else would you ever want my morality to come from?
Someplace true and good, obviously. It's no good if you're getting your morality from the prize in a box of cereal. But the question remains: if we each get our moral obligations from ourselves, and our moral obligations contradict each other, how should the conflict be resolved? Which of us is right, and which of us is wrong?
Before you answer, think very carefully and consider the actions of other people who draw thier morality from religion....
You mean, like Mother Theresa?
I get your point, though, that many who claim to draw their morality from religion don't live up to the ideals they profess.
But of course we should also think very carefully and consider the actions of other people who draw their morality from themselves...
And considering both the behavior of the religious and the irreligious, I tend towards the conclusion that it's the people, not the moral codes, that are the problem. Some religious people have been very good, and some atheists have been very evil. Simply looking at how people act in relation to their moral codes doesn't tell the whole story about morality.
Jehova says "thou shalt not steal"; but many Jehova-worshippers steal anyway.
The Bhudda says "desire not, for desire leads to suffering"; but many Buddhists desire anyway.
Confucius says, "sons, obey your fathers"; but many Confucians do not express such filial piety.
Asimov says, "A robot may not harm a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm"; but some robots harm or allow harm to human beings anyway.
Are these moral obligations bankrupt because many fail to fulfill them? Or does whatever truth and goodness they possess derive from some other source? What is the source of your own morality's truth and goodness?
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I admit, it's a bit of a stretch, but I don' think it's as unlikely as you make it out to be.
$2.5MM/day plus an opportunity to stick it to ugly Americans would buy a lot of cooperation...
All very reasonable points, but... What guarantee do we have that it's all not just window-dressing, to make the scheme more palatable to the masses and easier for useful idiots and other apologists to justify?
I mean, there's means and there's motive, and we know that EU Commissioners are just human beings, not saints. It's not like they're somehow more righteous and competent than any other politician.
What are the chances of this being simply an excuse to generate a $2.5 million per day revenue stream for the EU government?
Ran as an Independent, IIRC. Could be wrong.
And he scored a governorship, sure, by playing to the local demands of the citizens of his state. It's not like he represented a strong national third party, that had a comprehensive platform and was working successfully to put in third party governors in several states, all supporting the same national agenda... A third party mayor here, an independent governor there, does not a national political party make.
If all these third parties were trying to do was to score the occasional state governorship every so often, that'd be fine by me. But that's not all they're trying to do. They're also trying to gain credibility as national political parties that are competent to engage in all three branches of federal government.
What they're not trying to do, however (or at least it doesn't really seem like it), is to grow and mature in such a way that their local success forms the foundation for regional success, which forms the foundation for statewide success, which forms the foundation for nationwide success. I'm saying, wake me up when they start trying that. The fluke governorship of Jesse Ventura doesn't even come close.
You keep insisting that the real question should be "should one act ethically?". But you keep ignoring the fact that ethical acts do not exist in a vacuum. What may be ethical in one situation may be unethical in another. Not to mention the fact that some situations incur ethical obligations, whereas others don't.
It is neither ethical nor unethical to lick a lollipop rather than biting into it. It may be ethical to restrain a young child against their will, even though it is often unethical to restrain a mature adult against their will. Then again, it is sometimes supremely ethical to restrain a mature adult against their will.
It's not enough to ask "should one act ethically?". You must further specify the situation in which the question arises. You must discuss what is ethical behavior, properly understood, in the situation in question. If we're talking about ethical treatment of animals, you must discuss whether or not animals incur the same ethical obligations as humans do, and of course you must discuss the closely related question of whether or not humans are functionally animals from an ethical point of view.
And if you're going to insist that animals must be treated ethically because humans are animals too, then you're simply begging the question. First, you must convince us that animals and humans are ethically the same, before you can use that as a basis for convincing us that animals and humans are entitled to the same ethical treatment.
I think "third parties" in the U.S. are mostly ignored because they tend to be either single-issue parties, or extremist parties, or both. The two major national parties have two major advantages: comprehensive platforms that encompass all areas of domestic and foreign policy in some depth; and a tendency to compromise their extremist ideals in favor of a more middle-of-the-road policy that is generally palatable to a majority of citizens. This is the kind of winning combination that the Greens and the Libertarians just don't have.
I think another big factor in the failure of the third parties at the national level is their consistent inability or unwillingness to establish themselves strongly at the local and regional levels, and then build to national prominence from there. I'm sick and tired of the Greens demanding to be taken seriously at the national level, when they can't even be bothered to get themselves taken seriously at the level of the local PTA.
I mean, sure, Gavin Newsom is the Green mayor of San Franscisco. But that's a pretty extreme case, and it's not supported by any sort of consistent success in other local and regional political contests. Wake me up when these third parties can carry a city council, a county board of supervisors, a state legislature or governorship, a federal Representative or two, a Senator... Show me a third party that actually put some time and effort into growing up and maturing into a national party, the way the current national parties have, and I'll show you a third party worth taking seriously in the national presidential elections.
Until that day, though, I see no reason not to ignore them. You don't get to be a politician just by wanting or demanding to be a politician. You have to make yourself useful, first, either to your constituents or to your chosen special interests. The third parties self-righteously refuse to do the latter, and seem fundamentally incapable of doing the former. And that's why they get ignored. Frankly, I wouldn't have it any other way.
If you're going to beat a perfectly good joke into the ground, could you at least bother to spell your words correctlY?
Yeah, I guess even a half-assed parody of the Sherlock Holmes idiom would do...
Is it too much to ask that an article with the headline "A Set of RFI Responses for Sherlock Holmes" actually be about RFIs written as if by Sherlock Holmes, or a set of responses written as if by prospective clients of Sherlock Holmes?
Why should he be voted out, if his constituents are happy with him?
The point of getting rid of the king wasn't so that we could automatically elect a different king every 2|4|6 years; it was so that we could elect a new king whenever we felt like it.
I don't see anything sad about the practice of not electing a new king if we don't feel like it, so long as the option is still there.
Hrm.
You may be right about that. Maybe the problem is not producing good teachers after all. Thanks for your input. You've given me something to think about.
Does not compute.
Fixed.
It's kind of hard to walk off with tons of senstive information when it's being transmitted over an encrypted channel.
I think it really is about telecommuting, and laptop computers. More and more, sensitive data is portable, and more people are taking advantage of that to move sensitive data from "secure" environments to "convenient" environments.
Having some asshat steal a computer full of data doesn't really happen that often to people who keep their computers locked in an office at their employer's campus.
Which they really shouldn't have any trouble doing, on account of how they've dedicated their lives to mastering that particular field of knowledge.
I mean, they've had the difference between a joule and a watt taught to them at least once in their life. They've devoted themselves to the study of the nature and application of joules and watts. They've probably produced several essays, experiments, theses, and reports based on their understanding of--and love for--the difference between joules and watts.
Seriously, any grad student should be able to explain the basic concepts of their major to undergrads. After all, they just lived through the process themselves, just last year...
It really seems like the problem isn't so much "universities not producing competent teachers" as it is rather "universities not producing enthusiastic subject-matter experts, given a sizeable pool of people who wanted to study that subject matter in the first place".
Heh.
And here I've been agonizing over the obvious riposte, "I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist".
I had no good counter to that one, so I guess I should be glad you really are left-handed.
Wouldn't it be much more pessimistic to assume that you pessimists are part of the problem?
I don't think you're living up to your ideals.
True, but it does consistently reward us for methodically searching for interesting things in unusual places.
Think of it as a form of assay: You assay every square mile of territory, not because you like assaying, or you think there's something worth mining in every square mile of territory, but to find out which square miles have something worth mining.
I'm not paying for science for the sake of science. I'm paying for a thorough assay of the territory.
Only if the story was both technological and anti-Christian in nature.
What gets me is that the reporter does absolutely no legwork on this story.
Presumably there were many prestigious scientists besides Hawking at this conference. None of them are mentioned in the article. Their reactions are neither sought nor recorded in the article.
Since the conference happened some time ago, there should already be reports on record of the Pope saying such a controversial and anti-scientific thing. No such reports are referenced in the article.
If the Pope hosted a conference of prestigious scientists, I'd expect the press to be there. And if the Pope made a controversial and anti-scientific statement to these scientists, I'd expect the press to report on it, and the scientists to speak out about it.
And yet the reporter can't even be bothered to give us the name or the date of the conference.
Seriously, there are passages of the Bible with better corroboration than this article.
Jesus claimed to be God.
Either he was telling the truth.
Or he believed he was telling the truth, but in reality he was telling a falsehood. This would make him insane, just as I would be insane if I truly beleived I were made of ice cream.
Or he knew he wasn't telling the truth. This would make him a liar.
What other options are there? He was telling a joke? You'd think he would've explained the punchline some time before he was executed for it, yeah?
And what possible overlap could there be? He really is god, but also a little bit insane? He believed that he was god, but also knowingly lied about it? He lied about being god, even though he really was god?
I feel like I'm finding more flaws in your logic than in McDowell's...
Are these the same people who are baffled by the falling Arctic Sea level?
Why should we trust the consensus opinion of these people, when there's obviously still so much about the global climate they just don't understand yet?
Who forms the head?
Excellent! I hope you are enjoying our conversation as much as I am.
Ah, but is the morality of the law superior to your own morality? What happens when the law contradicts your morality?
Would you say that tolerance is a universal moral obligation, common to everybody? Or would you say that am I free to discard tolerance when crafting my own moral standard?
If they don't consider it morally objectionable, is it truly morally objectionable?
If I didn't think slashing their tires was morally objectionable, would it be immoral for me to slash their tires?
Why do you expect this? If their value system does not permit tolerance for your girlfriend's attire, isn't it intolerance on your part to expect them to renounce their value system in favor of yours?
Would you say that this makes your personal morality superior to the morality of someone who wants, say, the greatest good to a limited number at the expense of everyone else?
Would you say that the moral value of altruism is superior to the moral value of selfishness? How would you resolve your moral conflict with Wall Street's Gordon Gekko, who says that "greed is good", and who is supported by the law?
Start reading at Deuteronomy 28:1. Verse 28:53 is a curse, presented along with many other curses that make up the bulk of the passage, as the natural result of doing evil instead of good.
The Highway Patrol tells us that if we are caught in a high-speed collision without a seatbelt, we will go flying through the windshield and smear all over the roadway. This doesn't mean we should all be prepared to go flying through the windshield. The Highway Patrol also tells us that if they catch us without a seatbelt, they'll fine us. This doesn't mean we should all be prepared to pay fines. It also doesn't mean that there is something wrong with the Highway Patrol's morality for "cursing" us with a fine or a gruesome death if we don't wear a seatbelt, nor that we are not carefully studying the teachings of the Highway Patrol if we're not prepared to pay fine and/or smear ourselves all over the pavement. In fact, careful study of the Highway Patrol's warnings about the dangers of driving without a seatbelt leads us to put our seatbelt on. Far from causing us to live out the consequences of not wearing a seatbelt, careful study of the Highway Patrol's teaching prepares us to avoid those consequences. Careful study of Deuteronomy 28 will have similiar results.
Of course not. I'd much prefer people avoided the consequences of evil deeds by not doi
How do you resolve conflicts when someone else's moral standard contradicts yours?
Someplace true and good, obviously. It's no good if you're getting your morality from the prize in a box of cereal. But the question remains: if we each get our moral obligations from ourselves, and our moral obligations contradict each other, how should the conflict be resolved? Which of us is right, and which of us is wrong?
You mean, like Mother Theresa?
I get your point, though, that many who claim to draw their morality from religion don't live up to the ideals they profess.
But of course we should also think very carefully and consider the actions of other people who draw their morality from themselves...
And considering both the behavior of the religious and the irreligious, I tend towards the conclusion that it's the people, not the moral codes, that are the problem. Some religious people have been very good, and some atheists have been very evil. Simply looking at how people act in relation to their moral codes doesn't tell the whole story about morality.
Jehova says "thou shalt not steal"; but many Jehova-worshippers steal anyway.
The Bhudda says "desire not, for desire leads to suffering"; but many Buddhists desire anyway.
Confucius says, "sons, obey your fathers"; but many Confucians do not express such filial piety.
Asimov says, "A robot may not harm a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm"; but some robots harm or allow harm to human beings anyway.
Are these moral obligations bankrupt because many fail to fulfill them? Or does whatever truth and goodness they possess derive from some other source? What is the source of your own morality's truth and goodness?