I could be wrong (it's been a few years since my last physics class) but changing the mass of a planet wouldn't have anything to do with it's orbit -- otherwise we'd be in trouble anyway with all the meteors and such hitting us, and to a larger extent the moon (which has smaller mass and therefore would be theoretically more effected) -- not to mention mars and mercury
Like I said, I could be wrong, but since no one else had taken you up on it yet...
Everything beyond a small band of human behavior (into which a large proportion of humans fall into -- think bell curves and related distributions, though I don't have hard numbers right now. I'm working on it, in between a billion other things) *IS* being pathologized, however, trying to ignore it is not a solution either.
And acknowledging the difference does not necessarily mean allowing truly evil behavior to occur without consequence, even though in some places this is the norm because of the misunderstanding of teachers, administrators and others. This is probably a direct consequence of pathologizing behavior. For example, I used to know an elementary schooler who would whip down his pants and show his genitals in school if he were upset. The teachers and administrators never disciplined him because he had ADHD and 'couldn't help it.' It *doesn't* make sense to discipline a person for something they truly have no control over. You don't put a child in time out for throwing up. However, there's a difference between throwing up (which is a physical reaction that is, usually, uncontrollable) and pulling down ones pants -- it would be unreasonable to discipline a child with ADHD to sit completely still for long periods of time. It would be useless and *wrong* to punish them for fidgeting. However, measures should have been taken to teach him a better way of expressing his feelings, and then pushing him towards using those ways, eventually moving towards punishment as he got more practiced. Ultimately, however, he ended up raping two girls in middle school and ADHD didn't make a really good defense in court. I blame his parents and his school as well as him (obviously) in this case.
This said, many people (and I won't say exactly that you are saying this, though your 'sit down and shut up, or else' comment would point to this) try to ignore or belittle the differences that are now being patholigized (rather than attacking the pathologization [is that a word?] itself) and claiming that all these people need are better discipline (how do you discipline an otherwise normal two year old who doesn't yet talk but slams his head against walls when he's frustrated?), a little confidence (trust me, I'm not shy -- being approached by strangers can send me into panic attacks) or whatever.
What *should* be happening is that these differences should be recognized, and ways of dealing with them developed so that people who have them can work towards being what they would like to be. If you enjoy not being able to deal with people in person, than fine, but I, for one, like the fact that ritalin makes me feel less like smacking my head into walls every time I talk to a stranger in person, or do something I felt was stupid (for values of stupid that are much more sensitive than most of the rest of the world, so I gather). Not that I wake up every morning thinking 'yay, I have to take ritalin'. I don't. But I do give thanks that it exists so that I don't live walled up in my apartment too freaked out to deal with the people in the world outside my door.
compared with the coverage (or lack thereof) of not one but *three* violent attacks on jewish institutions in the last two months or so, the church shooting has gotten a heck of a lot of attention.
I didn't say completely unfounded charges *didn't* happen. However, very few of the charges made each year (by percentage) are completely unfounded.
And you're right, a lot of those are made against gay/bi people and people of different religions by adults with agendas. A number are also made by divorcing parents who want to deprive another parent of their child (and also the child of their parent, but apparently they don't think that way)
The scary thing about all those charges above, is that they give people who are clearly abusing children an out.
First of all, the issue is not 'should (or are) 13 year olds having sex' -- I'm 21, and growing up, I had several friends who were parents at that age, so whether or not anyone believes 13 year olds *should* be having sex, at least some *are* having sex.
The issue, however, is should *an adult* have sex with a thirteen year old. Understanding, of course, that in this society, adults have a hell of a lot more power than anyone under the age of 18. The legal answer is no, and my personal answer is no.
It is unfortunate that worthy people are scared to be around/help/mentor children for fear of being branded as a child molester. The number of people who are accused of (never mind arrested and convicted for) child sexual abuse is very low compared with the number of people who are around children. Very very few of these are completely unfounded. Hence it's a risk, but a very small one, especially if the adult in question acts responsibly and doesn't even go into grey areas (discussing sex, etc. and it's also unfortunate that our society is so screwed up over sex that many adults can't conceive of, much less parcipate or allow others to participate, in intelligent conversations about sex, but that's *not* the fault of sexually abused children, nor the adults that wish to protect them).
There are many more child molesters that go unpunished than innocent people punished for being child molesters.
And in this case, by all accounts that I've seen, 'mentoring' was not even a possibility.
Re:I have a complaint (albeit an unfair one)
on
Girls Like Linux Too
·
· Score: 1
I'm not gonna flame ya.
But saying you can't be a feminist is like saying you can't be against racism if you're not a minority. (well, you are, and heck, I growl when people refer to me as 'white' -- and then take out the pics of my mom, who is definetly japanese)
And I've never seen a guy flamed because he was a guy (actually, flames are rather rare period) on the grrltalk@linuxchix.org list, and I've been there awhile.
Come on down. Join us. We don't bite (often..or hard:) )
Thank you for a *reasonable* post. I think it's interesting that one article which *skimmed* a study is suddenly flamed so heavily. sheesh. I didn't read anywhere in that article that *all* people who work with computers are autistic, and I didn't read that we should drug it out of those who aren't (never mind that there really isn't a 'cure' for autism)
Interestingly, both me and my son were at various points diagnosed with mild autism..his diagnosis has been changed, and my mother just stormed out of the doctor's office and wouldn't take me back (good for her!).
The problem isn't in the diagnoses so much as in the reactions -- there are quite a few people with autism of various severities doing good things out there, and it *would* explain a lot about a few computer geeks I know (myself included) and if people would consider it as 'just another theory' [and I mean professionals as well as laypeople] rather than some sort of religious fact [by that I mean believing it even though it can't be proved..you can prove downs syndrome with genetic tests, you can't prove autism except by observing symptoms, which, as several people have pointed out, can also be caused by other conditions) and use that theory to design ways of migitating annoying symptoms (as designated by the person in question, not a random board of psychs or even their own psychs), without losing the good 'symptoms', then we'd go far with this.
actually the post I was replying to specifically said that communities should be able to pressure members to conform
hence, my comment. I don't believe I said a thing about private companies (but if you want to get into it, I agree that private companies should be able to choose what they themselves would like to do, but something needs to be done about the fact that so much is controlled by a very few companies)
To steal an analogy from a very good paper, labling content on the internet is bad for the same reason that labeling people with AIDS is bad.
From a public health perspective, having everyone who tests HIV+ wear a label would allow people to decide if they want to share needles or have unprotected sex with them, etc. However, it would also give a lot of people (who already would be happy to, but don't have the means right now) an excuse to discriminate against such people. *IF* historically labeling hadn't been used to censor things, *THEN* the argument 'it's labling, not censorship' would mean something.
However, history proves that labeling becomes a tool of censorship, whether you're 1939 Germany labeling Jews (and other 'undesireables'), 1989 US labeling movies or 1999 planet earth labeling web pages.
yeah, well, my community doesn't approve of libertarianism, or black people, or homosexuals, or women who aren't barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen. So we'll just make it illegal to be anything but a nuclear white family with a stay-at-home mommy.
I think I'll agree with the subject here.
(note: this post contained sarcasm, whilst racist, sexist and homophobic things do happen in my community, I do not believe this is the belief of the community at large. I'm just trying to make a point here)
1. Open source doesn't mean open life. It's not contradictory to write open source software but not publish your credit card numbers
2. Ideal society != (all members are ideal) Destructive people have always been with us. There will always be people who want more than what they are entitled to, and don't care if they hurt others to get it. Hence, we protect ourselves and we spend less time destroying those people.
> Actually, it intensifies the need for funding to > enforce the law. Government can route around > thumb-the-nose initiatives like this, by banning > the encrypted traffic.
> You can't just pull down your pants and shake > your willy in public because you don't like > public nudity laws. Or, rather, you can. For a > minute or two.
Ah, but I can go somewhere where public nudity is okay (another country, or my own home, which wouldn't be public, but oh well) and do so, and then point out that nothing horrible happened (oh no, I got cold!)
well, okay, I couldn't shake my willy around (at least not unless I went to the adult store first) but you get the picture.
I don't know if scp counts as a replacement for ftp (though I'm not knocking scp in general) as you can't browse directories etc with it (granted, you can use ssh to find what you want and scp to grab it) but kerberos is a good thing too.
Double not true. There are a few good books out there with *really decent* experiments you (at any age that's likely to be able to read) can cook up and learn stuff about chemistry and physics.
As for bio, I grew up with a copy of grey's anatomy in the house (though my mom is a nurse, so this might be a little weird) and my sister actually got the coloring book version (lucky!) when she was sixish...
The only things you need to do to learn anything is 1. learn to read (this is really important, though I have heard of a well documented case where a person who was born deaf and never taught any language, signed or otherwise, taught himself math out of a textbook) 2. be resourceful
optionally 3. have supportive parents, but if your parents are as evile as that, you probably learned to keep the eleventh commandment young anyway (I did, the friends with whom I built explosives in high school did)
so the only valid point you have is about the animals...dissection, until you get fairly high up, is pretty unnecessary anyway...but if you *really* feel the need to dissect something, I imagine a trip to the local high school bio teacher might be helpful...
It depends on how bored I am:) sexual offense stats of any type (but esspecially rape and child molestation) are hard to compile accurately, both because of rates of reporting and because of definitions.
I don't have any quibbles with your figures, they just add weight to my argument, which was that after reading slashdot, where the great majority of the conversations do assume that the default gender is male (which I rarely quibble with, because I see it as pointless, even though I'm not male) suddenly some person is complaining about how sexual offenders, whom by *anyone's* numbers are by and large male, are being defaulted to male.
it was the utter and complete illogic of it that hit me...
I find it very interesting that after reading several K worth of comments that assumed that readers were male, that employees were male ('guys ' is as gender neutral as 'him') etc etc, the only complaint was when sexual offenders (of which 70% to 95% [depending on where you get your numbers] are male) were referred to as male....
there are other free email options:) I'm pretty fond of freeshell.org...also, there are quite a few companies offering $5/month email/web accounts (no dial up, but it's easier to swap dialup stuff than email and web address, in my experience)..he.net is one, and they run linux and are generally quite clued (my email/web stuff has been with them since the end of last year, and I got to meet them earlier this year while doing some consulting work for a customer of mine who had a colo there...) hotmail is evile:)
What is it about all the naysayers today? If I had a quarter for all the posts criticizing slashdotters for paranoia, knee jerk reactions, etc I've stumbled across today I'd go to lunch on it. Must be the weather...
Anyway, the relavant thing I was going to say was this: While it's not technology's fault that we are losing our privacy, I think a little paranoia is in order here. If you think all cops, feds and others in positions of power are sweet nice guys, you either live somewhere very different from all the places I've lived, or you're not paying attention. In most areas of the U.S. I've lived, if you're poor, non-white, non-straight or in general non-'normal' you can expect a certain amount of harassment (like your car being stopped and searched once a week, but never ticketed or anything like that). While there are good cops (and I'm sure good feds and such) out there, there are enough bad ones who if they don't like the way you look will *watch* and wait for you to do anythign they can get on you to make it worth being worried. And technology just makes it easier for them to watch.
Or, just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get me.
(OTOH, moving out of the Southeast helped me a lot)
well, since the matter is powered by gravity, which is caused (created? what's the word here? I didn't major in physics ) by the matter inside the black hole and a *lot* of matter is required to create gravity, I'd think you'd get the mileage (which I'm assuming to mean miles per x amount of fuel) by dividing the mass in the black hole by the combined distance traveled by the mass of the matter being sucked into the black hole, and since there's a *lot* of mass needed to make that much gravity, it's possible that my 1980 longbed pickup gets better mileage
Of course, geeks generally being intelligent (I'm talking about the largely computer savvy/slashdot crowd) probably have the intelligence to realize that 'liberal' and 'conservative' are misleading, divisive lables. After all, it's not breaking a law of physics both to support gay rights and oppose gun control. Or to be a feminist who thinks the government should stay out of our lives as much as possible. Personally I am a geek, I do oppose gun control, and I support both women's and gay rights (since I'm both, I have some personal stake in the issue ). So as far as that concept goes we can largely blame the media, and the fact that large chunks of the american public, unfortunetly, are sheep. Geeks tend not to be, in my experience. In fact, considering that geeks (again, imo) can't agree on anything (vi vs emacs, linux vs FreeBSD, etc) I'd say we tend to be anything but sheep.
As for the earlier libertarian comment, you may be correct, for the most part (though imo most libertarians aren't compassionless at all, they just prefer to have someone besides the gov't taking care of those who can't take care of themselves).
Slashdot Mirror
I could be wrong (it's been a few years since my
last physics class) but changing the mass of a planet wouldn't have anything to do with it's orbit -- otherwise we'd be in trouble anyway with all the meteors and such hitting us, and to a larger extent the moon (which has smaller mass and therefore would be theoretically more effected) -- not to mention mars and mercury
Like I said, I could be wrong, but since no one else had taken you up on it yet...
Depending on who is doing the numbers (as usual)
approximately 90% of all child sexual abuse is perpetrated by adult males on female children.
And you're right -- there is no appropriate stereotype, it crosses class, racial and other boundaries.
I think you're half right.
Everything beyond a small band of human behavior (into which a large proportion of humans fall into -- think bell curves and related distributions, though I don't have hard numbers right now. I'm working on it, in between a billion other things) *IS* being pathologized, however, trying to ignore it is not a solution either.
And acknowledging the difference does not necessarily mean allowing truly evil behavior to occur without consequence, even though in some places this is the norm because of the misunderstanding of teachers, administrators and others. This is probably a direct consequence of pathologizing behavior. For example, I used to know an elementary schooler who would whip down his pants and show his genitals in school if he were upset. The teachers and administrators never disciplined him because he had ADHD and 'couldn't help it.' It *doesn't* make sense to discipline a person for something they truly have no control over. You don't put a child in time out for throwing up. However, there's a difference between throwing up (which is a physical reaction that is, usually, uncontrollable) and pulling down ones pants -- it would be unreasonable to discipline a child with ADHD to sit completely still for long periods of time. It would be useless and *wrong* to punish them for fidgeting. However, measures should have been taken to teach him a better way of expressing his feelings, and then pushing him towards using those ways, eventually moving towards punishment as he got more practiced. Ultimately, however, he ended up raping two girls in middle school and ADHD didn't make a really good defense in court. I blame his parents and his school as well as him (obviously) in this case.
This said, many people (and I won't say exactly that you are saying this, though your 'sit down and shut up, or else' comment would point to this) try to ignore or belittle the differences that are now being patholigized (rather than attacking the pathologization [is that a word?] itself) and claiming that all these people need are better discipline (how do you discipline an otherwise normal two year old who doesn't yet talk but slams his head against walls when he's frustrated?), a little confidence (trust me, I'm not shy -- being approached by strangers can send me into panic attacks) or whatever.
What *should* be happening is that these differences should be recognized, and ways of dealing with them developed so that people who have them can work towards being what they would like to be. If you enjoy not being able to deal with people in person, than fine, but I, for one, like the fact that ritalin makes me feel less like smacking my head into walls every time I talk to a stranger in person, or do something I felt was stupid (for values of stupid that are much more sensitive than most of the rest of the world, so I gather). Not that I wake up every morning thinking 'yay, I have to take ritalin'. I don't. But I do give thanks that it exists so that I don't live walled up in my apartment too freaked out to deal with the people in the world outside my door.
compared with the coverage (or lack thereof) of not one but *three* violent attacks on jewish institutions in the last two months or so, the church shooting has gotten a heck of a lot of attention.
I didn't say completely unfounded charges *didn't* happen. However, very few of the charges made each year (by percentage) are completely unfounded.
And you're right, a lot of those are made against gay/bi people and people of different religions by adults with agendas. A number are also made by divorcing parents who want to deprive another parent of their child (and also the child of their parent, but apparently they don't think that way)
The scary thing about all those charges above, is that they give people who are clearly abusing children an out.
Justice is a hard thing to mete out, at times.
First of all, the issue is not 'should (or are) 13 year olds having sex' -- I'm 21, and growing up, I had several friends who were parents at that age, so whether or not anyone believes 13 year olds *should* be having sex, at least some *are* having sex.
The issue, however, is should *an adult* have sex with a thirteen year old. Understanding, of course, that in this society, adults have a hell of a lot more power than anyone under the age of 18. The legal answer is no, and my personal answer is no.
It is unfortunate that worthy people are scared to be around/help/mentor children for fear of being branded as a child molester. The number of people who are accused of (never mind arrested and convicted for) child sexual abuse is very low compared with the number of people who are around children. Very very few of these are completely unfounded. Hence it's a risk, but a very small one, especially if the adult in question acts responsibly and doesn't even go into grey areas (discussing sex, etc. and it's also unfortunate that our society is so screwed up over sex that many adults can't conceive of, much less parcipate or allow others to participate, in intelligent conversations about sex, but that's *not* the fault of sexually abused children, nor the adults that wish to protect them).
There are many more child molesters that go unpunished than innocent people punished for being child molesters.
And in this case, by all accounts that I've seen, 'mentoring' was not even a possibility.
I'm not gonna flame ya.
:) )
But saying you can't be a feminist is like saying you can't be against racism if you're not a minority. (well, you are, and heck, I growl when people refer to me as 'white' -- and then take out the pics of my mom, who is definetly japanese)
And I've never seen a guy flamed because he was a guy (actually, flames are rather rare period) on the grrltalk@linuxchix.org list, and I've been there awhile.
Come on down. Join us. We don't bite (often..or hard
Thank you for a *reasonable* post. I think it's interesting that one article which *skimmed* a study is suddenly flamed so heavily. sheesh. I didn't read anywhere in that article that *all* people who work with computers are autistic, and I didn't read that we should drug it out of those who aren't (never mind that there really isn't a 'cure' for autism)
Interestingly, both me and my son were at various points diagnosed with mild autism..his diagnosis has been changed, and my mother just stormed out of the doctor's office and wouldn't take me back (good for her!).
The problem isn't in the diagnoses so much as in the reactions -- there are quite a few people with autism of various severities doing good things out there, and it *would* explain a lot about a few computer geeks I know (myself included) and if people would consider it as 'just another theory' [and I mean professionals as well as laypeople] rather than some sort of religious fact [by that I mean believing it even though it can't be proved..you can prove downs syndrome with genetic tests, you can't prove autism except by observing symptoms, which, as several people have pointed out, can also be caused by other conditions) and use that theory to design ways of migitating annoying symptoms (as designated by the person in question, not a random board of psychs or even their own psychs), without losing the good 'symptoms', then we'd go far with this.
humans.
actually the post I was replying to specifically said that communities should be able to pressure members to conform
hence, my comment. I don't believe I said a thing about private companies (but if you want to get into it, I agree that private companies should be able to choose what they themselves would like to do, but something needs to be done about the fact that so much is controlled by a very few companies)
To steal an analogy from a very good paper, labling content on the internet is bad for the same reason that labeling people with AIDS is bad.
From a public health perspective, having everyone who tests HIV+ wear a label would allow people to decide if they want to share needles or have unprotected sex with them, etc. However, it would also give a lot of people (who already would be happy to, but don't have the means right now) an excuse to discriminate against such people. *IF* historically labeling hadn't been used to censor things, *THEN* the argument 'it's labling, not censorship' would mean something.
However, history proves that labeling becomes a tool of censorship, whether you're 1939 Germany labeling Jews (and other 'undesireables'), 1989 US labeling movies or 1999 planet earth labeling web pages.
yeah, well, my community doesn't approve of libertarianism, or black people, or homosexuals, or women who aren't barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen. So we'll just make it illegal to be anything but a nuclear white family with a stay-at-home mommy.
I think I'll agree with the subject here.
(note: this post contained sarcasm, whilst racist, sexist and homophobic things do happen in my community, I do not believe this is the belief of the community at large. I'm just trying to make a point here)
independent movie theatres
maybe I'm just lucky, and the pacific NW has more than it's share, though.
Peanuts have killed people (some people have fatal allergic reactions to peanuts)
I've never heard of anyone killed by an MPEG (or plaintext, for that matter)
Um. huh?
1. Open source doesn't mean open life. It's not contradictory to write open source software but not publish your credit card numbers
2. Ideal society != (all members are ideal)
Destructive people have always been with us. There will always be people who want more than what they are entitled to, and don't care if they hurt others to get it. Hence, we protect ourselves and we spend less time destroying those people.
> Actually, it intensifies the need for funding to > enforce the law. Government can route around > thumb-the-nose initiatives like this, by banning > the encrypted traffic.
> You can't just pull down your pants and shake > your willy in public because you don't like > public nudity laws. Or, rather, you can. For a > minute or two.
Ah, but I can go somewhere where public nudity is okay (another country, or my own home, which wouldn't be public, but oh well) and do so, and then point out that nothing horrible happened (oh no, I got cold!)
well, okay, I couldn't shake my willy around (at least not unless I went to the adult store first) but you get the picture.
I don't know if scp counts as a replacement for ftp (though I'm not knocking scp in general) as you can't browse directories etc with it (granted, you can use ssh to find what you want and scp to grab it) but kerberos is a good thing too.
Double not true. There are a few good books out there with *really decent* experiments you (at any age that's likely to be able to read) can cook up and learn stuff about chemistry and physics.
As for bio, I grew up with a copy of grey's anatomy in the house (though my mom is a nurse, so this might be a little weird) and my sister actually got the coloring book version (lucky!) when she was sixish...
The only things you need to do to learn anything is 1. learn to read (this is really important, though I have heard of a well documented case where a person who was born deaf and never taught any language, signed or otherwise, taught himself math out of a textbook) 2. be resourceful
optionally 3. have supportive parents, but if your parents are as evile as that, you probably learned to keep the eleventh commandment young anyway (I did, the friends with whom I built explosives in high school did)
so the only valid point you have is about the animals...dissection, until you get fairly high up, is pretty unnecessary anyway...but if you *really* feel the need to dissect something, I imagine a trip to the local high school bio teacher might be helpful...
bleh.
It depends on how bored I am :) sexual offense stats of any type (but esspecially rape and child molestation) are hard to compile accurately, both because of rates of reporting and because of definitions.
I don't have any quibbles with your figures, they just add weight to my argument, which was that after reading slashdot, where the great majority of the conversations do assume that the default gender is male (which I rarely quibble with, because I see it as pointless, even though I'm not male) suddenly some person is complaining about how sexual offenders, whom by *anyone's* numbers are by and large male, are being defaulted to male.
it was the utter and complete illogic of it that hit me...
I find it very interesting that after reading several K worth of comments that assumed that readers were male, that employees were male ('guys ' is as gender neutral as 'him') etc etc, the only complaint was when sexual offenders (of which 70% to 95% [depending on where you get your numbers] are male) were referred to as male....
hmm...
interesting indeed.
there are other free email options :) I'm pretty fond of freeshell.org...also, there are quite a few companies offering $5/month email/web accounts (no dial up, but it's easier to swap dialup stuff than email and web address, in my experience)..he.net is one, and they run linux and are generally quite clued (my email/web stuff has been with them since the end of last year, and I got to meet them earlier this year while doing some consulting work for a customer of mine who had a colo there...) hotmail is evile :)
jonas salk (I might have his first name off by a bit) invented the polio vaccine
I thought everyone knew that
oh well. I'm overestimating the human race again, aren't I?
What is it about all the naysayers today? If I had a quarter for all the posts criticizing slashdotters for paranoia, knee jerk reactions, etc I've stumbled across today I'd go to lunch on it. Must be the weather...
Anyway, the relavant thing I was going to say was this: While it's not technology's fault that we are losing our privacy, I think a little paranoia is in order here. If you think all cops, feds and others in positions of power are sweet nice guys, you either live somewhere very different from all the places I've lived, or you're not paying attention. In most areas of the U.S. I've lived, if you're poor, non-white, non-straight or in general non-'normal' you can expect a certain amount of harassment (like your car being stopped and searched once a week, but never ticketed or anything like that). While there are good cops (and I'm sure good feds and such) out there, there are enough bad ones who if they don't like the way you look will *watch* and wait for you to do anythign they can get on you to make it worth being worried. And technology just makes it easier for them to watch.
Or, just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get me.
(OTOH, moving out of the Southeast helped me a lot)
but we measure all matter by mass, and since mass and gravity are directly relational, that would strike me as the most logical way of doing it...
:)
of course, this is purely theoretical from someone who really has no clue anyway, but since no one else was trying
(heck, I definetly get more energy-in-the-form-of-motion from burning gasoline than from relying on it's gravitational pull )
well, since the matter is powered by gravity, which is caused (created? what's the word here? I didn't major in physics ) by the matter inside the black hole and a *lot* of matter is required to create gravity, I'd think you'd get the mileage (which I'm assuming to mean miles per x amount of fuel) by dividing the mass in the black hole by the combined distance traveled by the mass of the matter being sucked into the black hole, and since there's a *lot* of mass needed to make that much gravity, it's possible that my 1980 longbed pickup gets better mileage
I'm going to go find a life now.
Of course, geeks generally being intelligent (I'm talking about the largely computer savvy/slashdot crowd) probably have the intelligence to realize that 'liberal' and 'conservative' are misleading, divisive lables. After all, it's not breaking a law of physics both to support gay rights and oppose gun control. Or to be a feminist who thinks the government should stay out of our lives as much as possible. Personally I am a geek, I do oppose gun control, and I support both women's and gay rights (since I'm both, I have some personal stake in the issue ). So as far as that concept goes we can largely blame the media, and the fact that large chunks of the american public, unfortunetly, are sheep. Geeks tend not to be, in my experience. In fact, considering that geeks (again, imo) can't agree on anything (vi vs emacs, linux vs FreeBSD, etc) I'd say we tend to be anything but sheep.
As for the earlier libertarian comment, you may be correct, for the most part (though imo most libertarians aren't compassionless at all, they just prefer to have someone besides the gov't taking care of those who can't take care of themselves).
Okay, I'll get off my soap box now.