When it was a big issue was when my state was voting on the issue. People would ask which way I was voting.
Anyway, if I was given a choice between both straight and gay marriage or just straight marriage, I'd pick the latter. I've heard valid arguments for straight marriage, even though I still disagree with it being legally sanctified. The only argument I've heard in support of gay marriage is that it's a way of treating homosexuals equally as straights. That doesn't make sense to me because 1) I find the arguments in support of straight marriage dubious 2) A gay couple isn't equal to a straight couple. They can't have kids (naturally) and they are an anomaly of nature. Just because they can enter monogamous relationships doesn't make them the same as a straight couple.
So yeah, I'm more against gay marriage than I am straight marriage. Straight marriage, as a modern concept, seems absurd to me but I understand the historical context that brought it about. Gay marriage doesn't have that historical context to justify it, so the concept just seems totally absurd without any justification in the way of tradition or culture or religion or whatever.
That would be a great argument if people actually married before they had children. Or if they stayed married for at least 18 years after having children.
But that only happens in a small minority of cases.
There are millions of orphans worldwide. People who sexually reproduce are doing a disservice to the world. If they wanted to help out they would adopt.
I'm not a freeloader to society because I'm single. I contribute -- I don't object to paying taxes (just the way that money is spent) and I spend practically everything I earn of frivolities which help out the economy. That's helping out a helluva lot more than an alcoholic mother who berths a child who's so disabled he'll be nothing but a burden to society. Or the big old happy evangelical family that keeps having kids even though there are millions out there that could use a good home.
Future taxpayers? Is that really the worth of a human being to you? Future taxpayers are everywhere if people would just adopt them.
I'm starting to think this guy just likes to read about himself in the news. I think his announcement is pretty funny - Linux Mint is a shining example of Linux as a functional desktop OS. It's still not as polished as OS X, but I do find myself using OS X less and less these days.
Maybe he's just butthurt that Gnome probably doesn't have much of a future. I mean, the older versions are great if, uh, your graphics card stops working or something. . .
People always get all offended when I say I'm against gay marriage. Before they even inquire as to why I feel this way, they start asking me irrelevant questions such as, "Would you deny gay people the right to love one another?" or "Would you deny them the right to visit each other in the hospital?"
Then I explain that I think those questions are irrelevant, and that I'm not just against gay marriage, I'm against marriage. Why would I support expanding marriage when I'm against marriage in the first place? This is when they roll their eyes, they laugh. It's funny to hear the hopeless womanizing bachelor be ridiculous. Kind of like how they like to listen to my sex stories. Married people get a real kick out of living vicariously through their single friends. I have to repeat myself and clarify for them to realize that I'm being serious. Yes, I'm opposed to legal marriage.
What does that mean? It means the state has no business in the affairs of marriage. Marriage is a ceremony where two people make an oath to be true to one another for the rest of their lives, and then they usually break that oath at some point. Then they take the oath with another person, and then they usually break it off, too. Third time seems to be the charm.
Married people pay less taxes than I do, although their combined incomes allow them to live better. If they have kids they pay even less. How's that make sense? I pay taxes so their little snot-nosed kids can go to school, and they get a tax break? Why isn't there a kid tax?
But I digress. Marriage should be whatever people make of it. If you can get a priest, rabbi, shaman, or witch doctor to marry you and your significant other -- of whatever sex they may be -- go for it. If you want to share your finances with your loved one then go to a lawyer and draw up a contract. If you want to legally change your name to your spouse's name, then go to court and have it changed. If Mormons want to have ten wives, let 'em. There's no law against having ten girlfriends, why should there be a law against having ten wives?
Basically, a monogamous relationship is a monogamous relationship. I consider the couple who has been together for ten years, had a child together, and share everything except the title of 'husband and wife' to be more married than the couple who have known each other a couple hours in Vegas and drunkenly got married. The only thing legal marriage does is make breaking up a pain in the ass. The only people legal marriage provides any benefit to are divorce lawyers and gold diggers.
No, I think that because it's a sports car, it's designed to appeal to sports car enthusiasts.
I don't know where you got this 'mythical class' thing from. I know people who spend time on tracks who have very modest salaries. No, I can't afford a Tesla, but that doesn't mean I can't afford the track rats that I do own. You don't have to spend $100k+ to have fun on the track, and most track enthusiasts don't (maybe in California that's normal, where you have to be a freakin' millionaire to go to the track, but here in the midwest such isn't the case).
I guess I kind of get what you're saying -- Tesla's aren't really designed to be sports cars, they just pretend to be sports cars. Their target audience isn't actual car enthusiasts, but snobby Hollywood fucks who want to look stylish while they smugly boast about how green they are. It's for people who care too much about style to buy a Prius, but care too much about how they're perceived among their tree-hugging friends to buy a Lamborghini.
Statistically, most people do not run out of fuel within walking distance of a petrol station. And you should be able to recharge a Tesla with jumper cables, using the battery of another car.
Claim #1 is questionable. How does one really compile such a statistic?
Claim #2 is also questionable. A Tesla uses a helluva lot more juice than a normal car. A normal car requires most of its juice for the start -- once it's started so little energy is used the alternator charge the battery back up. Unless there has been some breakthrough in generator technology, I sincerely doubt jumping a Tesla from another car would do you any good. It would take all the juice from the regular car battery to go a few blocks down the road in the Tesla.
I see why you posted AC. Your nerd card was probably revoked a long time ago.
Except the point of contention wasn't subjective. The STRONG implied the car ran out of energy when it didn't. That is not subjective in the least.
They have plenty of flatbeds to haul the thing. The audience knew the pushing of the car was staged b/c those guys wouldn't have pushed it anyway. Their point was valid -- it only got decent mileage if you drove it like a grandma.
With an atomic weight of 1.00794 u (1.007825 u for hydrogen-1), hydrogen is the lightest element and its monatomic form (H1) is the most abundant chemical substance, constituting roughly 75% of the Universe's baryonic mass.
Where I live, electricity comes from burning coal, which we get by sending men deep in the earth where their health and lives are greatly at risk. I gotta say, that's a pretty fucked-up view of 'cost.'
I have no problem replacing fossil fuels, I just have a problem with replacing fossil fuels with something stupid like electricity, which is most commonly produced by burning fossil fuels. Your war sentiments are completely off-topic.
The people at Tesla should have watched an episode of Top Gear before they let those guys drive their car. Clarkson trashes anything he disapproves of -- that means most American cars, Japanese cars, and anything 'eco-friendly.' It was obvious they were exaggerating when it came to the Tesla but they had a valid point. You can't drive that thing balls-to-the-wall around the track without running out of juice super quick, and it takes a long time to recharge. That makes it a no-go for track enthusiasts, precisely the crowd it could appeal to.
For most people, going to the track is an expensive and time-consuming activity. They don't have time to wait for their electric car to recharge, they want to get the most out of their weekend at the track as possible. A muscle car or Italian super car may go through fuel like mad, but filling it up takes mere minutes. That's the point Top Gear was making, they were just being real mean about it. Anyone who thinks that Clarkson and the boys don't bullshit for the sake of entertainment just haven't seen the show. It's pretty obvious when they are exaggerating or staging something. In the end, the opinions they give are genuine, however full of bias they may be.
"Maybe we shouldn't have such agents. Maybe the corruption of such agents have only contributed to organized crime"
I can't tell if you're a troll or young and naive about human nature and how the world really works or just desperately stupid. But its certainly one of those.
I can't tell if you failed to take Logic 101 or if you forgot what a false dilemma is or you failed to understand the most basic informal fallacies, but it's certainly one of those. It also appears that you failed to take English 101 or you forgot how to properly use an apostrophe or you failed to understand its function.
You can call me a troll -- that's the easiest way to dismiss controversial opinions.
Just because there are wars doesn't mean the U.S. has to participate in them. If I was French I would probably disapprove of their intervention in Mali. If a foreign country attempted to attack the U.S. I would support the use of our military to defend our borders. Of course, that's not going to happen. We could shrink our military to a tenth of its current size and there still would be no threat of that happening.
You failed to understand my position: I'm saying total war or no war. No bullshit Geneva convention rules. There's no ethical way to go about conducting war. Either you're willing to kill your enemies indiscriminately or you're not willing to kill at all. Any middle ground is a dishonest attempt to rationalize and moralize an unnecessary use of force.
If North Korea, for instance, were foolish enough to launch a missile at the west coast, I would support wiping Pyongyang off the map with a nuclear warhead. I would not support sending American troops over there for an invasion. That would be completely unnecessary.
Julian Assange
I don't give a damn how much of an asshole Assange is. I just agree with him that information should be free and I'm glad he fights for that goal.
So, you were cool with Saddam's invasion of Kuwait?
Yes. And yes to all your other questions. Are you cool with 28-37k people dead so we can demonstrate our moral superiority to Iraq?
The fact of the matter is that not every country is a first world country. Hell, most countries aren't. Saddam Hussein wasn't the world's worst dictator and he certainly wasn't a threat to American national security. I believe that as long as the U.S. claims the right to hold nuclear armaments we have no right to tell another government what weapons they can and cannot have. As long as our prison population dwarfs every other country's in both size and proportion I find it hard to believe that we have the moral high ground regarding how we run our country. Saddam was actually turning Iraq into a pretty nice country until we decided to blow it to smiterines.
Tell that to the family of people who work undercover against organized crime.
Maybe we shouldn't have such agents. Maybe the corruption of such agents have only contributed to organized crime. Ever hear of Whitey Bulger? And Somali pirates and North Korea? Wow, that's some desperate FUD right there. Furthermore, you're completely missing my point -- the whole "in a civilized world" doesn't include North Korea or Somalia. Hell, it doesn't really include the U.S. in it's current form. I should have said "government secrets" -- by not specifying I left myself open to pedantry. Freight shipments and the like are private enterprise and I'm okay with private secrets, just no government secrets. Regardless, Somali pirates will continue to be stupid and they'll continue to get shot when they jack the wrong ship.
Regardless, I don't think that a totally secret-free government is something that should be implemented tomorrow. The world is not ready -- in this regard I probably disagree with Assange. But I do think it's the goal that we should strive for. Unfortunately our government has progressed towards a state of more secrets, so excessively so that I no longer have much respect for our system of government. We've become a fascist oligarchy.
The rest of your post avoids the actual issues. The documents that Manning released weren't as sensitive as you imply. They were embarrassing, and that's what all the fuss is about. I find it very hard to believe that someone would risk their life as a whistleblower for the sake of being a drama queen. Your theory for his motives fails Occam's razor whereas mine doesn't. You'd have to present some evidence to suggest that Manning didn't feel ethically obligated to do what he did for that explanation to sound even somewhat plausible.
I hope you thank those "dumb" foot soldiers for giving you the ability to post your crap.
Oh, yeah, I completely forgot that America has been invaded recently and if it weren't for the amazing combat prowess of our jarheads I would be speaking Arabic right now. Keep buying into The Ministry of Truth's taboos, such as, "Thou shall not speak disparagingly of the military." The only positive thing the military does is give jobs to dumbasses who can't think for themselves and give jobs to intelligent engineers so they can design toys for the dumbasses to play with.
Make sure you include the 'W' or 'Jr.' -- H.W. wasn't good, but he certainly wasn't a tyrant.
In all seriousness, though, I completely agree with you. I don't see why we're in such a hurry to spread democracy. There are several negative consequences in attempting to spread democracy through force:
1) The violence, loss of life, and destruction will probably be far greater than an internal revolution. An internal revolution can actually avoid all of those things.
2) The majority of the populations in most of these countries consist of people so ignorant they make reality TV stars look cultured. Why would it be in anyone's best interest for them to vote? Dictators can bring education to the people. When the people are educated, society will change for the better. It could be argued that only at this point is a democracy moral -- when it's been chosen internally, by the people the government will represent.
3) Diplomacy. A tyrant can be controlled, their motives are clear, they respond to threats. God knows what these yahoos the Egyptians and Iraqis are electing will do. Afghanistan is a prime example of democracy gone wrong. When you force democracy onto people who don't believe in it, they'll just corrupt the system and it will turn into an oligarchy that pretends to be democratic. It's delusional to think of the Karzai regime as democratic.
4) Most people in these countries don't understand what's going on. But when an American plane is responsible for the deaths of their loved ones, and democracy is the banner the plane fights under, we make an enemy of ourselves and democracy.
5) We're not even a democracy and yet we demand other countries practice it. How ironic is it that a president who attained office without winning the popular vote was the same guy who insisted that we spread democracy throughout the developing world?
this was entirely to do with gaining control of oil fields.
I have to disagree with you there. I think it had more to do with providing an excuse to throw trillions of dollars at the military industrial complex. The oil just made it a convenient target. The only other target they could convince the public it was worth attacking was North Korea (remember that axis of evil bullshit?). Even though North Korea had a far worse dictator and their people suffered from his regime far worse than the Iraqis did from Saddam's, their lack of fossil fuels and close relations/proximity with China made them a dangerous target. The Bush cronies weren't so stupid as to forget what happened the last time we got involved with Korea. It's really hard to tell the difference between a Chinese soldier in a North Korean uniform and an actual North Korean soldier. It's even harder to tell the difference between their planes considering they're mostly Chinese. We didn't want to get involved in a real war, just an exhibition war where there are a hundred times more casualties on the opposing side.
So we went after Iraq. But going to war with someone, anyone (who would lose), for any reason, was the first priority. Iraq just had everything going for it.
The press has already been so grossly compromised by corporate influence that it's "critical watchdog function" isn't currently all that functional anyway
That's terrible. Too bad there isn't some way that everyone from around the world can share information independent of large corporate media entities. Just imagine, some system that could connect everyone to information that anyone can publish. I bet if such a system existed, whistleblowers could use it to anonymously disseminate pertinent information. Then they could use this same system to brag about it to their friends, who turn out to not actually be their friends, but CIA informants, who will then turn them in to face charges of treason. And then -- remember all this is strictly hypothetical -- we could discuss this situation on this system of connected communication. And as part of this discussion, we could complain about how the press is grossly compromised by corporate influence and how our critical watchdog no longer exists. It's sad. Too bad such a system doesn't exist. If it did, we could be discussing it right now.
But is there a need for war? How is it that we can agree not to use this or that in war, we can agree to handle enemy combatants a particular way, we can agree that civilians are off-limits and total war is a no-no -- we can agree to all these particulars on the ways in which war is conducted, but we cannot agree to simply not wage war?
The most ironic thing is, American school children are taught in history class that the reason we are independent from the UK is because the British were stupid enough to believe that rules applied to war. By breaking their rules -- by using guerrilla warfare -- we achieved victory. Strange that the countries with the largest and most capable armies are the ones who also always insist that war be fought according to their rules.
I believe that Assange does what he does because he believes that the world is far too advanced to conduct warfare, and I agree. The only reason that warfare still exists is because there is a multi-billion dollar industry built around it. We could have killed Bin Laden without ever invading Afghanistan. There was absolutely no good reason to invade Iraq. The foot soldier is an anachronism, a horse and buggy that provides no useful function. They're too dumb to be useful, so we give them guns and send them off to the desert to kill brown people so we can pretend like they're actually doing something that matters. We don't want them to die because that looks bad, so we don't even send them on the most dangerous missions -- those are reserved for mercenaries -- and then when the foot soldier returns home we shower them with praise for being so brave.
Wanna know who's a helluva lot more brave than any army grunt? Julian Assange. He's taking on the world.
If you believe there are a need for secrets in war, you're right. But to conduct war under the rules of the Geneva convention is a far greater atrocity than to conduct total war -- at least when one commits to total war they're not deluding themselves into believing that they're behaving in an ethical manner. Manning tried to expose the activities our military engages in for what they are -- high tech barbarism. Good for him, and good for Wikileaks for fighting for civility. Because, in a civilized world, there's no need for secrets. A government of secrets is not a government for the people, it's a government that rules the people. There's a name for a government of secrets: fascism.
My point is that it's not really a disease -- it's feeling like crap because one lives an unhealthy lifestyle. There's a reason that people who eat healthy foods and exercise regularly don't commonly suffer from depression. The endocrine imbalance may cause the feeling like crap, but living an unhealthy lifestyle causes the endocrine imbalance.
It's not like a genetic disease where one is born with it, or a virus that one contracts just by breathing -- it's something that people do to themselves by gouging on fast food and then spending all their free time watching television. If one lives like crap one feels like crap.
It's sort of like when people call obesity a disease (which people do). Sure, the person may have a low metabolism, but that doesn't mean their lifestyle isn't solely to blame. Except in extremely rare cases, no one has to be fat.
Can that quote really be attributed to Steve Jobs? I thought he hired a marketing firm to come up with it. I'm not trying to be snarky, I'm genuinely curious.
You're not going to entice a kid to do anything with the promise of "math in motion".
But if you try to entice them with the promise of big money, they'll be sorely disappointed when they enter the job market unless they are incredible coders. One doesn't become incredible at hacking code (or anything) because they think it's a good job prospect, one becomes incredible by loving the activity so much that they become immersed in it. Most people who write code for a living aren't living lives of luxury, it's wrong to use guys like Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates as examples of what that career path will bring. That's like telling kids they should learn to play guitar so they can be the next Slash and make a bunch of money. Or telling kids they should learn creative writing so they can become the next Stephen King. You're setting most of them up for failure when that's the expectation.
A person has to love what they do before they'll have the drive to do it exceptionally well. If we want more programmers then we should prioritize teaching mathematics in schools. In many schools in America, one can graduate high school without understanding the fundamentals of algebra. That's the problem. Many people who have the potential to fall in love with mathematics and programming never have the opportunity because our school system allows irresponsible children to choose whether they want to be productive or not. We care so much about children's feelings, their self-esteem, their self-expression that we've forgotten that they're children and their opinions don't matter, their desires don't matter, and that most will grow up to be useless adults unless we force education upon them.
It does feel like that's their real agenda isn't it? I mean, how is treating women like unreasonably fragile creatures who are unable to handle the mere mention of sex feminism?
The most pathetic part is that men probably get raped more often than women in the U.S. *cough*prisonsystem*cough*
Actually, I'd like to go the other direction and be more specific rather than more broad. Another word I dislike is 'germ.' If a bacteria causes me to be ill, then it's a germ. But what about a bacteria that causes one person to be ill and not another? Or a virus that some are immune to? Whether a micro-organism is a germ or not is relative to what is hosting it -- but a micro-organism cannot be said to be a germ in and of itself.
He is of course wrong in this view, and the govt was going to remind him that yes, computer/copyright law still applies, even to geniuses and prodigies.
Yet he could have raped and murdered someone and would have faced a lesser penalty. Maybe he was willing to accept the consequences of his actions, assuming that they were constitutional under the eighth amendment, which guarantees that excessive penalties wouldn't be levied against him.
Making examples of people isn't justice. Furthermore, Schwartz's actions are comparable to those who fought segregation because in both cases the crimes they committed weren't just ethical, they were actions taken because they felt ethically compelled to do so. You may say that segregation is an obvious evil whereas research paid for by government grants being kept private/patented/non-free is not, but during America's struggle with civil rights, there was nothing obvious about the evil of segregation. Just ask Barry Goldwater.
Ugh. I disagree with the AC troll you're responding to but I find your post just as distasteful. I sincerely doubt that Schwartz's suicide has much to do with medical depression. Undoubtedly the situation would have made him depressed -- facing life in prison would make anyone depressed -- but I'm inclined to believe that he committed suicide because he 1) thought he would lose 2) decided that a life in a cell wasn't worth living. That's not a disease, that's a conscious decision that's actually pretty logical. I usually have little sympathy for suicides -- if a person takes their own life because their girlfriend dumped them or because people make fun of them, I'm glad that idiot is no longer on the planet -- but in Schwartz's case I may have done the same thing if I were in his shoes.
One of the biggest problems with medical terminology is this word, "disease." If a person is infected with a harmful virus, bacteria, or parasite then they're diseased. If their cells reproduce uncontrollably they're diseased. If they're born with a genetic predisposition that makes life difficult, they're diseased. Worst of all, if they think sad thoughts they're diseased. Basically, anything that's a non-injury that disrupts homeostasis is a disease.
I'm not going to argue that depression and other mental abnormalities aren't diseases. I just have a semantic problem with the word 'disease' itself. It's far too broad and the problem with those who make a living from treating mental health problems is that they try to equate having sad thoughts with something like AIDS. It's not as serious.
For most people, to cure their 'disease' of depression, all they have to do is change their diet. Seriously, most people who suffer from depression just consume too many saturated fats and not enough vitamins. It slows down their heart and deprives their body of the nutrients it needs to function at an optimal level of homeostasis. In turn, they don't feel like doing anything, which makes them sad. There's no reason to feel sorry for these people, they just need to stop eating fast food every day. They do not need medication.
People who are depressed because their life is terrible -- say, because they're persecuted by a prosecutor who's trying to make an example of them -- have every reason to be sad. If they didn't feel depressed under these circumstances, then I would seriously question whether they suffered from a much more severe mental abnormality than depression. They do not need to be medicated (though I'm sure the prosecutor would love that, seeing as how it would make their victim more complacent).
So sure, mental diseases are actual diseases, but that doesn't make them comparable to viruses and the like. Disease is an umbrella term and when people throw out the whole, "mental diseases need to be taken seriously as diseases" crap, they're really just advertising for quack shrinks. Even among mental diseases, there is no comparing depression to something like schizophrenia. People actually can control depression, they can't control schizophrenia. Most people are just too naive or stupid to realize why they feel depressed -- they don't examine their diet, they don't have gratifying hobbies, they are spiritually void.
The typical person thinks of disease as something they need a doctor's help to cure. So when people like you push this whole, 'take mental diseases super serious' crap, you should probably include the caveat that depression isn't something one needs to seek professional help over. The worst thing someone can do for depression is take anti-depressants. Like pain-killers, they make one stop feeling the problem, they do nothing to fix the problem. Transcendental meditation, coupled with a healthy diet and productive hobbies, is the cure for depression. But no pill-peddling shrink will tell you that.
I never understood why anyone thought that the computer in Minority Report was something worth pursuing. Futuristic computers in Hollywood movies have always been designed to look cinematic with no regard for how they would actually function. Having an intuitive interface isn't important for Hollywood directors, having something that is interesting for the audience and makes it obvious what's going on is.
One common example of this is maps. 3D maps are all the rage in Hollywood movies, even when a simple address would suffice. But an address has no cinematic quality, a 3D map does.
Slashdot Mirror
When it was a big issue was when my state was voting on the issue. People would ask which way I was voting.
Anyway, if I was given a choice between both straight and gay marriage or just straight marriage, I'd pick the latter. I've heard valid arguments for straight marriage, even though I still disagree with it being legally sanctified. The only argument I've heard in support of gay marriage is that it's a way of treating homosexuals equally as straights. That doesn't make sense to me because 1) I find the arguments in support of straight marriage dubious 2) A gay couple isn't equal to a straight couple. They can't have kids (naturally) and they are an anomaly of nature. Just because they can enter monogamous relationships doesn't make them the same as a straight couple.
So yeah, I'm more against gay marriage than I am straight marriage. Straight marriage, as a modern concept, seems absurd to me but I understand the historical context that brought it about. Gay marriage doesn't have that historical context to justify it, so the concept just seems totally absurd without any justification in the way of tradition or culture or religion or whatever.
That would be a great argument if people actually married before they had children. Or if they stayed married for at least 18 years after having children.
But that only happens in a small minority of cases.
There are millions of orphans worldwide. People who sexually reproduce are doing a disservice to the world. If they wanted to help out they would adopt.
I'm not a freeloader to society because I'm single. I contribute -- I don't object to paying taxes (just the way that money is spent) and I spend practically everything I earn of frivolities which help out the economy. That's helping out a helluva lot more than an alcoholic mother who berths a child who's so disabled he'll be nothing but a burden to society. Or the big old happy evangelical family that keeps having kids even though there are millions out there that could use a good home.
Future taxpayers? Is that really the worth of a human being to you? Future taxpayers are everywhere if people would just adopt them.
I'm starting to think this guy just likes to read about himself in the news. I think his announcement is pretty funny - Linux Mint is a shining example of Linux as a functional desktop OS. It's still not as polished as OS X, but I do find myself using OS X less and less these days.
Maybe he's just butthurt that Gnome probably doesn't have much of a future. I mean, the older versions are great if, uh, your graphics card stops working or something. . .
People always get all offended when I say I'm against gay marriage. Before they even inquire as to why I feel this way, they start asking me irrelevant questions such as, "Would you deny gay people the right to love one another?" or "Would you deny them the right to visit each other in the hospital?"
Then I explain that I think those questions are irrelevant, and that I'm not just against gay marriage, I'm against marriage. Why would I support expanding marriage when I'm against marriage in the first place? This is when they roll their eyes, they laugh. It's funny to hear the hopeless womanizing bachelor be ridiculous. Kind of like how they like to listen to my sex stories. Married people get a real kick out of living vicariously through their single friends. I have to repeat myself and clarify for them to realize that I'm being serious. Yes, I'm opposed to legal marriage.
What does that mean? It means the state has no business in the affairs of marriage. Marriage is a ceremony where two people make an oath to be true to one another for the rest of their lives, and then they usually break that oath at some point. Then they take the oath with another person, and then they usually break it off, too. Third time seems to be the charm.
Married people pay less taxes than I do, although their combined incomes allow them to live better. If they have kids they pay even less. How's that make sense? I pay taxes so their little snot-nosed kids can go to school, and they get a tax break? Why isn't there a kid tax?
But I digress. Marriage should be whatever people make of it. If you can get a priest, rabbi, shaman, or witch doctor to marry you and your significant other -- of whatever sex they may be -- go for it. If you want to share your finances with your loved one then go to a lawyer and draw up a contract. If you want to legally change your name to your spouse's name, then go to court and have it changed. If Mormons want to have ten wives, let 'em. There's no law against having ten girlfriends, why should there be a law against having ten wives?
Basically, a monogamous relationship is a monogamous relationship. I consider the couple who has been together for ten years, had a child together, and share everything except the title of 'husband and wife' to be more married than the couple who have known each other a couple hours in Vegas and drunkenly got married. The only thing legal marriage does is make breaking up a pain in the ass. The only people legal marriage provides any benefit to are divorce lawyers and gold diggers.
No, I think that because it's a sports car, it's designed to appeal to sports car enthusiasts.
I don't know where you got this 'mythical class' thing from. I know people who spend time on tracks who have very modest salaries. No, I can't afford a Tesla, but that doesn't mean I can't afford the track rats that I do own. You don't have to spend $100k+ to have fun on the track, and most track enthusiasts don't (maybe in California that's normal, where you have to be a freakin' millionaire to go to the track, but here in the midwest such isn't the case).
I guess I kind of get what you're saying -- Tesla's aren't really designed to be sports cars, they just pretend to be sports cars. Their target audience isn't actual car enthusiasts, but snobby Hollywood fucks who want to look stylish while they smugly boast about how green they are. It's for people who care too much about style to buy a Prius, but care too much about how they're perceived among their tree-hugging friends to buy a Lamborghini.
Statistically, most people do not run out of fuel within walking distance of a petrol station. And you should be able to recharge a Tesla with jumper cables, using the battery of another car.
Claim #1 is questionable. How does one really compile such a statistic?
Claim #2 is also questionable. A Tesla uses a helluva lot more juice than a normal car. A normal car requires most of its juice for the start -- once it's started so little energy is used the alternator charge the battery back up. Unless there has been some breakthrough in generator technology, I sincerely doubt jumping a Tesla from another car would do you any good. It would take all the juice from the regular car battery to go a few blocks down the road in the Tesla.
I see why you posted AC. Your nerd card was probably revoked a long time ago.
Except the point of contention wasn't subjective. The STRONG implied the car ran out of energy when it didn't. That is not subjective in the least.
They have plenty of flatbeds to haul the thing. The audience knew the pushing of the car was staged b/c those guys wouldn't have pushed it anyway. Their point was valid -- it only got decent mileage if you drove it like a grandma.
With an atomic weight of 1.00794 u (1.007825 u for hydrogen-1), hydrogen is the lightest element and its monatomic form (H1) is the most abundant chemical substance, constituting roughly 75% of the Universe's baryonic mass.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen
Where I live, electricity comes from burning coal, which we get by sending men deep in the earth where their health and lives are greatly at risk. I gotta say, that's a pretty fucked-up view of 'cost.'
I have no problem replacing fossil fuels, I just have a problem with replacing fossil fuels with something stupid like electricity, which is most commonly produced by burning fossil fuels. Your war sentiments are completely off-topic.
The people at Tesla should have watched an episode of Top Gear before they let those guys drive their car. Clarkson trashes anything he disapproves of -- that means most American cars, Japanese cars, and anything 'eco-friendly.' It was obvious they were exaggerating when it came to the Tesla but they had a valid point. You can't drive that thing balls-to-the-wall around the track without running out of juice super quick, and it takes a long time to recharge. That makes it a no-go for track enthusiasts, precisely the crowd it could appeal to.
For most people, going to the track is an expensive and time-consuming activity. They don't have time to wait for their electric car to recharge, they want to get the most out of their weekend at the track as possible. A muscle car or Italian super car may go through fuel like mad, but filling it up takes mere minutes. That's the point Top Gear was making, they were just being real mean about it. Anyone who thinks that Clarkson and the boys don't bullshit for the sake of entertainment just haven't seen the show. It's pretty obvious when they are exaggerating or staging something. In the end, the opinions they give are genuine, however full of bias they may be.
"Maybe we shouldn't have such agents. Maybe the corruption of such agents have only contributed to organized crime"
I can't tell if you're a troll or young and naive about human nature and how the world really works or just desperately stupid. But its certainly one of those.
I can't tell if you failed to take Logic 101 or if you forgot what a false dilemma is or you failed to understand the most basic informal fallacies, but it's certainly one of those. It also appears that you failed to take English 101 or you forgot how to properly use an apostrophe or you failed to understand its function.
You can call me a troll -- that's the easiest way to dismiss controversial opinions.
That only works if everybody agrees.
Just because there are wars doesn't mean the U.S. has to participate in them. If I was French I would probably disapprove of their intervention in Mali. If a foreign country attempted to attack the U.S. I would support the use of our military to defend our borders. Of course, that's not going to happen. We could shrink our military to a tenth of its current size and there still would be no threat of that happening.
You failed to understand my position: I'm saying total war or no war. No bullshit Geneva convention rules. There's no ethical way to go about conducting war. Either you're willing to kill your enemies indiscriminately or you're not willing to kill at all. Any middle ground is a dishonest attempt to rationalize and moralize an unnecessary use of force.
If North Korea, for instance, were foolish enough to launch a missile at the west coast, I would support wiping Pyongyang off the map with a nuclear warhead. I would not support sending American troops over there for an invasion. That would be completely unnecessary.
Julian Assange
I don't give a damn how much of an asshole Assange is. I just agree with him that information should be free and I'm glad he fights for that goal.
So, you were cool with Saddam's invasion of Kuwait?
Yes. And yes to all your other questions. Are you cool with 28-37k people dead so we can demonstrate our moral superiority to Iraq?
The fact of the matter is that not every country is a first world country. Hell, most countries aren't. Saddam Hussein wasn't the world's worst dictator and he certainly wasn't a threat to American national security. I believe that as long as the U.S. claims the right to hold nuclear armaments we have no right to tell another government what weapons they can and cannot have. As long as our prison population dwarfs every other country's in both size and proportion I find it hard to believe that we have the moral high ground regarding how we run our country. Saddam was actually turning Iraq into a pretty nice country until we decided to blow it to smiterines.
Tell that to the family of people who work undercover against organized crime.
Maybe we shouldn't have such agents. Maybe the corruption of such agents have only contributed to organized crime. Ever hear of Whitey Bulger? And Somali pirates and North Korea? Wow, that's some desperate FUD right there. Furthermore, you're completely missing my point -- the whole "in a civilized world" doesn't include North Korea or Somalia. Hell, it doesn't really include the U.S. in it's current form. I should have said "government secrets" -- by not specifying I left myself open to pedantry. Freight shipments and the like are private enterprise and I'm okay with private secrets, just no government secrets. Regardless, Somali pirates will continue to be stupid and they'll continue to get shot when they jack the wrong ship.
Regardless, I don't think that a totally secret-free government is something that should be implemented tomorrow. The world is not ready -- in this regard I probably disagree with Assange. But I do think it's the goal that we should strive for. Unfortunately our government has progressed towards a state of more secrets, so excessively so that I no longer have much respect for our system of government. We've become a fascist oligarchy.
The rest of your post avoids the actual issues. The documents that Manning released weren't as sensitive as you imply. They were embarrassing, and that's what all the fuss is about. I find it very hard to believe that someone would risk their life as a whistleblower for the sake of being a drama queen. Your theory for his motives fails Occam's razor whereas mine doesn't. You'd have to present some evidence to suggest that Manning didn't feel ethically obligated to do what he did for that explanation to sound even somewhat plausible.
You are a disgusting human being.
I hope you thank those "dumb" foot soldiers for giving you the ability to post your crap.
Oh, yeah, I completely forgot that America has been invaded recently and if it weren't for the amazing combat prowess of our jarheads I would be speaking Arabic right now. Keep buying into The Ministry of Truth's taboos, such as, "Thou shall not speak disparagingly of the military." The only positive thing the military does is give jobs to dumbasses who can't think for themselves and give jobs to intelligent engineers so they can design toys for the dumbasses to play with.
there was the tyrant George
Make sure you include the 'W' or 'Jr.' -- H.W. wasn't good, but he certainly wasn't a tyrant.
In all seriousness, though, I completely agree with you. I don't see why we're in such a hurry to spread democracy. There are several negative consequences in attempting to spread democracy through force:
1) The violence, loss of life, and destruction will probably be far greater than an internal revolution. An internal revolution can actually avoid all of those things.
2) The majority of the populations in most of these countries consist of people so ignorant they make reality TV stars look cultured. Why would it be in anyone's best interest for them to vote? Dictators can bring education to the people. When the people are educated, society will change for the better. It could be argued that only at this point is a democracy moral -- when it's been chosen internally, by the people the government will represent.
3) Diplomacy. A tyrant can be controlled, their motives are clear, they respond to threats. God knows what these yahoos the Egyptians and Iraqis are electing will do. Afghanistan is a prime example of democracy gone wrong. When you force democracy onto people who don't believe in it, they'll just corrupt the system and it will turn into an oligarchy that pretends to be democratic. It's delusional to think of the Karzai regime as democratic.
4) Most people in these countries don't understand what's going on. But when an American plane is responsible for the deaths of their loved ones, and democracy is the banner the plane fights under, we make an enemy of ourselves and democracy.
5) We're not even a democracy and yet we demand other countries practice it. How ironic is it that a president who attained office without winning the popular vote was the same guy who insisted that we spread democracy throughout the developing world?
this was entirely to do with gaining control of oil fields.
I have to disagree with you there. I think it had more to do with providing an excuse to throw trillions of dollars at the military industrial complex. The oil just made it a convenient target. The only other target they could convince the public it was worth attacking was North Korea (remember that axis of evil bullshit?). Even though North Korea had a far worse dictator and their people suffered from his regime far worse than the Iraqis did from Saddam's, their lack of fossil fuels and close relations/proximity with China made them a dangerous target. The Bush cronies weren't so stupid as to forget what happened the last time we got involved with Korea. It's really hard to tell the difference between a Chinese soldier in a North Korean uniform and an actual North Korean soldier. It's even harder to tell the difference between their planes considering they're mostly Chinese. We didn't want to get involved in a real war, just an exhibition war where there are a hundred times more casualties on the opposing side.
So we went after Iraq. But going to war with someone, anyone (who would lose), for any reason, was the first priority. Iraq just had everything going for it.
The press has already been so grossly compromised by corporate influence that it's "critical watchdog function" isn't currently all that functional anyway
That's terrible. Too bad there isn't some way that everyone from around the world can share information independent of large corporate media entities. Just imagine, some system that could connect everyone to information that anyone can publish. I bet if such a system existed, whistleblowers could use it to anonymously disseminate pertinent information. Then they could use this same system to brag about it to their friends, who turn out to not actually be their friends, but CIA informants, who will then turn them in to face charges of treason. And then -- remember all this is strictly hypothetical -- we could discuss this situation on this system of connected communication. And as part of this discussion, we could complain about how the press is grossly compromised by corporate influence and how our critical watchdog no longer exists. It's sad. Too bad such a system doesn't exist. If it did, we could be discussing it right now.
There are needs for secrecy in war.
But is there a need for war? How is it that we can agree not to use this or that in war, we can agree to handle enemy combatants a particular way, we can agree that civilians are off-limits and total war is a no-no -- we can agree to all these particulars on the ways in which war is conducted, but we cannot agree to simply not wage war?
The most ironic thing is, American school children are taught in history class that the reason we are independent from the UK is because the British were stupid enough to believe that rules applied to war. By breaking their rules -- by using guerrilla warfare -- we achieved victory. Strange that the countries with the largest and most capable armies are the ones who also always insist that war be fought according to their rules.
I believe that Assange does what he does because he believes that the world is far too advanced to conduct warfare, and I agree. The only reason that warfare still exists is because there is a multi-billion dollar industry built around it. We could have killed Bin Laden without ever invading Afghanistan. There was absolutely no good reason to invade Iraq. The foot soldier is an anachronism, a horse and buggy that provides no useful function. They're too dumb to be useful, so we give them guns and send them off to the desert to kill brown people so we can pretend like they're actually doing something that matters. We don't want them to die because that looks bad, so we don't even send them on the most dangerous missions -- those are reserved for mercenaries -- and then when the foot soldier returns home we shower them with praise for being so brave.
Wanna know who's a helluva lot more brave than any army grunt? Julian Assange. He's taking on the world.
If you believe there are a need for secrets in war, you're right. But to conduct war under the rules of the Geneva convention is a far greater atrocity than to conduct total war -- at least when one commits to total war they're not deluding themselves into believing that they're behaving in an ethical manner. Manning tried to expose the activities our military engages in for what they are -- high tech barbarism. Good for him, and good for Wikileaks for fighting for civility. Because, in a civilized world, there's no need for secrets. A government of secrets is not a government for the people, it's a government that rules the people. There's a name for a government of secrets: fascism.
My point is that it's not really a disease -- it's feeling like crap because one lives an unhealthy lifestyle. There's a reason that people who eat healthy foods and exercise regularly don't commonly suffer from depression. The endocrine imbalance may cause the feeling like crap, but living an unhealthy lifestyle causes the endocrine imbalance.
It's not like a genetic disease where one is born with it, or a virus that one contracts just by breathing -- it's something that people do to themselves by gouging on fast food and then spending all their free time watching television. If one lives like crap one feels like crap.
It's sort of like when people call obesity a disease (which people do). Sure, the person may have a low metabolism, but that doesn't mean their lifestyle isn't solely to blame. Except in extremely rare cases, no one has to be fat.
Can that quote really be attributed to Steve Jobs? I thought he hired a marketing firm to come up with it. I'm not trying to be snarky, I'm genuinely curious.
Yeah, what could possibly be more fun than a pointlessly complex syntax?
You're not going to entice a kid to do anything with the promise of "math in motion".
But if you try to entice them with the promise of big money, they'll be sorely disappointed when they enter the job market unless they are incredible coders. One doesn't become incredible at hacking code (or anything) because they think it's a good job prospect, one becomes incredible by loving the activity so much that they become immersed in it. Most people who write code for a living aren't living lives of luxury, it's wrong to use guys like Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates as examples of what that career path will bring. That's like telling kids they should learn to play guitar so they can be the next Slash and make a bunch of money. Or telling kids they should learn creative writing so they can become the next Stephen King. You're setting most of them up for failure when that's the expectation.
A person has to love what they do before they'll have the drive to do it exceptionally well. If we want more programmers then we should prioritize teaching mathematics in schools. In many schools in America, one can graduate high school without understanding the fundamentals of algebra. That's the problem. Many people who have the potential to fall in love with mathematics and programming never have the opportunity because our school system allows irresponsible children to choose whether they want to be productive or not. We care so much about children's feelings, their self-esteem, their self-expression that we've forgotten that they're children and their opinions don't matter, their desires don't matter, and that most will grow up to be useless adults unless we force education upon them.
It does feel like that's their real agenda isn't it? I mean, how is treating women like unreasonably fragile creatures who are unable to handle the mere mention of sex feminism?
The most pathetic part is that men probably get raped more often than women in the U.S. *cough*prisonsystem*cough*
Actually, I'd like to go the other direction and be more specific rather than more broad. Another word I dislike is 'germ.' If a bacteria causes me to be ill, then it's a germ. But what about a bacteria that causes one person to be ill and not another? Or a virus that some are immune to? Whether a micro-organism is a germ or not is relative to what is hosting it -- but a micro-organism cannot be said to be a germ in and of itself.
He is of course wrong in this view, and the govt was going to remind him that yes, computer/copyright law still applies, even to geniuses and prodigies.
Yet he could have raped and murdered someone and would have faced a lesser penalty. Maybe he was willing to accept the consequences of his actions, assuming that they were constitutional under the eighth amendment, which guarantees that excessive penalties wouldn't be levied against him.
Making examples of people isn't justice. Furthermore, Schwartz's actions are comparable to those who fought segregation because in both cases the crimes they committed weren't just ethical, they were actions taken because they felt ethically compelled to do so. You may say that segregation is an obvious evil whereas research paid for by government grants being kept private/patented/non-free is not, but during America's struggle with civil rights, there was nothing obvious about the evil of segregation. Just ask Barry Goldwater.
Ugh. I disagree with the AC troll you're responding to but I find your post just as distasteful. I sincerely doubt that Schwartz's suicide has much to do with medical depression. Undoubtedly the situation would have made him depressed -- facing life in prison would make anyone depressed -- but I'm inclined to believe that he committed suicide because he 1) thought he would lose 2) decided that a life in a cell wasn't worth living. That's not a disease, that's a conscious decision that's actually pretty logical. I usually have little sympathy for suicides -- if a person takes their own life because their girlfriend dumped them or because people make fun of them, I'm glad that idiot is no longer on the planet -- but in Schwartz's case I may have done the same thing if I were in his shoes.
One of the biggest problems with medical terminology is this word, "disease." If a person is infected with a harmful virus, bacteria, or parasite then they're diseased. If their cells reproduce uncontrollably they're diseased. If they're born with a genetic predisposition that makes life difficult, they're diseased. Worst of all, if they think sad thoughts they're diseased. Basically, anything that's a non-injury that disrupts homeostasis is a disease.
I'm not going to argue that depression and other mental abnormalities aren't diseases. I just have a semantic problem with the word 'disease' itself. It's far too broad and the problem with those who make a living from treating mental health problems is that they try to equate having sad thoughts with something like AIDS. It's not as serious.
For most people, to cure their 'disease' of depression, all they have to do is change their diet. Seriously, most people who suffer from depression just consume too many saturated fats and not enough vitamins. It slows down their heart and deprives their body of the nutrients it needs to function at an optimal level of homeostasis. In turn, they don't feel like doing anything, which makes them sad. There's no reason to feel sorry for these people, they just need to stop eating fast food every day. They do not need medication.
People who are depressed because their life is terrible -- say, because they're persecuted by a prosecutor who's trying to make an example of them -- have every reason to be sad. If they didn't feel depressed under these circumstances, then I would seriously question whether they suffered from a much more severe mental abnormality than depression. They do not need to be medicated (though I'm sure the prosecutor would love that, seeing as how it would make their victim more complacent).
So sure, mental diseases are actual diseases, but that doesn't make them comparable to viruses and the like. Disease is an umbrella term and when people throw out the whole, "mental diseases need to be taken seriously as diseases" crap, they're really just advertising for quack shrinks. Even among mental diseases, there is no comparing depression to something like schizophrenia. People actually can control depression, they can't control schizophrenia. Most people are just too naive or stupid to realize why they feel depressed -- they don't examine their diet, they don't have gratifying hobbies, they are spiritually void.
The typical person thinks of disease as something they need a doctor's help to cure. So when people like you push this whole, 'take mental diseases super serious' crap, you should probably include the caveat that depression isn't something one needs to seek professional help over. The worst thing someone can do for depression is take anti-depressants. Like pain-killers, they make one stop feeling the problem, they do nothing to fix the problem. Transcendental meditation, coupled with a healthy diet and productive hobbies, is the cure for depression. But no pill-peddling shrink will tell you that.
I never understood why anyone thought that the computer in Minority Report was something worth pursuing. Futuristic computers in Hollywood movies have always been designed to look cinematic with no regard for how they would actually function. Having an intuitive interface isn't important for Hollywood directors, having something that is interesting for the audience and makes it obvious what's going on is.
One common example of this is maps. 3D maps are all the rage in Hollywood movies, even when a simple address would suffice. But an address has no cinematic quality, a 3D map does.