Well, with a good pitch, you could probably send a baseball significantly further than the practical range of a pistol.... but that itself is impractical. And the impractical range of pistols is well beyond what you can reach with a baseball bat.
At one meter though, typical swinging range, no, that's fucking bullshit, a baseball bat is not going to be more deadly than a pistol. What the fuck are you smoking? Pistols are plenty deadly at one meter (and zero meters). Considering the time it takes to pull back and swing a bat, as opposed to pulling a trigger? Even considering the time it takes to draw a pistol? Ok, ok, if the guy has a baseball bat at the ready, and you literally have to unlock the case and load the pistol, then SURE, the bat wins. Unless the bat is wielded by batman himself, I'm going to have to bet on the pistol.
It DOES depend on the pistol. I mean, something that fires a.22BB is made for shooting galleries. You know, for kids. Meanwhile my crazy father-in-law loads his own.500 magnums. It's pretty ridiculous.
And then you have to consider the range of the athleticism of the bat-holder. Are we comparing Babe Ruth to my grandmother? How about my 2-year old nephew?
Which makes the debate about the deadliness of baseball bats vs pistols a bit of a clusterfuck. How about we go with an average person with a typical bat vs an average person with the most common pistol, at one meter, with both having to pick up their weapon from the ground in front of them. Does this highly specific use-case scenario make for a good test? DOUBLE MONEY ON THE PISTOL!
Pro-rifle/longarm, anti-pistols/portable-concealable firearms. I like it. I find all your arguments pretty spot on.
Ah, except:
the government has the legal right and duty to protect and educate children, even if their parents are idiotic morons.
Whoa there. Duty? Sorry dude, no level of government has the duty of protecting children from in-house accidents.
I mean, the commerce clause can more or less reasonably be construed to mean they have the duty to regulate, say, toys made with lead paint. Or that drugs have those bloody hard-to-open bottles. Or that guns have safety latches. And they most certainly have the duty to protect children (and the rest of us) from foreign invasions.You know, with tanks and battleships. And in a vague general sense, as a society, we really need to educate the populace and provide that whole equal opportunity thing. But protecting children from slipping on the kitchen floor? In-house accidents? Keeping dangerous things out of their reach? No man, sorry, that's a bit too far.
Nope, you're a criminal for violating federal law. check it. Are you positive that you haven't violated any federal law within the past year? How the fuck do you know that? It would take a team of lawyers months to verify that sort of statement.
Fear-monger? What? Ok, just try this out for me. Try separating the concept of "criminal" from "fear". Take Martin Luther King (jr.). Total criminal. Sent to jail and prison regularly. Violated the laws on the books, caught, tried, and was punished for it. But if you met MLK during your excellent time-traveling adventure, do you think you'd fear him? Naw, the dudes a pacifist and a preacher. Chill dude, you're in the presence of an important historical figure. Don't be bogus.
Just because people commit crimes does not make them bad people. I mean, you know, it depends on the crime obviously. But you seem to have this idea that "criminals" just kinda skulk around lurking around corners waiting to murderize you. I'm actually trying to tell you to stop being afraid of the boogeyman.
Really, I'm being, like, the opposite of a fear-monger here. I'm trying to explain that your fear is misplaced and that you probably don't really need that safety blanket.
Define "success". Is it "kills people"? I'd still pick rifles over pistols Is it "keeps me from getting killed"? That's debatable.
But hey, sure, if you had remembered to add "portability" to the list then pistols certainly hit a nice sweetspot for personal self-defense. I certainly see where you're coming from. With certain criteria having certain weights, then pistols really are the best weapon under certain circumstances.
A baseball bat can be as deadly as a pistol when used by a criminal
I thought we weren't talking about ninjas? But hey, sure, in that case, THEIR HANDS can be as deadly as a pistol, bomb, rocket, and/or dual-wielded flaming spear-whips. Good argument. Bravo. "Can be as deadly". yup. Certainly no weasel words there.
This is what we're aiming for, right? Giving the innocents the best possible chance?
Not quite. We're aiming (HAHA! I see what you did there) for a functional society that keeps people safe, keeps people productive, reduces waste, and generally gets along with each other. One that colonizes mars eventually.
The end-goal here is not to increase the odds of frail female college students in a last-man-standing no-holds-barred fight to the death against a group of 4-20 fanatically suicidal gang bangers.
Also, it's generally accepted that the best way to keep people safe from roving gangs is to make those gang members productive members of society by making opportunities available to them. And it's best done BEFORE they become roving gangs.
imposing their will on the rest of us.
That's right, keep beating up that strawman where you pretend we've just proposed a bill to eradicate all weaponry. You'll show him what for!
As a final note, realize that YOU are a criminal. You (most likely) commit a handful of crimes on a regular basis and everyone is simply unaware. You seem to have this mental image of a boogyman that you need to defend yourself from.
If you consider the varieties of self-defense weapons options available, and the criteria is "least likely to accidentally kill me", then the pistol is a pretty piss-poor choice.
I currently don't particularly use any self-defense weapons and simply prefer self-defense and good ol' regular defense to keep me safe most of the time. If I really had to go into a dangerous scenario where bullets and knives might be flying around, the first thing I'd want to bring isn't a weapon, but rather Kevlar.
But hey, sure, I'll throw you a bone. The pistol is one of the most lethal self-defense weapons available.
Also baseball bat is "equally deadly" as a pistol? What are you smoking?
Yet innocent citizens will only have bare hands and harsh language to defend themselves against a criminal.
This is a strawman. Really, do you see ANY suggestion in that post that we outlaw all weapons? It's not part of the debate. You are leaping to that conclusion.
AND THIS, my friends, is why I'm extra leery of the pro-gun nuts. Because most of the people behind that cause are bum-fucking stupid. Some might have rational, well-thought-out arguments, but they are a very sad minority.
All in all I'd consider it a good thing that our society is maleable and plastic enough to encounter world-view-shattering facts like that and simply take it in stride and move on.
Imagine the alternative where our society is so fragile that it cracks and shatters and faces a schism over whether or not a dude is made of stuff or the dude is imbued with stuff.
What about all the flavors of Hinduism which ARE atheistic? Man, it's like you only took a quick peek at India and moved on. Listen, India has a FUCKTON of people. And they are as diverse and complex as any other grouping of a billion people (like all of Europe and N. America combined). Their religions (plural) are all grouped together under the umbrella term of "hinduism" along with a lot of schools of thought that you really can't define as religions unless you want the term to start including AynRand's cult and PaveTheEarth movement in the term.
You know how there are a lot of christian sects? Like Baptist and Methodists? While they might see each other as heathens, that sort of diversity doesn't even come close to Hindu. Even if you include all the... what are they called? Abrahamic? Jews, Muslims, and Christians. Yeah, EVEN THEY have a more unified belief system then the Hindus.
You don't have to study the religion very far to know that much.
Well no, it still holds true. If you want to do something really really really well, you really do have to practice. A lot. Regardless of your genes, parents, or bank roll.
But no matter how much they practice, the mentally retarded will not become chess masters. Even if you've got more or less average genes, some people are simply going to be better than you, quicker than you, with less practice than you put in.
That's a hard lesson for some kids. But what can I tell you, life isn't fair.
But hey, most of those people with natural talent hardly apply themselves at all, and if you put in some hard work, you can easily outperform most of them. It's a different story if you're talking about the pinnacle of the game, where typically only the naturally gifted have a hope of even competing.
If it's a secret project, real skunk-works, then American companies don't care either. They only have to worry about patents for things that they sell publicly to the masses. If it's secret, and only for use in-house, or to select customers (like the CIA or mafia) then you really don't care about patents. Patents exist to keep inventors from being squirreled away with trade secrets, not talking about what they've invented. Patents are supposed to encourage innovation and people sharing each others work. If they find something useful, they can use it and throw a dollar at the originator.
Right, and if we ever militarize space, I imagine that the military craft/bases will be very well hidden and all but immune to actual violence.
But the mars rovers aren't particularly concerned with being found. Nor, I imagine, would civilian operations in space be particularly mindful of stealth concerns while they're desperately trying to make their business profitable. And if you're sitting on a big nugget of... say... radioactive material and you're prepping to make a dollar selling nuclear batteries, but then all of a sudden some shmuck out on Ganymede starts pumping out batteries that will last well past your lifetime and all your potential clients are blowing away in the ether winds... And you just happen to be sitting on a lot of potential BOMB, and they're RIGHT THERE, well... there's your "economic warfare".
Now, sure sure, eventually all space-faring participants might be mindful of their need for stealth as a casual safety aspect the same way we lock our front door, because you never know when one of those desperadoes will lob a bomb your way and hope to pick up the pieces. But initially there are going to be a whole lot of soft target and a lot of people that aren't particularly outfitted for war.
I imagine the first space-battle will be more along the lines of someone with a wrench swinging it about angrily.
Their patents expired. It was hip new technology in the 1980's with a lot of industrial researchers making exciting new tools and generally doing what patents encourage.
But there was only niche use for it, and the cost of all the overlapping patents stifled the market for 30 years. You couldn't sell a 3D printer without paying homage (and a fuckton of cash) to the inventors back in the 80's.
Those patents are expiring and now making, selling, and operating 3D printers is economically viable for the general populace and not just niche tool shops with a big wad of cash. Without the burden that those patents created, the technology was allowed to go mainstream.
Kinda makes you wonder if existence of patents are such a good idea in the first place.
And if you remembered correctly, EVEN AS HE WAS CAMPAIGNING, he voted to give retro-active immunity to the telcom companies that were incriminated by Mark Klein in the warrentless wiretapping fiasco. This was right before the election when it was right on the tip of everyone's mind and it was right in front of everyone.
That was the wakeup moment for me. And I still voted for the guy. And hey, while he might be a dick when it comes to privacy rights and he's done nothing to reign in the powers of the president, he's done a lot of good: 1) We did not invade Iran. This might seem like a joke now, but McCain and Paline made it seem viable. 2) We have not yet started WWIII with Russia over Georgia or Ukraine. 3) He ramped down the Iraqi occupation. I'm happy with that. Given the rise of ISIS, it might have been a mistake, but considering the whole damn thing is a clusterfuck, I'd still prefer to have the least amount of interaction there as possible. 4) He did something with healthcare and fixed the biggest and worst problems... I wish he could have done more. 5) And he rode out the econopocalypse. Not that he had much control over that, but he responded to the crisis in the way his (and Bush's) advisors told him to and he didn't fuck it all up. We came through it.
Anyway, yeah, he promised high things on the road, but it didn't take much to see that was an empty promise as he STABBED THAT FUCKER IN THE BACK while still saying he liked whislteblowers.
I am in a perpetual state of excitement when it comes to SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE!!! (interrupted occasionally by existential dread about how far away most of the cool stuff is)
Some people will never be excited about space. Some people will never not be excited about space. The rub is the distribution across the populace and the intensity. Keeping those fires alight and the embers hot is an important when you need to convince your neighbors to pool money for basic research with a ROI that might be measured in generations.
hey, great idea! I'll get my guys to talk with your guys and OH HEY how about we bring in NotDrWho and we take a look at his sig about Eisenhower! It's like we've come full fucking circle here.
We should reign back in military industrial complex.
I'm glad we can agree that this is a good thing. It's a lovely idea you had. One I fully support.
Please note that there is no department of offense, and the last invasion of the USA was by Pancho Villa. As for healthcare, I don't really care which level of government performs the tasks that need to be done. Ideally, they wouldn't be so vital or such clusterfucks that private industry would handle it without it becoming a political thing. I'm pretty sure regulatory capture and market dominance have made healthcare such a mess that it needs something like Shermans hammer to fix it. If a state could do battle with the powers that are milking healthcare industry and straighten it all out, more the power to them. Why hasn't one of the 50 done something about it yet?
No, I'm pretty sure there are not always "bad people we need to shoot at". Indeed, I'd be fine with just shooting at the ones that came over here. If the Department of Defense was more on the defensive, rather than trying and failing to be the world police, that'd be cool.
Ah, so the broken window fallacy is completely ignorable if there is a middle-man. While it's a complete waste to have the glazer make a new window, the money the glazer pays the coal-man to keep his furnace going, THAT'S totally legitimate commerce!
No, that's silly. It's wasted effort, wasted resources, and the broken window is a drain on society.
Some military is always needed, but we don't need THIS MUCH military. But that's a bit of an aside. My point is that claiming that the military provides a welfare service to the poor by providing them jobs is an empty argument. Likewise, claiming that military contracts produce economy is also an empty argument. If you want to piss away money employing people to create software, uniforms, vehicles, and support infrastructure in a welfare/make-work/might-as-well-toss-it-into-a-volcano sort of way, I'd rather the output of those efforts be something more useful like software, uniforms, vehicles, and support infrastructure for the healthcare system?
Remember, you are a citizen of your state first and a THEN a citizen of the United States.
Fuck the Governor! I'm backing my Mayor's god-given authority over man and we'll fight tooth and nail if the state troopers try and pry the hard-earned cash from our poor hungry neighbors. You've got to have community! You've got to stand up together and fight the oppressive gubernational tyrants! What do I care if some shmuck in a city way out over there has a tornado plow through his home, what's that to me? I don't know that guy. He's not my neighbor.
If those farmboys think they can get fat off of the hard-working city-man, then they have another thing coming! GOGO CITY POWER!
And pay no heed to these poor rabble-rousers that think groups of people WITHIN the city need representation. We either stand together under the mayor, or we all fall apart.
So? Corporations do all sorts of illegal things and still operate with a profit and still get defended by congressmen.
What if the people they robbed didn't enjoy the protection that the US constitution provides? Like illegal immigrants* or Iraqis*?
What if they taking oil reserves rather than petty cash?
*which is debateable
these jobs often are reserved ONLY for US citizens
Blackwater/Xe/Academi, or whatever they're calling themselves by the time you read this, employ a lot of people that aren't US citizens. And they get contracts from the state department and the DoD.
God, that was depressingly easy to shoot your argument full of holes. I mean, sure sure, I get your point a company whose business model was blatantly illegal should be busted up pretty quickly. And that the army provides a job to a lot of poor people in the USA. But so what? If you REALLY want some sort of welfare make-work project, there are more productive things to train the poor in rather than killing people. I'm a big fan of the Hoover dam. That was cool. The golden gate bridge looks nice and is kinda useful.
And yeah... as sad as it is... if you're a big enough company embedded deeply enough into the military industrial complex, it really doesn't matter if you operate outside of the law.
AH! You've redefined "nothing" to somehow exclude a complete void. So that "absolute nothingness" somehow involves "layers of multi-dimentional abstract", whatever that is. I think I see where you're coming from, and I've remembered why that little red dot is there.
Anyway, when people are talking about the whole "where did all this stuff come from?" quandary, when someone replies with "from nothing", they're using the more common definition of "nothing" rather than your meta-physical definition.
This whole thing where fundamental terms keep shifting depending on who you're talking to gets kinda frustrating. I wish they'd invent new terms rather than highjack the ones we previously used.
What's wrong with using the same data in in two different experiments? I mean, if you have an image of mars, and you want to analyze how much rust is in there and you also want to analyze how much the ice-cap changed.... why can't you use the same image? If you already have the data, why not use it again?
Did he work on two different experiments that were essentially the same thing? Like, he was double-dipping the grant pool for the same work?
He's falling for the common mistake that "job creation" is good for the economy, regardless of what that job is. We could form companies that employed people to literally rob you in the street and some politicians would argue that they need a tax break "FER DA JERBS!"
The classic example is the broken window fallacy. Just as breaking windows does not produce a net gain for society, "running through inventory" does not help society, even if a few people are paid to clean up the mess afterwards.
As assuredly as a rising tide raises all boats, the drain on society that the DoD represents sinks all boats. They are a burden bringing us down and, frankly, making us non-competitive with China. We need some defense, but not this much.
You have options available to you. You're 45, but old dogs can learn new tricks if they're pushed.
If you can't bring yourself to dumping her, are you willing to let her walk away? If she simply chose to leave, would you let her?
If so, then you can lay down the law, get a split bank account again, do what you want, and generally try to enjoy life while also being married. This change will, most likely, upset her. And there will be a time of adjustment which may or may not be comfortable for everyone involved. Such states are not usually sustainable and something will give.
But it doesn't have to be you.
And you will either have a better marriage, or be free to do what you wish.
Yeah, I know right? It's mind-blowing. I ran across this when the stories about the Q-thruster were going around. Regardless if the thruster is a real thing, it lead me to the Casimir Effect and the idea of Quantum Fluctuations, where "nothing" (ie, the dead void of space where nothing should be) actually wobbles a bit and briefly makes matter and anti-matter, the "somethings". Usually they quickly combine and anull each other so we don't typically observe this happening. You could say that it's reality splitting in two if you want to be poetic about it. Or a vacuum splitting in two.
Anyway, this is established, known, observed science fact. So go figure. Something from nothing.
Your contention is false. This notion might fly in the face of common sense, but it's observable fact. I guess the platform common sense you've pinned your philosophical beliefs upon has had one of it's legs removed. No worries though, it blew my mind too. Give yourself some time to figure out how this new knowledge re-adjusts your world-view.
Ability to socialize with others without having to worry about getting beat up
And we wonder where the internet trolls come from... I mean, I get it. Parent want their kid to be safe. But when you remove the whole "do this and you will get punched in the face" aspect of social interaction, then certain behaviors fail to get snuffed out.
We've all seen that comic about when little stephan forgets he is not online. There's a kernel of truth to that. I'm sure it will help socialize them to the facts of the Internet. Like how to deal with trolls, and how to ignore annoying people, and how you can't tell when someone is a dog. But I imagine it will hurt their real-life socializing skills.
So... new thing comes a long and it's different. Good in some way, bad in others. Or maybe I'm just getting old.
"My sole motive is to inform the public as to that which is done in their name and that which is done against them." - Edward Snowden.
It's that "done in our name" portion. We run this gin-joint. Our spies have performed illegal operations.
He could have leaked the information with proof regarding the tapping at AT&T, Verizon, Google, etc without releasing information that damaged our foreign intelligence gathering.
That's actually quite a lot of effort that entire news corporations are STILL shuffling through. Years later. And what if he slipped up while censoring the data? You'd trust one man without a budget and a limited time-frame rather than an organization with a QA department? Or I supposed you'd rather he enter Russia with all of the NSA's as-of-yet unreleased secrets.
And do you honestly believe that anyone at the NSA could have influenced ISIS's surge to power? Really? Do you honestly believe that IF ONLY Snowden hadn't blown that whistle, then somehow the NSA would have prevented the clusterfuck in Iraq right now?
Slashdot Mirror
Well, with a good pitch, you could probably send a baseball significantly further than the practical range of a pistol.... but that itself is impractical. And the impractical range of pistols is well beyond what you can reach with a baseball bat.
At one meter though, typical swinging range, no, that's fucking bullshit, a baseball bat is not going to be more deadly than a pistol. What the fuck are you smoking? Pistols are plenty deadly at one meter (and zero meters). Considering the time it takes to pull back and swing a bat, as opposed to pulling a trigger? Even considering the time it takes to draw a pistol? Ok, ok, if the guy has a baseball bat at the ready, and you literally have to unlock the case and load the pistol, then SURE, the bat wins. Unless the bat is wielded by batman himself, I'm going to have to bet on the pistol.
It DOES depend on the pistol. I mean, something that fires a .22BB is made for shooting galleries. You know, for kids. Meanwhile my crazy father-in-law loads his own .500 magnums. It's pretty ridiculous.
And then you have to consider the range of the athleticism of the bat-holder. Are we comparing Babe Ruth to my grandmother? How about my 2-year old nephew?
Which makes the debate about the deadliness of baseball bats vs pistols a bit of a clusterfuck. How about we go with an average person with a typical bat vs an average person with the most common pistol, at one meter, with both having to pick up their weapon from the ground in front of them. Does this highly specific use-case scenario make for a good test? DOUBLE MONEY ON THE PISTOL!
Pro-rifle/longarm, anti-pistols/portable-concealable firearms. I like it. I find all your arguments pretty spot on.
Ah, except:
the government has the legal right and duty to protect and educate children, even if their parents are idiotic morons.
Whoa there. Duty? Sorry dude, no level of government has the duty of protecting children from in-house accidents.
I mean, the commerce clause can more or less reasonably be construed to mean they have the duty to regulate, say, toys made with lead paint. Or that drugs have those bloody hard-to-open bottles. Or that guns have safety latches. And they most certainly have the duty to protect children (and the rest of us) from foreign invasions.You know, with tanks and battleships. And in a vague general sense, as a society, we really need to educate the populace and provide that whole equal opportunity thing. But protecting children from slipping on the kitchen floor? In-house accidents? Keeping dangerous things out of their reach? No man, sorry, that's a bit too far.
Nope, you're a criminal for violating federal law. check it. Are you positive that you haven't violated any federal law within the past year? How the fuck do you know that? It would take a team of lawyers months to verify that sort of statement.
Fear-monger? What? Ok, just try this out for me. Try separating the concept of "criminal" from "fear". Take Martin Luther King (jr.). Total criminal. Sent to jail and prison regularly. Violated the laws on the books, caught, tried, and was punished for it. But if you met MLK during your excellent time-traveling adventure, do you think you'd fear him? Naw, the dudes a pacifist and a preacher. Chill dude, you're in the presence of an important historical figure. Don't be bogus.
Just because people commit crimes does not make them bad people. I mean, you know, it depends on the crime obviously. But you seem to have this idea that "criminals" just kinda skulk around lurking around corners waiting to murderize you. I'm actually trying to tell you to stop being afraid of the boogeyman.
Really, I'm being, like, the opposite of a fear-monger here. I'm trying to explain that your fear is misplaced and that you probably don't really need that safety blanket.
Would this one be easier to fully chrome?
easiest to use
Clubs.
Shotguns.
And pft, rifles for that matter.
highest chance of success
Define "success".
Is it "kills people"? I'd still pick rifles over pistols
Is it "keeps me from getting killed"? That's debatable.
But hey, sure, if you had remembered to add "portability" to the list then pistols certainly hit a nice sweetspot for personal self-defense. I certainly see where you're coming from. With certain criteria having certain weights, then pistols really are the best weapon under certain circumstances.
A baseball bat can be as deadly as a pistol when used by a criminal
I thought we weren't talking about ninjas? But hey, sure, in that case, THEIR HANDS can be as deadly as a pistol, bomb, rocket, and/or dual-wielded flaming spear-whips. Good argument. Bravo. "Can be as deadly". yup. Certainly no weasel words there.
This is what we're aiming for, right? Giving the innocents the best possible chance?
Not quite. We're aiming (HAHA! I see what you did there) for a functional society that keeps people safe, keeps people productive, reduces waste, and generally gets along with each other. One that colonizes mars eventually.
The end-goal here is not to increase the odds of frail female college students in a last-man-standing no-holds-barred fight to the death against a group of 4-20 fanatically suicidal gang bangers.
Also, it's generally accepted that the best way to keep people safe from roving gangs is to make those gang members productive members of society by making opportunities available to them. And it's best done BEFORE they become roving gangs.
imposing their will on the rest of us.
That's right, keep beating up that strawman where you pretend we've just proposed a bill to eradicate all weaponry. You'll show him what for!
As a final note, realize that YOU are a criminal. You (most likely) commit a handful of crimes on a regular basis and everyone is simply unaware. You seem to have this mental image of a boogyman that you need to defend yourself from.
Define "best".
If you consider the varieties of self-defense weapons options available, and the criteria is "least likely to accidentally kill me", then the pistol is a pretty piss-poor choice.
I currently don't particularly use any self-defense weapons and simply prefer self-defense and good ol' regular defense to keep me safe most of the time. If I really had to go into a dangerous scenario where bullets and knives might be flying around, the first thing I'd want to bring isn't a weapon, but rather Kevlar.
But hey, sure, I'll throw you a bone. The pistol is one of the most lethal self-defense weapons available.
Also baseball bat is "equally deadly" as a pistol? What are you smoking?
Yet innocent citizens will only have bare hands and harsh language to defend themselves against a criminal.
This is a strawman. Really, do you see ANY suggestion in that post that we outlaw all weapons? It's not part of the debate. You are leaping to that conclusion.
AND THIS, my friends, is why I'm extra leery of the pro-gun nuts. Because most of the people behind that cause are bum-fucking stupid. Some might have rational, well-thought-out arguments, but they are a very sad minority.
All in all I'd consider it a good thing that our society is maleable and plastic enough to encounter world-view-shattering facts like that and simply take it in stride and move on.
Imagine the alternative where our society is so fragile that it cracks and shatters and faces a schism over whether or not a dude is made of stuff or the dude is imbued with stuff.
No, Hinduism and Atheism are NOT compatible.
What about all the flavors of Hinduism which ARE atheistic?
Man, it's like you only took a quick peek at India and moved on. Listen, India has a FUCKTON of people. And they are as diverse and complex as any other grouping of a billion people (like all of Europe and N. America combined). Their religions (plural) are all grouped together under the umbrella term of "hinduism" along with a lot of schools of thought that you really can't define as religions unless you want the term to start including AynRand's cult and PaveTheEarth movement in the term.
You know how there are a lot of christian sects? Like Baptist and Methodists? While they might see each other as heathens, that sort of diversity doesn't even come close to Hindu. Even if you include all the... what are they called? Abrahamic? Jews, Muslims, and Christians. Yeah, EVEN THEY have a more unified belief system then the Hindus.
You don't have to study the religion very far to know that much.
And you obviously haven't studied it very far.
Well no, it still holds true. If you want to do something really really really well, you really do have to practice. A lot. Regardless of your genes, parents, or bank roll.
But no matter how much they practice, the mentally retarded will not become chess masters. Even if you've got more or less average genes, some people are simply going to be better than you, quicker than you, with less practice than you put in.
That's a hard lesson for some kids. But what can I tell you, life isn't fair.
But hey, most of those people with natural talent hardly apply themselves at all, and if you put in some hard work, you can easily outperform most of them. It's a different story if you're talking about the pinnacle of the game, where typically only the naturally gifted have a hope of even competing.
If it's a secret project, real skunk-works, then American companies don't care either. They only have to worry about patents for things that they sell publicly to the masses. If it's secret, and only for use in-house, or to select customers (like the CIA or mafia) then you really don't care about patents. Patents exist to keep inventors from being squirreled away with trade secrets, not talking about what they've invented. Patents are supposed to encourage innovation and people sharing each others work. If they find something useful, they can use it and throw a dollar at the originator.
something that doesn't want to be found.
Right, and if we ever militarize space, I imagine that the military craft/bases will be very well hidden and all but immune to actual violence.
But the mars rovers aren't particularly concerned with being found. Nor, I imagine, would civilian operations in space be particularly mindful of stealth concerns while they're desperately trying to make their business profitable. And if you're sitting on a big nugget of... say... radioactive material and you're prepping to make a dollar selling nuclear batteries, but then all of a sudden some shmuck out on Ganymede starts pumping out batteries that will last well past your lifetime and all your potential clients are blowing away in the ether winds... And you just happen to be sitting on a lot of potential BOMB, and they're RIGHT THERE, well... there's your "economic warfare".
Now, sure sure, eventually all space-faring participants might be mindful of their need for stealth as a casual safety aspect the same way we lock our front door, because you never know when one of those desperadoes will lob a bomb your way and hope to pick up the pieces. But initially there are going to be a whole lot of soft target and a lot of people that aren't particularly outfitted for war.
I imagine the first space-battle will be more along the lines of someone with a wrench swinging it about angrily.
Their patents expired. It was hip new technology in the 1980's with a lot of industrial researchers making exciting new tools and generally doing what patents encourage.
But there was only niche use for it, and the cost of all the overlapping patents stifled the market for 30 years. You couldn't sell a 3D printer without paying homage (and a fuckton of cash) to the inventors back in the 80's.
Those patents are expiring and now making, selling, and operating 3D printers is economically viable for the general populace and not just niche tool shops with a big wad of cash. Without the burden that those patents created, the technology was allowed to go mainstream.
Kinda makes you wonder if existence of patents are such a good idea in the first place.
I thought this was common knowledge.
And if you remembered correctly, EVEN AS HE WAS CAMPAIGNING, he voted to give retro-active immunity to the telcom companies that were incriminated by Mark Klein in the warrentless wiretapping fiasco. This was right before the election when it was right on the tip of everyone's mind and it was right in front of everyone.
That was the wakeup moment for me. And I still voted for the guy. And hey, while he might be a dick when it comes to privacy rights and he's done nothing to reign in the powers of the president, he's done a lot of good:
1) We did not invade Iran. This might seem like a joke now, but McCain and Paline made it seem viable.
2) We have not yet started WWIII with Russia over Georgia or Ukraine.
3) He ramped down the Iraqi occupation. I'm happy with that. Given the rise of ISIS, it might have been a mistake, but considering the whole damn thing is a clusterfuck, I'd still prefer to have the least amount of interaction there as possible.
4) He did something with healthcare and fixed the biggest and worst problems... I wish he could have done more.
5) And he rode out the econopocalypse. Not that he had much control over that, but he responded to the crisis in the way his (and Bush's) advisors told him to and he didn't fuck it all up. We came through it.
Anyway, yeah, he promised high things on the road, but it didn't take much to see that was an empty promise as he STABBED THAT FUCKER IN THE BACK while still saying he liked whislteblowers.
I am in a perpetual state of excitement when it comes to SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE!!!
(interrupted occasionally by existential dread about how far away most of the cool stuff is)
Some people will never be excited about space. Some people will never not be excited about space. The rub is the distribution across the populace and the intensity. Keeping those fires alight and the embers hot is an important when you need to convince your neighbors to pool money for basic research with a ROI that might be measured in generations.
hey, great idea! I'll get my guys to talk with your guys and OH HEY how about we bring in NotDrWho and we take a look at his sig about Eisenhower! It's like we've come full fucking circle here.
We should reign back in military industrial complex.
I'm glad we can agree that this is a good thing. It's a lovely idea you had. One I fully support.
Please note that there is no department of offense, and the last invasion of the USA was by Pancho Villa. As for healthcare, I don't really care which level of government performs the tasks that need to be done. Ideally, they wouldn't be so vital or such clusterfucks that private industry would handle it without it becoming a political thing. I'm pretty sure regulatory capture and market dominance have made healthcare such a mess that it needs something like Shermans hammer to fix it. If a state could do battle with the powers that are milking healthcare industry and straighten it all out, more the power to them. Why hasn't one of the 50 done something about it yet?
No, I'm pretty sure there are not always "bad people we need to shoot at". Indeed, I'd be fine with just shooting at the ones that came over here. If the Department of Defense was more on the defensive, rather than trying and failing to be the world police, that'd be cool.
Ah, so the broken window fallacy is completely ignorable if there is a middle-man. While it's a complete waste to have the glazer make a new window, the money the glazer pays the coal-man to keep his furnace going, THAT'S totally legitimate commerce!
No, that's silly. It's wasted effort, wasted resources, and the broken window is a drain on society.
Some military is always needed, but we don't need THIS MUCH military. But that's a bit of an aside. My point is that claiming that the military provides a welfare service to the poor by providing them jobs is an empty argument. Likewise, claiming that military contracts produce economy is also an empty argument. If you want to piss away money employing people to create software, uniforms, vehicles, and support infrastructure in a welfare/make-work/might-as-well-toss-it-into-a-volcano sort of way, I'd rather the output of those efforts be something more useful like software, uniforms, vehicles, and support infrastructure for the healthcare system?
Remember, you are a citizen of your state first and a THEN a citizen of the United States.
Fuck the Governor! I'm backing my Mayor's god-given authority over man and we'll fight tooth and nail if the state troopers try and pry the hard-earned cash from our poor hungry neighbors. You've got to have community! You've got to stand up together and fight the oppressive gubernational tyrants! What do I care if some shmuck in a city way out over there has a tornado plow through his home, what's that to me? I don't know that guy. He's not my neighbor.
If those farmboys think they can get fat off of the hard-working city-man, then they have another thing coming! GOGO CITY POWER!
And pay no heed to these poor rabble-rousers that think groups of people WITHIN the city need representation. We either stand together under the mayor, or we all fall apart.
(SARCASM)
But that wouldn't be legal.
So? Corporations do all sorts of illegal things and still operate with a profit and still get defended by congressmen.
What if the people they robbed didn't enjoy the protection that the US constitution provides? Like illegal immigrants* or Iraqis*?
What if they taking oil reserves rather than petty cash?
*which is debateable
these jobs often are reserved ONLY for US citizens
Blackwater/Xe/Academi, or whatever they're calling themselves by the time you read this, employ a lot of people that aren't US citizens. And they get contracts from the state department and the DoD.
God, that was depressingly easy to shoot your argument full of holes. I mean, sure sure, I get your point a company whose business model was blatantly illegal should be busted up pretty quickly. And that the army provides a job to a lot of poor people in the USA. But so what? If you REALLY want some sort of welfare make-work project, there are more productive things to train the poor in rather than killing people. I'm a big fan of the Hoover dam. That was cool. The golden gate bridge looks nice and is kinda useful.
And yeah... as sad as it is... if you're a big enough company embedded deeply enough into the military industrial complex, it really doesn't matter if you operate outside of the law.
AH! You've redefined "nothing" to somehow exclude a complete void. So that "absolute nothingness" somehow involves "layers of multi-dimentional abstract", whatever that is. I think I see where you're coming from, and I've remembered why that little red dot is there.
Anyway, when people are talking about the whole "where did all this stuff come from?" quandary, when someone replies with "from nothing", they're using the more common definition of "nothing" rather than your meta-physical definition.
This whole thing where fundamental terms keep shifting depending on who you're talking to gets kinda frustrating. I wish they'd invent new terms rather than highjack the ones we previously used.
Walking in blind here, so help me out.
What's wrong with using the same data in in two different experiments? I mean, if you have an image of mars, and you want to analyze how much rust is in there and you also want to analyze how much the ice-cap changed.... why can't you use the same image? If you already have the data, why not use it again?
Did he work on two different experiments that were essentially the same thing? Like, he was double-dipping the grant pool for the same work?
He's falling for the common mistake that "job creation" is good for the economy, regardless of what that job is.
We could form companies that employed people to literally rob you in the street and some politicians would argue that they need a tax break "FER DA JERBS!"
The classic example is the broken window fallacy. Just as breaking windows does not produce a net gain for society, "running through inventory" does not help society, even if a few people are paid to clean up the mess afterwards.
As assuredly as a rising tide raises all boats, the drain on society that the DoD represents sinks all boats. They are a burden bringing us down and, frankly, making us non-competitive with China. We need some defense, but not this much.
You have options available to you. You're 45, but old dogs can learn new tricks if they're pushed.
If you can't bring yourself to dumping her, are you willing to let her walk away? If she simply chose to leave, would you let her?
If so, then you can lay down the law, get a split bank account again, do what you want, and generally try to enjoy life while also being married. This change will, most likely, upset her. And there will be a time of adjustment which may or may not be comfortable for everyone involved. Such states are not usually sustainable and something will give.
But it doesn't have to be you.
And you will either have a better marriage, or be free to do what you wish.
That's something from nothing
Yeah, I know right? It's mind-blowing. I ran across this when the stories about the Q-thruster were going around. Regardless if the thruster is a real thing, it lead me to the Casimir Effect and the idea of Quantum Fluctuations, where "nothing" (ie, the dead void of space where nothing should be) actually wobbles a bit and briefly makes matter and anti-matter, the "somethings". Usually they quickly combine and anull each other so we don't typically observe this happening. You could say that it's reality splitting in two if you want to be poetic about it. Or a vacuum splitting in two.
Anyway, this is established, known, observed science fact. So go figure. Something from nothing.
Your contention is false. This notion might fly in the face of common sense, but it's observable fact. I guess the platform common sense you've pinned your philosophical beliefs upon has had one of it's legs removed. No worries though, it blew my mind too. Give yourself some time to figure out how this new knowledge re-adjusts your world-view.
Ability to socialize with others without having to worry about getting beat up
And we wonder where the internet trolls come from...
I mean, I get it. Parent want their kid to be safe. But when you remove the whole "do this and you will get punched in the face" aspect of social interaction, then certain behaviors fail to get snuffed out.
We've all seen that comic about when little stephan forgets he is not online. There's a kernel of truth to that.
I'm sure it will help socialize them to the facts of the Internet. Like how to deal with trolls, and how to ignore annoying people, and how you can't tell when someone is a dog.
But I imagine it will hurt their real-life socializing skills.
So... new thing comes a long and it's different. Good in some way, bad in others. Or maybe I'm just getting old.
"My sole motive is to inform the public as to that which is done in their name and that which is done against them." - Edward Snowden.
It's that "done in our name" portion. We run this gin-joint. Our spies have performed illegal operations.
He could have leaked the information with proof regarding the tapping at AT&T, Verizon, Google, etc without releasing information that damaged our foreign intelligence gathering.
That's actually quite a lot of effort that entire news corporations are STILL shuffling through. Years later. And what if he slipped up while censoring the data? You'd trust one man without a budget and a limited time-frame rather than an organization with a QA department? Or I supposed you'd rather he enter Russia with all of the NSA's as-of-yet unreleased secrets.
And do you honestly believe that anyone at the NSA could have influenced ISIS's surge to power? Really? Do you honestly believe that IF ONLY Snowden hadn't blown that whistle, then somehow the NSA would have prevented the clusterfuck in Iraq right now?