Seems like you've come up with a recursive statement... If a capitalistic endeavor takes precedence over the needs of society than society is better off with out it. Tough to argue with that one...
All I'm saying is, capitalism is a beneficial economic and political philosophy. Doesn't mean all things capitalistic are good, but in general, society is better off with it.
I agree with his assertion that having an active community is crucial for a productive society considering our social conditions.
Eventhough I agree with his general thesis, I strongly disagree with many of his assertions. He seems to make the point that capitalism in inherently bad, and individual liberties are not all they cracked up to be.
To make the argument that capitalism is bad, therefor community is good seems misguided. They are both good.
Your comment is very comical, but contains some truth to it.. religous beliefs are very often blammed for mass violence.
I consider myself religous but I am appauled at what many people do in the name of their religion. In most of these cases, their actions contradict their guiding philosophy.
Why on earth would you think the bible promotes socialism? The father of marxism (Karl Marx) was an atheist, as were many of history's prominent socialists.
The founding fathers were very religous. They promoted a philosophy of individual responsiblity, much like the bible.
Government should not have to censor Hollywood... Hollywood needs to do it on its own.
Hollywood has this warped concept that graphic violence in the movies sells. This concept is driven entirely by a sick ideology rather than market evidence. Lets look at the top 10 box office movies of all time:
Titanic, Star Wars, The Phantom Menace, ET, Jurassic Park, Forrest Gump, The Lion King, Return of the Jedi, Independence Day, and Sixth Sense.
Not a single rated R movie. It turns out the first rated R movie weighs in at 21 (Beverly Hills Cop -- not a terribly violent movie).
People do not want to take their families to violent movies. Some people do, but I would argue those people are the minority. Messing with people's dark sides is dangerous. People are curious about mortality and will always look for dead bodies beside a car accident, but they will often not enjoy what they see. I believe most people will be left with a more sincere enjoyment for a movie if it does not have graphic violence.
For the most part I enjoyed the movie Gladiator. I would argue, however, that if the movie did not exhibit such graphic violence and went to the box office with a PG-13 rating, it would have doubled the amount of money it made. You do not need graphic violence for a great action movie.
Movie-makers attempt to add shock value to their movies by including repulsively violent scenes. Of course they have to out do last year's ultra-gory movies to maintain that shock value. A few people will get a kick out of it, or appreciate the artistic expression, but most people would really rather not see it.
Eventually the violent trend in Hollywood needs to be reversed. Making ultra-gory movies is not only questionable from a moral standpoint, but simply does not make sense from a market perspective. Wake up Hollywood.
Re:Why the preoccupation with "intelligent" animal
on
Uplifting Dolphins
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· Score: 1
I'm not sure I understand your assertion that evolutionary advancement is a better qualifier for animal protection than intelligence.
I would assert that a good qualifier for animal protection is the animal's capacity for empathy. Eating tuna is a means of survival for us, and many other creatures. I doubt that the tuna 'miss' or have any remorse for the tuna that get caught. This is not true of Dolphins.
Aside from "it's neeewwww, and scaaarrryyy!" could anyone give me a nice plausible step by step theory where step 1 is "a human is cloned" and step n is "our ultimate doom"?
The problem with religous beliefs is they are entirely based in faith with no scientific explanation. To the disappointment to most athiests, they will probably never get a 'nice plausible step by step theory' as to why cloning (or genetic engineering in general) should be outlawed.
Seems the labeling of open-source code as "commi-code" is popular these days.
I admit I am a hardcore capitalist, but I don't see the line of reasoning behind "outlawing" open source code. To suggest is it un-American and following a socialistic vein is ridiculous.
Open source software is distributed on a voluntary basis. Its not like there is an authoritative mandate that all software MUST be open source... that would be un-American. Distribution of wealth (or intellectual property in this case) is a noble and altruistic endeavor. Its only the case when the distribution of wealth (or intellectual property) is forced by a governing body that I have a problem with it.
To create legislation either way violates my perspective of what is "American".
Kutzweil is a recognized expert in artificial intelligence and has had some insightful and interesting predictions in computer advancements, but is not an expert in neurology. He makes a fundamental assumption about how the brain works that many scientist disagree with. Kurzweil presumes the brain is a deterministic system that can be modeled by a turing machine. Many new theories about how the brain works view it as a random, non-deterministic system. Penrose has developed a proof of this concept in his book "The Emperor's New Mind".
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Seems like you've come up with a recursive statement ... If a capitalistic endeavor takes precedence over the needs of society than society is better off with out it. Tough to argue with that one ...
All I'm saying is, capitalism is a beneficial economic and political philosophy. Doesn't mean all things capitalistic are good, but in general, society is better off with it.
I agree with his assertion that having an active community is crucial for a productive society considering our social conditions.
Eventhough I agree with his general thesis, I strongly disagree with many of his assertions. He seems to make the point that capitalism in inherently bad, and individual liberties are not all they cracked up to be.
To make the argument that capitalism is bad, therefor community is good seems misguided. They are both good.
I think it is pretty obvious how to rate violence. For any dipiction of violence (either audible or visual), you must consider:
- How realistic is it?
- How brutal is it (a punch to the nose, vs. someone's legs getting blown off)?
- How explicit it is?
I can't believe many people would consider silly cartoon violence or the implication of people dying as serious criteria for graphic violence.I consider myself religous but I am appauled at what many people do in the name of their religion. In most of these cases, their actions contradict their guiding philosophy.
The founding fathers were very religous. They promoted a philosophy of individual responsiblity, much like the bible.
Hollywood has this warped concept that graphic violence in the movies sells. This concept is driven entirely by a sick ideology rather than market evidence. Lets look at the top 10 box office movies of all time:
Titanic, Star Wars, The Phantom Menace, ET, Jurassic Park, Forrest Gump, The Lion King, Return of the Jedi, Independence Day, and Sixth Sense.
Not a single rated R movie. It turns out the first rated R movie weighs in at 21 (Beverly Hills Cop -- not a terribly violent movie).
People do not want to take their families to violent movies. Some people do, but I would argue those people are the minority. Messing with people's dark sides is dangerous. People are curious about mortality and will always look for dead bodies beside a car accident, but they will often not enjoy what they see. I believe most people will be left with a more sincere enjoyment for a movie if it does not have graphic violence.
For the most part I enjoyed the movie Gladiator. I would argue, however, that if the movie did not exhibit such graphic violence and went to the box office with a PG-13 rating, it would have doubled the amount of money it made. You do not need graphic violence for a great action movie.
Movie-makers attempt to add shock value to their movies by including repulsively violent scenes. Of course they have to out do last year's ultra-gory movies to maintain that shock value. A few people will get a kick out of it, or appreciate the artistic expression, but most people would really rather not see it.
Eventually the violent trend in Hollywood needs to be reversed. Making ultra-gory movies is not only questionable from a moral standpoint, but simply does not make sense from a market perspective. Wake up Hollywood.
I'm not sure I understand your assertion that evolutionary advancement is a better qualifier for animal protection than intelligence.
I would assert that a good qualifier for animal protection is the animal's capacity for empathy. Eating tuna is a means of survival for us, and many other creatures. I doubt that the tuna 'miss' or have any remorse for the tuna that get caught. This is not true of Dolphins.
Seems the labeling of open-source code as "commi-code" is popular these days.
... that would be un-American. Distribution of wealth (or intellectual property in this case) is a noble and altruistic endeavor. Its only the case when the distribution of wealth (or intellectual property) is forced by a governing body that I have a problem with it.
I admit I am a hardcore capitalist, but I don't see the line of reasoning behind "outlawing" open source code. To suggest is it un-American and following a socialistic vein is ridiculous.
Open source software is distributed on a voluntary basis. Its not like there is an authoritative mandate that all software MUST be open source
To create legislation either way violates my perspective of what is "American".
Kutzweil is a recognized expert in artificial intelligence and has had some insightful and interesting predictions in computer advancements, but is not an expert in neurology. He makes a fundamental assumption about how the brain works that many scientist disagree with. Kurzweil presumes the brain is a deterministic system that can be modeled by a turing machine. Many new theories about how the brain works view it as a random, non-deterministic system. Penrose has developed a proof of this concept in his book "The Emperor's New Mind".