Since there is no absolute normal, it sounds like your argument applies to everyone -- to be alive and exist with others means that one will be teased, and probably tease others too
"If you want a picture of Junior High, imagine a boot stamping on a human face--for 36 months" -- George Orwell
And what things would those be? What makes the United States worth keeping?
Our ideals. You may think they are mythical and that we don't live up to them, and you may be right. But the solution is to find a way to live up to them, not to abandon them. I think you have become a little too fixated on your Rome/Carthage analogy. Our real choice is to either handle our problems in a way that allows us to live in harmony with the world and other nations, or (as you say) to continue to exploit others' suffering for our own gains. The latter course is unsustainable in the long term -- note that the Roman empire (and all other empires) are just as extinct as Carthage. You might also think about why Germany lost World War II.
Assuming that you are serious about the subject and not just being deliberately provocative, you might be interesting in this book, which looks at how various societies succeeded or failed in dealing with their problems, and why.
But wait, Google is investing in it so I guess this really must be a great idea right?
Well, you must admit that Google's track record has been fairly good... they figured out how to make $$$ on search-engine advertising, back when everybody else thought it would be unworkable to do so; perhaps they will figure (or have figured) out how to make this work as well.
"anonymous killer" as a search term brings up my site first
... which just goes to show how lousy Google's indexing is these days. When I search on "anonymous killer", it's clearly because I want to hire a discreet hit man, not because I'm looking for indy music!
hmm, maybe in the paid results? Nope, there aren't any...
They just work harder or are smarter than people that don't make as much money (unless they are rich through inheritance, in which case they usually end up pissing it all away - see the parable of the rich man's idiot son)
There are some other possibilities -- they could be rich because they are more willing to abuse their fellow man to make a buck (e.g. mob bosses, drug lords, sweatshop owners, slumlords), or because they were lucky enough to be supported by wealthy/influential patrons or parents that make it easy for them to get access to lucrative opportunities (e.g. George W. Bush, or for that matter any of the Bush or Kennedy families, etc).
My phrase "dregs of society" suggests that people that are incapable of taking care of themselves, and making enough money to survive, shouldn't expect the rest of society, those that are capable of taking care of themselves, to bail them out because they can afford lavish bathrooms.
The problem with that line of reasoning is that almost nobody in a modern society can "take care of themselves". Barring a few subsistence farmers and mountain men and the like, everybody relies on their society to provide for their at least some of their needs. Most people find a niche whereby they can make themselves useful enough to induce society to help them in return, but for those that cannot, it's not necessarily their fault. For example, if you had a stroke tomorrow that left you unable to do any useful work, would you suddenly consider yourself "the dregs of society" and consider it acceptable to be left to starve? It's a two way street -- on the one hand, it's important for people to contribute to their society, but on the other hand, they have to be given an opportunity to contribute.
You're right, it is reprehensible that in a free society people are allowed to use their money, the money they worked for, however they want.
Not really, but what is reprehensible is that in a world where $200,000 bathroom entertainment systems exist, people still commonly starve to death or die of curable diseases for lack of fifty cents worth of vaccine.
Bring on the nytimes and the socialist overlords so the people that are willing to work themselves into success can be stripped of the fruits of their labor for redistribution to the dregs of society. You must work in academia..
Nobody suggested stripping anyone of the "fruits of their labor". Just because somebody is rich doesn't mean they can't be criticized for overindulgence or lack of taste. Your phrase "dregs of society" suggests that you think rich people are somehow better or more deserving than poor people.
Sure, and even if DRM became the norm, nobody would force you to buy DRM'd products. You would still be free to go through life without access to 99% of the information that was out there.
The catch, of course, is that most people would be seriously inconvenienced if they were denied access to 99% of the information that was available to everyone else, so they would end up opting to accept the DRM. And thus the content producers would effectively gain control over 99% of the population out there.
A computer is a tool, not a constitutionally protected right.
Agreed, but free speech is a constitutionally protected right, and DRM is potentially a clever technological means of subverting that right, at least whenever computers are involved (i.e. most of the time, these days).
I do not understand people that are totally anti-Rights-management.
Because to the extent that your computer is an extension of your mind, DRM is a "restraining bolt" that determines what you can or cannot say or think about, and its application is almost entirely in the hands of a powerful few. Even if it was never abused (and that's a huge if), the idea of somebody else having the final say over what you are allowed or not allowed to think is a disturbing thought.
(Analogy: imagine someone had invented a pill that kept people from thinking about molesting children, and that they wouldn't let anyone move to their town unless they agreed to take that pill. Would you feel comfortable agreeing to that, even though it was for a good cause? What if you knew the pill could easily be altered in the future to, say, force people to vote for a particular political party? Remember, once you've moved to the new town, you'll have to either accept any additional pills they decide to require in the future, or pack up and move to another town again... which might be very inconvenient for you, especially if there are no longer any "pill-free" towns nearby)
The system was designed to deliver the payload to the targets, and it does just that. The payload being billions of taxpayer dollars, and the targets being defense contractors, of course. Any nonsense you hear about "missiles" or "nuclear weapons" is window dressing.
the ADAS system will beep every 10 seconds to make sure you're paying attention, requiring you to touch the steering wheel to inform the car you're still in charge
I'm curious, if you don't touch the steering wheel after the beep, what will the car do? Disable the ADAS system? Stop the car? Beep again, louder? Call 911?
Consider this example: people will tell you they know for a fact that a god or other divine figure is real and constitutes a genuine presence in their lives. Yet of all the people who say this, how many of them could prove it?
I think you've missed the distinction between a lie and a falsehood. Those people are telling you the truth: they really do "know for a fact" (i.e. they are 100% sure) that God exists. Whether God actually exists or not is beside the point -- they are honestly divulging their sincere beliefs to you. Now if the person was secretly an atheist, and was nevertheless telling you that God exists, that would be a lie, and would (presumably) be detected by the machine.
However, to someone who has rehearsed the lie and is able to live it by recalling the lie from memory as if it had actually happened, then regionality of blood flow or glucose utilization in the brain becomes a much less useful measure.
At that point the person is not lying, they are delusional.
You can call it murder, I'd call it effectively removing a future threat. And if it were my daughter, it wouldn't matter what you called it - I'd still kill the guy.
And if everyone followed your logic, that guy's parents would have to kill you first, in order to "effectively remove a future threat" to their son. Which would mean that your parents would have to kill that guy's parents first, in order to effectively remove a future threat to you. And so on until nobody was left alive.
Avoiding scenarios like that is why law was invented, and it's what keeps the majority of people alive from day to day. If you choose not to follow the law, that makes you a criminal, no matter how justified you think your actions might be, and you wouldn't get to spend much time with your daughter while serving your jail sentence.
I'm all for throwing the book at him for even downloading it [...] They are playing the letter of the law game
Careful what you wish for there Belseth -- keep in mind that anything you see in your web browser you've already downloaded. For example, click this link. If that link points to a kiddie-porn site, congratulations, you are now a criminal! (and don't try to deny you downloaded kiddie porn either, the evidence is all their in your browser's cache folder)
They just don't want scientists running around spouting off all kinds of ideas/theories only to result in the media latching on to these ideas as some sort of "official NASA position." [...] At least that's all this seems to be about to me.
That's possible... on the other hand, the Bush administration has had a long and illustrious history of suppressing and distorting scientific findings that contradict its own world view. Their truculent behavior has been widely protested by scientists before, so it wouldn't surprise me if they're at it again.
here you go. As for "knowing exactly where they are", that was a Donald Rumsfeld quote, not Bush, my apologies. However, Donald Rumsfeld was Bush's secretary of defense at the time.
"Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent." -- George W. Bush, January 28, 2003
"We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat." -- Donald Rumsfeld, March 30, 2003
Slashdot Mirror
Son, you've come to the right place.
"If you want a picture of Junior High, imagine a boot stamping on a human face--for 36 months" -- George Orwell
Of course, this occurs in both male and female 8 year-olds, and is related to the overconsumption of sodas, Hostess products, and XBox...
Our ideals. You may think they are mythical and that we don't live up to them, and you may be right. But the solution is to find a way to live up to them, not to abandon them. I think you have become a little too fixated on your Rome/Carthage analogy. Our real choice is to either handle our problems in a way that allows us to live in harmony with the world and other nations, or (as you say) to continue to exploit others' suffering for our own gains. The latter course is unsustainable in the long term -- note that the Roman empire (and all other empires) are just as extinct as Carthage. You might also think about why Germany lost World War II.
Assuming that you are serious about the subject and not just being deliberately provocative, you might be interesting in this book, which looks at how various societies succeeded or failed in dealing with their problems, and why.
No, we shouldn't. What you propose is equivalent to the destruction of the USA -- by destroying all the things that make it worth keeping.
Well, you must admit that Google's track record has been fairly good... they figured out how to make $$$ on search-engine advertising, back when everybody else thought it would be unworkable to do so; perhaps they will figure (or have figured) out how to make this work as well.
hmm, maybe in the paid results? Nope, there aren't any...
To the extent the criminals get put in jail, any crimes they commit thereafter will be confined to the inside of the jail.
There are some other possibilities -- they could be rich because they are more willing to abuse their fellow man to make a buck (e.g. mob bosses, drug lords, sweatshop owners, slumlords), or because they were lucky enough to be supported by wealthy/influential patrons or parents that make it easy for them to get access to lucrative opportunities (e.g. George W. Bush, or for that matter any of the Bush or Kennedy families, etc).
My phrase "dregs of society" suggests that people that are incapable of taking
care of themselves, and making enough money to survive, shouldn't expect the rest of society, those that are capable of taking care of themselves, to bail them out because they can afford lavish bathrooms.
The problem with that line of reasoning is that almost nobody in a modern society can "take care of themselves". Barring a few subsistence farmers and mountain men and the like, everybody relies on their society to provide for their at least some of their needs. Most people find a niche whereby they can make themselves useful enough to induce society to help them in return, but for those that cannot, it's not necessarily their fault. For example, if you had a stroke tomorrow that left you unable to do any useful work, would you suddenly consider yourself "the dregs of society" and consider it acceptable to be left to starve? It's a two way street -- on the one hand, it's important for people to contribute to their society, but on the other hand, they have to be given an opportunity to contribute.
Not really, but what is reprehensible is that in a world where $200,000 bathroom entertainment systems exist, people still commonly starve to death or die of curable diseases for lack of fifty cents worth of vaccine.
Bring on the nytimes and the socialist overlords so the people that are willing to work themselves into success can be stripped of the fruits of their labor for redistribution to the dregs of society. You must work in academia..
Nobody suggested stripping anyone of the "fruits of their labor". Just because somebody is rich doesn't mean they can't be criticized for overindulgence or lack of taste. Your phrase "dregs of society" suggests that you think rich people are somehow better or more deserving than poor people.
That's the best argument for deregulation I've heard yet!
Sure, and even if DRM became the norm, nobody would force you to buy DRM'd products. You would still be free to go through life without access to 99% of the information that was out there.
The catch, of course, is that most people would be seriously inconvenienced if they were denied access to 99% of the information that was available to everyone else, so they would end up opting to accept the DRM. And thus the content producers would effectively gain control over 99% of the population out there.
A computer is a tool, not a constitutionally protected right.
Agreed, but free speech is a constitutionally protected right, and DRM is potentially a clever technological means of subverting that right, at least whenever computers are involved (i.e. most of the time, these days).
Because to the extent that your computer is an extension of your mind, DRM is a "restraining bolt" that determines what you can or cannot say or think about, and its application is almost entirely in the hands of a powerful few. Even if it was never abused (and that's a huge if), the idea of somebody else having the final say over what you are allowed or not allowed to think is a disturbing thought.
(Analogy: imagine someone had invented a pill that kept people from thinking about molesting children, and that they wouldn't let anyone move to their town unless they agreed to take that pill. Would you feel comfortable agreeing to that, even though it was for a good cause? What if you knew the pill could easily be altered in the future to, say, force people to vote for a particular political party? Remember, once you've moved to the new town, you'll have to either accept any additional pills they decide to require in the future, or pack up and move to another town again... which might be very inconvenient for you, especially if there are no longer any "pill-free" towns nearby)
The system was designed to deliver the payload to the targets, and it does just that. The payload being billions of taxpayer dollars, and the targets being defense contractors, of course. Any nonsense you hear about "missiles" or "nuclear weapons" is window dressing.
I'm curious, if you don't touch the steering wheel after the beep, what will the car do? Disable the ADAS system? Stop the car? Beep again, louder? Call 911?
What happens, do they bar you at the door for being too straight?
Everyone has something to hide.
I think you've missed the distinction between a lie and a falsehood. Those people are telling you the truth: they really do "know for a fact" (i.e. they are 100% sure) that God exists. Whether God actually exists or not is beside the point -- they are honestly divulging their sincere beliefs to you. Now if the person was secretly an atheist, and was nevertheless telling you that God exists, that would be a lie, and would (presumably) be detected by the machine.
At that point the person is not lying, they are delusional.
And if everyone followed your logic, that guy's parents would have to kill you first, in order to "effectively remove a future threat" to their son. Which would mean that your parents would have to kill that guy's parents first, in order to effectively remove a future threat to you. And so on until nobody was left alive.
Avoiding scenarios like that is why law was invented, and it's what keeps the majority of people alive from day to day. If you choose not to follow the law, that makes you a criminal, no matter how justified you think your actions might be, and you wouldn't get to spend much time with your daughter while serving your jail sentence.
They do, but what you describe above is more appropriately called murder, and you would be an accessory to it.
Can you point to some evidence that backs up that assertion?
letter of the law game
Careful what you wish for there Belseth -- keep in mind that anything you see in your web browser you've already downloaded. For example, click this link. If that link points to a kiddie-porn site, congratulations, you are now a criminal! (and don't try to deny you downloaded kiddie porn either, the evidence is all their in your browser's cache folder)
That's possible... on the other hand, the Bush administration has had a long and illustrious history of suppressing and distorting scientific findings that contradict its own world view. Their truculent behavior has been widely protested by scientists before, so it wouldn't surprise me if they're at it again.
"Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent." -- George W. Bush, January 28, 2003
"We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat." -- Donald Rumsfeld, March 30, 2003