In some places, the kids not only see [horrific violence], but they're forced to be a part of it as child soldiers.
So... what? Since pedophiles exist we should force all children to watch child pornography?
Just-World thinking contributes to mental health. Forcing people to see all the morbid shit that goes on just depresses them. There is no upside. Just spreading misery. It's not like we could fix the armies of child soldiers just by getting a bit more awareness *coughkony2012cough*.
If you want a sure way to get kids to not want to behead themselves or anyone else, showing them a real beheading is a pretty good way of doing it.
You have absolutely no evidence of that. In fact, you have evidence against it: the child soldiers you referenced. They witness lots of horror. It doesn't stop them from participating. If anything, it desensitizes them.
Facebook should be in the business business. If they can make more money by making the site more family friendly, at the cost of kicking out some of the dregs of 4chan, they should do so. Hell, they have an obligation to their shareholders to do so.
Free speech means the government doesn't control what you say. It doesn't mean that everyone has to let you post pornography on their property.
It's the modern goatse. Some people get perverse pleasure in forcing other people to witness terrible things against their will. Some of their victims later decide to show how tough and unfazed they are by trying to find something even worse to post.
This isn't a free speech issue. Facebook isn't the government. They were wrong to change this policy -- it's making the site friendly to mentally ill trolls, and worse for everyone else. Even from a strictly amoral, financial viewpoint, it's a bad decision.
That's dumb. We have multiple objectives that we balance. If our objective is "more science" without any other considerations, then we should legalize slavery, human experimentation, and vivisection.
I strongly disagree with that notion. It's important for developers to understand how the hardware is architected in some cases, but that's not the same as having an understanding of hardware design. The developers don't need to know about coupling or latch-up or impedance matching. If they do, that's a sign that the hardware engineers did something very, very wrong.
It's not just start-ups offering stock options, you know. My company's been around for several decades, and I receive about 20% of my compensation in the form of stock -- which I sell as soon as it vests, because only an idiot would keep so much money in a single company. I'm sure the AC is in the same boat, since he claims to work for one of the top 5 (Juniper, LinkedIn, Yahoo, Google, or Twitter).
That's pretty misleading. More people die in hospitals in the UK because they can go to the hospitals for free. In the US, they're more likely to die at home, because they can't afford to go to the hospital.
But dead is dead, and the UK's life expectancy is better than America's, while spending less per capita on health care. No amount of spin can change that.
You liar. The credit rating downgrade wasn't because we raised the ceiling, it was because the Republicans threatened not to.
The ratings agency EXPLICITLY SAID SO:
The political brinksmanship of recent months highlights what we see as America's governance and policymaking becoming less stable, less effective, and less predictable than what we previously believed. The statutory debt ceiling and the threat of default have become political bargaining chips in the debate over fiscal policy.
Go on thinking that, Pollyanna, if it helps you sleep at night.
The shutdown wasn't really a big deal, sure, but if the US had defaulted on its debt, that would have been catastrophic.
We owe around $16 trillion right now. But it's really not a big deal, because we pay negative interest on it (relative to inflation). Countries are eager to keep investing in the US, and the high demand lets us pay very low interest. If US debt were seen as unsafe, we would need to pay MUCH higher interest in order to attract investors. We obviously wouldn't be able to pay the higher interest, since this scenario is based on the assumption that Congress refuses to even repay the principle. So we would have to start paying out $16 trillion without replacement investments coming in.
Goodbye, Medicare. Goodbye, Social Security. Goodbye, foodstamps and welfare and section 8. Hello, social upheaval. Hello, desperation-induced crime wave. Hello, Great Depression.
That's your idea of "annoying"? I'd say "catastrophic" is a far more apt description.
All three of those big ticket items are profit centers.
The social safety net (SS, Medicare, Medicaid) allows Americans to take more risks. It allows brilliant people born into poverty a chance to climb out of it. It reduces crimes born out of desperation. A well-cared for populace is a productive populace, and a productive populace generates more tax revenue.
As for the military, it can act as a profit center by propping up US-friendly regimes. It's not exactly moral, but it does generate wealth for the country.
There's waste in each case, and we can and should make them more efficient. But eliminating them, or even cutting them in half, would be a bad idea.
The government isn't like a family. It's more like a bank.
People (and countries) buy government securities because they want a safe place to store their money while earning a token interest rate. So they "deposit" their money with the US government. They give the US $1 billion, at which point the government now has $1 billion cash and $1 billion of debt. After some predetermined amount of time, the government repays the debt, but at the same time someone else will deposit as much or more money.
As long as the government invests the $1 billion cash in a way that earns a greater rate of return than the interest rate that they pay out, it's a profit center.
Eliminating the debt would be monumentally stupid. It would be like a bank giving back all its deposits and refusing to take new ones.
The goal should be to make sure we take only as much as we can invest well, and the way to do that is to improve the efficiency of our investments. Cutting to the bone makes our spending less efficient.
we're rapidly accelerating down a slope to a really bad place
It's tough to get people too worked up about loss of individual freedoms or rights, or an eventual economic collapse
I'm not sure my kids won't grow up cursing our whole generation, saying "Why didn't you fight this tyranny while you still could!?"
You keep repeating this idea that we're facing some sort of looming catastrophe, but I see absolutely no evidence of that. Is the NSA's reading emails really worse than the Nixon-era agents provocateurs and McCarthyism? Does today's corruption really hold a candle to yesteryear's political machines?
Things have been getting better. Our government is freer and fairer than it was in past generations. But people are largely ignorant of history, and what they do know gets glamorized -- thanks in no small part to our public schools' flag-waving history books.
If you tear it down, it's not going to get better. It's just going to reset to where we were centuries ago, and we'll have to make this long climb again. The same problems will all be there, because those problems result from human nature.
And by the way, please stop with that three boxes thing. It's a thinly-veiled threat, and it disgusts me. It's always phrased as "We really don't want to start shooting people, but if we don't get what we want..."
Oh, absolutely. Politicians only care about themselves. Which is why it's good that they need to stand for reelection every 2 - 6 years. They're forced to do at least a little of what the people want, if only to keep their cushy position of power. The system works, albeit at a glacial pace.
Firstly, you're ignoring primary challenges, which is where many House races get decided. Secondly, you're forgetting that one person will be the incumbent, and will have a voting record to attack.
As for the media, I don't think they've been spinning anything. And if they have, it ain't working, as polls clearly show voters are concerned about privacy. Politicians mostly care about remaining in power. If a 70% majority of the voting public wants something, they'll get it in the end.
You've decided ahead of time that nothing can ever change, despite mountains of evidence to the contrary. Maybe you just enjoy being angry?
See, this is the exact sort of insanity I'm talking about. Life in America is good by any sane standard. Only a literal crazy person could think that mass murder and decades of violence would be an improvement. But on Slashdot, this sort of drivel gets modded +5, Insightful.
Is it any wonder that most Americans seem apathetic by comparison?
Slashdot is packed with mentally unstable conspiracy theorists who insist that the US is worse than Nazi Germany, Stalin's Russia, and North Korea all rolled into one. Compared to that level of white hot hatred, most Americans will seem pretty passive over the NSA thing.
That doesn't mean they don't care though. Wait for the next campaign season, and I'll bet privacy will be a big issue. Not as big as the economy, but up there with abortion and gay marriage. A bill restraining the NSA failed by a pretty slim margin in the wake of the revelations this year. If just a dozen or so seats flip on the privacy issue, we can solve this problem.
Or we can sit around screaming for bloody, nation-destroying revolution. I know that seems to be the popular choice on this site.
What does the age of the game have to do with anything? Seriously, I can't even imagine what you might be getting at.
As for the controller, I think it could be great for some games. Total War, for example, could be fantastic with a big screen and a comfy couch. For games that require fine precision (e.g. Starcraft, Dota 2) , nothing stops you from using a keyboard and mouse.
Slashdot Mirror
So are gas and mileage taxes.
In some places, the kids not only see [horrific violence], but they're forced to be a part of it as child soldiers.
So... what? Since pedophiles exist we should force all children to watch child pornography?
Just-World thinking contributes to mental health. Forcing people to see all the morbid shit that goes on just depresses them. There is no upside. Just spreading misery. It's not like we could fix the armies of child soldiers just by getting a bit more awareness *coughkony2012cough*.
If you want a sure way to get kids to not want to behead themselves or anyone else, showing them a real beheading is a pretty good way of doing it.
You have absolutely no evidence of that. In fact, you have evidence against it: the child soldiers you referenced. They witness lots of horror. It doesn't stop them from participating. If anything, it desensitizes them.
Facebook should be in the business business. If they can make more money by making the site more family friendly, at the cost of kicking out some of the dregs of 4chan, they should do so. Hell, they have an obligation to their shareholders to do so.
Free speech means the government doesn't control what you say. It doesn't mean that everyone has to let you post pornography on their property.
It's the modern goatse. Some people get perverse pleasure in forcing other people to witness terrible things against their will. Some of their victims later decide to show how tough and unfazed they are by trying to find something even worse to post.
This isn't a free speech issue. Facebook isn't the government. They were wrong to change this policy -- it's making the site friendly to mentally ill trolls, and worse for everyone else. Even from a strictly amoral, financial viewpoint, it's a bad decision.
I'm not depressed, therefore you have no right to be! Antidepressant research is a waste of time!
Get over yourself.
Literally the second sentence of TFA:
The approach could significantly expand the use of hair transplantation to women with hair loss, who tend to have insufficient donor hair.
That's dumb. We have multiple objectives that we balance. If our objective is "more science" without any other considerations, then we should legalize slavery, human experimentation, and vivisection.
Mr. MiddleRoad wasn't the one to claim that withholding information is never useful.
I strongly disagree with that notion. It's important for developers to understand how the hardware is architected in some cases, but that's not the same as having an understanding of hardware design. The developers don't need to know about coupling or latch-up or impedance matching. If they do, that's a sign that the hardware engineers did something very, very wrong.
It's not just start-ups offering stock options, you know. My company's been around for several decades, and I receive about 20% of my compensation in the form of stock -- which I sell as soon as it vests, because only an idiot would keep so much money in a single company. I'm sure the AC is in the same boat, since he claims to work for one of the top 5 (Juniper, LinkedIn, Yahoo, Google, or Twitter).
That's pretty misleading. More people die in hospitals in the UK because they can go to the hospitals for free. In the US, they're more likely to die at home, because they can't afford to go to the hospital.
But dead is dead, and the UK's life expectancy is better than America's, while spending less per capita on health care. No amount of spin can change that.
You liar. The credit rating downgrade wasn't because we raised the ceiling, it was because the Republicans threatened not to.
The ratings agency EXPLICITLY SAID SO:
The political brinksmanship of recent months highlights what we see as America's governance and policymaking becoming less stable, less effective, and less predictable than what we previously believed. The statutory debt ceiling and the threat of default have become political bargaining chips in the debate over fiscal policy.
Go on thinking that, Pollyanna, if it helps you sleep at night.
The shutdown wasn't really a big deal, sure, but if the US had defaulted on its debt, that would have been catastrophic.
We owe around $16 trillion right now. But it's really not a big deal, because we pay negative interest on it (relative to inflation). Countries are eager to keep investing in the US, and the high demand lets us pay very low interest. If US debt were seen as unsafe, we would need to pay MUCH higher interest in order to attract investors. We obviously wouldn't be able to pay the higher interest, since this scenario is based on the assumption that Congress refuses to even repay the principle. So we would have to start paying out $16 trillion without replacement investments coming in.
Goodbye, Medicare. Goodbye, Social Security. Goodbye, foodstamps and welfare and section 8. Hello, social upheaval. Hello, desperation-induced crime wave. Hello, Great Depression.
That's your idea of "annoying"? I'd say "catastrophic" is a far more apt description.
All three of those big ticket items are profit centers.
The social safety net (SS, Medicare, Medicaid) allows Americans to take more risks. It allows brilliant people born into poverty a chance to climb out of it. It reduces crimes born out of desperation. A well-cared for populace is a productive populace, and a productive populace generates more tax revenue.
As for the military, it can act as a profit center by propping up US-friendly regimes. It's not exactly moral, but it does generate wealth for the country.
There's waste in each case, and we can and should make them more efficient. But eliminating them, or even cutting them in half, would be a bad idea.
The government isn't like a family. It's more like a bank.
People (and countries) buy government securities because they want a safe place to store their money while earning a token interest rate. So they "deposit" their money with the US government. They give the US $1 billion, at which point the government now has $1 billion cash and $1 billion of debt. After some predetermined amount of time, the government repays the debt, but at the same time someone else will deposit as much or more money.
As long as the government invests the $1 billion cash in a way that earns a greater rate of return than the interest rate that they pay out, it's a profit center.
Eliminating the debt would be monumentally stupid. It would be like a bank giving back all its deposits and refusing to take new ones.
The goal should be to make sure we take only as much as we can invest well, and the way to do that is to improve the efficiency of our investments. Cutting to the bone makes our spending less efficient.
Good point. The NSA could have had a remote controlled Prius tie that noose around his neck!
we're rapidly accelerating down a slope to a really bad place
It's tough to get people too worked up about loss of individual freedoms or rights, or an eventual economic collapse
I'm not sure my kids won't grow up cursing our whole generation, saying "Why didn't you fight this tyranny while you still could!?"
You keep repeating this idea that we're facing some sort of looming catastrophe, but I see absolutely no evidence of that. Is the NSA's reading emails really worse than the Nixon-era agents provocateurs and McCarthyism? Does today's corruption really hold a candle to yesteryear's political machines?
Things have been getting better. Our government is freer and fairer than it was in past generations. But people are largely ignorant of history, and what they do know gets glamorized -- thanks in no small part to our public schools' flag-waving history books.
If you tear it down, it's not going to get better. It's just going to reset to where we were centuries ago, and we'll have to make this long climb again. The same problems will all be there, because those problems result from human nature.
And by the way, please stop with that three boxes thing. It's a thinly-veiled threat, and it disgusts me. It's always phrased as "We really don't want to start shooting people, but if we don't get what we want..."
Oh, absolutely. Politicians only care about themselves. Which is why it's good that they need to stand for reelection every 2 - 6 years. They're forced to do at least a little of what the people want, if only to keep their cushy position of power. The system works, albeit at a glacial pace.
Firstly, you're ignoring primary challenges, which is where many House races get decided. Secondly, you're forgetting that one person will be the incumbent, and will have a voting record to attack.
As for the media, I don't think they've been spinning anything. And if they have, it ain't working, as polls clearly show voters are concerned about privacy. Politicians mostly care about remaining in power. If a 70% majority of the voting public wants something, they'll get it in the end.
You've decided ahead of time that nothing can ever change, despite mountains of evidence to the contrary. Maybe you just enjoy being angry?
See, this is the exact sort of insanity I'm talking about. Life in America is good by any sane standard. Only a literal crazy person could think that mass murder and decades of violence would be an improvement. But on Slashdot, this sort of drivel gets modded +5, Insightful.
Is it any wonder that most Americans seem apathetic by comparison?
Slashdot is packed with mentally unstable conspiracy theorists who insist that the US is worse than Nazi Germany, Stalin's Russia, and North Korea all rolled into one. Compared to that level of white hot hatred, most Americans will seem pretty passive over the NSA thing.
That doesn't mean they don't care though. Wait for the next campaign season, and I'll bet privacy will be a big issue. Not as big as the economy, but up there with abortion and gay marriage. A bill restraining the NSA failed by a pretty slim margin in the wake of the revelations this year. If just a dozen or so seats flip on the privacy issue, we can solve this problem.
Or we can sit around screaming for bloody, nation-destroying revolution. I know that seems to be the popular choice on this site.
Does the rate of vandalism increase when unguarded? Who pays for the repairs, when the government is shut down?
There's this. Enter your zip code, and they give you a bunch of places where you can go to get help signing up in person.
I don't know how you would find that information if you didn't have access to a computer, however...
And when someone spraypaints a crude penis on the Washington monument, how much does your "Use at your own risk" sign help?
How much does it cost to clean, and how does that cost compare to temporary fencing?
What does the age of the game have to do with anything? Seriously, I can't even imagine what you might be getting at.
As for the controller, I think it could be great for some games. Total War, for example, could be fantastic with a big screen and a comfy couch. For games that require fine precision (e.g. Starcraft, Dota 2) , nothing stops you from using a keyboard and mouse.