...I would like to reiterate that my argument against heroin is less about the effects on the user than about the effect the user has on society-at-large when they run out of money to support their habit. Robbing, killing, and other violent and antisocial tendencies work against this particular drug's fight for legality.
It's hard to be very violent when your drug of choice is something that makes you feel very mellow and then go to sleep. But even the violence you're imagining this causing is a piddly little nothing when compared to the violence caused by the War on Drugs.
Actually, the problem with Heroin (as I understand it) is that it's insanely addictive and eventually kills its users due to an overdose caused by its massive tolerance curve. It also has severe withdrawal symptoms, which can include death.
The symptoms of heroin withdrawal are analogous to that of a bad flu. So if you (like most people) can survive a bad flu, you can survive that. Pain is temporary.
Alcohol withdrawal, however, can be much much worse. And it is legal.
I'm not saying heroin is harmless*, but it's nowhere as bad as you make it out to be. Many people in the past have used heroin on a usual basis without it killing them. Nat King Cole springs to mind.
* I wouldn't suggest its use to anyone. In an interview John Lydon described it is as the one drug that nullifies all creativity.
If there is any "discoverer" involved in this, it's Alonzo Church when he invented (or you could argue, found) the Lambda Calculus. That's hardcore math. All of the functional languages, including Lisp, are inventions based upon his work.
I don't know if it's that similar. Watching some porn can be fun, and there's no real downside to it. From what I've heard from people with a lot of kids it's great way to experience stress and misery. Hell, you can have two if you like and you'd just be replacing you and your mate.
I did not suggest anything that will have to be enforced. It is not my belief that population control should be enforced. It is your assumption that it is. We as human beings have a highly evolved intellect, foresight, ability to plan, etc. We just have to use it. Just because in lots of cases in nature things tend to use resources until they suffer and die doesn't mean that has to be our path as well. (Though I"m sure with some research we can find many cases in nature where that doesn't happen).
Gosh but you're obsessed with suicide and violence.
Meh. I just wanted a cool nick name when I got an account on Slashdot and liked the movie. So sue me.
Why is it whenever someone suggests people have less children or we should maybe evaluate what's important in life to use less resources, the first response is always, "Kill yourself"?
Do you know why that is? It's because it's energy. We need energy to do stuff and if we don't have energy, we die. We die from hunger, from dirty water, from lack of sanitation, from cold, whatever. We MUST modify our environment and that's how we will survive and we MUST use the cheapest ways of producing energy that are available at any point in time so we can concentrate our attention on the pressing things that we DO with that energy, which probably lead to our continuous survival not only on this globe, that is now supporting 7billion people and will support probably 1000 times as many people in 1000 years, but also off this planet. There is nothing that we do that can be considered 'clean' by everybody, but we do what we must.
Why do you assume we need always have 7 billion plus people living simultaneously? Or much more? Or be as wasteful with our resources as we are own now?
It has always been puzzling to me why we as a society are so willing to put so much time and money into working ourselves to death for some undefined prize labeled "progress". But are also too short-sighted, blind, terrified, whatever, of taking just a few seconds to wonder, "Where really should we be headed? Is the current course worth it?"
So, once again I will assert that it is provably impossible to empirically disprove the total (universal) existence of god, given that we cannot search the whole universe, and will again assert that the asking of the question is irrelevent, since it is unlikely that god gives a toss.
An atheist is simply someone who does not believe in the existence of any gods. It does not necessarily follow that he or she believes they can prove that no gods exist. The question remains as to why you make such a big deal out of god. Do you always make such a long-winded defense if someone tells you they do not believe in any other one of the infinite possible metaphysical claims out there?
Although an empirical disproof of the existence of god is impossible, that doesn't rule out discounting specific definitions of god a priori.
It's been a while since I read Frankenstein, but I think electricity had some hand in giving the monster life. After all, Mary Shelley was inspired to write the book from the electrical experiments of Galvani.
We may have the worst politics this side of the Prime Meridian, but spend a day on the white sands of Longbeach or Santa Monica and you will be ashamed your local girls don't look as good in a bikini.
You could (in theory at least) write a program that took a set of axioms and a hypothesis, and it could tell you reasonably quickly whether the hypothesis was something that could be proven using those set of axioms.
Right. But it is known to be in NP. So proving P=NP would prove that RSA could be cracked quickly. But proving P!=NP would not prove that RSA cannot be cracked quickly.
Undiluted evil is a serial killer like Jeffrey Dahmer.
Nonsense. The damage that a single serial killer does is laughably tiny in comparison to some delusional figure who is convinced they are doing the "right thing". Hell, Dahmer actually knew he was a monster, couldn't control his sick compulsions and felt bad about the things he did. Compare that to bin Laden who showed no remorse for his crimes against humanity and caused the deaths of thousands.
I realize it's in Swedish. The phrase is repeated many times by a Swedish character from a Danish show called Riget (or, The Kingdom in Danish). But I've always heard it translated as "Danish scum!"
Hmmm. Probably after that whole scientific method got going. The empirical beats the snot out of philosophical wankery.
Um, empiricism is great. But it only helps when you have a sense of what possible hypotheses there are for a given problem, what tests you should make for each hypothesis, where to look for answers when none of them pan out, etc. This is all classic scientific method of course, but in order to do it properly requires some depth of thought. The kind of thing that philosophy covers.
A meaningless statement. In order for something to be considered an illusion you must consider the possibility that something can be deceived. And in order for that something to be deceived, it must be conscious.
Slashdot Mirror
It seems that these gas clouds have the ultimate claims to First Post.
It's hard to be very violent when your drug of choice is something that makes you feel very mellow and then go to sleep. But even the violence you're imagining this causing is a piddly little nothing when compared to the violence caused by the War on Drugs.
The symptoms of heroin withdrawal are analogous to that of a bad flu. So if you (like most people) can survive a bad flu, you can survive that. Pain is temporary.
Alcohol withdrawal, however, can be much much worse. And it is legal.
I'm not saying heroin is harmless*, but it's nowhere as bad as you make it out to be. Many people in the past have used heroin on a usual basis without it killing them. Nat King Cole springs to mind.
* I wouldn't suggest its use to anyone. In an interview John Lydon described it is as the one drug that nullifies all creativity.
If there is any "discoverer" involved in this, it's Alonzo Church when he invented (or you could argue, found) the Lambda Calculus. That's hardcore math. All of the functional languages, including Lisp, are inventions based upon his work.
I don't know if it's that similar. Watching some porn can be fun, and there's no real downside to it. From what I've heard from people with a lot of kids it's great way to experience stress and misery. Hell, you can have two if you like and you'd just be replacing you and your mate.
People make no goddamn sense.
I did not suggest anything that will have to be enforced. It is not my belief that population control should be enforced. It is your assumption that it is. We as human beings have a highly evolved intellect, foresight, ability to plan, etc. We just have to use it. Just because in lots of cases in nature things tend to use resources until they suffer and die doesn't mean that has to be our path as well. (Though I"m sure with some research we can find many cases in nature where that doesn't happen).
Gosh but you're obsessed with suicide and violence.
Meh. I just wanted a cool nick name when I got an account on Slashdot and liked the movie. So sue me.
Why is it whenever someone suggests people have less children or we should maybe evaluate what's important in life to use less resources, the first response is always, "Kill yourself"?
Why do you assume we need always have 7 billion plus people living simultaneously? Or much more? Or be as wasteful with our resources as we are own now?
It has always been puzzling to me why we as a society are so willing to put so much time and money into working ourselves to death for some undefined prize labeled "progress". But are also too short-sighted, blind, terrified, whatever, of taking just a few seconds to wonder, "Where really should we be headed? Is the current course worth it?"
An atheist is simply someone who does not believe in the existence of any gods. It does not necessarily follow that he or she believes they can prove that no gods exist. The question remains as to why you make such a big deal out of god. Do you always make such a long-winded defense if someone tells you they do not believe in any other one of the infinite possible metaphysical claims out there?
Although an empirical disproof of the existence of god is impossible, that doesn't rule out discounting specific definitions of god a priori.
It's been a while since I read Frankenstein, but I think electricity had some hand in giving the monster life. After all, Mary Shelley was inspired to write the book from the electrical experiments of Galvani.
Not really. Fake tits are highly overrated.
No, smart pointers take care of the reference-counting garbage for you behind the scenes, actually. You're thinking of Objective-C.
Just market it as a power generator and Archimedes Bug Zapper.
You don't think you'd be able to get a better-paying job with the knowledge you've acquired? You're doing too much to not be well-compensated for it.
This is easily the best post on the topic I've seen so far here. Have to read through it a few more times to understand it all, honestly.
I remember hearing about the AKS algorithm back when I was a grad student. Amazing stuff.
No actually, no program can do that.
Right. But it is known to be in NP. So proving P=NP would prove that RSA could be cracked quickly. But proving P!=NP would not prove that RSA cannot be cracked quickly.
Seriously? Cultivate a sense of intellectual curiosity and look back at that question. The point when you've already answered it for yourself.
Nonsense. The damage that a single serial killer does is laughably tiny in comparison to some delusional figure who is convinced they are doing the "right thing". Hell, Dahmer actually knew he was a monster, couldn't control his sick compulsions and felt bad about the things he did. Compare that to bin Laden who showed no remorse for his crimes against humanity and caused the deaths of thousands.
It's better when you hear him say it though...
I realize it's in Swedish. The phrase is repeated many times by a Swedish character from a Danish show called Riget (or, The Kingdom in Danish). But I've always heard it translated as "Danish scum!"
Danskjävlar!
Um, empiricism is great. But it only helps when you have a sense of what possible hypotheses there are for a given problem, what tests you should make for each hypothesis, where to look for answers when none of them pan out, etc. This is all classic scientific method of course, but in order to do it properly requires some depth of thought. The kind of thing that philosophy covers.
A meaningless statement. In order for something to be considered an illusion you must consider the possibility that something can be deceived. And in order for that something to be deceived, it must be conscious.
Phrasing!