One is not automatically in control of one's emotions. Like anything else, being in control of ones emotions takes the belief that it is possible and a worthwhile thing to do, life experiences that render it possible, cooperative biochemistry, and actual practice. Some people will never be in control of their emotions due to lacking one of these factors.
A person being tortured does not relinquish control involuntarily. The heart beats involuntarily. People choose to relinquish control. Some Buddhist monks, with extensive practice in controlling their minds, have been imprisoned and tortured for years in China. When interviewed, one claimed that the hardest thing for him during his decade of imprisonment and torture was maintaining compassion for his captors. That he succeeded in doing so is proof that torture is only one factor among many that determines if one is capable of maintaining control.
It seems that you feel the need to maintain a strict definition of control. I'm guessing that is because you feel the need to assign responsibility to individuals. The problem here is twofold. Control, while a useful concept on a basic level, is an illusion on a higher level. Control indicates something that exercises control, and something being controlled. In reality, any distinction between the two is arbitrary and only valid from a particular point of view. This leads to the second problem: there are no individuals. Again, the concept of "individual" is like the Newtonian concept of gravity: useful on one level but utterly inapplicable on a higher level.
Nothing is a thing unto itself. This is an illusion, like the faces and vase optical illusion. The thing is the vase, the universe the faces. One defines the other, there is no separation between the two, there is no ground in which the two separately exist. They are the same thing.
I am guessing that you have decided to take responsibility for your emotions, which is a good thing even if illusionary. But forgetting that it is just a concept to be used where applicable will lead to stagnation and brittleness. It will lead to the formation of moral judgments against self and others. It is not mind's place to make moral judgments. It is mind's place to reflect, discern, model, and plan.
Making moral judgments activates primitive emotional response systems that cloud thinking and create attachments. Those who judge can never be free.
If terrorists could break military grade encryption, don't you think we'd have a LOT more problems than them crashing airplanes into buildings?
Please describe exactly how a terrorist would get past airport security and into the most protected area of the airport, the control tower, or crack military grade encryption and use their own systems to pilot the plane.
This is not the Internet we are talking about, it is a dedicated system. I guarantee you that every single line of code in this application will be audited to the brink of death. This is not the movies or some cyberpunk novel. Breaking into these kinds of systems is not as easy as you seem to think.
Didn't RTF summary, huh? It has to be activated on board the plane. Besides that, this is not a general purpose network we're talking about. It is s special purpose communications link that likely will be encrypted and spread spectrum. If the military can use wireless drones in combat without fear of the enemy taking over, why not here?
I know the other side of the story. I just don't believe it is any justification. Perhaps if you explained why you believe his actions to be justified, rather than simply claiming that I am ignorant, we could have a dialog.
America, the alleged bastion of "separation of church and state", just can't resist the urge to ban anything even vaguely self-destructive.
Like overspending and going into debt? Gambling? Destroying the environment? Wait, nope. America pays lip-service to its Puritanical roots, but not at the expense of corporatist profiteering.
He sold weapons to Iran behind the backs of the American people. He channeled the profits to the Contras, a group of known terrorists, despite the Boland Amendment prohibiting it. He supported amoral dictator and drug kingpin Manuel Noriega.
It isn't just that he broke the law, he supported people who brought death and suffering to millions. I honestly can't believe there are people who support what he did. The man was evil.
You posted a short, one word post with no information content and an inane question in order to get first post. Mods love to bitchslap anyone who does this.
The question "So?" is redundant because it doesn't need to be asked. If you feel this isn't an important issue, explain why you think it isn't important.
Software that sends personal information about you back to its master when you say you don't want to install it is generally considered spyware.
Socialism has worked for communes and collectives, where are you getting your information from, capitalist propaganda. Ever hear of the Mondragon Collective in Spain? Socialism seems to work well enough for a number of prosperous Western states as well. You know, like most of Scandanavia?
I disagree that government schooling isn't working, and from what I've seen, attempts to privatize schooling have failed miserably, with greedy corporate schools treating children as cash cows to be siphoned dry of money. I could also point to the post office, the fire departments, police and military as examples of publicly owned and run services that function quite well.
In fact, recent attempts to privatize military services have been abominable failures *cough*walter reed*cough*. Attempts to privatize public services such as power and water in South America have also failed miserably.
So, you give it a rest. The free market is not perfect. It handles certain situations very well, others not so much. I know it is tempting to believe in a one-stop solution such as "privatize everything," but the real world is too complex for any single solution to work in every situation.
I read about the studies online. I don't recall them theorizing about why phone conversations are more distracting. In any case, the theory seems like a logical deduction that does not require any kind of advanced knowledge of speech processing.
I wonder if it's because the other people in the car can sense dangerous situations and be quiet.
Or scream loudly, as the situation requires.:-) That certainly sounds like it could be a contributing factor.
But overall I think adding any distractions to the driver is just a bad idea. Have gadgets in the car fine; don't make them available to the driver if driving.
Well put. Gadgets are fine, any distractions to the driver are bad. Driving is probably the single most dangerous thing any of us do on a day to day basis. In America, driving is treated as a right, not a privilege and it is very hard to take away a person's drivers license. Since driving is seen as a right, driver's education is seen as unnecessary or a mere formality. I've driven in other countries and Americans are some of the worst drivers I've encountered.
Not you with the mod points, you're an excellent driver. Those other Americans.
The odd thing is that the studies show that talking with someone in the car is not nearly as distracting. My theory is that is because your attention is still on something in the immediate environment. When talking on a phone, the mind is elsewhere. The phone provides a lower bandwidth data link (no body language, etc.) and so more imagination is used to fill in the details. But that's just my theory, the data speaks for itself: any phone use in a car is dangerous.
The solution I prefer is education, coupled with merciless mockery of anyone who uses a cell phone (or puts on make-up, or, as I saw once, reads the newspaper.)
I thought that your analogy did not match the situation, and so, like you did with the original analogy, I changed it. There is no question that greenhouse gases trap heat. It's basic physics, well understood and well documented. Even if the sun is causing global warming, reducing greenhouse gases will cool the earth.
Based on your analogy, it looks like you are claiming that greenhouse gases do not trap heat. For you to be right, nearly everything we know about physics must be wrong. Are you claiming all of physics is wrong?
You were the one who originally changed the topic and introduced a straw man. I just changed it back and exposed your straw man for what it is: a ridiculous claim that all physics is wrong.
My argument is that your original analogy and argument were fatally flawed. Let's recap: Hoi Polloi made an analogy regarding global climate change, basically stating that no matter what the cause, we should do something about it. You then made another analogy that said that even so, we should not do things that will not help. This is where I jumped in and pointed out that your analogy did not hold, and neither did your argument.
I pointed out that storms and dams breaking are not entirely unrelated. Similar to how anthropogenic greenhouse gasses and global climate change are not entirely unrelated. Even if the sun is part of global climate change, we know for a fact that reducing greenhouse will help. Just like reinforcing the levy in New Orleans would have helped.
You have shown absolutely no skill in debate, merely a low kind of cunning that may play well to the uneducated masses, but not here at slashdot. You need an actual argument, not just a series of ad hominems, straw men, bad analogies, and red herrings. Therefore, I am not expecting any kind of challenging repartee from you. In fact, I think the most likely outcomes are either: a.) you ignore this post altogether and slink off in defeat, or b.) you claim that I still haven't presented an argument at all and declare yourself the winner.
Nice argument. You sure won over the undecided with that one. You've done your cause a great service and made global climate change doubters everywhere look mature and well reasoned by association. Well played. I bow to your superior debating skills.
Slashdot Mirror
One is not automatically in control of one's emotions. Like anything else, being in control of ones emotions takes the belief that it is possible and a worthwhile thing to do, life experiences that render it possible, cooperative biochemistry, and actual practice. Some people will never be in control of their emotions due to lacking one of these factors.
A person being tortured does not relinquish control involuntarily. The heart beats involuntarily. People choose to relinquish control. Some Buddhist monks, with extensive practice in controlling their minds, have been imprisoned and tortured for years in China. When interviewed, one claimed that the hardest thing for him during his decade of imprisonment and torture was maintaining compassion for his captors. That he succeeded in doing so is proof that torture is only one factor among many that determines if one is capable of maintaining control.
It seems that you feel the need to maintain a strict definition of control. I'm guessing that is because you feel the need to assign responsibility to individuals. The problem here is twofold. Control, while a useful concept on a basic level, is an illusion on a higher level. Control indicates something that exercises control, and something being controlled. In reality, any distinction between the two is arbitrary and only valid from a particular point of view. This leads to the second problem: there are no individuals. Again, the concept of "individual" is like the Newtonian concept of gravity: useful on one level but utterly inapplicable on a higher level.
Nothing is a thing unto itself. This is an illusion, like the faces and vase optical illusion. The thing is the vase, the universe the faces. One defines the other, there is no separation between the two, there is no ground in which the two separately exist. They are the same thing.
I am guessing that you have decided to take responsibility for your emotions, which is a good thing even if illusionary. But forgetting that it is just a concept to be used where applicable will lead to stagnation and brittleness. It will lead to the formation of moral judgments against self and others. It is not mind's place to make moral judgments. It is mind's place to reflect, discern, model, and plan.
Making moral judgments activates primitive emotional response systems that cloud thinking and create attachments. Those who judge can never be free.
If terrorists could break military grade encryption, don't you think we'd have a LOT more problems than them crashing airplanes into buildings?
Please describe exactly how a terrorist would get past airport security and into the most protected area of the airport, the control tower, or crack military grade encryption and use their own systems to pilot the plane.
This is not the Internet we are talking about, it is a dedicated system. I guarantee you that every single line of code in this application will be audited to the brink of death. This is not the movies or some cyberpunk novel. Breaking into these kinds of systems is not as easy as you seem to think.
Didn't RTF summary, huh? It has to be activated on board the plane. Besides that, this is not a general purpose network we're talking about. It is s special purpose communications link that likely will be encrypted and spread spectrum. If the military can use wireless drones in combat without fear of the enemy taking over, why not here?
It's all about buzzword-enabled games now. Interactive! Customizable! Physics Based! Communities, COMMUNITIES, COMMUNITIES!!!
On this doll, exactly where did the angel touch you?
Let the record show the victim pointed to THE WALLET!
I know the other side of the story. I just don't believe it is any justification. Perhaps if you explained why you believe his actions to be justified, rather than simply claiming that I am ignorant, we could have a dialog.
America, the alleged bastion of "separation of church and state", just can't resist the urge to ban anything even vaguely self-destructive.
Like overspending and going into debt? Gambling? Destroying the environment? Wait, nope. America pays lip-service to its Puritanical roots, but not at the expense of corporatist profiteering.
He sold weapons to Iran behind the backs of the American people. He channeled the profits to the Contras, a group of known terrorists, despite the Boland Amendment prohibiting it. He supported amoral dictator and drug kingpin Manuel Noriega.
It isn't just that he broke the law, he supported people who brought death and suffering to millions. I honestly can't believe there are people who support what he did. The man was evil.
The most important rules for robots.
Or use a firewall that checks egress, too.
How does a firewall check female herons?
That is what an egress is, right?
You posted a short, one word post with no information content and an inane question in order to get first post. Mods love to bitchslap anyone who does this.
The question "So?" is redundant because it doesn't need to be asked. If you feel this isn't an important issue, explain why you think it isn't important.
Software that sends personal information about you back to its master when you say you don't want to install it is generally considered spyware.
I see your "So?" and raise you a "Because!"
Some people have no guts .. and you are one of them, fucker.
Says the Anonymous Coward, parroting back idiotic right-wing blogger/radio propaganda.
Socialism has worked for communes and collectives, where are you getting your information from, capitalist propaganda. Ever hear of the Mondragon Collective in Spain? Socialism seems to work well enough for a number of prosperous Western states as well. You know, like most of Scandanavia?
I disagree that government schooling isn't working, and from what I've seen, attempts to privatize schooling have failed miserably, with greedy corporate schools treating children as cash cows to be siphoned dry of money. I could also point to the post office, the fire departments, police and military as examples of publicly owned and run services that function quite well.
In fact, recent attempts to privatize military services have been abominable failures *cough*walter reed*cough*. Attempts to privatize public services such as power and water in South America have also failed miserably.
So, you give it a rest. The free market is not perfect. It handles certain situations very well, others not so much. I know it is tempting to believe in a one-stop solution such as "privatize everything," but the real world is too complex for any single solution to work in every situation.
I read about the studies online. I don't recall them theorizing about why phone conversations are more distracting. In any case, the theory seems like a logical deduction that does not require any kind of advanced knowledge of speech processing.
I wonder if it's because the other people in the car can sense dangerous situations and be quiet.
:-) That certainly sounds like it could be a contributing factor.
Or scream loudly, as the situation requires.
But overall I think adding any distractions to the driver is just a bad idea. Have gadgets in the car fine; don't make them available to the driver if driving.
Well put. Gadgets are fine, any distractions to the driver are bad. Driving is probably the single most dangerous thing any of us do on a day to day basis. In America, driving is treated as a right, not a privilege and it is very hard to take away a person's drivers license. Since driving is seen as a right, driver's education is seen as unnecessary or a mere formality. I've driven in other countries and Americans are some of the worst drivers I've encountered.
Not you with the mod points, you're an excellent driver. Those other Americans.
The odd thing is that the studies show that talking with someone in the car is not nearly as distracting. My theory is that is because your attention is still on something in the immediate environment. When talking on a phone, the mind is elsewhere. The phone provides a lower bandwidth data link (no body language, etc.) and so more imagination is used to fill in the details. But that's just my theory, the data speaks for itself: any phone use in a car is dangerous.
Hands free cell phones aren't any less distracting than regular cell phones.
The solution I prefer is education, coupled with merciless mockery of anyone who uses a cell phone (or puts on make-up, or, as I saw once, reads the newspaper.)
It sucks AND blows!
More gadgets distracting people as they drive.
You're thinking of microwave radiation.
I thought that your analogy did not match the situation, and so, like you did with the original analogy, I changed it. There is no question that greenhouse gases trap heat. It's basic physics, well understood and well documented. Even if the sun is causing global warming, reducing greenhouse gases will cool the earth.
Based on your analogy, it looks like you are claiming that greenhouse gases do not trap heat. For you to be right, nearly everything we know about physics must be wrong. Are you claiming all of physics is wrong?
You were the one who originally changed the topic and introduced a straw man. I just changed it back and exposed your straw man for what it is: a ridiculous claim that all physics is wrong.
Mood lighting. If you want sparks, you need mood lighting, a little vino, and some sexy R&B.
My argument is that your original analogy and argument were fatally flawed. Let's recap: Hoi Polloi made an analogy regarding global climate change, basically stating that no matter what the cause, we should do something about it. You then made another analogy that said that even so, we should not do things that will not help. This is where I jumped in and pointed out that your analogy did not hold, and neither did your argument.
I pointed out that storms and dams breaking are not entirely unrelated. Similar to how anthropogenic greenhouse gasses and global climate change are not entirely unrelated. Even if the sun is part of global climate change, we know for a fact that reducing greenhouse will help. Just like reinforcing the levy in New Orleans would have helped.
You have shown absolutely no skill in debate, merely a low kind of cunning that may play well to the uneducated masses, but not here at slashdot. You need an actual argument, not just a series of ad hominems, straw men, bad analogies, and red herrings. Therefore, I am not expecting any kind of challenging repartee from you. In fact, I think the most likely outcomes are either: a.) you ignore this post altogether and slink off in defeat, or b.) you claim that I still haven't presented an argument at all and declare yourself the winner.
The ball is now in your court. Prove me wrong.
----> Joke
O ------You
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/ | \
+
/ \
/ \
Um, he was saying that Hollywood movies themselves ARE a perfect vacuum, in that they suck so much. Not a particularly funny joke, but a joke.
Nice argument. You sure won over the undecided with that one. You've done your cause a great service and made global climate change doubters everywhere look mature and well reasoned by association. Well played. I bow to your superior debating skills.