This suggests to me that there could be a marketplace solution to the problem...
There is a marketplace solution to the problem. It's called government funding. Education as a market good has a ton of positive externalities attached to it. If little Timmy purchases an education for himself, he benefits in the form of increased earning potential, but everyone around him benefits as well: his employers receive a better employee, his employees receive a more profitable workplace, and his fellow citizens receive a better informed voter. Since these benefits are non-excludable -- there's no way for me to pay for part of Timmy's education and have it benefit only me -- the most fair way to pay for these positive externalities is through public funds.
My Libertarian leanings would prefer to see less Governmental influence in education.
Because you want the market to underproduce education, or because you want the taxpayers to subsidize this public good while having no say in directing their expenditures?
You can't compare Tolkien and the Matrix trilogy because one is a trilogy of books, the other a set of films. Secondly, I don't know who told you that the Matrix trilogy was supposed to contain a bunch of deep philosophy, but you were sadly misinformed. The Matrix trilogy sets out to be fun to watch and succeeds admirably. It relies on comic-book style and fast-paced action to do so. LOTR, on the other hand, relies on geeks filling in the characters' back-stories with encyclopaedic knowledge. Trust me, if you haven't read the books, there's not a ton of depth to the movies that's actually portrayed on-screen.
But anyway, if those are you examples of deep things in the LOTR, then there are five examples of depth practically in the first Matrix film alone. to wit:
a) At the start of the movie, Neo thinks that he is perceiving reality but it turns out he is not. How do we know that what we perceive is real?
b) Can the Oracle really predict the future if humans have free will?
c) Cypher's choice: would you rather live free outside the matrix eating gruel, or inside the matrix pretending to eat steak?
d) Agent Smith is an artificial form of life. What are the ethical considerations in dealing with him?
e) The humans and machines have a symbiotic relationship. How can we control technology without having it control us?
Suppose the government declared that it would no longer protect copyrights on music. People begin using the internet to share music on a massive scale, all done legally.
What you think are the negative consequences of this scenario? What would happen and what are all the ways in which it would be harmful?
In reality, only 10.7% believed the RIAA's statistics, but those people believed with a credulity *far* above the national average, resulting in belief that is basicly
the *equivalent* of 107%.
Try "not ALLOWED in curriculum" and you'll be closer to the mark.
A small distinction, depending on who's doing the disallowing. If teacher is required to follow a particular curriculum, then every book not on it is not allowed, since the teacher can't choose to include it. This is all miles away from it being true that the book was banned.
That is what pisses me off, teachers can (and do) teach directly from the Veda, but they can't approach anything that even HINTS of Christianity.
Whatever. Whenever I talk to people like you I feel like I'm playing "Letters from an Alternate Universe." Perhaps my experience is limited, but I just can't imagine that you are telling the truth. Christianity's influence on Western literature is such that lots of it "hints at Christianity," and it certainly gets taught. Hell, I read the book of Job for a class in high school.
Narnia has been banned from my local school district do to 'religious' content. Pisses me off, had it not been for Narnia there is a good chance that I would never have developed my love of reading.
The funny thing is, when I first read this post, for a second I was vaguely ticked off that someone might ban a book based on its simple religious allusions, but then a little voice in the back of my head said "yeah, right. Nobody banned any 'Chronicles of Narnia.'"
By banned I mean it was banned from being read in the classroom as part of school work or assignments, students can still check them out from the Library of course
A few seconds later, and it turns out that little voice was correct. "Banned" in this case is being incorrectly used to mean "not included in the curriculum." Big deal. Lots of books weren't included in the curriculum. Those crazy liberals! They ban books but forget to like, try to stop anyone from reading them.
People must be reminded that it IS possible to get through schooling without punching and fucking your way from one class to the next
I hate people like this cause they talk about high school like it's one long orgy of drug use, oral sex, compulsory homosexuality, and secular indoctrination. If that's the case, then WHY DIDN'T I GET ANY?
Maybe only 1% of the population thinks UF is funny because it isn't. Sorry, but the characters are ugly and haven't improved with age. The timing, when it's gotten right, is entirely ripped out of some old Bloom County strip. (not to mention the art) Go read
some good comics.
That's a pretty ridiculous chain of logic. What is it you added to your computer in order to help create NWN? That's right, nothing but your imagination. (making some assumptions,) You used an IDE written by another company, wrote in a language invented by someone else; you used various utilities written by other people, your computer was manufactured by others, and so on. Hell, you even used someone else's gaming system. (AD&D) So technically, NWN belongs to a whole group of people who gave you the tools you needed to make the game.
Of course, none of those people put clauses in the licensing agreement that you wouldn't own the things you created. Would you use a compiler that made you give up ownership of any program you compiled with it? If not, why do you expect people to want to use the NWN toolkit?
They made a whole bunch of kick-ass board games, to wit: Advanced Civilization, Titan, Diplomacy, Cosmic Encounter, Acquire, and more. Recently-ish they got bought by Hasbro and are reprinting select games in fancy boxes with flashy boards and pieces.
As the Dead Kennedy's sang "Kinky sex makes the world go round!"
The Dead Kennedys (no apostrophe needed for pluralizing words) never sang that particular lyric. They have a song by that name, in which their other song "Bleed For Me" is played softly in the background, and the following is spoken over it.
KINKY SEX MAKES THE WORLD GO 'ROUND
greetings...this is the secretary of war at the state department of the united states...we have a problem. the companies want something done about this sluggish world economic situation...profits have been running a little thin lately and we need to stimulate some growth...now we know there's an alarmingly high number of young people roaming around in your country with nothing to do but stir up trouble for the police and damage private property. it doesn't look like they'll ever get a job...it's about time we did something constructive with these people...we've got thousands of 'em here too. they're crawling all over...the companies think it's time we all sit down, have a serious get-together-and start another war...the president? he loves the idea! all those missiles streaming overhead to and fro...napalm...people running down the road, skin on fire...the soviets seem up for it...the kremlin's been itching for the real thing for years. hell, afghanistan's no fun...so whadya say?...we don't even have to win this war. we just want to cut down on some of this excess population...now look. just start up a draft; draft as many of those people as you can. we'll call up every last youngster we can get our hands on, hand 'em some speed, give 'em an hour or two to learn how to use an automatic rifle and send 'em on their way...libya? el salvador? how 'bout northern ireland? or a "moderately repressive regime" in south america?...we'll just cook up a good soviet threat story in the middle east-we need that oil...we had libya all ready to go and colonel khadafy's hit squad didn't even show up. i tell ya...that man is unreliable. the kremlin
had their fingers on the button just like we did for that one...now just think for a minute-we can make this war so big-so big...the more people we kill in this war, the more the economy will prosper...we can get rid of practically everybody on your dole queue if we plan this right. take every loafer on welfare right off our computer rolls...now don't worry about demonstrations-just pump up your drug supply. so many people have hooked themselves on heroin and amphetamines since we took over, it's just like vietnam. we had everybody so busy with lsd they never got too strong. kept the war functioning just fine...it's easy. we've got our college kids so interested in beer they don't even care if we start manufacturing germ bombs again. put a nuclear stockpile in their back yard, they wouldn't even know what it looked like...so how 'bout it? look-war is money. the arms manufacturers tell me unless we get our bomb factories up to full production the whole economy is going to collapse...the soviets are in the same boat. we all agree the time has come for the big one, so whadya say?!?...that's excellent. we knew you'd agree...the companies will be very pleased.
Ok, so if you are liberal, your thoughts are OK because you are OPEN. But if you are conservative, you're thinking is CLOSED?
Pretty much. If you're conservative, in the sense of being resistant to change, then your thoughts are more likely to get stuck somewhere bad just because you don't want to change them.
If you're open to diversity of opinion, then you must accept ALL types of thinking!
Do I *really* have to point out what's wrong with that statement? Valuing knowledge means "accepting" (whatever that means) thinking might lead you to some useful new knowledge. Usually this means being more open minded than the average Amoral Majority member, although if you want to put it that way, it doesn't mean you must accept anything you deem to be incorrect. (Keeping in mind that you could be wrong, of course.)
Bush (not my favorite president to say the least) was struggling with some legitimate moral issues regarding stem cells from aborted fetus. Honestly, I'm sick of people doing things "in the name of science" and calling all moral discussions "ignorant".
There are informed moral discussions and there are ignorant moral discussions. Bush is considering whether or not it's okay to destroy the magical invisible souls of these precious groups of cells. He's decided that it's not okay, but he does concede the benefit of utilizing the already existing stem cells.
I leave it as an exercise to the reader to determine whether this is an informed moral discussion or not.
Kids, this is what religion does to a person's mind. It doesn't really destroy your ability to think: several of his points, while somewhat poorly justified, are relevant criticisms of today's educational system. However, there also exists this gigantic mental block in certain areas that makes certain kinds of thought almost impossible. For example, point five is just complete bullshit, and point six: "The driving force for most of early American history is the belief in God," can really only be thought if the teaching of history is part fact, part propaganda tool.
Homeschooling is interesting, but until I see someone espousing it who isn't a religious freak or a little too into their children's lives, I can't see it as the wonderful thing certain people tend to paint it as.
I'm glad AIDS exists. I'm glad venereal diseases exist, and are often so hard to get rid of, sometimes deadly, and so very uncomfortable. Why? It's a good deterrent for those people who like to practice promiscuity.
You can't be serious.
Sexual promiscuity is bad because (among other factors) it spread certain disease, which ultimately make people unhappy. If these diseases did not exist, then having lots of sex with lots of people would not be a bad thing. (for that reason, anyway). Suppose someone came up with a pill you could take that would make it so that you never had any cavities for the rest of your life. That would be a good thing, right? Oh wait, no. Under your twisted logic, this pill would be bad, because it would encourage people to stop brushing their teeth, and everyone knows that brushing your teeth is very good and important.
Allow me to reiterate the point. Things are bad for a reason. And I mean a real reason, not some mystically inherent "sacred creation" reason. If that reason goes away, then those things are no longer bad.
Railing against the possibility of the improvement of people's lives is insane, and the religions that propagate this mentality are responsible for much human misery.
...it's very important there will be a company behind it. Master servers, IRC server (irc.dynamix.com), patches that will eliminate bugs and cheats. Hopefully sierra will take the place of dynamix on the above. but if it won't Tribes 2 will die All you need is one widespread cheat and the community dissolves.
Um, wrong. One example would be Counterstrike, a Half-Life mod with a thriving community of players. It has no master server distributing patches, and cheating is easy. On the other hand, the code is solid if quirky, and the gameplay is fantastic.
Why is that you twits never bitch about the fact that government tax the piss out of you yet bitch and moan about some evil corporation.
Don't buy their product and the corp ain't really going to care. Don't buy into the government line, or send them your tax money and your in jail
HELLO. Slight screw up in priorities mr. commie
BTW - free market is millions and millions times better than the crap that tanked the former Soviet.
Yeah, and eating mashed potatoes is a lot more fun than eating feces, but that doesn't mean I want mashed potatoes every night of the year.
I don't bitch about the government when I like their policies. I don't bitch about Microsoft or any other company when I like their policies. When either behaves badly with the power over other people that they have, especially when that bad behavior affects me, that's when I start to complain. Your whole government/private-enterprise dichotomy is total bull.
P.S. Corporations care very much when you don't buy their products. That's why they plaster their slogans on televisions, magazines, web sites, billboards, t-shirts, coffee-mugs, radios, baseball stadiums, mouse pads, tall buildings, the sky, etc. --
That aside, a reminder that people should not kill, covet, cheat on their spouses or worship idols does not constitute a "fuck you" to athiests. Idol-worshippers, maybe, but not athiests.
As you may recall, I didn't say that each commandment, taken on its own, was a bad idea that was offensive to non-christians. I said that having the government put up the ten commandments in public places is a government endorsement of a particular religion over all others, which is a Bad Thing.
If you want to put up little signs that say "Thank you for not coveting your neighbor's wife" right up there with the "No smoking" signs, go ahead.
One of the problems with the ten commandments is that their importance stems from their being the alleged word of God. Since this God is described as having created morality by fiat, his morality is arbitrary, and makes a curious choice for teaching children "moral values."
We don't need seperation of church and state. I'm all for prayer in schools, ten commandments in the courthouse, etc. That's what our country was founded on. Religious freedom, not religious seperation from society.
We need separation of church and state because our law guarantees the right of anyone to freely practice the religion of their choice. If the government actively promotes a particular religion, this is seen as a bad thing for the people who do not subscribe to that religion. Hence, the government should do nothing to raise one religion above the others, and maintain as neutral an attitude as reasonably possible.
What's good for one government is good for any government. Go to India and tell them that they should post the ten commandments in their public institutions. Then tell me what you think about governments sponsoring one religion.
Posting the ten commandments does not entwine religion and society, as you suggest. Prominently posting such a text is mixing Christianity and government. This is a big "fuck you" to all non-Christians, be they Hindus, Muslims, Mormons, atheists, or agnostics. Say what you want about what religions the writers of our early laws followed, this country was not founded on the government giving the shaft to whichever groups were too unpopular to defend themselves.
I couldn't get though the entire article, some days even just a little Katz is too much. The one statement that is just a little too ridiculous is the following:
Technology, as futurists like George Orwell and Arthur Clarke have been predicting for decades, will be the battleground on which the fight against corporatism is played out.
1. Orwell was not a 'futurist.' He wrote exactly one science-fictiony novel, which seems to be the only thing of his anyone has ever read.
2. I dare anyone to show how technology is a theme in Orwell's works, particularly with regards to "corporatism."
3. Orwell hasn't been doing anything for decades. He died of tuberculosis in 1950, at the age of forty-six.
Sigh. I suppose I shouldn't expect anything from someone who can't even look up when Frankenstein was written.
And by the way, if you've read and enjoyed 1984 and Animal Farm, I recommend "Down and Out in Paris and London," which chronicles Orwell's life as a pauper in said cities in the '20s. If you just have time for a quickie, read his short stories, "A Hanging," or "Shooting an Elephant." (available on line, consult your local search engine.) For all the allusions to "Orwell's prophetic visions of socialist dystopias," we would do well to remember two things, that Orwell was an avowed socialist who wrote about the evils of dogmatic thinking and totalitarian governments, and that he was a master of the English language, someone from whom Katz could learn a lot.
Oh, hold it. This is India. They outlaw Christian missionaries (and often murder them). In fact, they're mostly Hindus -- probably the world religion with the most relaxed attitudes towards sex. Wonder why THEY want to ban pornography? Could it be that they think it damages their society?
Actually, the article doesn't say a thing about about banning pornography. What it's mainly about is the police wanting the remove the anonymity in using cybercafes that helps people to use the internet to do bad things. The bad things specified in the article include "hacking, credit card misuse, death threats, pornography, morphing and terrorism." In fact, it's not the viewing of pornography that's talked about, but the sending of "porn mail." Since that's mentioned in conjunction with death threats and extortion, I assume they mean sending pornographic images to people who don't want to see them or would be upset by them, although I suppose it could mean passing around n00d g1fz by email.
But as long as you're reading stuff into random articles in order to support your ideology, I'll bite. Porn is damaging to society, but only to the elements of society that have demanded that everyone must keep their clothes on to cover up their "naughty bits." Just because something goes against rigid social controls doesn't make it automatically a bad thing. In fact, if the controls are set up to vilify female sexuality and judge women on their looks and their "purity," then it's probably not a bad thing at all.
I was at a thrift store earlier today, stocking up on t-shirts for the summer weather. There was a shelf of books, and I browsed through them, on the off chance that there was something to glean. Coincidentally, I ended up getting Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency in hardback for just a couple bucks. Man, what an eerie coincidence. I guess I'm glad I didn't grab "Timequake" as well.:(
Anyway, I have to say that Dirk Gently and Long Dark Tea Time are total masterpieces. I could be reborn a million times and I still would never be able to write anything as ferociously witty or clever as Adams' books. He was one of the few who could look at life and manufacture his own absurd, funny, yet uniquely true vision of it.
Sigh.
(yikes, I didn't even remember until I hit the preview button that my.sig was yet another Adams quote. spooky.)
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Hmmm, if we moderated all of Katz's stories, what do you think his karma would be??
Probably +50, for "Interesting." Presuming people moderate the way I think they do, which is:
If I agree with a post, it's "Insightful." If I don't agree, but it looks like they spelled all the words right, and aren't trolling or spreading flames, then it's "Interesting."
Actually, about half of Katz's stuff should be moderated -1 Redundant.
Slashdot Mirror
This suggests to me that there could be a marketplace solution to the problem...
There is a marketplace solution to the problem. It's called government funding. Education as a market good has a ton of positive externalities attached to it. If little Timmy purchases an education for himself, he benefits in the form of increased earning potential, but everyone around him benefits as well: his employers receive a better employee, his employees receive a more profitable workplace, and his fellow citizens receive a better informed voter. Since these benefits are non-excludable -- there's no way for me to pay for part of Timmy's education and have it benefit only me -- the most fair way to pay for these positive externalities is through public funds.
My Libertarian leanings would prefer to see less Governmental influence in education.
Because you want the market to underproduce education, or because you want the taxpayers to subsidize this public good while having no say in directing their expenditures?
But anyway, if those are you examples of deep things in the LOTR, then there are five examples of depth practically in the first Matrix film alone. to wit:
a) At the start of the movie, Neo thinks that he is perceiving reality but it turns out he is not. How do we know that what we perceive is real?
b) Can the Oracle really predict the future if humans have free will?
c) Cypher's choice: would you rather live free outside the matrix eating gruel, or inside the matrix pretending to eat steak?
d) Agent Smith is an artificial form of life. What are the ethical considerations in dealing with him?
e) The humans and machines have a symbiotic relationship. How can we control technology without having it control us?
Suppose the government declared that it would no longer protect copyrights on music. People begin using the internet to share music on a massive scale, all done legally.
What you think are the negative consequences of this scenario? What would happen and what are all the ways in which it would be harmful?
In reality, only 10.7% believed the RIAA's statistics, but those people believed with a credulity *far* above the national average, resulting in belief that is basicly the *equivalent* of 107%.
A small distinction, depending on who's doing the disallowing. If teacher is required to follow a particular curriculum, then every book not on it is not allowed, since the teacher can't choose to include it. This is all miles away from it being true that the book was banned.
That is what pisses me off, teachers can (and do) teach directly from the Veda, but they can't approach anything that even HINTS of Christianity.
Whatever. Whenever I talk to people like you I feel like I'm playing "Letters from an Alternate Universe." Perhaps my experience is limited, but I just can't imagine that you are telling the truth. Christianity's influence on Western literature is such that lots of it "hints at Christianity," and it certainly gets taught. Hell, I read the book of Job for a class in high school.
The funny thing is, when I first read this post, for a second I was vaguely ticked off that someone might ban a book based on its simple religious allusions, but then a little voice in the back of my head said "yeah, right. Nobody banned any 'Chronicles of Narnia.'"
By banned I mean it was banned from being read in the classroom as part of school work or assignments, students can still check them out from the Library of course
A few seconds later, and it turns out that little voice was correct. "Banned" in this case is being incorrectly used to mean "not included in the curriculum." Big deal. Lots of books weren't included in the curriculum. Those crazy liberals! They ban books but forget to like, try to stop anyone from reading them.
People must be reminded that it IS possible to get through schooling without punching and fucking your way from one class to the next
I hate people like this cause they talk about high school like it's one long orgy of drug use, oral sex, compulsory homosexuality, and secular indoctrination. If that's the case, then WHY DIDN'T I GET ANY?
Maybe only 1% of the population thinks UF is funny because it isn't. Sorry, but the characters are ugly and haven't improved with age. The timing, when it's gotten right, is entirely ripped out of some old Bloom County strip. (not to mention the art) Go read some good comics.
What a coincidence; it's also unplayable in CD players due the horrible sounds that come out of the speakers when you hit the play button.
</end recycled joke>
You're kidding, right?
That's a pretty ridiculous chain of logic. What is it you added to your computer in order to help create NWN? That's right, nothing but your imagination. (making some assumptions,) You used an IDE written by another company, wrote in a language invented by someone else; you used various utilities written by other people, your computer was manufactured by others, and so on. Hell, you even used someone else's gaming system. (AD&D) So technically, NWN belongs to a whole group of people who gave you the tools you needed to make the game.
Of course, none of those people put clauses in the licensing agreement that you wouldn't own the things you created. Would you use a compiler that made you give up ownership of any program you compiled with it? If not, why do you expect people to want to use the NWN toolkit?
I think you misspelled "bitch."
Or possibly beast.
They made a whole bunch of kick-ass board games, to wit: Advanced Civilization, Titan, Diplomacy, Cosmic Encounter, Acquire, and more. Recently-ish they got bought by Hasbro and are reprinting select games in fancy boxes with flashy boards and pieces.
Stop remembering TV and get back to work!
The Dead Kennedys (no apostrophe needed for pluralizing words) never sang that particular lyric. They have a song by that name, in which their other song "Bleed For Me" is played softly in the background, and the following is spoken over it.
KINKY SEX MAKES THE WORLD GO 'ROUND
greetings...this is the secretary of war at the state department of the united states...we have a problem. the companies want something done about this sluggish world economic situation...profits have been running a little thin lately and we need to stimulate some growth...now we know there's an alarmingly high number of young people roaming around in your country with nothing to do but stir up trouble for the police and damage private property. it doesn't look like they'll ever get a job...it's about time we did something constructive with these people...we've got thousands of 'em here too. they're crawling all over...the companies think it's time we all sit down, have a serious get-together-and start another war...the president? he loves the idea! all those missiles streaming overhead to and fro...napalm...people running down the road, skin on fire...the soviets seem up for it...the kremlin's been itching for the real thing for years. hell, afghanistan's no fun...so whadya say?...we don't even have to win this war. we just want to cut down on some of this excess population...now look. just start up a draft; draft as many of those people as you can. we'll call up every last youngster we can get our hands on, hand 'em some speed, give 'em an hour or two to learn how to use an automatic rifle and send 'em on their way...libya? el salvador? how 'bout northern ireland? or a "moderately repressive regime" in south america?...we'll just cook up a good soviet threat story in the middle east-we need that oil...we had libya all ready to go and colonel khadafy's hit squad didn't even show up. i tell ya...that man is unreliable. the kremlin had their fingers on the button just like we did for that one...now just think for a minute-we can make this war so big-so big...the more people we kill in this war, the more the economy will prosper...we can get rid of practically everybody on your dole queue if we plan this right. take every loafer on welfare right off our computer rolls...now don't worry about demonstrations-just pump up your drug supply. so many people have hooked themselves on heroin and amphetamines since we took over, it's just like vietnam. we had everybody so busy with lsd they never got too strong. kept the war functioning just fine...it's easy. we've got our college kids so interested in beer they don't even care if we start manufacturing germ bombs again. put a nuclear stockpile in their back yard, they wouldn't even know what it looked like...so how 'bout it? look-war is money. the arms manufacturers tell me unless we get our bomb factories up to full production the whole economy is going to collapse...the soviets are in the same boat. we all agree the time has come for the big one, so whadya say?!?...that's excellent. we knew you'd agree...the companies will be very pleased.
You are awarded one irony point for topicality.
10) As campus security is escorting you away for assaulting someone, muse upon the differences between justice and retaliation.
Pretty much. If you're conservative, in the sense of being resistant to change, then your thoughts are more likely to get stuck somewhere bad just because you don't want to change them.
If you're open to diversity of opinion, then you must accept ALL types of thinking!
Do I *really* have to point out what's wrong with that statement? Valuing knowledge means "accepting" (whatever that means) thinking might lead you to some useful new knowledge. Usually this means being more open minded than the average Amoral Majority member, although if you want to put it that way, it doesn't mean you must accept anything you deem to be incorrect. (Keeping in mind that you could be wrong, of course.)
Bush (not my favorite president to say the least) was struggling with some legitimate moral issues regarding stem cells from aborted fetus. Honestly, I'm sick of people doing things "in the name of science" and calling all moral discussions "ignorant".
There are informed moral discussions and there are ignorant moral discussions. Bush is considering whether or not it's okay to destroy the magical invisible souls of these precious groups of cells. He's decided that it's not okay, but he does concede the benefit of utilizing the already existing stem cells.
I leave it as an exercise to the reader to determine whether this is an informed moral discussion or not.
Kids, this is what religion does to a person's mind. It doesn't really destroy your ability to think: several of his points, while somewhat poorly justified, are relevant criticisms of today's educational system. However, there also exists this gigantic mental block in certain areas that makes certain kinds of thought almost impossible. For example, point five is just complete bullshit, and point six: "The driving force for most of early American history is the belief in God," can really only be thought if the teaching of history is part fact, part propaganda tool.
Homeschooling is interesting, but until I see someone espousing it who isn't a religious freak or a little too into their children's lives, I can't see it as the wonderful thing certain people tend to paint it as.
You can't be serious.
Sexual promiscuity is bad because (among other factors) it spread certain disease, which ultimately make people unhappy. If these diseases did not exist, then having lots of sex with lots of people would not be a bad thing. (for that reason, anyway). Suppose someone came up with a pill you could take that would make it so that you never had any cavities for the rest of your life. That would be a good thing, right? Oh wait, no. Under your twisted logic, this pill would be bad, because it would encourage people to stop brushing their teeth, and everyone knows that brushing your teeth is very good and important.
Allow me to reiterate the point. Things are bad for a reason. And I mean a real reason, not some mystically inherent "sacred creation" reason. If that reason goes away, then those things are no longer bad.
Railing against the possibility of the improvement of people's lives is insane, and the religions that propagate this mentality are responsible for much human misery.
Um, wrong. One example would be Counterstrike, a Half-Life mod with a thriving community of players. It has no master server distributing patches, and cheating is easy. On the other hand, the code is solid if quirky, and the gameplay is fantastic.
Don't buy their product and the corp ain't really going to care. Don't buy into the government line, or send them your tax money and your in jail
HELLO. Slight screw up in priorities mr. commie
BTW - free market is millions and millions times better than the crap that tanked the former Soviet.
Yeah, and eating mashed potatoes is a lot more fun than eating feces, but that doesn't mean I want mashed potatoes every night of the year.
I don't bitch about the government when I like their policies. I don't bitch about Microsoft or any other company when I like their policies. When either behaves badly with the power over other people that they have, especially when that bad behavior affects me, that's when I start to complain. Your whole government/private-enterprise dichotomy is total bull.
P.S. Corporations care very much when you don't buy their products. That's why they plaster their slogans on televisions, magazines, web sites, billboards, t-shirts, coffee-mugs, radios, baseball stadiums, mouse pads, tall buildings, the sky, etc.
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As you may recall, I didn't say that each commandment, taken on its own, was a bad idea that was offensive to non-christians. I said that having the government put up the ten commandments in public places is a government endorsement of a particular religion over all others, which is a Bad Thing.
If you want to put up little signs that say "Thank you for not coveting your neighbor's wife" right up there with the "No smoking" signs, go ahead.
One of the problems with the ten commandments is that their importance stems from their being the alleged word of God. Since this God is described as having created morality by fiat, his morality is arbitrary, and makes a curious choice for teaching children "moral values."
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We need separation of church and state because our law guarantees the right of anyone to freely practice the religion of their choice. If the government actively promotes a particular religion, this is seen as a bad thing for the people who do not subscribe to that religion. Hence, the government should do nothing to raise one religion above the others, and maintain as neutral an attitude as reasonably possible.
What's good for one government is good for any government. Go to India and tell them that they should post the ten commandments in their public institutions. Then tell me what you think about governments sponsoring one religion.
Posting the ten commandments does not entwine religion and society, as you suggest. Prominently posting such a text is mixing Christianity and government. This is a big "fuck you" to all non-Christians, be they Hindus, Muslims, Mormons, atheists, or agnostics. Say what you want about what religions the writers of our early laws followed, this country was not founded on the government giving the shaft to whichever groups were too unpopular to defend themselves.
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Technology, as futurists like George Orwell and Arthur Clarke have been predicting for decades, will be the battleground on which the fight against corporatism is played out.
1. Orwell was not a 'futurist.' He wrote exactly one science-fictiony novel, which seems to be the only thing of his anyone has ever read.
2. I dare anyone to show how technology is a theme in Orwell's works, particularly with regards to "corporatism."
3. Orwell hasn't been doing anything for decades. He died of tuberculosis in 1950, at the age of forty-six.
Sigh. I suppose I shouldn't expect anything from someone who can't even look up when Frankenstein was written.
And by the way, if you've read and enjoyed 1984 and Animal Farm, I recommend "Down and Out in Paris and London," which chronicles Orwell's life as a pauper in said cities in the '20s. If you just have time for a quickie, read his short stories, "A Hanging," or "Shooting an Elephant." (available on line, consult your local search engine.) For all the allusions to "Orwell's prophetic visions of socialist dystopias," we would do well to remember two things, that Orwell was an avowed socialist who wrote about the evils of dogmatic thinking and totalitarian governments, and that he was a master of the English language, someone from whom Katz could learn a lot.
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Actually, the article doesn't say a thing about about banning pornography. What it's mainly about is the police wanting the remove the anonymity in using cybercafes that helps people to use the internet to do bad things. The bad things specified in the article include "hacking, credit card misuse, death threats, pornography, morphing and terrorism." In fact, it's not the viewing of pornography that's talked about, but the sending of "porn mail." Since that's mentioned in conjunction with death threats and extortion, I assume they mean sending pornographic images to people who don't want to see them or would be upset by them, although I suppose it could mean passing around n00d g1fz by email.
But as long as you're reading stuff into random articles in order to support your ideology, I'll bite. Porn is damaging to society, but only to the elements of society that have demanded that everyone must keep their clothes on to cover up their "naughty bits." Just because something goes against rigid social controls doesn't make it automatically a bad thing. In fact, if the controls are set up to vilify female sexuality and judge women on their looks and their "purity," then it's probably not a bad thing at all.
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I was at a thrift store earlier today, stocking up on t-shirts for the summer weather. There was a shelf of books, and I browsed through them, on the off chance that there was something to glean. Coincidentally, I ended up getting Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency in hardback for just a couple bucks. Man, what an eerie coincidence. I guess I'm glad I didn't grab "Timequake" as well. :(
Anyway, I have to say that Dirk Gently and Long Dark Tea Time are total masterpieces. I could be reborn a million times and I still would never be able to write anything as ferociously witty or clever as Adams' books. He was one of the few who could look at life and manufacture his own absurd, funny, yet uniquely true vision of it.
Sigh.
(yikes, I didn't even remember until I hit the preview button that my .sig was yet another Adams quote. spooky.)
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Probably +50, for "Interesting." Presuming people moderate the way I think they do, which is:
If I agree with a post, it's "Insightful." If I don't agree, but it looks like they spelled all the words right, and aren't trolling or spreading flames, then it's "Interesting."
Actually, about half of Katz's stuff should be moderated -1 Redundant.
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