Wrong. The monsters you named did not believe they were making the world better, they just used that as propaganda. You make it sound as if there are no rational and good politicians, as if every selfless politician will become a monster. That is patently false, as a cursory glance at (for instance) the biographies of some of our most successful presidents will show. Change for the better has never come from selfish thieves, it has come from selfless people working to make the world better.
Here's a clue, people: when you see someone trying to glorify selfishness and denigrate selflessness, RUN. That person is a very selfish person, and will likely not think twice before hurting you if it profits them.
I was wondering when the defense of selfishness would begin. As capitalism and the free market are based on the Selfish Actor theory, which has been proven to be inadequate even before this finding, perhaps we need to rethink our economic system. Spin it all you like, people don't act in their own rational self interest, this has been shown over and over again in hundreds of different kinds of experiments. Our system is based on the premise that they will. Therefore, our entire economic system is based on a false premise. By focusing on the selfish aspects of our behavior, it actually encourages them. People would rather be selfless, but in a selfish system, being selfless means you get taken advantage of. So people choose to be selfish because our system requires it.
The natural world and systems such as our economy are incredibly complex. One could find evidence of almost anything if one looked at them carefully enough. People look to nature and natural systems, and for the most part, they see what they want to see. Selfish people want evidence that the world is selfish in order to justify their feelings. So they look at the world, they see selfishness, and they discount everything else.
There is no evidence that evolution and capitalism are effective because they involve selfishness. It is equally valid to say that they are effective despite this fact, and are effective because of the inherent cooperation involved. Do cells in your body compete with each other? Do divisions of a corporation compete? No, they both cooperate, and that is why a body and a whole corporation are more effective than a cell or a corporate division: cooperation, not competition.
But you keep on telling yourself that selfishness is natural, right, and good if that lets you sleep at night.
The article says the newly discovered planets have more elliptical orbits than ours. As for space travel, well, generation arks aren't out of the question. Even using such a system we could colonize the entire galaxy in a few million years.
Can any astronomers out there clue us in? Is this just observational bias or are elliptical orbits more common than our more circular ones? I mean, I know it's likely a long way in the future, but that could be a small problem for our future colonization of the galaxy. It would certainly mean our new homes would likely be less than earth-like.
If you absolutely have to vote for a conservative, you could certainly do worse. Of course, he's really more libertarian, with the implied support for strong property rights that entails. Let me use a quote from him to point out the absurdity of the libertarian position:
Without the right to own a printing press, for example, freedom of the press becomes meaningless.
If that's true, then without money to buy a press, freedom of the press becomes meaningless. Like all libertarians, he advocates rights for the rich, and slavery for the poor. What good is the right to life if you can't afford food? Where is liberty if all land is private, and you own none? I've said it before, libertarianism provides only simple answers to complex questions, and libertarians will never directly answer any challenges to their beliefs, they will simply accuse you of hating freedom.
Libertarians forget that freedom and responsibility go hand in hand. They want the freedom to do whatever they want without the responsibility that goes with it. Libertarianism: the philosophical equivalent of shouting, "you're not the boss of me!" in response to any question.
Sounds great, but our focus groups tell us the movie producer character is not sympathetic enough. Could he be played by Brad Pitt? Also, we need a love interest, is Selma Hayek available? Oh, and the FBI agent should be a talking dog. Or a baby, it really doesn't matter.
I'm a bad, bad man. Honestly, I really respect anyone who is a vegetarian out of principle. I know how bad the meat industry is. Bad for the planet, bad for people, bad for animals. And I mean really bad for animals, like the lowest depths of hell type of torment and suffering.
I'm not totally weak minded. I quit smoking. Honestly, quitting meat for the year that I did was harder. Way harder. With cigarettes, you just avoid them and the situations where you used to smoke. You can't do that with meat, it's everywhere, in your face. All up in your nose, tickling your pallet, saying "eat me, you know you want to!" You can't get away from it.
Most of the people I knew who were vegan or vegetarian didn't really like meat that much to begin with, and loved vegetables. I'm just the opposite, I've always hated vegetables and loved meat. I'm the guy who picks out all the meat and leaves the vegetables in the leftover Chinese food. I was volunteering with Food Not Bombs, Earth First, and the IWW in San Francisco at the time, so all my friends were activists, and a lot of them were vegan. Even with all that support, I failed. I'm weak, I know.
I'm sorry, cute little fuzzy animals. I'm really sorry that I'm so weak, the meat industry is so cruel, and you are so delicious. Why, oh why must you be so delicious?
If you can't stand the trolls, get outta the intertubes. That's my motto. About the best a troll can hope to get out of me is a few moments of seething rage, followed by a little chuckle and a salute.
Hmm, maybe I jumped to conclusions. On closer examination, you seem to be defending their rights not identifying with their beliefs. I may be a humongous ass, but I'm an ass who can admit when he's made a mistake.
We've got Novell file and print servers where I work. And our main in house application, which was started eight years ago, is written in COBOL. I kid you not.
The very fact that you feel the need to assure me that I have not offended you says that I have hit the mark. You paint yourself as a conservative Christian on your own site, so either that is what you are, or you are a liar.
I've seen men backstab and sabotage to get ahead. Caring about how you look isn't a bad thing. Sadly, being married doesn't keep many men from sleeping with their employees. Men would sleep to get ahead if they could, but there aren't that many women in management, let alone many who would promote a fuck buddy.
I'm not disputing that the behavior happens. I'm saying it isn't unique to women, and it isn't funny. Every time one of these "women in IT" stories comes out, the misogynists all seem to crawl out of the woodwork.
Besides, you dolts, siding with women and demonstrating a sensitivity to their issues helps you get laid. Newbs.;-)
No, I don't see hatred, prejudice and insensitivity behind every shadow. Is it possible that some people do not see hatred, prejudice and insensitivity when it actually is there?
I don't want anyone to hide their honest opinions, that is what you want and you are projecting it on to me. You don't want others to express their honest opinions about things that you say or do, you have demonstrated that. You want the right to say anything you like, but you don't want to give anyone else the right to comment on what you said. That is pure hypocrisy.
Freedom isn't you getting to say whatever you like without anyone else getting to comment on what was said. It is within your rights to say anything you like, and it is within my rights to critique what you say. THAT is freedom.
The sales person made it sound like a great feature. Never miss another call he said. Alerts you no matter how distracted you might be or how noisy the environment, he said. That may be true, but let me tell you, it is not nearly as useful and convenient as the sales people would have you believe.
I was having an argument with someone in another thread about political correctness. They were basically saying that people who insist on it have a thin skin, and it should be okay to make sexist or racist jokes.
Thanks for helping me make my point: it's not okay, it isn't funny, you aren't joking. You really are trying to humiliate and keep them in their place. I'm sad for you that you are so insecure, so cut off from real human connections that you have to lash out that way.
What presumption. The status quo works perfectly well for me. I'm just not a weakling who needs every unfair advantage I can get. I did equally well for myself when I was abandoned in Greece at the age of sixteen as I do here in America as the white, male son of an upper-middle class family.
Of course the status quo works for a lot of people. That's why they never question its inherent unfairness. Usually, only people for whom it does not work would bother to question it. They aren't stupid or lazy, either. Me, I'm cursed with a highly developed sense of fairness, and taking unfair advantage causes me real pain, that's why I question it.
You could at least try to aim before taking a shot at me.
Some times I'm just in a bad mood, and the only thing that helps lift my funk is trolling conservatives and libertarians on Slashdot. I know its wrong, I just can't help myself. I'm a victim of our amoral, liberal, free-to-be you-n-me society, what can I say?
Fancy that, people who vehemently defend the status quo usually profit from it. How is asking someone to admit whether they profit from defending something a snide personal attack? You conservatives are such utter smirking hypocrites, you engage in personal attack all the time, and claim we are just being sensitive, or that you were just joking when we call you on it. But heaven forbid anyone should say something that offends you. Conservatives can dish it out, but they can't take it. I've read your site, it is neither brilliant nor common sense. It is a steaming pile of regurgitated sound bites and talking points with no original analysis whatsoever. You seem to have forgotten the most important point taught to you by your so-called savior, judge not lest ye be judged. You sir are a poor excuse for a Christian.
If corporate America had half the morals of a rabid weasel, we wouldn't bitch so much. We're just tired of being bent over a barrel and told that what were getting is really an internal colon massage.
Care to name what FUD you are talking about, or is it really that ANY bad-mouthing of our Corporate Masters sticks in your craw? Do you secretly long for a society in which no one is allowed to criticize the status quo? Do you profit from supporting the status quo?
Most people are decent people who don't want to offend others. Now, no one has a right not to be offended. No arguments there, free speech trumps that. But what do you know? I have the right to free speech, too.
You obviously don't understand my point. If I accidentally step on your toes, I have still hurt you. I should apologize, and endeavor not to hurt you again. My motivations are irrelevant.
Individuals do not create themselves. Society creates individuals. As a member of society, I have a shared responsibility for the type of individuals my society creates. You don't realize the impact your innocent jokes can have on people's self esteem, on their view of their place in society, and their understanding of what their options are in the world.
I imagine you style yourself an individualist, and as such, you feel that others are completely responsible for their reactions to your words and actions. You are not responsible if something you say hurts someone, are you? They are just being sensitive. I find that line of thinking reprehensible, and fortunately, so do most of the rest of the humans on this planet.
You are free to say whatever you like, but what you say has consequences.
Slashdot Mirror
I'll now bow out of this as I'm not sure how fruitful a philosophic /. conversation is going to be ;)
You'd be surprised. I've had some great philosophical conversations here. You just have to wade right in wearing your asbestos undergarments.
To stay on topic, one of the best essays written on this subject, IMHO, is Mark Twain's "What is Man?"
Wrong. The monsters you named did not believe they were making the world better, they just used that as propaganda. You make it sound as if there are no rational and good politicians, as if every selfless politician will become a monster. That is patently false, as a cursory glance at (for instance) the biographies of some of our most successful presidents will show. Change for the better has never come from selfish thieves, it has come from selfless people working to make the world better.
Here's a clue, people: when you see someone trying to glorify selfishness and denigrate selflessness, RUN. That person is a very selfish person, and will likely not think twice before hurting you if it profits them.
I was wondering when the defense of selfishness would begin. As capitalism and the free market are based on the Selfish Actor theory, which has been proven to be inadequate even before this finding, perhaps we need to rethink our economic system. Spin it all you like, people don't act in their own rational self interest, this has been shown over and over again in hundreds of different kinds of experiments. Our system is based on the premise that they will. Therefore, our entire economic system is based on a false premise. By focusing on the selfish aspects of our behavior, it actually encourages them. People would rather be selfless, but in a selfish system, being selfless means you get taken advantage of. So people choose to be selfish because our system requires it.
The natural world and systems such as our economy are incredibly complex. One could find evidence of almost anything if one looked at them carefully enough. People look to nature and natural systems, and for the most part, they see what they want to see. Selfish people want evidence that the world is selfish in order to justify their feelings. So they look at the world, they see selfishness, and they discount everything else.
There is no evidence that evolution and capitalism are effective because they involve selfishness. It is equally valid to say that they are effective despite this fact, and are effective because of the inherent cooperation involved. Do cells in your body compete with each other? Do divisions of a corporation compete? No, they both cooperate, and that is why a body and a whole corporation are more effective than a cell or a corporate division: cooperation, not competition.
But you keep on telling yourself that selfishness is natural, right, and good if that lets you sleep at night.
The article says the newly discovered planets have more elliptical orbits than ours. As for space travel, well, generation arks aren't out of the question. Even using such a system we could colonize the entire galaxy in a few million years.
Can any astronomers out there clue us in? Is this just observational bias or are elliptical orbits more common than our more circular ones? I mean, I know it's likely a long way in the future, but that could be a small problem for our future colonization of the galaxy. It would certainly mean our new homes would likely be less than earth-like.
If that's true, then without money to buy a press, freedom of the press becomes meaningless. Like all libertarians, he advocates rights for the rich, and slavery for the poor. What good is the right to life if you can't afford food? Where is liberty if all land is private, and you own none? I've said it before, libertarianism provides only simple answers to complex questions, and libertarians will never directly answer any challenges to their beliefs, they will simply accuse you of hating freedom.
Libertarians forget that freedom and responsibility go hand in hand. They want the freedom to do whatever they want without the responsibility that goes with it. Libertarianism: the philosophical equivalent of shouting, "you're not the boss of me!" in response to any question.
Yes, they should take that word and put it somewhere it can't be used. Somewhere safe. I'm not sure what you'd call such a place...
Sounds great, but our focus groups tell us the movie producer character is not sympathetic enough. Could he be played by Brad Pitt? Also, we need a love interest, is Selma Hayek available? Oh, and the FBI agent should be a talking dog. Or a baby, it really doesn't matter.
I'm a bad, bad man. Honestly, I really respect anyone who is a vegetarian out of principle. I know how bad the meat industry is. Bad for the planet, bad for people, bad for animals. And I mean really bad for animals, like the lowest depths of hell type of torment and suffering.
I'm not totally weak minded. I quit smoking. Honestly, quitting meat for the year that I did was harder. Way harder. With cigarettes, you just avoid them and the situations where you used to smoke. You can't do that with meat, it's everywhere, in your face. All up in your nose, tickling your pallet, saying "eat me, you know you want to!" You can't get away from it.
Most of the people I knew who were vegan or vegetarian didn't really like meat that much to begin with, and loved vegetables. I'm just the opposite, I've always hated vegetables and loved meat. I'm the guy who picks out all the meat and leaves the vegetables in the leftover Chinese food. I was volunteering with Food Not Bombs, Earth First, and the IWW in San Francisco at the time, so all my friends were activists, and a lot of them were vegan. Even with all that support, I failed. I'm weak, I know.
I'm sorry, cute little fuzzy animals. I'm really sorry that I'm so weak, the meat industry is so cruel, and you are so delicious. Why, oh why must you be so delicious?
If you can't stand the trolls, get outta the intertubes. That's my motto. About the best a troll can hope to get out of me is a few moments of seething rage, followed by a little chuckle and a salute.
Hmm, maybe I jumped to conclusions. On closer examination, you seem to be defending their rights not identifying with their beliefs. I may be a humongous ass, but I'm an ass who can admit when he's made a mistake.
We've got Novell file and print servers where I work. And our main in house application, which was started eight years ago, is written in COBOL. I kid you not.
The very fact that you feel the need to assure me that I have not offended you says that I have hit the mark. You paint yourself as a conservative Christian on your own site, so either that is what you are, or you are a liar.
I've seen men backstab and sabotage to get ahead. Caring about how you look isn't a bad thing. Sadly, being married doesn't keep many men from sleeping with their employees. Men would sleep to get ahead if they could, but there aren't that many women in management, let alone many who would promote a fuck buddy.
;-)
I'm not disputing that the behavior happens. I'm saying it isn't unique to women, and it isn't funny. Every time one of these "women in IT" stories comes out, the misogynists all seem to crawl out of the woodwork.
Besides, you dolts, siding with women and demonstrating a sensitivity to their issues helps you get laid. Newbs.
No, I don't see hatred, prejudice and insensitivity behind every shadow. Is it possible that some people do not see hatred, prejudice and insensitivity when it actually is there?
I don't want anyone to hide their honest opinions, that is what you want and you are projecting it on to me. You don't want others to express their honest opinions about things that you say or do, you have demonstrated that. You want the right to say anything you like, but you don't want to give anyone else the right to comment on what you said. That is pure hypocrisy.
Freedom isn't you getting to say whatever you like without anyone else getting to comment on what was said. It is within your rights to say anything you like, and it is within my rights to critique what you say. THAT is freedom.
The sales person made it sound like a great feature. Never miss another call he said. Alerts you no matter how distracted you might be or how noisy the environment, he said. That may be true, but let me tell you, it is not nearly as useful and convenient as the sales people would have you believe.
I was having an argument with someone in another thread about political correctness. They were basically saying that people who insist on it have a thin skin, and it should be okay to make sexist or racist jokes.
Thanks for helping me make my point: it's not okay, it isn't funny, you aren't joking. You really are trying to humiliate and keep them in their place. I'm sad for you that you are so insecure, so cut off from real human connections that you have to lash out that way.
You don't get laid much, do you?
Can we see some pics?
Seriously though, did that line make sense to anyone else?
What presumption. The status quo works perfectly well for me. I'm just not a weakling who needs every unfair advantage I can get. I did equally well for myself when I was abandoned in Greece at the age of sixteen as I do here in America as the white, male son of an upper-middle class family.
Of course the status quo works for a lot of people. That's why they never question its inherent unfairness. Usually, only people for whom it does not work would bother to question it. They aren't stupid or lazy, either. Me, I'm cursed with a highly developed sense of fairness, and taking unfair advantage causes me real pain, that's why I question it.
You could at least try to aim before taking a shot at me.
Some times I'm just in a bad mood, and the only thing that helps lift my funk is trolling conservatives and libertarians on Slashdot. I know its wrong, I just can't help myself. I'm a victim of our amoral, liberal, free-to-be you-n-me society, what can I say?
Fancy that, people who vehemently defend the status quo usually profit from it. How is asking someone to admit whether they profit from defending something a snide personal attack? You conservatives are such utter smirking hypocrites, you engage in personal attack all the time, and claim we are just being sensitive, or that you were just joking when we call you on it. But heaven forbid anyone should say something that offends you. Conservatives can dish it out, but they can't take it. I've read your site, it is neither brilliant nor common sense. It is a steaming pile of regurgitated sound bites and talking points with no original analysis whatsoever. You seem to have forgotten the most important point taught to you by your so-called savior, judge not lest ye be judged. You sir are a poor excuse for a Christian.
If corporate America had half the morals of a rabid weasel, we wouldn't bitch so much. We're just tired of being bent over a barrel and told that what were getting is really an internal colon massage.
Care to name what FUD you are talking about, or is it really that ANY bad-mouthing of our Corporate Masters sticks in your craw? Do you secretly long for a society in which no one is allowed to criticize the status quo? Do you profit from supporting the status quo?
Most people are decent people who don't want to offend others. Now, no one has a right not to be offended. No arguments there, free speech trumps that. But what do you know? I have the right to free speech, too.
You obviously don't understand my point. If I accidentally step on your toes, I have still hurt you. I should apologize, and endeavor not to hurt you again. My motivations are irrelevant.
Individuals do not create themselves. Society creates individuals. As a member of society, I have a shared responsibility for the type of individuals my society creates. You don't realize the impact your innocent jokes can have on people's self esteem, on their view of their place in society, and their understanding of what their options are in the world.
I imagine you style yourself an individualist, and as such, you feel that others are completely responsible for their reactions to your words and actions. You are not responsible if something you say hurts someone, are you? They are just being sensitive. I find that line of thinking reprehensible, and fortunately, so do most of the rest of the humans on this planet.
You are free to say whatever you like, but what you say has consequences.