Not only that, but most of the time a valley is flooded to create a hydroelectric dam, the vegetation is not removed first. It decays, releasing greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere. The Three Gorges dam in China is projected to release far more greenhouse gasses this way than it saves versus traditional energy generation, let alone nuclear.
I for one see the point you are making here. PETA is for the ethical treatment of animals. An animal was blown up in a fairly unethical way, thus this falls under PETAs charter. The fact that they have this charter in no way presumes they have any less respect for humans, but there are plenty of other groups already focused on the ethical treatment of humans. The fact that they issued this letter in no way proves that PETA would condone a person being blown up in the same way, but that isn't their focus. Again, other groups are already working on these issues, and quite probably most PETA members are also members of one or more of these groups and therefore see no need for PETA, as a group, to get involved with the human issues of terrorism.
I have never been a member of PETA myself as I do not personally believe in some of their methods, but as a social activist and semi-radical myself I have known quite a few. Most are perfectly reasonable people, at least for activist circles (whether activists themselves are generally reasonable people is another topic entirely, so just shut yer yaps, you anti-hippy neocon fascist freaks;) About the worst I could say about the worst of them (having lived with a few) is that they generally smell bad (this coming from a nerd, and we aren't known for our hygiene)and are anti social, at least to the extent that they never do their own dishes, refuse to participate in social activities, and pay bills late. Anti-human? Sort of. But not in a 'kill all humans' kind of way, more like 'you all depress me so much I'm going off for a good long sulk.'
Anyways, Some Random Username, you didn't deserve to get marked troll there. You were raising valid points. But the stereotype of the human hating PETA member is a common one, and a great example of industry counter-propaganda.
Obviously land was unowned before their were human beings. After that, land was not initially owned by individuals, but was used by groups. Whether those groups were violent and territorial doesn't matter. The land was still held in common, and then privatized by an individual.
I'm 35, have started and run my own businessess, worked for small, medium and large size businessess, and am doing very well for myself. I know I could be making more money, but I have acheived a comfortable balance of work, family, and play that suits me well. I don't think that everyone who makes more money than me is corrupt. Many of them make more money because they care more about money than I do, and that is fine.
I have seen corruption firsthand in all sizes of business. I see that our economic system rewards unfairness. There are real problems with our culture, and trying to sweep them under the rug won't make them go away. You claim that people are bitter over the wrong things. I suppose your godlike omniscience allows you to determine what the right things are. It must be nice, but me, I lack that omniscience, so I'll go on believing what my senses and logical faculties tell me.
I wish things were different but I get no joy or sense of personal justification out of believing that the world is screwed up. Quite frankly, I want it fixed for selfish reasons, not for some arbitrary concept of good: I would be happier in a world that was more fair.
In closing, let me apologize for my underhanded ad hominem of calling your moral character into question. I'm sure you are a decent fellow. And no, I'm not being facetious. You are smart, literate, and have actually put some thought into things. This puts you miles ahead of most people, liberal or conservative.
Wow. The levels of incoherence and deceit rise even further. Please point out where I attacked you first. The first thing you posted in this subthread was an attack on me. That post you link to proves what a dimwitted right wing twit you are, not that liberals are "full of hate and range." But you obviously subscribe to the right wing policy of "a lie repeated often enough and loudly enough becomes the truth."
Please. Look at my fans list. Now look at yours. Notice that mine is much larger. Few people of consequence here want to hear your trollish babble. You don't care about the truth, you just care about proving your discredited ideology right. You don't even go about it in an interesting way, you just parrot back the techniques and talking points of your republican masters.
But you go on telling yourself that you are a fearless vanquisher of evil liberal scum, if it makes you happy. You are a completely ineffectual human being, and the things that you do and say do not matter to those of us who are your obvious superiors.
Because his self image rests on believing that he is a good person who is part of a good society. If he were to believe that he was a part of an unjust society, he would need to do something about the injustice in order to go on believing he was a good person.
The myth of modern American capitalism says that almost all CEOs are good and decent people and that the few bad apples are always brought to justice. The truth of the matter is that one almost has to be corrupt to get to that level in business, most who are caught get off with a handslap, and those who get brought to justice are still welcomed back into the fold by their corrupt cronies after they get out of the pen.
And you are an angry flaming conservative. You fit the classic American profile of a conservative: lies, distortions, ad hominem attacks, hypocracy, and self serving justifications.
Yes, I am a liberal. There is nothing wrong with being a liberal, despite the right's attempt to make it into a dirty word. Sometimes I'm angry. Sounds like you're angry too. Sometimes I flame. Calling someone an "angry flaming liberal" is itself a flame.
And it's not truth, it's your opinion, which you are of course entitled to. But when you initiate ad hominem attacks on a person, most rational people, right or left, tend to dismiss you as a moron and not worth debating.
People don't like to acknowledge these kinds of arguments because they seem to say that people are influenced by their environment, instead of acting with perfect free will, where every decision comes entirely from the individual will and is unaffected by reality.
If this kind of argument was true, then maybe there is no real merit in making good decisions. You didn't make the right decisions because you are good, smart and hard working, you made those decisions because of circumstances beyond your control. Most people's ego is based on a sense of worth stemming from their beliefs in their own correct life choices. If choices are determined by environment, the entire sense of ego and self worth disappears.
People also don't like even the hint that there might be a reason for bad behavior. The reason is because those are bad people. Bad people should be punished. End of story. Simply saying, "they might have done that bad thing because of poverty, or inequality, or whatnot" is like saying, "not only are they not fully to blame, but you may be partly to blame for contributing to an environment that makes their bad behavior unavoidable." No one likes to hear that.
This mindset is so prevalent that it discourages most people from ever using their brains to look honestly at the patterns and cycles that lead to negative behavior. Couple this with the fact that many people (police, politicians, etc.) indirectly profit from the bad behavior of others, and you can see why these bad behaviors persist.
No one said that we are living in a zero sum game. In the short run, it is a close approximation and when one person has unfair access to a larger number of resources it does necessarily mean that others have less. In the long run the ability to find and utilize resources increases so it isn't zero sum.
I specifically stated I didn't necessarily believe the argument I was making, just that it was something to consider. Sounds like the very fact that this argument exists pisses you off enough that it impinges on your reading comprehension skills.
No one owned the resources, but everyone used them. Before someone put up a fence, you could go anywhere you wanted. Why should people be allowed to put up fences? Isn't it initiation of force, trying to keep me off of someplace I used to be able to freely go?
People who put in a greater effort do deserve a larger share, I'm not so commie as to disbelieve that. But there needs to be a limit, or it starts to get into a grey area where your bigger share means someone else has less than their fair share. The free market system of determining what everyone's fair share is, is not fair itself. This is because those with more have more say in determining what everyone's fair share is than those with less.
I know plenty of people who work just as hard as others but get less. I know lots of people who don't work hard but get far, far more. I don't think the system rewards hard work as much as luck and lack of morals.
Let me pose a question. Someone sells you a bike for $10. Later that day, someone else proves to you that they own the bike and that it was stolen from them. Do you give the bike back to the rightful owner? If you refuse, and he takes it back, is he stealing?
Now, assume that all land was originally unowned by anyone. Then it was held in common. No man owned it, but the whole tribe used it. Then someone develops the notion of private property. They put up a fence and use force to keep out the orginal users of the resource.
All resources were originally taken with no more moral authority than "I have the power to take this from you and keep it." Since then, the unfairness of the distribution system has only escalated the problem, as those who unfairly stole more resources had more power to keep and hold yet more resources. So the entire system of private property is based on theft and unfair advantage. How does this system benefit the common person? Why should they buy into and support such a system? Try to answer without refering to such imaginary concepts as "God given" or "natural" rights.
Give me a break. No one is trying to say, "Oh, in this scammer's culture, it's okay, so we have to say it's okay too or we are being racist culturally insensative pricks." The name 419 comes from the Nigerian criminal code, so it's illegal over their, too.
Now, in a world of limited resource, one might say, well, the fact that Americans use more than their fair share means that Nigerians have less to go around, so Americans are impinging on Nigerians rights by being greedy resource hogs. If we didn't initiate force to keep our unfair access to resources, the Nigerians would be able to take what they need. So we are infringing on their rights, and they are just trying to redress the unfairness any way they can.
I'm not saying I buy that argument. Just that whenever people whine about "people infringing on the rights of others" I often find they have conveniently overlooked or justified all the ways their own actions infring on others.
If you were starving, would it be wrong to steal from a rich person to survive? Why or why not? I'm honestly curious. Personally, I think human survival trumps property rights, but I would be interested to hear anyone's argument about why people should be allowed to die for the sake of someone else's property.
Violets are blue You haven't had sex 'till you've had a love ewe.
If you go to North Beach in San Francisco you pretty much have to walk past a street of sex shops to get to the Italian restaraunts. No lie, one of them had a bunch of inflatable sheep hanging in the window with that rhyme as advertising.
You know, there are the same number of hours of sunlight in a day whether or not you are on daylight savings time. It's not like we have the power to slow down the earth's rotation for the summer.
Wow. What misinformation. Look up Katul Hayak some day. I have no idea what antiquated textbook you dragged that quote out of, but rest assured, it does not represent the state of the art in archeology today.
Maybe I am confusing corellation with causation, but I would like to see you come up with a better explanation as to why the outward signs of human behavior changed so drastically without human behavior itself changing.
To clear things up, are you really taking the position that human nature is unchangeable?
We don't forgive all debt for everyone. As much as it rankles, the introduction of credit has allowed the development of the middle class, so it has done some good. Rather, we look on a case by case basis at our debtors and decide when it makes more financial sense to forgive a debt. All I am arguing is that in the case of Africa and other third world countries, it makes sense for the creditors like the World Bank and the IMF to look at the option of debt relief.
Sorry if I misinterpreted that last comment of yours as an attack, it certainly seemed like it. If it wasn't I apologize. I'm also sorry if you couldn't understand how my comment answered the parent poster's question. Maybe my answer was too nuanced.
Creditors don't get to divvy up all the assets. At least, they didn't used to be able to. With the laws having been changed recently, I'm not so sure they don't get everything. And yes bankruptcy screws up your credit. So it should be for countries as well, I guess. But it may make financial sense for us to forgive the debt without linmiting future borrowing.
Africa is part of your society. Not your immediate society, but instability in Africa will negatively affect you. A stable, prosperous Africa will benefit you directly.
Socialism is practiced in one form or another by every government on earth. It all depends on who gets the direct benefits. There are selfish arguments as to why it might be a good idea to have a social safety net, it's not at all about some abstract concept of doing good.
Private property itself is a form of socialism. Fencing off public property and holding it privately requires the initiation of force. There hasn't been much land that wasn't being used by someone anywhere on the earth for thousands of years, so anyone taking private property did so at the expense of others.
You have no natural right to property, any more or less than I have a natural right to kill you and take it. Rights only exist in relation to society, without other human beings around there would be no need for the concept of rights, only power. In a society, private property is a right granted by the group to the individual. In exchange for giving you a monopoly and giving up it's right to use the resource, the group expects certain things from you, at the very least that you will uphold the right to property in others.
Socialism is really just a codification of the golden rule found in so many religions around the world: "do unto others as you would have them do unto you." But I suppose you think that is just hippy hogwash.
Who said anything about applying anything selectively? Remember, most major religions until recently regarded lending money for profit as a sin. Along those lines, I think anyone should be eligible for debt relief. The World Bank and the IMF have been using lending to screw with third world economies since WWII. Even they are realizing the huge amount of trouble they have caused the world, which is why they are starting to talk seriously about debt relief.
You seem to be assuming I have some special animosity towards the US. Nothing could be further from the truth. I was born here and have lived years of my life abroad. I love the US and consider myself a true patriot. Not the rah-rah! codependent kind of patriot, to whom any implication that his country is less than perfect is the same as a personal attack. No, the real kind who is willing to look honestly at his country and try to figure out how to make it better.
I especially love it when people like you write things like: "A: Arrgh! No way $PERSONAL_ATTACK $AD_HOMINEM_ARGUMENT $OTHER_FALLACY_THAT_AVOIDS_THE_QUESTION," obviously trying to show that I am an idiot who would get flustered by your brilliant repartee and resort to personal attacks and logical fallacies. That in itself is a personal attack, an ad hominem argument and another fallacy that avoids the question. Hypocrite.
Sure, sure, city walls, swords, mass graves, armor, they all deteriorate. But only before 4500 BC. Everything after that is preserved. We know the origins and causes of human on human violence. We know when and where it started. Humans have two stable modes of behavior, what I will call the culture of feast and the culture of famine. When the Sahara, the Middle East, and major parts of China dried up around 4500 BC, there was widespread famine, for the first time coupled with advanced agrarian societies that had a surplus. So instead of moving on, they stuck it out until things got too bad. Then for the first time ever, you had humans attacking humans over resources. Before that, at least as far as we can tell from the archeological record, there was no organized, large scale human on human violence. After an entire generation of starving, PTSD humans raised a generation of brain damaged (No niacin? sorry, no myelin sheths for you, kid!) kids, the famine culture was locked in. It spread from the epicenter through warfare and cultural adaptation (when everyone is a peacenik, its safe to be a peacenik, but if even one guy is a warmonger, we kinda all have to be.)
So, humans change. Human nature is not set in stone. It is flexible, it has at least two stable modes, and maybe even more. We don't know. People who want to believe that human nature is fixed usually do so because such a belief justifies their own position of power and privilege and lack of any effort to make themselves or the world a better place.
In any case, your reply is a fairly weak argument. We have thousands of clear cut cases of city fortification, arms, armor, mass graves, etc. dating from after the period of desertification, but none from before. That indicates a change in behavior, not a change in the way stone and metal decay.
Yeah, the issue has been decided. People who buy up domain names just to sell them are using them illegally. However, there are plenty of cases of abuse by big companies. In any case, to me the issue is still questionable. You have presented a reasonable argument that selling a domain name to a company that owns that trademark means you are using that trademark in the same market. Another reasonable assumption is that it is in a different market, the market of selling domain names. Let me give you a hypothetical situation. Let's say my last name is McDonald. I make a television show called the McDonald's report. Should McDonald's be able to take my TV show from me? Even if it could be shown that I was just trying to get them to buy the rights to my TV show? I think not, they should have to pay fair market value. But in any case, it's a moot point. Government has once again sided against the little guy. But that doesn't automatically make this position the morally correct one. I'm not even claiming that I know what the morally correct position is in this matter, just that it isn't cut and dried.
Trademarks only protect against other's use in the same market. Which is why Apple Records couldn't (successfuly) sue Apple Computers. You could write a kid's book titled "Burger King" about some king in the mythical land of Burger. Similarly, you could have a website called "ford.com" about all the best places to cross rivers.
Basically, you have completely misunderstood the scope and use of trademarks.
Guess it depends on how you look at it. Try this: find me an example of a mass grave, fortified city, armor, or warfare-only weaponry in the archeological record before 5000 BC. What? You can't find any? Why, maybe we have changed in the last few millenia, and not for the better.
The problem with "free market democracy" is that one dollar equals one vote. So people with more dollars get more votes. Forget the tyranny of the majority, we have the tyranny of the minority. A small number of people with a lot of dollars can force the rest of us to do whatever they want. Not only that, but the more money you have, the easier it is to get even more at the expense of others. So if I have $1,000,000 dollars, not only do I have 1,000,000 votes, it's much easier for me to use the power of my $1,000,000 to take away some of your $50,000. Where are the checks and balances? In our form of democracy we have checks and balances that keep the branches of our government from using their power to accumulate more power. In a "free market democracy" there are no checks and balances, only the positive feedback loop of money creating power creating money.
So you are trying to say that the situation in Africa today, and the situation in the American industrial revolution are identical? That it was just as easy to move capital internationally back then as it is now? That the percentage of native business owners was the same in the industrial revolution here as it is now in Africa? You do know the person you are replying to was talking about the industrial revolution, not the American revolution, right? I mean, there weren't that many English businessmen who owned factories and indentured servants in America during the industrial revolution.
You just kinda talk out of your ass most of the time, don't you Max? Here's my impression of your debating tactics: say anything without checking if it's true or not, and never admit a lie. Angrily denounce anyone who disagrees with you. Attack straw men whenever possible, they're easier to knock down! And finally, a witty ad hominem beats a well reasoned argument any day of the week. You should teach a class!
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Not only that, but most of the time a valley is flooded to create a hydroelectric dam, the vegetation is not removed first. It decays, releasing greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere. The Three Gorges dam in China is projected to release far more greenhouse gasses this way than it saves versus traditional energy generation, let alone nuclear.
I for one see the point you are making here. PETA is for the ethical treatment of animals. An animal was blown up in a fairly unethical way, thus this falls under PETAs charter. The fact that they have this charter in no way presumes they have any less respect for humans, but there are plenty of other groups already focused on the ethical treatment of humans. The fact that they issued this letter in no way proves that PETA would condone a person being blown up in the same way, but that isn't their focus. Again, other groups are already working on these issues, and quite probably most PETA members are also members of one or more of these groups and therefore see no need for PETA, as a group, to get involved with the human issues of terrorism.
;) About the worst I could say about the worst of them (having lived with a few) is that they generally smell bad (this coming from a nerd, and we aren't known for our hygiene)and are anti social, at least to the extent that they never do their own dishes, refuse to participate in social activities, and pay bills late. Anti-human? Sort of. But not in a 'kill all humans' kind of way, more like 'you all depress me so much I'm going off for a good long sulk.'
I have never been a member of PETA myself as I do not personally believe in some of their methods, but as a social activist and semi-radical myself I have known quite a few. Most are perfectly reasonable people, at least for activist circles (whether activists themselves are generally reasonable people is another topic entirely, so just shut yer yaps, you anti-hippy neocon fascist freaks
Anyways, Some Random Username, you didn't deserve to get marked troll there. You were raising valid points. But the stereotype of the human hating PETA member is a common one, and a great example of industry counter-propaganda.
Wonderful. Since God communicates through fallible human beings, even if God did give us rights, how would we know what they are?
Obviously land was unowned before their were human beings. After that, land was not initially owned by individuals, but was used by groups. Whether those groups were violent and territorial doesn't matter. The land was still held in common, and then privatized by an individual.
I'm 35, have started and run my own businessess, worked for small, medium and large size businessess, and am doing very well for myself. I know I could be making more money, but I have acheived a comfortable balance of work, family, and play that suits me well. I don't think that everyone who makes more money than me is corrupt. Many of them make more money because they care more about money than I do, and that is fine.
I have seen corruption firsthand in all sizes of business. I see that our economic system rewards unfairness. There are real problems with our culture, and trying to sweep them under the rug won't make them go away. You claim that people are bitter over the wrong things. I suppose your godlike omniscience allows you to determine what the right things are. It must be nice, but me, I lack that omniscience, so I'll go on believing what my senses and logical faculties tell me.
I wish things were different but I get no joy or sense of personal justification out of believing that the world is screwed up. Quite frankly, I want it fixed for selfish reasons, not for some arbitrary concept of good: I would be happier in a world that was more fair.
In closing, let me apologize for my underhanded ad hominem of calling your moral character into question. I'm sure you are a decent fellow. And no, I'm not being facetious. You are smart, literate, and have actually put some thought into things. This puts you miles ahead of most people, liberal or conservative.
Wow. The levels of incoherence and deceit rise even further. Please point out where I attacked you first. The first thing you posted in this subthread was an attack on me. That post you link to proves what a dimwitted right wing twit you are, not that liberals are "full of hate and range." But you obviously subscribe to the right wing policy of "a lie repeated often enough and loudly enough becomes the truth."
Please. Look at my fans list. Now look at yours. Notice that mine is much larger. Few people of consequence here want to hear your trollish babble. You don't care about the truth, you just care about proving your discredited ideology right. You don't even go about it in an interesting way, you just parrot back the techniques and talking points of your republican masters.
But you go on telling yourself that you are a fearless vanquisher of evil liberal scum, if it makes you happy. You are a completely ineffectual human being, and the things that you do and say do not matter to those of us who are your obvious superiors.
Because his self image rests on believing that he is a good person who is part of a good society. If he were to believe that he was a part of an unjust society, he would need to do something about the injustice in order to go on believing he was a good person.
The myth of modern American capitalism says that almost all CEOs are good and decent people and that the few bad apples are always brought to justice. The truth of the matter is that one almost has to be corrupt to get to that level in business, most who are caught get off with a handslap, and those who get brought to justice are still welcomed back into the fold by their corrupt cronies after they get out of the pen.
And you are an angry flaming conservative. You fit the classic American profile of a conservative: lies, distortions, ad hominem attacks, hypocracy, and self serving justifications.
Yes, I am a liberal. There is nothing wrong with being a liberal, despite the right's attempt to make it into a dirty word. Sometimes I'm angry. Sounds like you're angry too. Sometimes I flame. Calling someone an "angry flaming liberal" is itself a flame.
And it's not truth, it's your opinion, which you are of course entitled to. But when you initiate ad hominem attacks on a person, most rational people, right or left, tend to dismiss you as a moron and not worth debating.
People don't like to acknowledge these kinds of arguments because they seem to say that people are influenced by their environment, instead of acting with perfect free will, where every decision comes entirely from the individual will and is unaffected by reality.
If this kind of argument was true, then maybe there is no real merit in making good decisions. You didn't make the right decisions because you are good, smart and hard working, you made those decisions because of circumstances beyond your control. Most people's ego is based on a sense of worth stemming from their beliefs in their own correct life choices. If choices are determined by environment, the entire sense of ego and self worth disappears.
People also don't like even the hint that there might be a reason for bad behavior. The reason is because those are bad people. Bad people should be punished. End of story. Simply saying, "they might have done that bad thing because of poverty, or inequality, or whatnot" is like saying, "not only are they not fully to blame, but you may be partly to blame for contributing to an environment that makes their bad behavior unavoidable." No one likes to hear that.
This mindset is so prevalent that it discourages most people from ever using their brains to look honestly at the patterns and cycles that lead to negative behavior. Couple this with the fact that many people (police, politicians, etc.) indirectly profit from the bad behavior of others, and you can see why these bad behaviors persist.
No one said that we are living in a zero sum game. In the short run, it is a close approximation and when one person has unfair access to a larger number of resources it does necessarily mean that others have less. In the long run the ability to find and utilize resources increases so it isn't zero sum.
I specifically stated I didn't necessarily believe the argument I was making, just that it was something to consider. Sounds like the very fact that this argument exists pisses you off enough that it impinges on your reading comprehension skills.
No one owned the resources, but everyone used them. Before someone put up a fence, you could go anywhere you wanted. Why should people be allowed to put up fences? Isn't it initiation of force, trying to keep me off of someplace I used to be able to freely go?
People who put in a greater effort do deserve a larger share, I'm not so commie as to disbelieve that. But there needs to be a limit, or it starts to get into a grey area where your bigger share means someone else has less than their fair share. The free market system of determining what everyone's fair share is, is not fair itself. This is because those with more have more say in determining what everyone's fair share is than those with less.
I know plenty of people who work just as hard as others but get less. I know lots of people who don't work hard but get far, far more. I don't think the system rewards hard work as much as luck and lack of morals.
Let me pose a question. Someone sells you a bike for $10. Later that day, someone else proves to you that they own the bike and that it was stolen from them. Do you give the bike back to the rightful owner? If you refuse, and he takes it back, is he stealing?
Now, assume that all land was originally unowned by anyone. Then it was held in common. No man owned it, but the whole tribe used it. Then someone develops the notion of private property. They put up a fence and use force to keep out the orginal users of the resource.
All resources were originally taken with no more moral authority than "I have the power to take this from you and keep it." Since then, the unfairness of the distribution system has only escalated the problem, as those who unfairly stole more resources had more power to keep and hold yet more resources. So the entire system of private property is based on theft and unfair advantage. How does this system benefit the common person? Why should they buy into and support such a system? Try to answer without refering to such imaginary concepts as "God given" or "natural" rights.
Give me a break. No one is trying to say, "Oh, in this scammer's culture, it's okay, so we have to say it's okay too or we are being racist culturally insensative pricks." The name 419 comes from the Nigerian criminal code, so it's illegal over their, too.
Now, in a world of limited resource, one might say, well, the fact that Americans use more than their fair share means that Nigerians have less to go around, so Americans are impinging on Nigerians rights by being greedy resource hogs. If we didn't initiate force to keep our unfair access to resources, the Nigerians would be able to take what they need. So we are infringing on their rights, and they are just trying to redress the unfairness any way they can.
I'm not saying I buy that argument. Just that whenever people whine about "people infringing on the rights of others" I often find they have conveniently overlooked or justified all the ways their own actions infring on others.
If you were starving, would it be wrong to steal from a rich person to survive? Why or why not? I'm honestly curious. Personally, I think human survival trumps property rights, but I would be interested to hear anyone's argument about why people should be allowed to die for the sake of someone else's property.
Violets are blue
You haven't had sex
'till you've had a love ewe.
If you go to North Beach in San Francisco you pretty much have to walk past a street of sex shops to get to the Italian restaraunts. No lie, one of them had a bunch of inflatable sheep hanging in the window with that rhyme as advertising.
You know, there are the same number of hours of sunlight in a day whether or not you are on daylight savings time. It's not like we have the power to slow down the earth's rotation for the summer.
Wow. What misinformation. Look up Katul Hayak some day. I have no idea what antiquated textbook you dragged that quote out of, but rest assured, it does not represent the state of the art in archeology today.
Maybe I am confusing corellation with causation, but I would like to see you come up with a better explanation as to why the outward signs of human behavior changed so drastically without human behavior itself changing.
To clear things up, are you really taking the position that human nature is unchangeable?
We don't forgive all debt for everyone. As much as it rankles, the introduction of credit has allowed the development of the middle class, so it has done some good. Rather, we look on a case by case basis at our debtors and decide when it makes more financial sense to forgive a debt. All I am arguing is that in the case of Africa and other third world countries, it makes sense for the creditors like the World Bank and the IMF to look at the option of debt relief.
Sorry if I misinterpreted that last comment of yours as an attack, it certainly seemed like it. If it wasn't I apologize. I'm also sorry if you couldn't understand how my comment answered the parent poster's question. Maybe my answer was too nuanced.
Creditors don't get to divvy up all the assets. At least, they didn't used to be able to. With the laws having been changed recently, I'm not so sure they don't get everything. And yes bankruptcy screws up your credit. So it should be for countries as well, I guess. But it may make financial sense for us to forgive the debt without linmiting future borrowing.
Africa is part of your society. Not your immediate society, but instability in Africa will negatively affect you. A stable, prosperous Africa will benefit you directly.
Socialism is practiced in one form or another by every government on earth. It all depends on who gets the direct benefits. There are selfish arguments as to why it might be a good idea to have a social safety net, it's not at all about some abstract concept of doing good.
Private property itself is a form of socialism. Fencing off public property and holding it privately requires the initiation of force. There hasn't been much land that wasn't being used by someone anywhere on the earth for thousands of years, so anyone taking private property did so at the expense of others.
You have no natural right to property, any more or less than I have a natural right to kill you and take it. Rights only exist in relation to society, without other human beings around there would be no need for the concept of rights, only power. In a society, private property is a right granted by the group to the individual. In exchange for giving you a monopoly and giving up it's right to use the resource, the group expects certain things from you, at the very least that you will uphold the right to property in others.
Socialism is really just a codification of the golden rule found in so many religions around the world: "do unto others as you would have them do unto you." But I suppose you think that is just hippy hogwash.
Who said anything about applying anything selectively? Remember, most major religions until recently regarded lending money for profit as a sin. Along those lines, I think anyone should be eligible for debt relief. The World Bank and the IMF have been using lending to screw with third world economies since WWII. Even they are realizing the huge amount of trouble they have caused the world, which is why they are starting to talk seriously about debt relief.
You seem to be assuming I have some special animosity towards the US. Nothing could be further from the truth. I was born here and have lived years of my life abroad. I love the US and consider myself a true patriot. Not the rah-rah! codependent kind of patriot, to whom any implication that his country is less than perfect is the same as a personal attack. No, the real kind who is willing to look honestly at his country and try to figure out how to make it better.
I especially love it when people like you write things like: "A: Arrgh! No way $PERSONAL_ATTACK $AD_HOMINEM_ARGUMENT $OTHER_FALLACY_THAT_AVOIDS_THE_QUESTION," obviously trying to show that I am an idiot who would get flustered by your brilliant repartee and resort to personal attacks and logical fallacies. That in itself is a personal attack, an ad hominem argument and another fallacy that avoids the question. Hypocrite.
Sure, sure, city walls, swords, mass graves, armor, they all deteriorate. But only before 4500 BC. Everything after that is preserved. We know the origins and causes of human on human violence. We know when and where it started. Humans have two stable modes of behavior, what I will call the culture of feast and the culture of famine. When the Sahara, the Middle East, and major parts of China dried up around 4500 BC, there was widespread famine, for the first time coupled with advanced agrarian societies that had a surplus. So instead of moving on, they stuck it out until things got too bad. Then for the first time ever, you had humans attacking humans over resources. Before that, at least as far as we can tell from the archeological record, there was no organized, large scale human on human violence. After an entire generation of starving, PTSD humans raised a generation of brain damaged (No niacin? sorry, no myelin sheths for you, kid!) kids, the famine culture was locked in. It spread from the epicenter through warfare and cultural adaptation (when everyone is a peacenik, its safe to be a peacenik, but if even one guy is a warmonger, we kinda all have to be.)
So, humans change. Human nature is not set in stone. It is flexible, it has at least two stable modes, and maybe even more. We don't know. People who want to believe that human nature is fixed usually do so because such a belief justifies their own position of power and privilege and lack of any effort to make themselves or the world a better place.
In any case, your reply is a fairly weak argument. We have thousands of clear cut cases of city fortification, arms, armor, mass graves, etc. dating from after the period of desertification, but none from before. That indicates a change in behavior, not a change in the way stone and metal decay.
Yeah, the issue has been decided. People who buy up domain names just to sell them are using them illegally. However, there are plenty of cases of abuse by big companies. In any case, to me the issue is still questionable. You have presented a reasonable argument that selling a domain name to a company that owns that trademark means you are using that trademark in the same market. Another reasonable assumption is that it is in a different market, the market of selling domain names. Let me give you a hypothetical situation. Let's say my last name is McDonald. I make a television show called the McDonald's report. Should McDonald's be able to take my TV show from me? Even if it could be shown that I was just trying to get them to buy the rights to my TV show? I think not, they should have to pay fair market value. But in any case, it's a moot point. Government has once again sided against the little guy. But that doesn't automatically make this position the morally correct one. I'm not even claiming that I know what the morally correct position is in this matter, just that it isn't cut and dried.
Trademarks only protect against other's use in the same market. Which is why Apple Records couldn't (successfuly) sue Apple Computers. You could write a kid's book titled "Burger King" about some king in the mythical land of Burger. Similarly, you could have a website called "ford.com" about all the best places to cross rivers.
Basically, you have completely misunderstood the scope and use of trademarks.
There's a wingnut on every street corner holding it down.
Guess it depends on how you look at it. Try this: find me an example of a mass grave, fortified city, armor, or warfare-only weaponry in the archeological record before 5000 BC. What? You can't find any? Why, maybe we have changed in the last few millenia, and not for the better.
The problem with "free market democracy" is that one dollar equals one vote. So people with more dollars get more votes. Forget the tyranny of the majority, we have the tyranny of the minority. A small number of people with a lot of dollars can force the rest of us to do whatever they want. Not only that, but the more money you have, the easier it is to get even more at the expense of others. So if I have $1,000,000 dollars, not only do I have 1,000,000 votes, it's much easier for me to use the power of my $1,000,000 to take away some of your $50,000. Where are the checks and balances? In our form of democracy we have checks and balances that keep the branches of our government from using their power to accumulate more power. In a "free market democracy" there are no checks and balances, only the positive feedback loop of money creating power creating money.
This is NOT a perfect form of democracy.
So you are trying to say that the situation in Africa today, and the situation in the American industrial revolution are identical? That it was just as easy to move capital internationally back then as it is now? That the percentage of native business owners was the same in the industrial revolution here as it is now in Africa? You do know the person you are replying to was talking about the industrial revolution, not the American revolution, right? I mean, there weren't that many English businessmen who owned factories and indentured servants in America during the industrial revolution.
You just kinda talk out of your ass most of the time, don't you Max? Here's my impression of your debating tactics: say anything without checking if it's true or not, and never admit a lie. Angrily denounce anyone who disagrees with you. Attack straw men whenever possible, they're easier to knock down! And finally, a witty ad hominem beats a well reasoned argument any day of the week. You should teach a class!