Re:What about bitter/loner Sims?
on
Virtual Simerica
·
· Score: 2
The only thing American society hates more than an intellectual is a loner. (Go watch Bowling for Columbine.)
Because, of course, everything Michael Moore says is true. It's much more likely that "society" is simply indifferent towards "loners", since the one is about social interaction and the other... isn't. And punditry aside, it's probably a safe bet that society hates child molesters more than either intellectuals or loners.
their imaginations are dead and they can't fathom living in a world without rules and regulations.
Clearly, your problem is that--as an adult--you are incapable of imagining any other possibility. Your opinion on the matter is just as lifeless as the adult pastimes you disparage.
On the other hand, if you are a child, then it's not at all likely that you have an accurate understanding of what goes on inside the mind of an adult. Your opinions, while lively, are irrelevant. Sit down and finish your vegetables.
I don't thing either you or she is in any way qualified to assess whether or not she's doing a good job of coping. Plese correct me if mental or emotional health happens to fall within your area of expertise. Meanwhile, I'll continue to take my car to a mechanic, my body to a doctor, my mind to a shrink, and my servers... well, my servers stay right here with me, because they happen to be my own area of expertise.
Sometimes the subtlety of my humor is so exaggerated that it's lost even on myself. The other day, here on Slashdot, someone associated my in(s)ane rantings with the proverbial "tinfoil beanie". I'd like to pass the sentiment along to you. Use it well!
Would you mind telling me how they 'abused consumer confidence'?
"We won't sell your personal information to anyone, ever... unless we go bankrupt, and our customer database is ruled as an asset that can be resold and exploited at will."
"We won't sell your personal information, to anyone, ever... unless we unilaterally change our TOS after we've collected enough valuable data, which we need to exploit because our original business plan turned out to be laughably unprofitable."
So where are the interesting ads, targetted to me, based on my surfing habits and demographic information? I mean, if they're collecting all this data, I'd expect to have engaging advertisements that play almost like content. Instead I've got the same old banners and pop-ups, touting the same old useless crap they were pushing 4 years ago... are you seriuosly arguing that this state of affairs is supposed to inspire confidence? I'm sorry, but I just don't buy it (so to speak).
The thing is without watching adds you'll have no...TV shows (except pay per view).
Exactly! And have you compared the quality of HBO's programming to that of the networks, recently?
Also, have you noticed that when a TV program doen't rely on ads to generate revenue, you get it on video a lot sooner? Have you noticed that 24 came out on video almost instantly? Even the broadcast networks are beginning to get the picture (so to speak).
Maybe advertising would have been a viable revenue model for the web, but the advertisers screwed that pooch right away. Instead of addressing privacy concerns, they began straightaway to abuse consumer confidence. That, combined with a wilful wrongeheadedness regarding the nature of web advertising, killed any chance targeted advertising based on aggregate data ever had.
My favorite part of the whole fiasco is that web-based advertising hasn't even been around long enough to become the "traditional" way of doing things, but already people are screaming at me for not doing things the way "they're supposed to be done". Put up a website, lose all memory of life prior to 1998, I guess. If only the other kinds of lobotomy were so cheap and painless!
I believe that only the most literal interpretation, combined with a wilful ignorance of the rules of syntax that make the second clause subordinate to the first, would read this amendment as meaning that we have an inalienable right to bear arms to no purpose.
In fact, the authors of the amendment make the intended purpose clear: arms are necessary to the militia, and the militia is necessary to the security of a free State.
I tend towards an interpretation that reads an implied right: the right of the citizenry to secure their freedom (from tyranny) through force of arms. This right is derived from the inalienable right to liberty, and from this right we derive the subordinate right to bear arms. The implication is that the right to bear arms serves the rights it is derived from. Thus, unless owning and operating a weapon serves this right to a milita, it is not protected under this amendment (though it may still be protected under the right to liberty). So it seems to me that any argument from the amendment as a whole is the argument of a revolutionary or pseudo-revolutionary. By the same token, any argument from the second clause only seems ingenuous at best, and deliberately misleading at worst.
This is, of course, merely one citizen's interpretation, in the midst of a decades-long debate about whether or not citizens are even qualified to interpret the document at all. You obviously have a different interpretation, and in the end we'll probably have to resolve our differences in the polls.
Fair enough, but doesn't the National Guard comply with both the old and the new usages of the term? After all, they still train regularly, even if they also happen to fall under the oversight of an organization that sets and enforces standards.
You, meanwhile, have this built-in survival instinct that is a by-product of accidental natural processes. You can't account for it. You can't justify it. There's no point to it. All you can really do is mindlessly obey it.
You're the one whose argument against fishberries is that they're bad because nature accidentally made you feel threatened by them. But somehow I'm the one who's not thinking?
And if we had one vote per voter, Alaska would always get the shaft, because it doesn't have enough voters to make a difference. Presidential candidates could ignore Alaskan issues altogether without any negative impact on their chances. Better yet, they could sell Alaska to Texas and California, and practically guarantee a victory.
By using Electors, we make every state count: you have to win as many states as you can, not as many people as you can. You can still safely discount one or more states, but if you alienate too many low-population states, your opponent will snap them up and own you on election day in spite of your Texas-California hegemony.
It's like the World Series: the pennant doesn't go to the team that scores the most points over the series. It certainly doesn't go to the team that wins one game in a spectacular fashion. Instead it goes to the team that shows an ability to play well and win--consistently.
Also, don't the Electors actually vote some hours or days (or is it weeks? I forget) after the public polls close? If so, it sounds like you Alaskans are defeating yourselves because of a misunderstanding. Instead of hitting the polls and giving your Electors a clear mandate, you're getting discouraged by the results of the public voting elsewhere, ignoring the polls, and giving your Electors no mandate whatsoever.
Okay, but maybe you should do some explaining, too: Doesn't the National Guard--a state asset, not a federal one--already fulfill the requirements of a "well-regulated" "militia"?
Let's be honest, here. The Guard is really the only militia that can compete with federal armed forces--and even then they'd probably need outside support. Giving everybody in the country an unregulated firearm of their choice isn't going to do much more than put millions of unregulated firearms into circulation. What you really need is for the feds (and your state and local authorities) to allow you to form a private militia with the same equipment and infrastructure as the National Guard--at a minimum. Because, of course, a well-armed, unregulated militia would be a good thing for this country.
I'll tell you what: you keep lobbying to put Charlton Heston in a Patton-like pose at the head of your NRA Army, and I'll keep voting for state's rights over federal rights, and lobbying for a Guard that will stand up to the feds when the push comes to shove.
You don't trust the Guard? By the same token, why should I trust the NRA?
"A well-regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State,the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed."
Tell me more about this "well-regulated militia" you speak of. Because I'd love to give them not only guns, but tanks, and missiles, and planes, and helicopters, and logistical infrastructure, and... oh, wait. Did you just say the National Guard are state assets, not federal assets? That's what I thought.
Your problem isn't about the right to form a citizen militia armed with competitive military equipment. We already have 50 of those. Your problem is that your state is unlikely to field that militia against the federal government. I guess that when the push comes to shove, you'll have to vote for it, just like everybody else in your friendly neighborhood democracy. And if nobody else wants to send the National Guard to war with the Feds, then you're screwed--not because The Man is keeping you down, but because that whole voting thing actually worked the way it was supposed to.
An oversimplification, I know, but the NRA's "well-regulated militia" rantings are suspect: isn't the NRA the largest, most powerful, most vocal lobby against gun regulation?
Nature leads to man, which leads to fishberries, which leads to man-eating fishberries. Nowhere have we deviated from the natural course of events. Unless you're allowing that man can do unnatural things--which I think you are. But that takes you into the metaphysical space, where we must allow for a higher authority than Nature itself, that can judge what is natural and what is unnatural.
Are you prepared to admit such an authority? I doubt it, but I could be wrong.
Isn't it ironic? I don't think the risk is negligible at all. But I'm still waiting for some argument that "not destroying ourselves" is a goal that we should have, or that it's a goal that nature does have.
Anyway, I don't think it's a question of risk at all. Aren't there high-risk endeavors that most people would agree should be attempted anyway? And aren't there low-risk endeavors that should not be attempted?
For example, if "fishberries" are wrong, they're wrong whether they're risky or not.
Technically, the Scientific Method works by starting with a "conclusion" (actually a hypothesis), then poring over millions of pages of data looking for evidence that disproves it.
But you're right: "We searched through millions of pages of data looking for a particular signature, and we found it, and we've got a crazy (unproven) explanation for it" isn't really all that impressive.
You're the one who wants to impose arbitrary restrictions on real-world endeavors. I'm still waiting to see your real-world justification for the limits you desire.
I'm making arguments based on reason and observable phenomena. You're countering with petty insults. "Tiresome" doesn't even begin to describe it.
Do I understand your argument to be an argument from authority? Namely, that the billion-year tradition of natural processes is the authoritative standard for genetic manipulation?
In much the same way that nature is the authority on heavier-than-air flight? And in the same way that nature is the authority on information transmission, storage, and retrieval? On the face of it, creating "fishberries" is no more egomaniacal than creating the "Internet", or the "Apollo Project".
Do you use an automobile? Modern medicine? Plastics? Don't accuse me of hubris--you're just as unnatural as I am.
Whatever authority you claim nature has, it obviously does not have the authority to prohibit genetic shenanigans. So who--or what--are we offending, exactly?
No, my argument is that if Nature has no intent, then life is accidental. Thus, my hypothetical game of russian roulette--regardless of time scale--is accidental. Your request that I leave you out of the game is also accidental: it's simply one of the big number of possible outcomes, and no more valuable than any other outcome. You have no real reason to make the request, and I have no real reason to comply with it.
Think of it this way: what is your purpose, and how do you derive your purpose from a reality that is entirely accidental?
And where, exactly, is it written that fish should not mate with strawberries? Isn't it entirely possible that--as natural outcomes of natural processes--we ourselves are the natural mechanism by which these genetic materials get transferred?
It's only tinkering if there's intent. Otherwise, it's just an accident. Show me a Nature that intends to do what it does, and I'll show you an entity that may need to prove its qualifications. Meanwhile, we've got the same excuse Nature does: if Nature's outcomes are accidental, then we are accidental, and therefore our own tinkering is accidental, and no more meaninful (or right, or wrong), than any other outcome of Nature, over any time scale.
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Aaah! Recursion!
Because, of course, everything Michael Moore says is true. It's much more likely that "society" is simply indifferent towards "loners", since the one is about social interaction and the other... isn't. And punditry aside, it's probably a safe bet that society hates child molesters more than either intellectuals or loners.
Clearly, what we need is a Sims-based OS interface.
Please tell me who your service provider is. My monthly subscription to Real Life is pretty damn expensive.
Now that's what I call a preemptive strike!
Clearly, your problem is that--as an adult--you are incapable of imagining any other possibility. Your opinion on the matter is just as lifeless as the adult pastimes you disparage.
On the other hand, if you are a child, then it's not at all likely that you have an accurate understanding of what goes on inside the mind of an adult. Your opinions, while lively, are irrelevant. Sit down and finish your vegetables.
I don't thing either you or she is in any way qualified to assess whether or not she's doing a good job of coping. Plese correct me if mental or emotional health happens to fall within your area of expertise. Meanwhile, I'll continue to take my car to a mechanic, my body to a doctor, my mind to a shrink, and my servers... well, my servers stay right here with me, because they happen to be my own area of expertise.
Sometimes the subtlety of my humor is so exaggerated that it's lost even on myself. The other day, here on Slashdot, someone associated my in(s)ane rantings with the proverbial "tinfoil beanie". I'd like to pass the sentiment along to you. Use it well!
And it worked, didn't it? After all, two generations of NASA employees have been getting regular paychecks ever since! Profit, indeed.
"We won't sell your personal information to anyone, ever... unless we go bankrupt, and our customer database is ruled as an asset that can be resold and exploited at will."
"We won't sell your personal information, to anyone, ever... unless we unilaterally change our TOS after we've collected enough valuable data, which we need to exploit because our original business plan turned out to be laughably unprofitable."
So where are the interesting ads, targetted to me, based on my surfing habits and demographic information? I mean, if they're collecting all this data, I'd expect to have engaging advertisements that play almost like content. Instead I've got the same old banners and pop-ups, touting the same old useless crap they were pushing 4 years ago... are you seriuosly arguing that this state of affairs is supposed to inspire confidence? I'm sorry, but I just don't buy it (so to speak).
Exactly! And have you compared the quality of HBO's programming to that of the networks, recently?
Also, have you noticed that when a TV program doen't rely on ads to generate revenue, you get it on video a lot sooner? Have you noticed that 24 came out on video almost instantly? Even the broadcast networks are beginning to get the picture (so to speak).
Maybe advertising would have been a viable revenue model for the web, but the advertisers screwed that pooch right away. Instead of addressing privacy concerns, they began straightaway to abuse consumer confidence. That, combined with a wilful wrongeheadedness regarding the nature of web advertising, killed any chance targeted advertising based on aggregate data ever had.
My favorite part of the whole fiasco is that web-based advertising hasn't even been around long enough to become the "traditional" way of doing things, but already people are screaming at me for not doing things the way "they're supposed to be done". Put up a website, lose all memory of life prior to 1998, I guess. If only the other kinds of lobotomy were so cheap and painless!
I've also been focusing on the first half of the Amendment:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
I believe that only the most literal interpretation, combined with a wilful ignorance of the rules of syntax that make the second clause subordinate to the first, would read this amendment as meaning that we have an inalienable right to bear arms to no purpose.
In fact, the authors of the amendment make the intended purpose clear: arms are necessary to the militia, and the militia is necessary to the security of a free State.
I tend towards an interpretation that reads an implied right: the right of the citizenry to secure their freedom (from tyranny) through force of arms. This right is derived from the inalienable right to liberty, and from this right we derive the subordinate right to bear arms. The implication is that the right to bear arms serves the rights it is derived from. Thus, unless owning and operating a weapon serves this right to a milita, it is not protected under this amendment (though it may still be protected under the right to liberty). So it seems to me that any argument from the amendment as a whole is the argument of a revolutionary or pseudo-revolutionary. By the same token, any argument from the second clause only seems ingenuous at best, and deliberately misleading at worst.
This is, of course, merely one citizen's interpretation, in the midst of a decades-long debate about whether or not citizens are even qualified to interpret the document at all. You obviously have a different interpretation, and in the end we'll probably have to resolve our differences in the polls.
Fair enough, but doesn't the National Guard comply with both the old and the new usages of the term? After all, they still train regularly, even if they also happen to fall under the oversight of an organization that sets and enforces standards.
And now we're back to the name-calling.
You, meanwhile, have this built-in survival instinct that is a by-product of accidental natural processes. You can't account for it. You can't justify it. There's no point to it. All you can really do is mindlessly obey it.
You're the one whose argument against fishberries is that they're bad because nature accidentally made you feel threatened by them. But somehow I'm the one who's not thinking?
By using Electors, we make every state count: you have to win as many states as you can, not as many people as you can. You can still safely discount one or more states, but if you alienate too many low-population states, your opponent will snap them up and own you on election day in spite of your Texas-California hegemony.
It's like the World Series: the pennant doesn't go to the team that scores the most points over the series. It certainly doesn't go to the team that wins one game in a spectacular fashion. Instead it goes to the team that shows an ability to play well and win--consistently.
Also, don't the Electors actually vote some hours or days (or is it weeks? I forget) after the public polls close? If so, it sounds like you Alaskans are defeating yourselves because of a misunderstanding. Instead of hitting the polls and giving your Electors a clear mandate, you're getting discouraged by the results of the public voting elsewhere, ignoring the polls, and giving your Electors no mandate whatsoever.
I'll tell you what: you keep lobbying to put Charlton Heston in a Patton-like pose at the head of your NRA Army, and I'll keep voting for state's rights over federal rights, and lobbying for a Guard that will stand up to the feds when the push comes to shove.
You don't trust the Guard? By the same token, why should I trust the NRA?
Tell me more about this "well-regulated militia" you speak of. Because I'd love to give them not only guns, but tanks, and missiles, and planes, and helicopters, and logistical infrastructure, and... oh, wait. Did you just say the National Guard are state assets, not federal assets? That's what I thought.
Your problem isn't about the right to form a citizen militia armed with competitive military equipment. We already have 50 of those. Your problem is that your state is unlikely to field that militia against the federal government. I guess that when the push comes to shove, you'll have to vote for it, just like everybody else in your friendly neighborhood democracy. And if nobody else wants to send the National Guard to war with the Feds, then you're screwed--not because The Man is keeping you down, but because that whole voting thing actually worked the way it was supposed to.
An oversimplification, I know, but the NRA's "well-regulated militia" rantings are suspect: isn't the NRA the largest, most powerful, most vocal lobby against gun regulation?
How can man-eating fishberries be unnatural?
Nature leads to man, which leads to fishberries, which leads to man-eating fishberries. Nowhere have we deviated from the natural course of events. Unless you're allowing that man can do unnatural things--which I think you are. But that takes you into the metaphysical space, where we must allow for a higher authority than Nature itself, that can judge what is natural and what is unnatural.
Are you prepared to admit such an authority? I doubt it, but I could be wrong.
Isn't it ironic? I don't think the risk is negligible at all. But I'm still waiting for some argument that "not destroying ourselves" is a goal that we should have, or that it's a goal that nature does have.
Anyway, I don't think it's a question of risk at all. Aren't there high-risk endeavors that most people would agree should be attempted anyway? And aren't there low-risk endeavors that should not be attempted?
For example, if "fishberries" are wrong, they're wrong whether they're risky or not.
But you're right: "We searched through millions of pages of data looking for a particular signature, and we found it, and we've got a crazy (unproven) explanation for it" isn't really all that impressive.
You're the one who wants to impose arbitrary restrictions on real-world endeavors. I'm still waiting to see your real-world justification for the limits you desire.
I'm making arguments based on reason and observable phenomena. You're countering with petty insults. "Tiresome" doesn't even begin to describe it.
Do I understand your argument to be an argument from authority? Namely, that the billion-year tradition of natural processes is the authoritative standard for genetic manipulation?
In much the same way that nature is the authority on heavier-than-air flight? And in the same way that nature is the authority on information transmission, storage, and retrieval? On the face of it, creating "fishberries" is no more egomaniacal than creating the "Internet", or the "Apollo Project".
Do you use an automobile? Modern medicine? Plastics? Don't accuse me of hubris--you're just as unnatural as I am.
Whatever authority you claim nature has, it obviously does not have the authority to prohibit genetic shenanigans. So who--or what--are we offending, exactly?
No, my argument is that if Nature has no intent, then life is accidental. Thus, my hypothetical game of russian roulette--regardless of time scale--is accidental. Your request that I leave you out of the game is also accidental: it's simply one of the big number of possible outcomes, and no more valuable than any other outcome. You have no real reason to make the request, and I have no real reason to comply with it.
Think of it this way: what is your purpose, and how do you derive your purpose from a reality that is entirely accidental?
And where, exactly, is it written that fish should not mate with strawberries? Isn't it entirely possible that--as natural outcomes of natural processes--we ourselves are the natural mechanism by which these genetic materials get transferred?
It's only tinkering if there's intent. Otherwise, it's just an accident. Show me a Nature that intends to do what it does, and I'll show you an entity that may need to prove its qualifications. Meanwhile, we've got the same excuse Nature does: if Nature's outcomes are accidental, then we are accidental, and therefore our own tinkering is accidental, and no more meaninful (or right, or wrong), than any other outcome of Nature, over any time scale.