What, exactly, are "all the facts" regarding the Panama Canal?
Are all of the facts relevant to every decision that could be made regarding the Canal, or are some of the facts irrelevant for some purposes?
If all the facts are always relevant, do you expect to learn all the facts before making any decision? If learning all the facts turns out to be either impossible or impractical, how will you determine when you've got enough facts to make a good decision?
If all the facts aren't always relevant, how will you determine which facts to discard?
Assume that your fact-finding resources are always more limited than the amount of facts available. How confident are you that your decisions are well-informed and correct, given that you never have all the facts?
Effective taxation requires a lot of infrastructure. Efficient taxation, more so. Getting most people to think like communists, and everybody to act like communists, not so much. Also, keep in mind that if you're going for the communist implementation of totalitarianism, taxes are irrelevant since nobody's making any money anyway.
Actually, I'm an idiot. For no good reason whatsoever, I assumed the conversation was about something else entirely. I will now back out of this discussion, hopefully with a little more grace than I backed into it. Carry on!
The Soviets were able to communicate with the rest of the world, weren't they? If they had doubts, and the evidence to support those doubts, how come they never said anything?
It's not like they rely on western news agencies to publish, after all. They could have spammed every Soviet embassy and Consulate in the world. They could have hosted numerous press conferences. They could have given interviews and press kits to every leftist and neutral newspaper and magazine you can think of.
If they had something important to say, and there was no conspiracy to keep them from saying it, how come it's not part of any record?
According to every article Google could find about the facts of the case, McDonald's coffee is served far above the industry standard temperatures. Apparently the difference between the industry standard for "hot coffee" and the McDonald's standard is "3rd degree burns".
There's a clear dividing line between "hot" and "deadly"--the jury found that McDonald's had crossed that line.
Please. "The completeness and reliability of the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, and Orbiter documentation is comparable to the completeness and reliability of an anecdotal instance of Linux documentation." Is that really supposed to be your rebuttal?
Individuals working independently and producing half-assed documentation as an afterthought? That's not at all like a hierarchical organization that organizes all major efforts around canonical, comprehensive documentation. There's probably very little about the American space program that hasn't been painfully documented down to the tiniest detail. I'll bet that the original documents still form the basis for all of NASA's current work, and are constantly being referenced, refined, and extended.
The original smarty men may be gone, but I doubt much of their knowledge has been forgotten by the organization.
Well, assuming the Soviet moon satellites were capable of surveying the landing sites, don't you think they would've loudly proclaimed any telemetry that brought NASA's claims into doubt? Obviously, either the moon landings really happened, or the Soviet technology was unable to tell one way or the other.
The crucial questions are: "Could the Soviets have validated or invalidated NASA's claims?" and "If so, why didn't they promptly invalidate those claims?"
If they couldn't verify the claims, then we're no closer to the truth than before--but we're also no farther away.
If they could verify the claims, but didn't refute them, the simplest explanation is that the landings really took place. And as William of Ockham taught us,the simplest explanation is usually the best.
Maybe they yelled and screamed for years and no one told us.
But do you see what you've done? In order to explain the conspiracy you already have (NASA lied to the media about the landing), you've suddenly extended the conspiracy by several orders of magnitude. I might be willing to believe that all of NASA could keep the lid on the hoax, if the evidence was sufficiently compelling, but to believe that the entire world media system managed to keep quiet for the past 30+ years is pretty far-fetched. To accept this much larger conspiracy theory in the place of evidence to support the original, much more limited conspiracy theory would be lunacy.
It would, in fact, fly blatantly in the face of Occam's Razor.
One difference between the NASA report and the Warren Report is that while the evidence supports NASA's moon landing claims, it tends to contradict the Warren Report's claims.
Let's see... if we take out "deep, involving plot", what do we have left that will make the book readable?
Obviously, "shallow, uninvolving plot" isn't going to cut it.
Well, maybe if it's well-written, the plot won't matter much. But it would have to be really well-written indeed, to get away with a crappy plot. A "perfectly written" book is probably too much to ask for, but "well-written" would certainly be nice.
You seem to think there's a third alternative, besides "trash" and "well-written with a deep and involving plot". What books would these be? Books that are neither well-written, nor deep and involving, but are still not trash? Can you give any examples of such a book?
I know other people have brought it up already, but as far as I'm concerned you can't be told this enough: Anderson is not even remotely one of the best SF authors "out there today".
You throw around the idea of "rights" quite a bit. Where do these rights come from? How absolute are they? What characteristic do they have that makes them a fundamental, axiomatic truth?
The leitmotif of [The Mercury News'] business section was glowing praise of companies with no business plan other than to go IPO.
So it's not the VC's fault, for having "IPO" for a business plan. And it's not the fault of the public, for not asking them what their plan was. But it is the fault of the media, for not telling us what the plan was?
That doesn't make much sense. Surely there's enough blame there to cover every group involved?
Sure, but if telemarketers were universally despised, maybe they'd find some other low-paying job where they didn't get shat on quite so much. Being nice to them is tantamount to saying it's okay for them and their employer to violate my privacy and principles in order to make a living.
Slashdot Mirror
Fair enough. Your original post prompted some thoughts on my part about the metrics we use to determine "the truth".
What, exactly, are "all the facts" regarding the Panama Canal?
Are all of the facts relevant to every decision that could be made regarding the Canal, or are some of the facts irrelevant for some purposes?
If all the facts are always relevant, do you expect to learn all the facts before making any decision? If learning all the facts turns out to be either impossible or impractical, how will you determine when you've got enough facts to make a good decision?
If all the facts aren't always relevant, how will you determine which facts to discard?
Assume that your fact-finding resources are always more limited than the amount of facts available. How confident are you that your decisions are well-informed and correct, given that you never have all the facts?
I was actually thinking of China, which might explain our failure to communicate.
Not to burst your bubble or anything, but I can already search for the door handle on a 2003 Ford Mustang without doing any of that work!
Effective taxation requires a lot of infrastructure. Efficient taxation, more so. Getting most people to think like communists, and everybody to act like communists, not so much. Also, keep in mind that if you're going for the communist implementation of totalitarianism, taxes are irrelevant since nobody's making any money anyway.
Actually, I'm an idiot. For no good reason whatsoever, I assumed the conversation was about something else entirely. I will now back out of this discussion, hopefully with a little more grace than I backed into it. Carry on!
A claim so simple that even random passerby can back it up! Observe:
"Learning to change your own oil" != "Always changing your own oil"
Are things getting clearer now?
The Soviets were able to communicate with the rest of the world, weren't they? If they had doubts, and the evidence to support those doubts, how come they never said anything? It's not like they rely on western news agencies to publish, after all. They could have spammed every Soviet embassy and Consulate in the world. They could have hosted numerous press conferences. They could have given interviews and press kits to every leftist and neutral newspaper and magazine you can think of. If they had something important to say, and there was no conspiracy to keep them from saying it, how come it's not part of any record?
According to every article Google could find about the facts of the case, McDonald's coffee is served far above the industry standard temperatures. Apparently the difference between the industry standard for "hot coffee" and the McDonald's standard is "3rd degree burns".
There's a clear dividing line between "hot" and "deadly"--the jury found that McDonald's had crossed that line.
It's not about how many taxes you collect, it's about how many thoughts you control.
It's the control over the ideologies and expectations of the masses that makes it Orwellian, not the efficacy and efficiency of the revenue service.
Please. "The completeness and reliability of the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, and Orbiter documentation is comparable to the completeness and reliability of an anecdotal instance of Linux documentation." Is that really supposed to be your rebuttal?
Individuals working independently and producing half-assed documentation as an afterthought? That's not at all like a hierarchical organization that organizes all major efforts around canonical, comprehensive documentation. There's probably very little about the American space program that hasn't been painfully documented down to the tiniest detail. I'll bet that the original documents still form the basis for all of NASA's current work, and are constantly being referenced, refined, and extended.
The original smarty men may be gone, but I doubt much of their knowledge has been forgotten by the organization.
Well, assuming the Soviet moon satellites were capable of surveying the landing sites, don't you think they would've loudly proclaimed any telemetry that brought NASA's claims into doubt? Obviously, either the moon landings really happened, or the Soviet technology was unable to tell one way or the other.
The crucial questions are: "Could the Soviets have validated or invalidated NASA's claims?" and "If so, why didn't they promptly invalidate those claims?"
If they couldn't verify the claims, then we're no closer to the truth than before--but we're also no farther away.
If they could verify the claims, but didn't refute them, the simplest explanation is that the landings really took place. And as William of Ockham taught us,the simplest explanation is usually the best.
But do you see what you've done? In order to explain the conspiracy you already have (NASA lied to the media about the landing), you've suddenly extended the conspiracy by several orders of magnitude. I might be willing to believe that all of NASA could keep the lid on the hoax, if the evidence was sufficiently compelling, but to believe that the entire world media system managed to keep quiet for the past 30+ years is pretty far-fetched. To accept this much larger conspiracy theory in the place of evidence to support the original, much more limited conspiracy theory would be lunacy.
It would, in fact, fly blatantly in the face of Occam's Razor.
You failed to whine about Slashdotting the moon: "When will the Slashdot admins get around to mirroring celestial objects before they link to them?"
So if we claimed that we'd also returned a vehicle from Mars, that would validate the claim of a Moon return?
One difference between the NASA report and the Warren Report is that while the evidence supports NASA's moon landing claims, it tends to contradict the Warren Report's claims.
Yeah, we all remember her. Too bad nobody ever remembers the facts of the case.
Let's see: Mickey D's coffee regularly inflicts 3rd-degree burns? Mickey D's can't explain why they don't warn their customers about this risk?
Yeah, if I were on the jury, I'd award the woman some damages, too.You may want to use a different example to support your future arguments.
Yeah, because they're already there.
Let's see... if we take out "deep, involving plot", what do we have left that will make the book readable?
Obviously, "shallow, uninvolving plot" isn't going to cut it.
Well, maybe if it's well-written, the plot won't matter much. But it would have to be really well-written indeed, to get away with a crappy plot. A "perfectly written" book is probably too much to ask for, but "well-written" would certainly be nice.
You seem to think there's a third alternative, besides "trash" and "well-written with a deep and involving plot". What books would these be? Books that are neither well-written, nor deep and involving, but are still not trash? Can you give any examples of such a book?
You're obviously doing something very wrong.
The Bram Stoker is actually a fairly prestigious award. Which is probably why he didn't get it, in the end.
You throw around the idea of "rights" quite a bit. Where do these rights come from? How absolute are they? What characteristic do they have that makes them a fundamental, axiomatic truth?
So it's not the VC's fault, for having "IPO" for a business plan. And it's not the fault of the public, for not asking them what their plan was. But it is the fault of the media, for not telling us what the plan was?
That doesn't make much sense. Surely there's enough blame there to cover every group involved?
So? Everybody needs a job. That doesn't mean every job needs doing. And needing a job doesn't make it okay for you to get paid to piss me off.
Sure, but if telemarketers were universally despised, maybe they'd find some other low-paying job where they didn't get shat on quite so much. Being nice to them is tantamount to saying it's okay for them and their employer to violate my privacy and principles in order to make a living.