I'm surprised to find a windows consultant claiming that a new version of windows will be successful. It's almost as if his business depends on people paying him to install this kludgy piece of crap, but that just makes no sense.
Okay, sorry for the sarcasm and the cheap shot.
I think perhaps the truth lies somewhere in the middle. Vista will not be a complete flop, but it will sell well under what Microsoft expects.
My father is a psychologist. I can say with confidence that there are no modern thereputic methods that use pain. None. Behavioral Psychology has shown that punishment is a poor motivator. Now, I'm not saying pain or punishment will never work, but in general, other techniques such as withdrawal of reward, or reward of new behaviors that overwrite old, antisocial behaviors are more effective. I'm just going on what I've learned about psychology here, on what I believe to be most effective.
If they aren't smart enough to think ahead and see th enlightened self-interest in behaving in a civilized fashion, do you think they will think far enough ahead to consider the pain of caning? Shunning, or in our modern world of enclosures, prison is an acceptable, effective, and moral action to take against a transgressor. Corporeal punishment is not, in my opinion. As satisfying as it would be in some circumstances, I can not morally condone it and will speak out against it.
In order to make sense of this, one must apply the Fortune Cookie Rule, thus making the statement, "Ensure that one hand grasps development while one hand grasps administration, in bed."
So you hold on to what is "developing" with one hand, and "administer" to your bedmate with the other. Works pretty well for me!
It is becoming a bit irrational, isn't it? The reason the supreme court ruled as it did in the NAC case? The commerce clause, which, it would appear, trumps everything. I admit to being pro-choice adn biased in the case of Roe v. Wade, but I still must admit that our legal framework is getting a bit... stretched, at best.
I suppose you're right. I should have said it's not a luxury to ME, I suppose. Having to have a car and drive everywhere is a damn imposition, but obviously not everyone agrees with me.
Where are you even GETTING these figures from? You have a CEO fetish and you are making shit up on the spot in order to protect Daddy, aren't you? Pervert.
Nigel: As you can see, our theories all go to eleven, right across the board. Look: eleven, eleven, eleven. Marty: Does that mean it's better? Is it any better? Nigel, well, it's one more, isn't it? Most blokes, their theories only use ten dimensions. They're at ten, where do they have to go from there? When we need that extra push over the cliff, you know what we do? Marty: Put it up to eleven? Nigel: Eleven. Exactly. One more!
As I said, it is my belief that anti-social types do not consider the consequences of their actions before commiting them. I have serious doubts that caning or other forms of punishment have deterred anyone. Criminals don't tend to be people who think ahead much.
Date night is a great idea, regardless of how much time you spend on a computer. Here's a little tip for married guys: just because you think you have her doesn't mean you don't need to persue her. Women need to feel desireable. If you treat sex as something you are due just for being married, you aren't going to get much. Take her out, give her a massage, fix her a fancy dinner, do whatever it is she likes. If you show her that she is sexy and desireable enough to work for, she will feel sexy and desireable and she will act sexy and desireable.
Yes, I did have to go through a bit of a dry spell before I learned this.
The court most specifically DID NOT rule that non-USA citizens have no right to life on USA soil. They DID NOT rule on the citizen status of fetuses. All they said was that it was not the intent of the writers of the 14th ammendment to protect fetuses, which is pretty self evident. Please, read more about Roe v. Wade from non-propaganda sources. If you can back up any of your absurd statements with references, then you might have something, but as it is I'd say your argument rests on false assertions.
Sprawl is NOT a comfort. Having to drive everywhere is NOT a luxury. When I lived in San Francisco, I did not own a car, I walked and took the bus everywhere. In my neighborhood, and I mean within one block in any direction were: a health food store, a local market, two corner stores, a video store, two coffee shops, five restaraunts, a furniture store, two laundromats, a clothing store , a shoe store and miscellaneous other froo-froo yuppie shops I never went in so I can't tell you what they were but they had furniture made out of twigs and cats with handbags in the windows. I knew most people in my neighborhood by sight if not by name. THAT is a luxury and a comfort. When was the last time you sprawl-dwellers walked down your street and had 10-15 people you know smile at you and greet you?
Now I live in Albuquerque, NM. Miles and miles of sprawl. I own a car and I need to use it to get almost anything done. The lower cost of living here is offset by the major expense of having a car. My commute time is about the same, but let me tell you, a twenty minute walk is far more pleasant than twenty minutes of rush-hour traffic. When its raining, I'd much rather wait ten minutes and take a ten minute bus ride than drive.
Vengeance is a base motivation, not worthy of civilzed humans. It is not a useful course of action, unfortunately, anti-social types rarely think of the consequences before performing anti-social acts. Behavioral psychology has shown punishment in general is innefficient at inhibiting undesired behaviors. Inflicting pain on another human being degrades the sense of empathy of any who take part in or witness the act, making it that much easier for them to inflict pain int he future. The logical, rational, thinking part of the human mind shuts down when experiencing strong and violent emotions, such as pain or revenge. This is not something we should be encouraging.
I'm appointing you to mount an exploratory expedition to Monica Lewinski's vagina. Scout out the lay of the land, try to find out where the captives are being held. You'll have a lot of ground to cover and the territory is hot, damp and fetid. Proceed with caution, and do not engage any enemy units you may encounter. Make contact with the resistance if you can, I believe they call themselves The Crabs. Good luck, soldier!
The problem with stating that rights come from a creator, or are inherent in nature is simply pragmatic. You must look at the reason that people made a statement like that to begin with. The only place rights come from is other people's willingness to defend those rights. You can squawk all you like about God, Nature, or Ronald fricken' McDonald giving you rights, but if other people won't uphold those rights, all your squawking means nothing. So people claim those rights come from some higher authority in order to convince others that upholding those rights is important.
The problem here is that this is a very base level of moral reasoning, amounting to the logical fallacy of appeal to authority. The problem is that others may not believe in your proposed source of authority. That is why it is important to cut out the bullshit and go stright to the heart of the matter. You must convince people to uphold rights not out of respect or fear of authority, but out of pragmatic self interest.
Consider the case where you are utterly alone in the world. You would no more conceive of the concept of rights than a fish would conceive of water. Rights are not inherent within the individual, because without society, the very concept would be meaningless. Try telling a wolf about your right to a fair trial. Try explaining to a tiger that you have the right to life liberty and the persuit of happiness. Without society, these phrases are meaningless.
I repeat: the only reason anyone ever brought Nature or a Creator into the picture is in order to convince others to uphold particular rights by appeal to authority. That is the only point, the only goal: getting others to go along with your ideas about rights. Remember, my claim that my right to Life and Liberty is not going to stop a bullet or a knife, no matter how loudly I shout about it. A bunch of armed friends ready to retaliate may. That is the ugly, cynical truth of the matter.
The constitution is a malleable document. We can change it. We, the people, can rewrite it to add or remove any rights we like. Any rights we add become self-evident, granted by the creator, according to the language. Any rights we take away, such as, oh I don't know, the right to burn a flag or the right to marry a same sex partner, are gone, and it doesn't matter one bit that at one time they were considered inalienable or Creator-granetd, now does it? I'm sure there were some black people, prior to the civil war, who would have had some very interesting things to say about rights, inalieanable, Creator-given or otherwise.
Do not be trapped by appeals to authority. Recognize where rights really come from, outside of the comforting fairy tale. They come from your willingness and ability to uphold them in other people. They come from your ability to convince other people to uphold them in you. That is all, but that is enough.
It is perfectly valid analysis to look at the behavior of family members through the generations in order to find out whether there is a pattern of behavior that one can use to predict future behavior of members of that family. Genetics and parenting account for quite a bit of observed human behavior, don't you think?
There's a reason I wrote it that way and not, "get as much sex as the average person." Hehe. Though recent studies seem to indicate marreid couples have more sex, on average, than singles. I'll have to remember to show my wife those studies.
I think it should be, like all civil society, a place where JUSTICE and FAIRNESS hold. It is not legally okay to fuck over people in the stock market. Pump-n-dump and other such schemes are illegal, what part of that don't you get?
Fuck you, you evil fuck, I absolutely can not believe you are advocating such an illegal and immoral course of action.
It has NOT become popular to look down on those who have kids. Breeders aren't the underdogs. Society looks up to breeders. Breeders get all kinds of special perks. Trust me, in most parts of the US if you are over 25 and don't have kids, you are definitely looked down on. I know I am, my wife even more so.
You don't need to breed to pass on your genes. 99.9% of your genes are exactly the same as everyone elses. The other.1% is duplicated millions of times over in various combinations in humans around the world. You wern't gonna pass down an exact copy anyway, so why is it important to do it through breeding? Genes don't care how they get passed down. Evolution is as likely to select for a non-breeder who helps other breeders breed as it is to select for a breeder. Look at eusocial insects.
There is no reason everyone should breed. It is a simple process that anyone can do with absolutely no skills or training. World population is still growing. No one has any kind of duty to make more humans. There are enough.
News flash: trite and contrite don't mean the same thing. I'm guessing you meant trite, as the rest of your post is written in an insulting tone and trite would fit with that. I was definitely not apologetic, which is the meaning of contrite.
No one is saying it is unfair for them to TRY to get whatever they want from us. As I said, it's the rootkit, the DRM, lik-sang, etc., et multiple cetera that make people dislike Sony. Thus, when Sony fails people are happy. People ARE saying, "No thanks, I'll get a Wii or 360 or upgrade my PC for the newest and greatest games" and not only do they feel they've made a betetr choice, they feel they are doing their part to snub a prickish company. At least that's how I see it.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm surprised to find a windows consultant claiming that a new version of windows will be successful. It's almost as if his business depends on people paying him to install this kludgy piece of crap, but that just makes no sense.
Okay, sorry for the sarcasm and the cheap shot.
I think perhaps the truth lies somewhere in the middle. Vista will not be a complete flop, but it will sell well under what Microsoft expects.
Damn, damn, damn. I was so close...
My father is a psychologist. I can say with confidence that there are no modern thereputic methods that use pain. None. Behavioral Psychology has shown that punishment is a poor motivator. Now, I'm not saying pain or punishment will never work, but in general, other techniques such as withdrawal of reward, or reward of new behaviors that overwrite old, antisocial behaviors are more effective. I'm just going on what I've learned about psychology here, on what I believe to be most effective.
If they aren't smart enough to think ahead and see th enlightened self-interest in behaving in a civilized fashion, do you think they will think far enough ahead to consider the pain of caning? Shunning, or in our modern world of enclosures, prison is an acceptable, effective, and moral action to take against a transgressor. Corporeal punishment is not, in my opinion. As satisfying as it would be in some circumstances, I can not morally condone it and will speak out against it.
Not that I think you're wrong about the delusions of granduer thing, but this is something within his power to do.
Kind of like skynet, but with porn.
So, ThighNet then?
In order to make sense of this, one must apply the Fortune Cookie Rule, thus making the statement, "Ensure that one hand grasps development while one hand grasps administration, in bed."
So you hold on to what is "developing" with one hand, and "administer" to your bedmate with the other. Works pretty well for me!
It is becoming a bit irrational, isn't it? The reason the supreme court ruled as it did in the NAC case? The commerce clause, which, it would appear, trumps everything. I admit to being pro-choice adn biased in the case of Roe v. Wade, but I still must admit that our legal framework is getting a bit... stretched, at best.
He's pinin' for the fjords!
I suppose you're right. I should have said it's not a luxury to ME, I suppose. Having to have a car and drive everywhere is a damn imposition, but obviously not everyone agrees with me.
Where are you even GETTING these figures from? You have a CEO fetish and you are making shit up on the spot in order to protect Daddy, aren't you? Pervert.
Nigel: As you can see, our theories all go to eleven, right across the board. Look: eleven, eleven, eleven.
Marty: Does that mean it's better? Is it any better?
Nigel, well, it's one more, isn't it? Most blokes, their theories only use ten dimensions. They're at ten, where do they have to go from there? When we need that extra push over the cliff, you know what we do?
Marty: Put it up to eleven?
Nigel: Eleven. Exactly. One more!
As I said, it is my belief that anti-social types do not consider the consequences of their actions before commiting them. I have serious doubts that caning or other forms of punishment have deterred anyone. Criminals don't tend to be people who think ahead much.
Date night is a great idea, regardless of how much time you spend on a computer. Here's a little tip for married guys: just because you think you have her doesn't mean you don't need to persue her. Women need to feel desireable. If you treat sex as something you are due just for being married, you aren't going to get much. Take her out, give her a massage, fix her a fancy dinner, do whatever it is she likes. If you show her that she is sexy and desireable enough to work for, she will feel sexy and desireable and she will act sexy and desireable.
Yes, I did have to go through a bit of a dry spell before I learned this.
The court most specifically DID NOT rule that non-USA citizens have no right to life on USA soil. They DID NOT rule on the citizen status of fetuses. All they said was that it was not the intent of the writers of the 14th ammendment to protect fetuses, which is pretty self evident. Please, read more about Roe v. Wade from non-propaganda sources. If you can back up any of your absurd statements with references, then you might have something, but as it is I'd say your argument rests on false assertions.
Sprawl is NOT a comfort. Having to drive everywhere is NOT a luxury. When I lived in San Francisco, I did not own a car, I walked and took the bus everywhere. In my neighborhood, and I mean within one block in any direction were: a health food store, a local market, two corner stores, a video store, two coffee shops, five restaraunts, a furniture store, two laundromats, a clothing store , a shoe store and miscellaneous other froo-froo yuppie shops I never went in so I can't tell you what they were but they had furniture made out of twigs and cats with handbags in the windows. I knew most people in my neighborhood by sight if not by name. THAT is a luxury and a comfort. When was the last time you sprawl-dwellers walked down your street and had 10-15 people you know smile at you and greet you?
Now I live in Albuquerque, NM. Miles and miles of sprawl. I own a car and I need to use it to get almost anything done. The lower cost of living here is offset by the major expense of having a car. My commute time is about the same, but let me tell you, a twenty minute walk is far more pleasant than twenty minutes of rush-hour traffic. When its raining, I'd much rather wait ten minutes and take a ten minute bus ride than drive.
Vengeance is a base motivation, not worthy of civilzed humans. It is not a useful course of action, unfortunately, anti-social types rarely think of the consequences before performing anti-social acts. Behavioral psychology has shown punishment in general is innefficient at inhibiting undesired behaviors. Inflicting pain on another human being degrades the sense of empathy of any who take part in or witness the act, making it that much easier for them to inflict pain int he future. The logical, rational, thinking part of the human mind shuts down when experiencing strong and violent emotions, such as pain or revenge. This is not something we should be encouraging.
I'm appointing you to mount an exploratory expedition to Monica Lewinski's vagina. Scout out the lay of the land, try to find out where the captives are being held. You'll have a lot of ground to cover and the territory is hot, damp and fetid. Proceed with caution, and do not engage any enemy units you may encounter. Make contact with the resistance if you can, I believe they call themselves The Crabs. Good luck, soldier!
The problem with stating that rights come from a creator, or are inherent in nature is simply pragmatic. You must look at the reason that people made a statement like that to begin with. The only place rights come from is other people's willingness to defend those rights. You can squawk all you like about God, Nature, or Ronald fricken' McDonald giving you rights, but if other people won't uphold those rights, all your squawking means nothing. So people claim those rights come from some higher authority in order to convince others that upholding those rights is important.
The problem here is that this is a very base level of moral reasoning, amounting to the logical fallacy of appeal to authority. The problem is that others may not believe in your proposed source of authority. That is why it is important to cut out the bullshit and go stright to the heart of the matter. You must convince people to uphold rights not out of respect or fear of authority, but out of pragmatic self interest.
Consider the case where you are utterly alone in the world. You would no more conceive of the concept of rights than a fish would conceive of water. Rights are not inherent within the individual, because without society, the very concept would be meaningless. Try telling a wolf about your right to a fair trial. Try explaining to a tiger that you have the right to life liberty and the persuit of happiness. Without society, these phrases are meaningless.
I repeat: the only reason anyone ever brought Nature or a Creator into the picture is in order to convince others to uphold particular rights by appeal to authority. That is the only point, the only goal: getting others to go along with your ideas about rights. Remember, my claim that my right to Life and Liberty is not going to stop a bullet or a knife, no matter how loudly I shout about it. A bunch of armed friends ready to retaliate may. That is the ugly, cynical truth of the matter.
The constitution is a malleable document. We can change it. We, the people, can rewrite it to add or remove any rights we like. Any rights we add become self-evident, granted by the creator, according to the language. Any rights we take away, such as, oh I don't know, the right to burn a flag or the right to marry a same sex partner, are gone, and it doesn't matter one bit that at one time they were considered inalienable or Creator-granetd, now does it? I'm sure there were some black people, prior to the civil war, who would have had some very interesting things to say about rights, inalieanable, Creator-given or otherwise.
Do not be trapped by appeals to authority. Recognize where rights really come from, outside of the comforting fairy tale. They come from your willingness and ability to uphold them in other people. They come from your ability to convince other people to uphold them in you. That is all, but that is enough.
It is perfectly valid analysis to look at the behavior of family members through the generations in order to find out whether there is a pattern of behavior that one can use to predict future behavior of members of that family. Genetics and parenting account for quite a bit of observed human behavior, don't you think?
There's a reason I wrote it that way and not, "get as much sex as the average person." Hehe. Though recent studies seem to indicate marreid couples have more sex, on average, than singles. I'll have to remember to show my wife those studies.
I think it should be, like all civil society, a place where JUSTICE and FAIRNESS hold. It is not legally okay to fuck over people in the stock market. Pump-n-dump and other such schemes are illegal, what part of that don't you get?
Fuck you, you evil fuck, I absolutely can not believe you are advocating such an illegal and immoral course of action.
It has NOT become popular to look down on those who have kids. Breeders aren't the underdogs. Society looks up to breeders. Breeders get all kinds of special perks. Trust me, in most parts of the US if you are over 25 and don't have kids, you are definitely looked down on. I know I am, my wife even more so.
.1% is duplicated millions of times over in various combinations in humans around the world. You wern't gonna pass down an exact copy anyway, so why is it important to do it through breeding? Genes don't care how they get passed down. Evolution is as likely to select for a non-breeder who helps other breeders breed as it is to select for a breeder. Look at eusocial insects.
You don't need to breed to pass on your genes. 99.9% of your genes are exactly the same as everyone elses. The other
There is no reason everyone should breed. It is a simple process that anyone can do with absolutely no skills or training. World population is still growing. No one has any kind of duty to make more humans. There are enough.
News flash: trite and contrite don't mean the same thing. I'm guessing you meant trite, as the rest of your post is written in an insulting tone and trite would fit with that. I was definitely not apologetic, which is the meaning of contrite.
Yeah, but hokey religions and ancient consoles are no match for a good blaster.
No one is saying it is unfair for them to TRY to get whatever they want from us. As I said, it's the rootkit, the DRM, lik-sang, etc., et multiple cetera that make people dislike Sony. Thus, when Sony fails people are happy. People ARE saying, "No thanks, I'll get a Wii or 360 or upgrade my PC for the newest and greatest games" and not only do they feel they've made a betetr choice, they feel they are doing their part to snub a prickish company. At least that's how I see it.