Except of course for the bit where the major share-holders in most US energy companies, indeed some of their largest investors, are Saudi royals. There's a reason the Bush family consider the Saudi royal family to be "members of the family".
Actually... the list of US allies who have human rights records FAR worse than Cuba (including ongoing violations) is massive. Cuba isn't actually even in the top-10, it may not be in the top-50.
The only reason you refuse to believe that is because they have a communist economy - which frankly has no BEARING on what their human rights record is. Capitalist human rights violators are NOT better.
>The existence of alternate software does not require the GPL.
So where are the custom roms for Iphones ?
Oh wait, there basically aren't any ? Why ? Because the hardware drivers aren't available to modify. Because of the GPL the drivers used to make the devices actually WORK has to be GPLd as well, they can't be locked up behind trade secrets and copyright.
In the absence of the GPL no LEGAL custom roms are almost impossible to create because the amount of programmers with the skills to reverse engineer a hardware driver and the budget to risk bricking many devices on the way are very few and far between.
There is absolutely NOTHING about your claims that make any sense whatsoever.
> Having to completely replace it with different software demonstrates a failure of the GPL
No it doesn't the mere EXISTENCE of alternative software and the capacity to replace is the VIRTUE of the GPL.
>And as a result of this failure many choose to stick with what they have. Many people choose to use their birthdays as their passwords. What people do or do not do remains ENTIRELY irelevant to the question of freedom - what matters in a question of freedom is the only thing that EVER matters in ANY question of freedom: what they CAN do.
Most people never stand on the street corner shouting "Fuck you world !" at the top of their lungs, this does not represent a failure of the first amendment.
>Some users. Few go that route, most go without critical patches. The GPL is not benefitting these users, the vast majority are still at the mercy of their hardware vendors.
What people DO is not the issue - it's what they are ABLE to do that matters. If the horse won't drink, that's not our fault - but if we locked it up without water then that most certainly IS an ethical concern.
>Its also a humorous example given the fact that Android phones with their GPL based Linux host are not getting critical patches.
Actually - right there is the PERFECT example of why the GPL does in fact benefit USERS. My own phone stopped receiving patches from the vendor some time ago. I got sick and tired of the aging code full of known bugs and security holes. I was NOT in fact screwed as I would be with, for example, the BSD-based iphone.
I simply rooted the phone and loaded cyanogenmod on it - and it's running the very latest builds of that.
Similarly - I have an Asus Transformer TF101 tablet, several years old. The hardware is in perfect condition but the antique (ice cream sandwhich) android build on it was getting very long in the tooth, slow to respond to touches and hard to use. A bit of googling confirmed that plenty of people had successfully loaded custom roms based on kitkat onto it and all were reporting massive performance and stability gains. So I found a guide, rooted the tablet and loaded one of those custom ROMs. Cyanogen no longer supports that tablet but it was easy to find a really nice KitKat rom for it.
This has added several years to the life of the tablet - instead of having to replace it because it's unusably slow (while the hardware is fine) - I am using it with great comfort and ease once more. That's a significant financial gain for me, it's good for a long while yet.
GPL benefits users because it means there is always a third-party vendor available - regardless of the whims of the vendor you originally got the product from. With BSD - that is often not the case and frequently the differences are so sufficiently severe that no third-party can viably provide an alternative that is actually installable. Seriously - how many custom ROMs are there for iphones ? Since IOS was based on BSD - it's certainly theoretically possible to build a custom OS for iphones from BSD - it would just be a massive nightmare of struggling to understand secret specs and replace unknown drivers.
The GPL is, in fact, the single biggest benefit there is to being an android customers because it means your device's actual lifespan is not dictated by how long the vendor is prepared to support it for.
>And yet none of those users (or very very few) are writing code.
That actually makes no difference. If there is a major security bug in the code - and it's GPL'd then an end-user can ask (or pay) ANY programmer to fix it for him, if it's proprietory (EVEN if it was based on something BSD licensed) then ONLY the original vendor can fix it, and they may refuse to do so. The user is incable of using their property, which they bought, in the manner they choose to (safely) except at the whim of the original seller who may not want to fix it, or may not even exist anymore.
GPL'd code means there is at least theoretically always the possibility of getting features added or bugs fixed, because ANYBODY can do that for you.
>BSD allows you to take away freedoms you enjoyed. Some people argue this would somehow be more free.
It's merely the programming version of the entire Republican party platform ! That freedom means allowing elites to deny others the freedoms they enjoy.
That's a very libertarian approach - never be preventative, only punish when something inevitably goes wrong. The trouble with that approach is, that in the real world, proving guilt is very nearly impossible. If there are 5 unvaccinated kids in school and all five get sick - how do you win a case against any of their parents - each can say beyond a reasonable doubt that it could have been one of the others.
They are all guilty, and you can't prove it for any of them. That's exactly where preventative behaviour regulation IS justified.
That covers a lot of it in my country too - I'm STILL going to homeschool though, because I can't stand the idea of my child being in a school that will treat "spiritual development" as being on par with learning science, or for that matter, think it's HER responsibility what OTHER people think by making rules about what she's allowed to wear.
That's because the phrase "draw the line" should NEVER be used in a scientific discussion. It is exactly how science NEVER works.
Because the universe does NOT - ever - draw lines.
There is a difference between unavoidable risk and reckless endangerment and there is absolutely NO scientific doubt that failure to vaccinate your children recklessly endangers not only them but all other children as well. Even those who ARE vaccinated because vaccines aren't 100% effective. But if everybody has them - and you have the one kid who would get pertussis despite the vaccine the odds of that kid being exposed to it is near zero. If a lot of people are NOT vaccinated, that kid is all but guaranteed to get exposed.
It's reckless endangerment through and through. There is no way it should be legal.
> I'm all about vaccinations and feel that anti-vaxers are idiots, but I'm a little leery of government making health decisions for my kids.
They're not. They ARE however enforcing the ancient legal principle that says you are not allowed to recklessly endanger MY kids. Which is what you do when you don't vaccinate.
My daughter is still under a year old, there are quite a few vaccines she won't be due to get for some time yet. Every unvaccinated child around increases her risk of exposure to the diseases I CANNOT yet protect her from - that is reckless endangerment.
It's no more an intrusion on your liberties than the government demanding that you don't drive a car on the road we both share without proof you've at least passed a minimum competency test.
>When you have no cash, and nobody is willing to give you credit... this new government seems to be living in a fantasy if they think they can just make that all go away.
You mean like Iceland did ? The worst thing that could happen to Greece is they may lose their EU membership if they do. That may not be so bad if they are hellbent on NOT doing what the rest of the EU wants them to do.
>Bankers would run off with a lot of money... that would become incredibly devalued.
Do you really think the kind of bankers who run of with such a lot of value can't convert it into other currencies BEFORE it gets devalued ? Indeed, actually accelerating the devaluation for everybody else when they buy all those dollars and pounds and yens in bulk ?
Erm... yes it does. Anarchism does not equal chaos, it is not the absence of a system at all. It is merely doing away with one aspect of the system: the concept of wielding power over another.
That doesn't mean giving the ability to use power to everybody, it means giving it to NOBODY, and having systems and mechanisms to ensure that nobody CAN exercise power over anybody.
Anarchism isn't an absence of laws and rights, or even of law and rights enforcement, it's merely a system for passing laws, establishing rights and enforcing those without any individual wielding power over another. You still have courts, you still have appeals. You still have punishment for crimes.
It's not by any means the absence of social order, it is merely the absence of government and authority. In an anarchist state, for example, you could still have a police service but instead of answering to politicians - they would report directly to the electorate that appointed them.
In such a system the kind of thing that just happened in Fergusson would, theoretically, be impossible since the people who are now protesting in the street would be capable of - themselves, arranging to have the entire local police force fired and replaced.
Many anarchist systems DO have elected officials who speak on behalf of small communities in larger regional forums (which can in turn send delegates to larger national forums etc. etc.) but unlike in a republic they hold no power, and have no decision making position on those forums - they are there solely to represent the views ALREADY VOTED ON in the communities they represent and can be instantaneously recalled at any time if their community felt they even slightly misrepresented them. These ideas, however, predate modern communications technology -such representatives really wouldn't serve any purpose at all today.
Most people don't realize this but history is full of successful anarchist societies that did not turn out as you predict. The biggest was the Roman republic. Yes Rome was not a republic as YOU know the concept, the Republic of Rome was, in fact, an anarchist society. Why ? Because they practised direct democracy - which is literally the sole requirement to be an anarchism.
That is also why there are as many visions of anarchist societies as there are and have ever been anarchists - because so little is set in stone, everything else is up for debate, up for adjustment - meant ot be scientifically investigated and changed whenever a better idea comes along.
Firstly - I never declared myself in favor of anything at all - I merely mentioned the existence of these ideas. Acknowledging that a concept exists is not, in and of itself, an endorsement of that concept.
Secondly - this particular version comes from anarchist philosophy. So there is no fear of what the government may or may not know as there IS no government at all. Or alternatively - since all people get to vote on all laws and nobody ever has to live under any law they didn't get a direct say in... I suppose you could say it's the biggest government of them all - the entire population is in it.
Either way - in the absence of authority, there is no reason to fear the abuse of authority.
And, yet again, merely knowing that these systems of thought exists and even recognizing their potential does not constitute an endorsement of them.
>Turning water into wine? Bootlegging; producing alcohol without a license or paying taxes on it.
And not charging for it. Clearly anti-capitalist.
>Healing the sick? Practicing medicine without a license, and violating FDA rules. Also didn't charge or demand medical insurance - clearly an Obamacare socialist !
>Feeding a crowd with just two fish? McDonald's and Burger King would sue him, and demand an FDA inquiry into his kitchen methods.
Feeding the hungry sounds an awful lot like foodstamps to me.
Basically, as Bill Maher pointed out, Jesus couldn't get elected in the Jesus party !
But that's not the only form democracy could take. There are several versions where the number of votes a person has on a given law gets increased the more he or she will be personally affected BY that law.
So even if you get 90% of the people to vote that all gays should be put to death on a funeral pyre the law STILL wouldn't pass because the 10% voting against it would include the gay people and because they are only ones affected, and the way they are affected is so extreme - they would easily still get 60% of the total vote.
Democracy doesn't have to mean tyranny of the majority - there are many ways to avoid that. Many types of checks and balances one could imagine and many of those have been tried. The Republic is just one possibility out of quite a large list, and it probably isn't the best (or even a particularly good) example from it.
Looking at the history of the planet, what we have is basically lots and lots of mass extinctions - every major branch of life reaching it's peak and then being almost entirely eradicated and life basically starting over (and by the way - this happening to the human race is not just likely but an absolute certainty - the only actual defence is off-planet colonies which we don't yet have).
There are different ways you can interpret this data however. One interpretation is that life is extremely rare, that we came so close to it ending forever so many times that we must assume the odds of us being here were billions to one and that it may well never have happened anywhere else - that even if life had gotten started elsewhere, it probably didn't survive into present day.
The other, equally valid, interpretation of the same data is that life is extremely resilient - that it has survived absolutely everything the universe has (quite literally) thrown at it. Species and even entire families aren't resilient but life is - even if something kills absolutely everything except a few extremophile bacteria at the bottom of some volcano somewhere -that's enough, life will re-arise and some day, something as intelligent as us will walk the earth again. By this view it's quite likely we are NOT the first, though we're probably the first to make it space. Biologists like Jack Cohen will tell you that the odds of there being a single shred of evidence we ever existed in a billion years time is as close to zero as makes no difference. Even our roads and buildings aren't as long-lasting as we imagine, they only look that way on human time-scales, not on planetary ones. The satelites will all eventually crash with nothing to replenish lost velocity. That little plaque on the moon may survive- but who knows if it will be found by whatever is next able to ask "why are we here".
There is no real way to choose between these views, they are both equally well supported by the available data and until our capacity to look is significantly improved we can't get data from enough other places to see which prediction they match. For the moment we have two predictions from the same data but until we can confirm either one we can't know. That is why looking is important. It's also why things like THESE are important, they add data which can let us refine our predictions.
That is a critical part of the scientific process, it's helps us figure out what to be looking for in the first place. The more extreme conditions we find life in - the wider the potential search space becomes (and theoretically - the more likely we are to find *something*). It also means that searching it all takes longer.
There is no scientific answer to the question of whether life is such an unlikely event it only ever happened here, or common and happened many, many times. The data we have can equally well defend either conclusion. So we need more data. Every bit of new data helps.
> and about a secret Google group where the supposedly "independent journalists" were given marching orders and told what to push, what to ignore, and whom to attack. When the news came out? THIRTEEN gaming sites issued THE EXACT SAME STORY about how they didn't need gamers and that gamers were "dead".
A discussion group for journalists in a particular field... shocking, oh wait, all journalists in all fields have had those for decades, long before the internet they had forums like that via other means. Journalists have been building relationships across publications and collaborating in this manner for-ever, it actually makes journalism STRONGER. The only plausible explanation for you thinking this one is a scandal is: 1) You're an idiot who didn't know that this has been standard practise since Ben Franklin published a newspaper or 2) You know that but are hoping WE don't, and want to deceive us.
Aaww you actually think calling somebody an SJW is an insult.
Being an SJW is pretty much the plot of every good action movie or series ever made. The A-Team were SJW's, MacGuyver was an SJW... dude, being an SJW is the ultimate real-man thing to do !
That is because the "corruption" never happened, there is no evidence that it ever happened - on the other hand, the death threats and harassment was very, very real.
Slashdot Mirror
Except of course for the bit where the major share-holders in most US energy companies, indeed some of their largest investors, are Saudi royals.
There's a reason the Bush family consider the Saudi royal family to be "members of the family".
How about Saudi Arabia ?
What about China ?
Actually... the list of US allies who have human rights records FAR worse than Cuba (including ongoing violations) is massive.
Cuba isn't actually even in the top-10, it may not be in the top-50.
The only reason you refuse to believe that is because they have a communist economy - which frankly has no BEARING on what their human rights record is. Capitalist human rights violators are NOT better.
>The existence of alternate software does not require the GPL.
So where are the custom roms for Iphones ?
Oh wait, there basically aren't any ? Why ? Because the hardware drivers aren't available to modify.
Because of the GPL the drivers used to make the devices actually WORK has to be GPLd as well, they can't be locked up behind trade secrets and copyright.
In the absence of the GPL no LEGAL custom roms are almost impossible to create because the amount of programmers with the skills to reverse engineer a hardware driver and the budget to risk bricking many devices on the way are very few and far between.
There is absolutely NOTHING about your claims that make any sense whatsoever.
> Having to completely replace it with different software demonstrates a failure of the GPL
No it doesn't the mere EXISTENCE of alternative software and the capacity to replace is the VIRTUE of the GPL.
>And as a result of this failure many choose to stick with what they have.
Many people choose to use their birthdays as their passwords. What people do or do not do remains ENTIRELY irelevant to the question of freedom - what matters in a question of freedom is the only thing that EVER matters in ANY question of freedom: what they CAN do.
Most people never stand on the street corner shouting "Fuck you world !" at the top of their lungs, this does not represent a failure of the first amendment.
>Some users. Few go that route, most go without critical patches. The GPL is not benefitting these users, the vast majority are still at the mercy of their hardware vendors.
What people DO is not the issue - it's what they are ABLE to do that matters.
If the horse won't drink, that's not our fault - but if we locked it up without water then that most certainly IS an ethical concern.
>Its also a humorous example given the fact that Android phones with their GPL based Linux host are not getting critical patches.
Actually - right there is the PERFECT example of why the GPL does in fact benefit USERS.
My own phone stopped receiving patches from the vendor some time ago. I got sick and tired of the aging code full of known bugs and security holes.
I was NOT in fact screwed as I would be with, for example, the BSD-based iphone.
I simply rooted the phone and loaded cyanogenmod on it - and it's running the very latest builds of that.
Similarly - I have an Asus Transformer TF101 tablet, several years old. The hardware is in perfect condition but the antique (ice cream sandwhich) android build on it was getting very long in the tooth, slow to respond to touches and hard to use. A bit of googling confirmed that plenty of people had successfully loaded custom roms based on kitkat onto it and all were reporting massive performance and stability gains.
So I found a guide, rooted the tablet and loaded one of those custom ROMs. Cyanogen no longer supports that tablet but it was easy to find a really nice KitKat rom for it.
This has added several years to the life of the tablet - instead of having to replace it because it's unusably slow (while the hardware is fine) - I am using it with great comfort and ease once more. That's a significant financial gain for me, it's good for a long while yet.
GPL benefits users because it means there is always a third-party vendor available - regardless of the whims of the vendor you originally got the product from.
With BSD - that is often not the case and frequently the differences are so sufficiently severe that no third-party can viably provide an alternative that is actually installable. Seriously - how many custom ROMs are there for iphones ?
Since IOS was based on BSD - it's certainly theoretically possible to build a custom OS for iphones from BSD - it would just be a massive nightmare of struggling to understand secret specs and replace unknown drivers.
The GPL is, in fact, the single biggest benefit there is to being an android customers because it means your device's actual lifespan is not dictated by how long the vendor is prepared to support it for.
>And yet none of those users (or very very few) are writing code.
That actually makes no difference. If there is a major security bug in the code - and it's GPL'd then an end-user can ask (or pay) ANY programmer to fix it for him, if it's proprietory (EVEN if it was based on something BSD licensed) then ONLY the original vendor can fix it, and they may refuse to do so.
The user is incable of using their property, which they bought, in the manner they choose to (safely) except at the whim of the original seller who may not want to fix it, or may not even exist anymore.
GPL'd code means there is at least theoretically always the possibility of getting features added or bugs fixed, because ANYBODY can do that for you.
>BSD allows you to take away freedoms you enjoyed. Some people argue this would somehow be more free.
It's merely the programming version of the entire Republican party platform !
That freedom means allowing elites to deny others the freedoms they enjoy.
But that doesn't give me justice for mine now does it ?
Parental rights shouldn't include reckless endangerment of anybody including your own child but ESPECIALLY not of other people's children.
That's a very libertarian approach - never be preventative, only punish when something inevitably goes wrong.
The trouble with that approach is, that in the real world, proving guilt is very nearly impossible.
If there are 5 unvaccinated kids in school and all five get sick - how do you win a case against any of their parents - each can say beyond a reasonable doubt that it could have been one of the others.
They are all guilty, and you can't prove it for any of them. That's exactly where preventative behaviour regulation IS justified.
That covers a lot of it in my country too - I'm STILL going to homeschool though, because I can't stand the idea of my child being in a school that will treat "spiritual development" as being on par with learning science, or for that matter, think it's HER responsibility what OTHER people think by making rules about what she's allowed to wear.
That's because the phrase "draw the line" should NEVER be used in a scientific discussion.
It is exactly how science NEVER works.
Because the universe does NOT - ever - draw lines.
There is a difference between unavoidable risk and reckless endangerment and there is absolutely NO scientific doubt that failure to vaccinate your children recklessly endangers not only them but all other children as well.
Even those who ARE vaccinated because vaccines aren't 100% effective. But if everybody has them - and you have the one kid who would get pertussis despite the vaccine the odds of that kid being exposed to it is near zero.
If a lot of people are NOT vaccinated, that kid is all but guaranteed to get exposed.
It's reckless endangerment through and through. There is no way it should be legal.
> I'm all about vaccinations and feel that anti-vaxers are idiots, but I'm a little leery of government making health decisions for my kids.
They're not. They ARE however enforcing the ancient legal principle that says you are not allowed to recklessly endanger MY kids.
Which is what you do when you don't vaccinate.
My daughter is still under a year old, there are quite a few vaccines she won't be due to get for some time yet. Every unvaccinated child around increases her risk of exposure to the diseases I CANNOT yet protect her from - that is reckless endangerment.
It's no more an intrusion on your liberties than the government demanding that you don't drive a car on the road we both share without proof you've at least passed a minimum competency test.
>When you have no cash, and nobody is willing to give you credit ... this new government seems to be living in a fantasy if they think they can just make that all go away.
You mean like Iceland did ? The worst thing that could happen to Greece is they may lose their EU membership if they do. That may not be so bad if they are hellbent on NOT doing what the rest of the EU wants them to do.
>Bankers would run off with a lot of money... that would become incredibly devalued.
Do you really think the kind of bankers who run of with such a lot of value can't convert it into other currencies BEFORE it gets devalued ? Indeed, actually accelerating the devaluation for everybody else when they buy all those dollars and pounds and yens in bulk ?
Erm... yes it does.
Anarchism does not equal chaos, it is not the absence of a system at all. It is merely doing away with one aspect of the system: the concept of wielding power over another.
That doesn't mean giving the ability to use power to everybody, it means giving it to NOBODY, and having systems and mechanisms to ensure that nobody CAN exercise power over anybody.
Anarchism isn't an absence of laws and rights, or even of law and rights enforcement, it's merely a system for passing laws, establishing rights and enforcing those without any individual wielding power over another.
You still have courts, you still have appeals. You still have punishment for crimes.
It's not by any means the absence of social order, it is merely the absence of government and authority.
In an anarchist state, for example, you could still have a police service but instead of answering to politicians - they would report directly to the electorate that appointed them.
In such a system the kind of thing that just happened in Fergusson would, theoretically, be impossible since the people who are now protesting in the street would be capable of - themselves, arranging to have the entire local police force fired and replaced.
Many anarchist systems DO have elected officials who speak on behalf of small communities in larger regional forums (which can in turn send delegates to larger national forums etc. etc.) but unlike in a republic they hold no power, and have no decision making position on those forums - they are there solely to represent the views ALREADY VOTED ON in the communities they represent and can be instantaneously recalled at any time if their community felt they even slightly misrepresented them.
These ideas, however, predate modern communications technology -such representatives really wouldn't serve any purpose at all today.
Most people don't realize this but history is full of successful anarchist societies that did not turn out as you predict. The biggest was the Roman republic. Yes Rome was not a republic as YOU know the concept, the Republic of Rome was, in fact, an anarchist society. Why ? Because they practised direct democracy - which is literally the sole requirement to be an anarchism.
That is also why there are as many visions of anarchist societies as there are and have ever been anarchists - because so little is set in stone, everything else is up for debate, up for adjustment - meant ot be scientifically investigated and changed whenever a better idea comes along.
Firstly - I never declared myself in favor of anything at all - I merely mentioned the existence of these ideas. Acknowledging that a concept exists is not, in and of itself, an endorsement of that concept.
Secondly - this particular version comes from anarchist philosophy. So there is no fear of what the government may or may not know as there IS no government at all.
Or alternatively - since all people get to vote on all laws and nobody ever has to live under any law they didn't get a direct say in... I suppose you could say it's the biggest government of them all - the entire population is in it.
Either way - in the absence of authority, there is no reason to fear the abuse of authority.
And, yet again, merely knowing that these systems of thought exists and even recognizing their potential does not constitute an endorsement of them.
>Turning water into wine? Bootlegging; producing alcohol without a license or paying taxes on it.
And not charging for it. Clearly anti-capitalist.
>Healing the sick? Practicing medicine without a license, and violating FDA rules.
Also didn't charge or demand medical insurance - clearly an Obamacare socialist !
>Feeding a crowd with just two fish? McDonald's and Burger King would sue him, and demand an FDA inquiry into his kitchen methods.
Feeding the hungry sounds an awful lot like foodstamps to me.
Basically, as Bill Maher pointed out, Jesus couldn't get elected in the Jesus party !
But that's not the only form democracy could take. There are several versions where the number of votes a person has on a given law gets increased the more he or she will be personally affected BY that law.
So even if you get 90% of the people to vote that all gays should be put to death on a funeral pyre the law STILL wouldn't pass because the 10% voting against it would include the gay people and because they are only ones affected, and the way they are affected is so extreme - they would easily still get 60% of the total vote.
Democracy doesn't have to mean tyranny of the majority - there are many ways to avoid that. Many types of checks and balances one could imagine and many of those have been tried. The Republic is just one possibility out of quite a large list, and it probably isn't the best (or even a particularly good) example from it.
Looking at the history of the planet, what we have is basically lots and lots of mass extinctions - every major branch of life reaching it's peak and then being almost entirely eradicated and life basically starting over (and by the way - this happening to the human race is not just likely but an absolute certainty - the only actual defence is off-planet colonies which we don't yet have).
There are different ways you can interpret this data however. One interpretation is that life is extremely rare, that we came so close to it ending forever so many times that we must assume the odds of us being here were billions to one and that it may well never have happened anywhere else - that even if life had gotten started elsewhere, it probably didn't survive into present day.
The other, equally valid, interpretation of the same data is that life is extremely resilient - that it has survived absolutely everything the universe has (quite literally) thrown at it. Species and even entire families aren't resilient but life is - even if something kills absolutely everything except a few extremophile bacteria at the bottom of some volcano somewhere -that's enough, life will re-arise and some day, something as intelligent as us will walk the earth again. By this view it's quite likely we are NOT the first, though we're probably the first to make it space. Biologists like Jack Cohen will tell you that the odds of there being a single shred of evidence we ever existed in a billion years time is as close to zero as makes no difference. Even our roads and buildings aren't as long-lasting as we imagine, they only look that way on human time-scales, not on planetary ones. The satelites will all eventually crash with nothing to replenish lost velocity. That little plaque on the moon may survive- but who knows if it will be found by whatever is next able to ask "why are we here".
There is no real way to choose between these views, they are both equally well supported by the available data and until our capacity to look is significantly improved we can't get data from enough other places to see which prediction they match. For the moment we have two predictions from the same data but until we can confirm either one we can't know.
That is why looking is important. It's also why things like THESE are important, they add data which can let us refine our predictions.
That is a critical part of the scientific process, it's helps us figure out what to be looking for in the first place. The more extreme conditions we find life in - the wider the potential search space becomes (and theoretically - the more likely we are to find *something*). It also means that searching it all takes longer.
There is no scientific answer to the question of whether life is such an unlikely event it only ever happened here, or common and happened many, many times. The data we have can equally well defend either conclusion.
So we need more data. Every bit of new data helps.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
Looks like pretty clear-cut persecution to me...
> and about a secret Google group where the supposedly "independent journalists" were given marching orders and told what to push, what to ignore, and whom to attack. When the news came out? THIRTEEN gaming sites issued THE EXACT SAME STORY about how they didn't need gamers and that gamers were "dead".
A discussion group for journalists in a particular field... shocking, oh wait, all journalists in all fields have had those for decades, long before the internet they had forums like that via other means.
Journalists have been building relationships across publications and collaborating in this manner for-ever, it actually makes journalism STRONGER.
The only plausible explanation for you thinking this one is a scandal is:
1) You're an idiot who didn't know that this has been standard practise since Ben Franklin published a newspaper
or
2) You know that but are hoping WE don't, and want to deceive us.
Aaww you actually think calling somebody an SJW is an insult.
Being an SJW is pretty much the plot of every good action movie or series ever made. The A-Team were SJW's, MacGuyver was an SJW... dude, being an SJW is the ultimate real-man thing to do !
>. I can indeed think of things with more toxic branding, but not all that many mind you.
The tobacco industry, big pharma... okay, I'm out.
That is because the "corruption" never happened, there is no evidence that it ever happened - on the other hand, the death threats and harassment was very, very real.