It is that they should be compelled by the threat of retaliation in the real world for what their opinion is. There is no purpose to requiring someone share their real name except to hang the threat over them that if they post something another human finds distasteful, they might be found in the real world and made to pay for it.
Yes, it's simply impossible that any internet site might actually want to promote more civil behavior by causing people to tone down their comments. Instead, the ONLY reason must be that such sites would like people to go around attacking other people in real life for their views. [/sarcasm]
It stifles the free exchange of ideas, and it's only intended to stifle the free exchange of ideas. There's no other purpose.
Even if it were true that internet sites love encouraging people to go around attacking each other in real life, it's simply bizarre to assert that there could not possibly be another purpose.
For example, as I've already noted in another post, tracking your real name and attaching it to your comments, likes, and other online behavior is essential for businesses to build up a profile of you, which they can then use to sell to other businesses (e.g., for advertising etc.). If you post under various names, it's harder for them to track your identity and accumulate data across multiple sites.
This is why I will never post in the comment section of anything that requires your name. You don't even need to be doing anything wrong for someone to become unhinged and start doxxing you or something.
This may be a legitimate fear. But it's really NOT the reason why internet sites might propose a policy against anonymous comments. There are all sorts of other reasons for it too, like, say, spam filtering. Even the best comment filters for spam will require a lot of intervention with anonymous comments -- requiring a login and a real name can help a lot.
(By the way, I'm a strong proponent for allowing pseudonyms in most places online, and limited anonymous commenting where possible. But your repeated assertion that there's no other possible reason for requiring trackable names other than to encourage doxxing is utterly preposterous.)
This is a joke hypothesis, right? You're not actually suggesting that the Earth no longer orbits the sun, but a point "below" the sun?
Well, it's already been modded up, so somebody else seems to buy it too.
Just to be clear -- the reason there's no "research" on this hypothesis is because it makes no sense from a basic orbital mechanics standpoint. If the earth for some reason moved below the "normal" orbital plane on one side of the sun, gravity as it continued in orbit would cause it to shoot up above the orbital plan on the other side of the sun. What GP is proposing (i.e., the earth somehow maintaining a stable orbit in a plane below the center of the sun) is impossible.
But the trends online are all moving in the opposite direction, to making people attach their real names to comments - the sole purpose for which is to make retribution possible.
No, that's not the sole purpose. It's true that one reason may be to have the ability to ban users who display aggressive or inappropriate behavior. From my perspective, that's an internet site's right -- just as I have the right to tell you to leave my home if you are a rude jerk to everyone else at a party.
But another -- more nefarious -- reason is that attaching real names to you wherever you participate on the internet allows companies to profile you better. It's all about ads and selling your personal data, etc. Knowing what you comment on, the terms you use when commenting, where you hit a "like" button or whatever -- those are all "data points" that collectively say more and more about you.
That's why Zuckerberg, for example, has claimed that having multiple online identities is fundamentally "dishonest." I sincerely doubt that it has anything to do with morality for him -- it's the fact that having multiple identities makes it harder for Facebook to track you. And every click or "like" or comment that can be attached with a real name is potentially more revenue.
Or at least, I've had a lot of posts of mine modded flamebait or trolling for i.e. being critical of Bernie Sanders, even though there was no trolling or flaming going on.
Did you back up your opinions with evidence? Or did you just expect that the Slashdot mods would agree with you and mod you up?
I've expressed many opinions here over the years that were against what was clearly the "Slashdot consensus." When I do so, I make a reasoned argument and back it up with facts and often links to reputable sources so those facts can be verified. That's the way you break into a discussion and overturn a flawed consensus.
Yes, sometimes my posts have been modded up and down in what seems to be a moderation war, but if I've provided an actual insightful and informative post with evidence, it rarely ends up modded down permanently. Maybe I've been downmodded less than 5% of the time that I've posted unpopular opinions -- and I'm willing to accept that all moderation systems are imperfect enough to have some failure rate like that.
There may be ways to improve Slashdot's moderation system, but it seems to work a LOT better than most places on the internet in supporting minority voices, as long as they back up their ideas with rational arguments and verifiable facts.
Since when is this not EXACTLY how the scientific process should work?
Well, as the evidence piles up, it becomes more and more difficult to rationally accept opposing views. Yes, the exact models and magnitude of various changes are still under discussion, but denying climate change entirely is pretty hard to maintain given the evidence.
I'll verify a hundred times before blind acceptance any day.
Indeed. It takes me a long time to get going every morning. Since I don't believe in settled science, I don't trust mirrors. That whole "law of reflection" thing could turn out to be bogus. So I spend an hour calibrating the mirror in my bathroom to shave and then testing the mirrors on my car before driving.
I also don't buy this "gravity" thing. It's just a theory. So I'm a little afraid to flush the toilet after using it, since stuff could come flying upward instead of moving downward into the drain. So, I run a bunch of experiments on the water in my house to verify gravity still seems to be working before I flush.
Also, I calibrate my stove and verify that it will actually heat my breakfast. Those "laws of thermodynamics" are science, but they of course aren't "settled." That's not how science works, after all. There's no reason heat couldn't start flowing backward and freeze my whole kitchen when I turn on the stove.
Just to avoid problems, I run my scientific experiments every day to "verify" that these "laws" still seem to work. I know it's a hard life, and I have to get up at 2am just to get to work on time. But, I'll verify a hundred times before blind acceptance any day!!
Seriously. . Port scanning and sending a file is called a hack now?
On Slashdot? No. For the general public? Yes, probably. Heck, he used a Bash command! Anything today involving a command line is obviously "advanced computer use" for most people.
Also, I'm sure you've seen plenty of articles in the past few years talking about "iPhone hacks" or "Kindle hacks" or whatever, which often involve little more than being able to hit the "advanced" button on some menu and select a different option. If it's not a clear button that appears on your home screen and shouts "Click Me!", it now seems to be a "hack" in general parlance.
The word has become diluted significantly in meaning.
Though, to be fair, the general public never really understood the distinction. A Bash script would always have been a mystery to most people. And the media has always been quick to use the word "hacker" whenever a nefarious computer deed has been done, regardless of the technical complexity involved, or whether any significant "cracking" of security features had been involved. I've seen people who have downloaded files unintentionally made available on the public internet branded as "hackers" in news articles if they then make that information available (and if it's embarrassing to someone).
If you lose or break your phone you need to shell out $400 but at least you end up with a new phone. If you lose or break your keyfob, you need to spend roughly the same amount or more, and all you end up with is a new key fob.
Two problems with this argument:
(1) The fob should NEVER cost $400 to replace. The fact that dealers have created a racket by locking out the ability to allow cheaper replacements is ridiculous. It's not anywhere near an actual reasonable cost for the kind of equipment involved (which would be much cheaper than the average smartphone).
(2) For that theoretical cost savings and minor inconvenience of carrying a fob in your pocket, you have introduced several layers of additional failure points and places for security flaws.
I found this out when I got my most recent car, which has a "keyless" system. Is it convenient to leave it in my pocket when unlocking or starting the car? Sure. But I'd pay a premium for a car with a physical key again.
Why? Because I found out what happens when the system failed on my car within the first few months of ownership. I had to have the car towed back to the dealership, and the replacement was free, but I was stuck without a car for two days. (It shouldn't have taken two days, but it took the better part of a day to actually get the dealer and manufacturer to coordinate with a towing service to actually get the car.)
And even when the fob battery isn't dead but clearly has significant life left, the system is completely unreliable. Supposedly, there is some sort of sensor that should detect a dead battery fob when held up to the ignition button (I would imagine an RFID chip), but it doesn't work consistently. It's also insecure.
In many years of using traditional keys, I've never had a problem starting a car due to issues with the key. With keyless, there are too many new failure points, and it can create significant inconvenience. Add a phone into the mix, and you have even more possible security and failure points.
Yes, this is the lunatic fringe misreading of the Prinz v. US decision at SCOTUS. Long story short: Congress can't pass a law that commandeers local law enforcement and make them enforce some specific federal law. Effectively, sheriffs have the right to refuse to have their law enforcement officers forced to act as federal agents. The lunatics on the right wing have some bizarre interpretation of this ruling that local sheriffs have some sort of absolute authority (usually based on a couple quotes from the ruling taken out of context). Whatever -- the point here is that sheriffs have no authority to disarm Secret Service agents in their jurisdiction, and it takes a really warped reading to think that would be true. (In fact, the ruling implies the opposite, but I don't feel like getting into details to refute something so obviously ridiculous.)
Yes, what you say is true. But even fruit juice is often not that great for you. In particular, things labeled 100% juice are frequently a blend of the sweetest possible juices (appl, grape, pear, etc) maybe combined with some amount of the main juice you think you're buying. For example, those "premium" juice blends sold in the refrigerated section if a grocery store may have kale and whatever juices, but they frequently are blended with the sweetest juices to make the "palatable.". You're just drinking a sugary beverage often then, not some wondrous " healthy" vegetable cocktail with kale, etc.
What cash is, is something that can not be refused because it is your cash ie, how may I serve you today, oh you want to buy that loaf of bread, some milk and some baloney, sure and thank you for your money
Cash most certainly can be refused by a merchant. Legal tender just means that cash must be accepted for payment of debts. If a store lets me put a purchase on a tab and lets me leave with a product then they are required to accept cash later on if I want to settle that debt. But they are under no obligation to let me leave the store with the product in the first place because I offer cash. A store could have a policy that they only accept goats or squirrel skins or whatever. There's effectively a contract that is made during a payment and if I don't have whatever the store requests in exchange as a payment I have no right to demand that I get the product. Cash or not.
Styrofoam cups are used once and discarded, ceramic beer steins could be used for generations.
When Apple offers an iPad that can be useful and passed down for multiple generations, let me know. I'm certainly willing to pay for quality when it actually is an investment in something that's durable. I would (and have) paid several hundred dollars for a copper pan that actually works well in my kitchen and that can be passed down to the grandkids. Similarly I've paid a decent amount of money for hardwood furniture that again is durable and beautiful and can be passed down.
But to me it makes less sense to pay hundreds of dollars for a device that will be obsolete in just a few years. It's kind of like the difference between paying $20 for a cheap pair of jeans versus $200 for designer pair that is cut a little bit differently and has a slightly different color of dye. The designer jeans maybe fashionable and impress certain people who are interested in that sort of thing, but from a utility standpoint there's not necessarily a lot of difference. And both pairs will wear out and be thrown away in just a few years.
And that's where Apple products are these days. They're mostly trying to convince people to buy their products and spend the premium for fashion reasons not utility or durability reasons. It's style more than substance. And some people will like that. It's their choice, but I personally prefer to spend my money on something that will last a little longer or have a little more significance than a disposable device that's just a little sleeker than some other device.
I agree it will never happen, but why stop saying it? It's one of the worst things about iPads. It's the way Apple can keep charging an extra $100 just to "upgrade" to a model whose only difference is an extra $5 worth of RAM. That's just ridiculous. I consider such price gouging to be immoral and for that reason alone will never purchase an iPad.
Besides Apple just released this.
Wow -- Apple finally has a way to interface conveniently with camera photos on an SD Card?? Welcome to the year 2005, folks.
The Irish are not Celtic. Not only doesn't it say this, its a patently absurd. Linguistically this is as much a settled fact as exists, and no archeology work is going to change that.
Well, the problem with your assertion is that it amounts to a tautology. The modern concept of "Celtic" is fundamentally bound up the language classification schemes developed in the 18th and 19th centuries, around the time that things like Irish nationalism brought together people who wanted to unite under a shared identity, which tended to be associated with the words "Celtic" and/or "Gaelic."
The problem with the modern concept of "Celtic" is that it tends to presume a common culture that extended across wide swaths of ancient Europe before the Romans took over, whereas the ancient use of the word "Celtic" by the Romans and Greeks themselves tends to be more specific, referring to a particular group of tribes.
The linguistic use of the "Celtic" language group presumes a common origin (and that is unquestioned), but whether all people who spoke "Celtic" languages should be placed under a single uniform cultural umbrella as late as Roman times is the question. One traditional narrative presumes that the Celtic languages ended up in Ireland due to invasions of the group the Romans actually called the "Celts" a few centuries before the Romans themselves first ended up in Britain.
But TFA implies that this didn't happen like that. Instead, the island may have been populated thousands of years before, perhaps also by people who shared an ancestral proto-Celtic language, but who were absolutely NOT the same group of specific tribes the Romans called "Celts."
And there certainly is a theory in linguistics that the Insular Celtic languages evolved as a separate group, which would line up with this historical theory.
If it's true that Ireland was populated by an earlier wave of migration and NOT the people classical histories actually call the "Celts," then it's rather silly to continue to insist that "the Irish are Celtic" just on the basis of linguistic classification. Saying someone is "Celtic" is not just a linguistic label -- it's more likely to be related to ancestry or common culture. Most of the "Celts" who lived in central Europe were assimilated into the Roman Empire, and their descendants may be much more "Celtic" genetically than the Irish, even though they haven't spoken Celtic languages in a couple millennia.
It would sort of be like asserting that "obviously the Americans are Germanic," because English derives from proto-Germanic. There might be a few more significant cultural subdivisions that are more relevant from the past few millennia that could be more informative than just declaring Americans to be fundamentally "Germanic."
Also, "what else is new"? Certainly not the actual words of the summary, which are basically a few sentences taken verbatim from the Washington Post article.
I know complaining about editing is usually pointless. But...
an anonymous reader writes from a Washington Post report about several more concerning things:
... is simply NOT accurate. The anonymous reader didn't write "from" the Washington Post. He/she didn't write anything, but instead cobbled together a few sentences which were written by Washington Post reporter Chris Mooney.
If you want to take a summary verbatim from TFA, at least credit the words to the person who actually wrote them, rather than an AC.
And the problem seems to me here to be more one of terminology. Once you clear that up, this finding isn't surprising at all.
It's also wrapped up in the so-called "etymological fallacy," where we assume a word must mean the same think as the root it might have come from thousands of years ago. But meanings change over time. And so do cultures.
The word "Celtic" comes from words used by Greeks and Romans to describe a group of people who inhabited central Europe and France. When you look at these ancient texts by Greeks and Romans, they use completely different terms to describe the inhabitants of the British Isles. The earliest Greek terms refer to the Pretannikai nesoi ("Pretannic Isles"), which is the root of our word "Britannic." Roman sources often differentiate between "Celts" and "Britons."
Most of the people who were the original "Celts" in Roman and Greek terminology still inhabit various parts of central Europe and France. But they don't call themselves "Celtic."
Instead, at some point the term floated westward. Some of this may have been actual migration of Celtic peoples, but undoubtedly some of it was simply a linguistic process of progressively referring to the people outside of the "civilized world" as "Celtic." The "Celts" and the "Gauls" were originally the people outside of Roman territory to the North and West, but once those regions were assimilated (with the native populations), it makes sense that the "new Celts" would become those "barbarians" outside of the Roman regions.
Fast-forward quite a few centuries, and you have modern narratives of Irish and Celtic history being created, along with an impulse to create a separate identity from the English (and their associations first with Romans then with French). So, whoever is living in these parts of the British Isles come to identify as "Celtic," not because they actually know they are descended from the original "Celtic people."
Even Wikipedia clearly understood this long before this new find supposedly upended all previous theories: there are separate articles for the original Celtic people vs. the modern "Celtic" idea. The latter article clearly notes: "The concept of modern Celtic identity evolved during the course of the 19th-century...."
Yes, there have been many who have tried to posit connections between the ancient Celtic peoples of continental Europe and ancestors of modern Irish, etc. But those theories often had little evidence associated with them. Even linguists often debate how much the so-called insular Celtic languages are related to the actual languages used by the "Celtic peoples" on the continent that the Greeks and Romans actually called "Celtic." (The "insular Celtic languages" are the only ones still spoken today, and the evidence from the morphology of extinct Continental ones is pretty scant, so it's hard to judge the detailed relationships. Also, it should be noted that if there were any migrations at all of actual Celtic continental peoples to the British Isles during historical times, any commonalities could be due to such contact, even if there was a pre-existing culture and language already in Ireland.)
Anyhow, there's lots to all of this -- but the point is that there are at least three different meanings to the word "Celtic": (1) the actual group of people the Romans and Greeks referred to in Continental Europe, whom the Romans and Greeks viewed as distinct from the Britons, (2) the modern "Celtic" languages, which mostly seem more related to each other (and confined to the islands) than to other extinct ancient languages, and (3) the modern concept of "Celtic" culture, which tends to be associated with Ireland and neighboring regions.
Anyone who knows anything about ancient history realiz
DNA research indicates that the three skeletons found behind McCuaig's are...
Anyone else read this description and think it sounds like some sort of "mob hit" or something? "Yeah, those three skeletons we found over there behind Jim's house...."
Actually, now that I clicked on the link to see TFA, I see that McCuaig's is a pub. Now I'm guessing the remnants of a prehistoric barfight....
Then he should advocate that others follow his example and give to reputable charitable organizations that do social good, that generate more "good" per dollar than the government.
Umm, well, he's pretty well-known for advocating precisely that. Do you actually know anything about Warren Buffett?
To recommend something that contradicts his actions, paying more in taxes, something that generates less "good" per dollars does not make sense...
Unless it's the only way to pry the money from the fingers of scrooge-like billionaires who don't want to voluntarily give up their money to charity. Again, government taxes can compel them to, while private charities can't. So it's much better than nothing, as long as it's still working in the right direction (according to Buffett's ideology, anyway).
unless there are ulterior motives. Perhaps furthering his political party is worth a little "less" social good in his mind, or it is good business sense to be known as the "good" wall street'er and have a seat at the political table in this era of increased reform and regulation.
I have no doubt that he gains various benefits from most deals he strikes. On the other hand, one of those benefits may be satisfaction in altruistic acts.
You're working too hard here to demonize him. Sure, he's a rich guy and probably has all sorts of motives. But your insistence that he is hypocritical for giving to one charity for social good and ALSO wanting to force other rich people to give their money to government for social good... well, I really don't get how that's supposed to be hypocrisy.
Wrong. It is absolutely hypocritical to act against one's publicly professed ideals and goals. He says one thing, does something else, its hypocritical. That it is legal or common changes nothing.
Except you're talking about two different things.
Governments have the power to tax everyone. The Gates Foundation does not.
Even if Buffet believes the Gates Foundation is more effective at solving social problems than the government, it does NOT follow that he thinks the government is TOTALLY incapable of solving social problems -- just perhaps less efficient.
He can therefore both contribute his own money to the place he thinks will do good most efficiently (but which has no taxation power over his super-rich buddies) while ALSO arguing that his super-rich buddies (and himself) should be forced to contribute to a less efficient organization to still further the same goals.
That's not hypocrisy. If he believes the Gates Foundation is actually more effective than the government (but the government is still somewhat effective), it's actually the most effective and moral way to further his goals.
Say what you will - but on stage before a debate Donald Trump admitted he had given most the people on that stage lots of money for political purposes to get what he wanted.
Of course he did. And of course the super-rich get disproportionate influence.
But it's a bizarre leap of logic from that to your conspiracy theory.
Do I need to take off my tin-foil hat, or does the rest of the world need to remove the cotton from their ears?
Actually, I think you might need to employ basic logic and math skills. According to TFA, a person earning $2-10 million will have a tax rate hike from 8.82% to 9.35%. Meanwhile, people earning more than $100 million will have a tax rate hike from 8.82% to 9.99%.
So what you're saying is that the people earning $100 million are willing to contribute an extra $1.17 million to the government each year, so that they can slow down their "lesser rich" buddies earning $2 million each year from catching up to them... by making those $2 million/year buddies pay an extra $10000 from their incomes.
Hmm... yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I'll keep paying 100 times as much as those heathen rich "underclass" to keep them down and stick it to the man!
Or, wait. That makes no sense. The megarich would now have to make up extra ground each year with their investments to maintain their gap above their lesser-rich enemies.
Your argument would be stronger if you were claiming that this was a conspiracy by the "lesser rich" to overtake their richer brethren faster.
Also, your idea that the megarich are trying to keep people "struggling" makes little sense, since the tax hikes only kick in for those earning at least $2 million PER YEAR. Yes, there are plenty of multimillionaires who make poor choices, but I'd hardly describe any person who is bringing in an income in multimillions of dollars every year to be "struggling."
So, yes, I would like the choice to purchase from the farmer who pays a premium to help out his nation by employing American citizens rather than sells our country down the river to save a few shekels.
Wow -- the ignorance here is astonishing. First, there are plenty of "migrant workers" in the US who pick crops but are also American citizens. However, most of them also were either immigrants or their parents were immigrants, etc. Do you want to stigmatize them too?
Second, farmers often operate on very slim margins. If they price their produce too high, it won't sell. And unlike many other products, they often can't wait around with a higher price and see if demand changes -- a lot of produce needs to sell within days after it has been picked. So they need to price it so it can sell... which means they are limited in what they can pay workers. This is a larger problem in the US, as we now expect "cheap food" everywhere -- American pay a much smaller proportion of their household budgets for food than they did 50 years ago. In the produce aisle, this is mostly due to cheap labor.
Third, poke around online and read some stories about what happens when these big farms try to hire "American citizens" who haven't done such jobs before. The work is hard and the pay isn't great. And often those people who do picking tend to specialize and "learn the trade" over a number of years. Picking tends to be paid per volume picked, rather than by hour worked -- and new workers often won't earn very much, because they are incredibly inefficient. Unless you're willing to invest a few years in becoming an expert picker (and most young US citizens today aren't), you're not going to make decent money... even if you could with experience.
The problem is complex. I'm absolutely NOT arguing in favor of just accepting the fact that illegal immigrants often pick a lot of our food -- I think that creates problems of all sorts, not least for the immigrants who often can't benefit from the regulations and benefits for US citizens. But just saying, "We need to hire more Americans" hasn't solved the problem in states that have tried that approach -- in some ways, it created new problems.
Because facts without context are deceptive. Evolution is 'just' a theory, agree with me? So why not label that on textbooks? Hey, it's a fact, you don't want to hide facts do you? The thing is, your average person has no idea what genetic engineering really is or what it means. Giving people one small detail, without telling the complete story, without explaining the details, knowing full well that years of misinformation are going to result in them thinking something that is not so, is not informative.
I absolutely agree with all of this. But this is not a problem unique to this case -- it's a common trait among our politicians and our political discourse, where people win debates by taking facts out of context. It's encoded in the underlying policies of Wikipedia, which emphasize "verifiability" of atomic facts (which might be distortions, even if true), rather than requiring appropriate context, expert review, etc.
It is a lie of omission, plain and simple. These laws are forcing lies because no one stopped to ask people who actually know the science behind the crops what they thing.
This is where my agreement stops. To my knowledge, no one is preventing a company from putting a long explanation on its food box about why GMO foods are good and why they are necessary. No one is preventing a company from creating advertisements or press releases arguing for the validity of their products and how GMO information can be misinterpreted.
So how is anyone "forced" to present a "lie of omission" here? Companies which produce GMO food are welcome to provide all the context they want.
Are egg producers forced to present "lies of omission" because they list the amounts of cholesterol in their products on labels, even though recent studies increasingly show that dietary cholesterol and egg consumption in particular is unlikely to be a cause of elevated blood cholesterol numbers? No -- because egg producers have been running ad campaigns for decades to provide context and information about their products.
I think most of the anti-GMO rhetoric is stupid and ignorant too. But no one is being forced to present information without context here. If they are, I would agree that that would be deplorable.
Regardless, people are demanding this information, and they've convinced a state legislature to vote for it. The regulation does not violate any fundamental rights. If a company doesn't like it, they can hawk their goods in another state. Elements of this controversy may be stupid, but that's how democracy works.
The label isn't less accurate if it's omitted. Whether or not it's GMO is completely immaterial to the product.
Not if you care about that fact. I may think most of the anti-GMO arguments are nonsense, but other people care about these things.
Some food producers, for example, would argue that "humane treatment" of animals is "completely immaterial to the product." They might even produce scientific studies that say the nutritional content of the resulting food is the same.
But some consumers might care about ethical treatment of animals. If a state wanted to require labels that stated the average density of animals in their living space to give consumers an idea of whether they are crammed together or allowed "free range," it might satisfy those people. You may say it's irrelevant to the product, but other people might not.
Another analogy is requiring mention of whether or not somebody died in a house prior to you selling it. Mentioning that fact will probably reduce its value, however if they never find out then there's no harm at all, and even if they do, there's still no harm, other than maybe it bothers the buyer's religious view, but nonetheless all 50 states in the US have laws preventing civil suits against people who don't mention this (or other immaterial facts, like whether a previous resident had AIDS.)
Notice that you say there are LAWS which prevent such suits. You've just lost your point right there, because that implicitly acknowledges that the DEFAULT position is that people might care about this and if there weren't such laws, they might be successful in a lawsuit.
(Oh, and by the way, you're wrong. There are NOT such laws in all states. Some states, like California, Alaska, and South Dakota explicitly REQUIRE sellers to disclose if a recent death has occurred in a house. Other states have laws like you mention, explicitly NOT requiring disclosure. And in most states, the buyer could still sue if you could prove that a lack of disclosure caused an incorrect valuation. For example, if a house is well-known in an area as being "haunted" or whatever (particularly if it has been claimed to be so in print, etc.), that could make it difficult for a buyer to sell later, regardless of how ridiculous the claims are. In that case, a buyer could be successful -- see, for example, the so-called Ghostbusters ruling if you don't believe me.)
States get to determine their own laws, voted on by representatives of constituents. If those constituents overwhelmingly demanded the right to sue people over not disclosing the fact that someone died in a house, the state legislature has the right to overturn such laws.
And if the people of a state convince their legislature that certain products need to be labeled in a certain way or disclose certain elements, as long as such labeling is not a violation of anyone's fundamental "rights," etc., they can do so.
Most of the conditions of the food is hidden from them. Why single out GMO as one of the required pieces of information ?
Because people want to know, and they have asked their state legislators to require this. Since we live in a representative democracy (and the regulations do not violate any fundamental rights, aren't blatantly discriminatory or arbitrary, etc.), they can do this.
(I may think most of the people who want to know have irrational reasons for wanting to know, but that's irrelevant. Lots of legislation and government policy is irrational.)
Why not mandate accurate display of all pesticides and herbicides
I'm sure some people would like this too. And if they convince a state legislature to require it, I personally wouldn't have a problem with it.
That's sort of how democracy works. If the business doesn't like it, they can hawk their goods somewhere else.
New York City, for example, has mandated all sorts of wacky food laws in the past decade. If people or businesses don't like them, they can lobby their representatives to try and change them, or else move somewhere else.
I don't disagree; what I'm saying is that they have no right to legally mandate their personal dietary preferences.
If you were talking about an individual, sure I agree. But luckily we live in something still resembling a representative democracy, where individuals get to make all those arguments to their representatives, and those representatives get to vote on such things.
I don't see how asking a company to provide some information about ingredients is some sort of violation of any "fundamental right."
Notice how things like non-Kosher and Haram labels are not required by law. If, say, a Muslim demanded that non-Halal products had a Haram label on them because they were too lazy to learn about their own belief system, would you feel any sympathy for that person's 'right to know?'
If a single Muslim demanded that our food labeling system be changed, I probably wouldn't pay much attention. If a significant segment of the population cared and convinced a state legislature that such labeling would be helpful to many people, though, I wouldn't have a problem with such labeling on consumer goods.
This isn't about a "right to know." It's a question about whether states have ability to pass minor regulatory laws. They pass them all them, requiring all sorts of random crap. Yes, some of those regulations are probably unnecessary or even an abuse of power. I sincerely doubt that GMO labeling laws would come close to even the top 1000 of most egregious acts that state governments have mandated through regulation in the past year.
Yet for some reason this particular one causes everyone to get up in arms.
I certainty wouldn't knowingly do something like give such a person teriyaki chicken cooked with mirin and not tell them the food was cooked with alcohol, but still, they don't get to dictate regulations and mandate labels for something they could easily look up.
Again, you're talking about individuals. TFA is talking about the actions and decisions of a representative governmental body. Last time I checked, local and state governments can pass pretty much whatever laws they want to regulating whatever, as long as they don't violate any fundamental rights and aren't fundamentally abusive, arbitrary, or discriminatory. If you don't like such policies, lobby your representative or move to another state.
Despite your sarcasm, I think it's "important" to Linux folks who have been repeatedly ignored by Ubuntu's trend to force its choices on everyone. (And yes, I know there are different flavors of Ubuntu, etc. But I haven't used any of them as a primary OS in nearly a decade, because I saw how broken Ubuntu's model was getting even back in 2007 or so.)
There's always a trade-off that Linux folks (and UI designers in general) debate -- more customizability and options (which often introduce more opportunities for things to break) vs. streamlining and less customizability. Apple, for example, tends to trend far toward the latter, having a "take it or leave it" attitude.
Many people were (and still are) unhappy with Unity and saw Canonical's choices in that regard as part of this "take it or leave it" attitude. Those who were willing to stick with Unity still wanted a little customizability.
Here's some minor victory for those folks. To me, I read a story like this in the context that some hope this might be a broader trend toward flexibility in Canonical's policies -- this has been one of the most requested features since the shift to Unity, but Canonical has been unresponsive.
Personally, I doubt this is indicative of a broader trend. But that's why I assume some people view this as important.
Slashdot Mirror
It is that they should be compelled by the threat of retaliation in the real world for what their opinion is. There is no purpose to requiring someone share their real name except to hang the threat over them that if they post something another human finds distasteful, they might be found in the real world and made to pay for it.
Yes, it's simply impossible that any internet site might actually want to promote more civil behavior by causing people to tone down their comments. Instead, the ONLY reason must be that such sites would like people to go around attacking other people in real life for their views. [/sarcasm]
It stifles the free exchange of ideas, and it's only intended to stifle the free exchange of ideas. There's no other purpose.
Even if it were true that internet sites love encouraging people to go around attacking each other in real life, it's simply bizarre to assert that there could not possibly be another purpose.
For example, as I've already noted in another post, tracking your real name and attaching it to your comments, likes, and other online behavior is essential for businesses to build up a profile of you, which they can then use to sell to other businesses (e.g., for advertising etc.). If you post under various names, it's harder for them to track your identity and accumulate data across multiple sites.
This is why I will never post in the comment section of anything that requires your name. You don't even need to be doing anything wrong for someone to become unhinged and start doxxing you or something.
This may be a legitimate fear. But it's really NOT the reason why internet sites might propose a policy against anonymous comments. There are all sorts of other reasons for it too, like, say, spam filtering. Even the best comment filters for spam will require a lot of intervention with anonymous comments -- requiring a login and a real name can help a lot.
(By the way, I'm a strong proponent for allowing pseudonyms in most places online, and limited anonymous commenting where possible. But your repeated assertion that there's no other possible reason for requiring trackable names other than to encourage doxxing is utterly preposterous.)
This is a joke hypothesis, right? You're not actually suggesting that the Earth no longer orbits the sun, but a point "below" the sun?
Well, it's already been modded up, so somebody else seems to buy it too.
Just to be clear -- the reason there's no "research" on this hypothesis is because it makes no sense from a basic orbital mechanics standpoint. If the earth for some reason moved below the "normal" orbital plane on one side of the sun, gravity as it continued in orbit would cause it to shoot up above the orbital plan on the other side of the sun. What GP is proposing (i.e., the earth somehow maintaining a stable orbit in a plane below the center of the sun) is impossible.
But the trends online are all moving in the opposite direction, to making people attach their real names to comments - the sole purpose for which is to make retribution possible.
No, that's not the sole purpose. It's true that one reason may be to have the ability to ban users who display aggressive or inappropriate behavior. From my perspective, that's an internet site's right -- just as I have the right to tell you to leave my home if you are a rude jerk to everyone else at a party.
But another -- more nefarious -- reason is that attaching real names to you wherever you participate on the internet allows companies to profile you better. It's all about ads and selling your personal data, etc. Knowing what you comment on, the terms you use when commenting, where you hit a "like" button or whatever -- those are all "data points" that collectively say more and more about you.
That's why Zuckerberg, for example, has claimed that having multiple online identities is fundamentally "dishonest." I sincerely doubt that it has anything to do with morality for him -- it's the fact that having multiple identities makes it harder for Facebook to track you. And every click or "like" or comment that can be attached with a real name is potentially more revenue.
Or at least, I've had a lot of posts of mine modded flamebait or trolling for i.e. being critical of Bernie Sanders, even though there was no trolling or flaming going on.
Did you back up your opinions with evidence? Or did you just expect that the Slashdot mods would agree with you and mod you up?
I've expressed many opinions here over the years that were against what was clearly the "Slashdot consensus." When I do so, I make a reasoned argument and back it up with facts and often links to reputable sources so those facts can be verified. That's the way you break into a discussion and overturn a flawed consensus.
Yes, sometimes my posts have been modded up and down in what seems to be a moderation war, but if I've provided an actual insightful and informative post with evidence, it rarely ends up modded down permanently. Maybe I've been downmodded less than 5% of the time that I've posted unpopular opinions -- and I'm willing to accept that all moderation systems are imperfect enough to have some failure rate like that.
There may be ways to improve Slashdot's moderation system, but it seems to work a LOT better than most places on the internet in supporting minority voices, as long as they back up their ideas with rational arguments and verifiable facts.
Since when is this not EXACTLY how the scientific process should work?
Well, as the evidence piles up, it becomes more and more difficult to rationally accept opposing views. Yes, the exact models and magnitude of various changes are still under discussion, but denying climate change entirely is pretty hard to maintain given the evidence.
I'll verify a hundred times before blind acceptance any day.
Indeed. It takes me a long time to get going every morning. Since I don't believe in settled science, I don't trust mirrors. That whole "law of reflection" thing could turn out to be bogus. So I spend an hour calibrating the mirror in my bathroom to shave and then testing the mirrors on my car before driving.
I also don't buy this "gravity" thing. It's just a theory. So I'm a little afraid to flush the toilet after using it, since stuff could come flying upward instead of moving downward into the drain. So, I run a bunch of experiments on the water in my house to verify gravity still seems to be working before I flush.
Also, I calibrate my stove and verify that it will actually heat my breakfast. Those "laws of thermodynamics" are science, but they of course aren't "settled." That's not how science works, after all. There's no reason heat couldn't start flowing backward and freeze my whole kitchen when I turn on the stove.
Just to avoid problems, I run my scientific experiments every day to "verify" that these "laws" still seem to work. I know it's a hard life, and I have to get up at 2am just to get to work on time. But, I'll verify a hundred times before blind acceptance any day!!
Seriously. . Port scanning and sending a file is called a hack now?
On Slashdot? No. For the general public? Yes, probably. Heck, he used a Bash command! Anything today involving a command line is obviously "advanced computer use" for most people.
Also, I'm sure you've seen plenty of articles in the past few years talking about "iPhone hacks" or "Kindle hacks" or whatever, which often involve little more than being able to hit the "advanced" button on some menu and select a different option. If it's not a clear button that appears on your home screen and shouts "Click Me!", it now seems to be a "hack" in general parlance.
The word has become diluted significantly in meaning.
Though, to be fair, the general public never really understood the distinction. A Bash script would always have been a mystery to most people. And the media has always been quick to use the word "hacker" whenever a nefarious computer deed has been done, regardless of the technical complexity involved, or whether any significant "cracking" of security features had been involved. I've seen people who have downloaded files unintentionally made available on the public internet branded as "hackers" in news articles if they then make that information available (and if it's embarrassing to someone).
If you lose or break your phone you need to shell out $400 but at least you end up with a new phone. If you lose or break your keyfob, you need to spend roughly the same amount or more, and all you end up with is a new key fob.
Two problems with this argument:
(1) The fob should NEVER cost $400 to replace. The fact that dealers have created a racket by locking out the ability to allow cheaper replacements is ridiculous. It's not anywhere near an actual reasonable cost for the kind of equipment involved (which would be much cheaper than the average smartphone).
(2) For that theoretical cost savings and minor inconvenience of carrying a fob in your pocket, you have introduced several layers of additional failure points and places for security flaws.
I found this out when I got my most recent car, which has a "keyless" system. Is it convenient to leave it in my pocket when unlocking or starting the car? Sure. But I'd pay a premium for a car with a physical key again.
Why? Because I found out what happens when the system failed on my car within the first few months of ownership. I had to have the car towed back to the dealership, and the replacement was free, but I was stuck without a car for two days. (It shouldn't have taken two days, but it took the better part of a day to actually get the dealer and manufacturer to coordinate with a towing service to actually get the car.)
And even when the fob battery isn't dead but clearly has significant life left, the system is completely unreliable. Supposedly, there is some sort of sensor that should detect a dead battery fob when held up to the ignition button (I would imagine an RFID chip), but it doesn't work consistently. It's also insecure.
In many years of using traditional keys, I've never had a problem starting a car due to issues with the key. With keyless, there are too many new failure points, and it can create significant inconvenience. Add a phone into the mix, and you have even more possible security and failure points.
Yes, this is the lunatic fringe misreading of the Prinz v. US decision at SCOTUS. Long story short: Congress can't pass a law that commandeers local law enforcement and make them enforce some specific federal law. Effectively, sheriffs have the right to refuse to have their law enforcement officers forced to act as federal agents. The lunatics on the right wing have some bizarre interpretation of this ruling that local sheriffs have some sort of absolute authority (usually based on a couple quotes from the ruling taken out of context). Whatever -- the point here is that sheriffs have no authority to disarm Secret Service agents in their jurisdiction, and it takes a really warped reading to think that would be true. (In fact, the ruling implies the opposite, but I don't feel like getting into details to refute something so obviously ridiculous.)
Yes, what you say is true. But even fruit juice is often not that great for you. In particular, things labeled 100% juice are frequently a blend of the sweetest possible juices (appl, grape, pear, etc) maybe combined with some amount of the main juice you think you're buying. For example, those "premium" juice blends sold in the refrigerated section if a grocery store may have kale and whatever juices, but they frequently are blended with the sweetest juices to make the "palatable.". You're just drinking a sugary beverage often then, not some wondrous " healthy" vegetable cocktail with kale, etc.
What cash is, is something that can not be refused because it is your cash ie, how may I serve you today, oh you want to buy that loaf of bread, some milk and some baloney, sure and thank you for your money
Cash most certainly can be refused by a merchant. Legal tender just means that cash must be accepted for payment of debts. If a store lets me put a purchase on a tab and lets me leave with a product then they are required to accept cash later on if I want to settle that debt. But they are under no obligation to let me leave the store with the product in the first place because I offer cash. A store could have a policy that they only accept goats or squirrel skins or whatever. There's effectively a contract that is made during a payment and if I don't have whatever the store requests in exchange as a payment I have no right to demand that I get the product. Cash or not.
Styrofoam cups are used once and discarded, ceramic beer steins could be used for generations.
When Apple offers an iPad that can be useful and passed down for multiple generations, let me know. I'm certainly willing to pay for quality when it actually is an investment in something that's durable. I would (and have) paid several hundred dollars for a copper pan that actually works well in my kitchen and that can be passed down to the grandkids. Similarly I've paid a decent amount of money for hardwood furniture that again is durable and beautiful and can be passed down.
But to me it makes less sense to pay hundreds of dollars for a device that will be obsolete in just a few years. It's kind of like the difference between paying $20 for a cheap pair of jeans versus $200 for designer pair that is cut a little bit differently and has a slightly different color of dye. The designer jeans maybe fashionable and impress certain people who are interested in that sort of thing, but from a utility standpoint there's not necessarily a lot of difference. And both pairs will wear out and be thrown away in just a few years.
And that's where Apple products are these days. They're mostly trying to convince people to buy their products and spend the premium for fashion reasons not utility or durability reasons. It's style more than substance. And some people will like that. It's their choice, but I personally prefer to spend my money on something that will last a little longer or have a little more significance than a disposable device that's just a little sleeker than some other device.
Stop saying this. It will never happen.
I agree it will never happen, but why stop saying it? It's one of the worst things about iPads. It's the way Apple can keep charging an extra $100 just to "upgrade" to a model whose only difference is an extra $5 worth of RAM. That's just ridiculous. I consider such price gouging to be immoral and for that reason alone will never purchase an iPad.
Besides Apple just released this.
Wow -- Apple finally has a way to interface conveniently with camera photos on an SD Card?? Welcome to the year 2005, folks.
The Irish are not Celtic. Not only doesn't it say this, its a patently absurd. Linguistically this is as much a settled fact as exists, and no archeology work is going to change that.
Well, the problem with your assertion is that it amounts to a tautology. The modern concept of "Celtic" is fundamentally bound up the language classification schemes developed in the 18th and 19th centuries, around the time that things like Irish nationalism brought together people who wanted to unite under a shared identity, which tended to be associated with the words "Celtic" and/or "Gaelic."
The problem with the modern concept of "Celtic" is that it tends to presume a common culture that extended across wide swaths of ancient Europe before the Romans took over, whereas the ancient use of the word "Celtic" by the Romans and Greeks themselves tends to be more specific, referring to a particular group of tribes.
The linguistic use of the "Celtic" language group presumes a common origin (and that is unquestioned), but whether all people who spoke "Celtic" languages should be placed under a single uniform cultural umbrella as late as Roman times is the question. One traditional narrative presumes that the Celtic languages ended up in Ireland due to invasions of the group the Romans actually called the "Celts" a few centuries before the Romans themselves first ended up in Britain.
But TFA implies that this didn't happen like that. Instead, the island may have been populated thousands of years before, perhaps also by people who shared an ancestral proto-Celtic language, but who were absolutely NOT the same group of specific tribes the Romans called "Celts."
And there certainly is a theory in linguistics that the Insular Celtic languages evolved as a separate group, which would line up with this historical theory.
If it's true that Ireland was populated by an earlier wave of migration and NOT the people classical histories actually call the "Celts," then it's rather silly to continue to insist that "the Irish are Celtic" just on the basis of linguistic classification. Saying someone is "Celtic" is not just a linguistic label -- it's more likely to be related to ancestry or common culture. Most of the "Celts" who lived in central Europe were assimilated into the Roman Empire, and their descendants may be much more "Celtic" genetically than the Irish, even though they haven't spoken Celtic languages in a couple millennia.
It would sort of be like asserting that "obviously the Americans are Germanic," because English derives from proto-Germanic. There might be a few more significant cultural subdivisions that are more relevant from the past few millennia that could be more informative than just declaring Americans to be fundamentally "Germanic."
Also, "what else is new"? Certainly not the actual words of the summary, which are basically a few sentences taken verbatim from the Washington Post article.
I know complaining about editing is usually pointless. But...
an anonymous reader writes from a Washington Post report about several more concerning things:
... is simply NOT accurate. The anonymous reader didn't write "from" the Washington Post. He/she didn't write anything, but instead cobbled together a few sentences which were written by Washington Post reporter Chris Mooney.
If you want to take a summary verbatim from TFA, at least credit the words to the person who actually wrote them, rather than an AC.
Humans are mutts.
Agreed.
And the problem seems to me here to be more one of terminology. Once you clear that up, this finding isn't surprising at all.
It's also wrapped up in the so-called "etymological fallacy," where we assume a word must mean the same think as the root it might have come from thousands of years ago. But meanings change over time. And so do cultures.
The word "Celtic" comes from words used by Greeks and Romans to describe a group of people who inhabited central Europe and France. When you look at these ancient texts by Greeks and Romans, they use completely different terms to describe the inhabitants of the British Isles. The earliest Greek terms refer to the Pretannikai nesoi ("Pretannic Isles"), which is the root of our word "Britannic." Roman sources often differentiate between "Celts" and "Britons."
Most of the people who were the original "Celts" in Roman and Greek terminology still inhabit various parts of central Europe and France. But they don't call themselves "Celtic."
Instead, at some point the term floated westward. Some of this may have been actual migration of Celtic peoples, but undoubtedly some of it was simply a linguistic process of progressively referring to the people outside of the "civilized world" as "Celtic." The "Celts" and the "Gauls" were originally the people outside of Roman territory to the North and West, but once those regions were assimilated (with the native populations), it makes sense that the "new Celts" would become those "barbarians" outside of the Roman regions.
Fast-forward quite a few centuries, and you have modern narratives of Irish and Celtic history being created, along with an impulse to create a separate identity from the English (and their associations first with Romans then with French). So, whoever is living in these parts of the British Isles come to identify as "Celtic," not because they actually know they are descended from the original "Celtic people." Even Wikipedia clearly understood this long before this new find supposedly upended all previous theories: there are separate articles for the original Celtic people vs. the modern "Celtic" idea. The latter article clearly notes: "The concept of modern Celtic identity evolved during the course of the 19th-century...."
Yes, there have been many who have tried to posit connections between the ancient Celtic peoples of continental Europe and ancestors of modern Irish, etc. But those theories often had little evidence associated with them. Even linguists often debate how much the so-called insular Celtic languages are related to the actual languages used by the "Celtic peoples" on the continent that the Greeks and Romans actually called "Celtic." (The "insular Celtic languages" are the only ones still spoken today, and the evidence from the morphology of extinct Continental ones is pretty scant, so it's hard to judge the detailed relationships. Also, it should be noted that if there were any migrations at all of actual Celtic continental peoples to the British Isles during historical times, any commonalities could be due to such contact, even if there was a pre-existing culture and language already in Ireland.)
Anyhow, there's lots to all of this -- but the point is that there are at least three different meanings to the word "Celtic": (1) the actual group of people the Romans and Greeks referred to in Continental Europe, whom the Romans and Greeks viewed as distinct from the Britons, (2) the modern "Celtic" languages, which mostly seem more related to each other (and confined to the islands) than to other extinct ancient languages, and (3) the modern concept of "Celtic" culture, which tends to be associated with Ireland and neighboring regions.
Anyone who knows anything about ancient history realiz
DNA research indicates that the three skeletons found behind McCuaig's are...
Anyone else read this description and think it sounds like some sort of "mob hit" or something? "Yeah, those three skeletons we found over there behind Jim's house...."
Actually, now that I clicked on the link to see TFA, I see that McCuaig's is a pub. Now I'm guessing the remnants of a prehistoric barfight....
Then he should advocate that others follow his example and give to reputable charitable organizations that do social good, that generate more "good" per dollar than the government.
Umm, well, he's pretty well-known for advocating precisely that. Do you actually know anything about Warren Buffett?
To recommend something that contradicts his actions, paying more in taxes, something that generates less "good" per dollars does not make sense ...
Unless it's the only way to pry the money from the fingers of scrooge-like billionaires who don't want to voluntarily give up their money to charity. Again, government taxes can compel them to, while private charities can't. So it's much better than nothing, as long as it's still working in the right direction (according to Buffett's ideology, anyway).
unless there are ulterior motives. Perhaps furthering his political party is worth a little "less" social good in his mind, or it is good business sense to be known as the "good" wall street'er and have a seat at the political table in this era of increased reform and regulation.
I have no doubt that he gains various benefits from most deals he strikes. On the other hand, one of those benefits may be satisfaction in altruistic acts.
You're working too hard here to demonize him. Sure, he's a rich guy and probably has all sorts of motives. But your insistence that he is hypocritical for giving to one charity for social good and ALSO wanting to force other rich people to give their money to government for social good... well, I really don't get how that's supposed to be hypocrisy.
Wrong. It is absolutely hypocritical to act against one's publicly professed ideals and goals. He says one thing, does something else, its hypocritical. That it is legal or common changes nothing.
Except you're talking about two different things.
Governments have the power to tax everyone. The Gates Foundation does not.
Even if Buffet believes the Gates Foundation is more effective at solving social problems than the government, it does NOT follow that he thinks the government is TOTALLY incapable of solving social problems -- just perhaps less efficient.
He can therefore both contribute his own money to the place he thinks will do good most efficiently (but which has no taxation power over his super-rich buddies) while ALSO arguing that his super-rich buddies (and himself) should be forced to contribute to a less efficient organization to still further the same goals.
That's not hypocrisy. If he believes the Gates Foundation is actually more effective than the government (but the government is still somewhat effective), it's actually the most effective and moral way to further his goals.
Say what you will - but on stage before a debate Donald Trump admitted he had given most the people on that stage lots of money for political purposes to get what he wanted.
Of course he did. And of course the super-rich get disproportionate influence.
But it's a bizarre leap of logic from that to your conspiracy theory.
Do I need to take off my tin-foil hat, or does the rest of the world need to remove the cotton from their ears?
Actually, I think you might need to employ basic logic and math skills. According to TFA, a person earning $2-10 million will have a tax rate hike from 8.82% to 9.35%. Meanwhile, people earning more than $100 million will have a tax rate hike from 8.82% to 9.99%.
So what you're saying is that the people earning $100 million are willing to contribute an extra $1.17 million to the government each year, so that they can slow down their "lesser rich" buddies earning $2 million each year from catching up to them... by making those $2 million/year buddies pay an extra $10000 from their incomes.
Hmm... yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I'll keep paying 100 times as much as those heathen rich "underclass" to keep them down and stick it to the man!
Or, wait. That makes no sense. The megarich would now have to make up extra ground each year with their investments to maintain their gap above their lesser-rich enemies.
Your argument would be stronger if you were claiming that this was a conspiracy by the "lesser rich" to overtake their richer brethren faster.
Also, your idea that the megarich are trying to keep people "struggling" makes little sense, since the tax hikes only kick in for those earning at least $2 million PER YEAR. Yes, there are plenty of multimillionaires who make poor choices, but I'd hardly describe any person who is bringing in an income in multimillions of dollars every year to be "struggling."
So, yes, I would like the choice to purchase from the farmer who pays a premium to help out his nation by employing American citizens rather than sells our country down the river to save a few shekels.
Wow -- the ignorance here is astonishing. First, there are plenty of "migrant workers" in the US who pick crops but are also American citizens. However, most of them also were either immigrants or their parents were immigrants, etc. Do you want to stigmatize them too?
Second, farmers often operate on very slim margins. If they price their produce too high, it won't sell. And unlike many other products, they often can't wait around with a higher price and see if demand changes -- a lot of produce needs to sell within days after it has been picked. So they need to price it so it can sell... which means they are limited in what they can pay workers. This is a larger problem in the US, as we now expect "cheap food" everywhere -- American pay a much smaller proportion of their household budgets for food than they did 50 years ago. In the produce aisle, this is mostly due to cheap labor.
Third, poke around online and read some stories about what happens when these big farms try to hire "American citizens" who haven't done such jobs before. The work is hard and the pay isn't great. And often those people who do picking tend to specialize and "learn the trade" over a number of years. Picking tends to be paid per volume picked, rather than by hour worked -- and new workers often won't earn very much, because they are incredibly inefficient. Unless you're willing to invest a few years in becoming an expert picker (and most young US citizens today aren't), you're not going to make decent money... even if you could with experience.
The problem is complex. I'm absolutely NOT arguing in favor of just accepting the fact that illegal immigrants often pick a lot of our food -- I think that creates problems of all sorts, not least for the immigrants who often can't benefit from the regulations and benefits for US citizens. But just saying, "We need to hire more Americans" hasn't solved the problem in states that have tried that approach -- in some ways, it created new problems.
Because facts without context are deceptive. Evolution is 'just' a theory, agree with me? So why not label that on textbooks? Hey, it's a fact, you don't want to hide facts do you? The thing is, your average person has no idea what genetic engineering really is or what it means. Giving people one small detail, without telling the complete story, without explaining the details, knowing full well that years of misinformation are going to result in them thinking something that is not so, is not informative.
I absolutely agree with all of this. But this is not a problem unique to this case -- it's a common trait among our politicians and our political discourse, where people win debates by taking facts out of context. It's encoded in the underlying policies of Wikipedia, which emphasize "verifiability" of atomic facts (which might be distortions, even if true), rather than requiring appropriate context, expert review, etc.
It is a lie of omission, plain and simple. These laws are forcing lies because no one stopped to ask people who actually know the science behind the crops what they thing.
This is where my agreement stops. To my knowledge, no one is preventing a company from putting a long explanation on its food box about why GMO foods are good and why they are necessary. No one is preventing a company from creating advertisements or press releases arguing for the validity of their products and how GMO information can be misinterpreted.
So how is anyone "forced" to present a "lie of omission" here? Companies which produce GMO food are welcome to provide all the context they want.
Are egg producers forced to present "lies of omission" because they list the amounts of cholesterol in their products on labels, even though recent studies increasingly show that dietary cholesterol and egg consumption in particular is unlikely to be a cause of elevated blood cholesterol numbers? No -- because egg producers have been running ad campaigns for decades to provide context and information about their products.
I think most of the anti-GMO rhetoric is stupid and ignorant too. But no one is being forced to present information without context here. If they are, I would agree that that would be deplorable.
Regardless, people are demanding this information, and they've convinced a state legislature to vote for it. The regulation does not violate any fundamental rights. If a company doesn't like it, they can hawk their goods in another state. Elements of this controversy may be stupid, but that's how democracy works.
The label isn't less accurate if it's omitted. Whether or not it's GMO is completely immaterial to the product.
Not if you care about that fact. I may think most of the anti-GMO arguments are nonsense, but other people care about these things.
Some food producers, for example, would argue that "humane treatment" of animals is "completely immaterial to the product." They might even produce scientific studies that say the nutritional content of the resulting food is the same.
But some consumers might care about ethical treatment of animals. If a state wanted to require labels that stated the average density of animals in their living space to give consumers an idea of whether they are crammed together or allowed "free range," it might satisfy those people. You may say it's irrelevant to the product, but other people might not.
Another analogy is requiring mention of whether or not somebody died in a house prior to you selling it. Mentioning that fact will probably reduce its value, however if they never find out then there's no harm at all, and even if they do, there's still no harm, other than maybe it bothers the buyer's religious view, but nonetheless all 50 states in the US have laws preventing civil suits against people who don't mention this (or other immaterial facts, like whether a previous resident had AIDS.)
Notice that you say there are LAWS which prevent such suits. You've just lost your point right there, because that implicitly acknowledges that the DEFAULT position is that people might care about this and if there weren't such laws, they might be successful in a lawsuit.
(Oh, and by the way, you're wrong. There are NOT such laws in all states. Some states, like California, Alaska, and South Dakota explicitly REQUIRE sellers to disclose if a recent death has occurred in a house. Other states have laws like you mention, explicitly NOT requiring disclosure. And in most states, the buyer could still sue if you could prove that a lack of disclosure caused an incorrect valuation. For example, if a house is well-known in an area as being "haunted" or whatever (particularly if it has been claimed to be so in print, etc.), that could make it difficult for a buyer to sell later, regardless of how ridiculous the claims are. In that case, a buyer could be successful -- see, for example, the so-called Ghostbusters ruling if you don't believe me.)
States get to determine their own laws, voted on by representatives of constituents. If those constituents overwhelmingly demanded the right to sue people over not disclosing the fact that someone died in a house, the state legislature has the right to overturn such laws.
And if the people of a state convince their legislature that certain products need to be labeled in a certain way or disclose certain elements, as long as such labeling is not a violation of anyone's fundamental "rights," etc., they can do so.
Most of the conditions of the food is hidden from them. Why single out GMO as one of the required pieces of information ?
Because people want to know, and they have asked their state legislators to require this. Since we live in a representative democracy (and the regulations do not violate any fundamental rights, aren't blatantly discriminatory or arbitrary, etc.), they can do this.
(I may think most of the people who want to know have irrational reasons for wanting to know, but that's irrelevant. Lots of legislation and government policy is irrational.)
Why not mandate accurate display of all pesticides and herbicides
I'm sure some people would like this too. And if they convince a state legislature to require it, I personally wouldn't have a problem with it.
That's sort of how democracy works. If the business doesn't like it, they can hawk their goods somewhere else.
New York City, for example, has mandated all sorts of wacky food laws in the past decade. If people or businesses don't like them, they can lobby their representatives to try and change them, or else move somewhere else.
I don't disagree; what I'm saying is that they have no right to legally mandate their personal dietary preferences.
If you were talking about an individual, sure I agree. But luckily we live in something still resembling a representative democracy, where individuals get to make all those arguments to their representatives, and those representatives get to vote on such things.
I don't see how asking a company to provide some information about ingredients is some sort of violation of any "fundamental right."
Notice how things like non-Kosher and Haram labels are not required by law. If, say, a Muslim demanded that non-Halal products had a Haram label on them because they were too lazy to learn about their own belief system, would you feel any sympathy for that person's 'right to know?'
If a single Muslim demanded that our food labeling system be changed, I probably wouldn't pay much attention. If a significant segment of the population cared and convinced a state legislature that such labeling would be helpful to many people, though, I wouldn't have a problem with such labeling on consumer goods.
This isn't about a "right to know." It's a question about whether states have ability to pass minor regulatory laws. They pass them all them, requiring all sorts of random crap. Yes, some of those regulations are probably unnecessary or even an abuse of power. I sincerely doubt that GMO labeling laws would come close to even the top 1000 of most egregious acts that state governments have mandated through regulation in the past year.
Yet for some reason this particular one causes everyone to get up in arms.
I certainty wouldn't knowingly do something like give such a person teriyaki chicken cooked with mirin and not tell them the food was cooked with alcohol, but still, they don't get to dictate regulations and mandate labels for something they could easily look up.
Again, you're talking about individuals. TFA is talking about the actions and decisions of a representative governmental body. Last time I checked, local and state governments can pass pretty much whatever laws they want to regulating whatever, as long as they don't violate any fundamental rights and aren't fundamentally abusive, arbitrary, or discriminatory. If you don't like such policies, lobby your representative or move to another state.
Indeed! Important stuff, this.
Despite your sarcasm, I think it's "important" to Linux folks who have been repeatedly ignored by Ubuntu's trend to force its choices on everyone. (And yes, I know there are different flavors of Ubuntu, etc. But I haven't used any of them as a primary OS in nearly a decade, because I saw how broken Ubuntu's model was getting even back in 2007 or so.)
There's always a trade-off that Linux folks (and UI designers in general) debate -- more customizability and options (which often introduce more opportunities for things to break) vs. streamlining and less customizability. Apple, for example, tends to trend far toward the latter, having a "take it or leave it" attitude.
Many people were (and still are) unhappy with Unity and saw Canonical's choices in that regard as part of this "take it or leave it" attitude. Those who were willing to stick with Unity still wanted a little customizability.
Here's some minor victory for those folks. To me, I read a story like this in the context that some hope this might be a broader trend toward flexibility in Canonical's policies -- this has been one of the most requested features since the shift to Unity, but Canonical has been unresponsive.
Personally, I doubt this is indicative of a broader trend. But that's why I assume some people view this as important.