Of course I am comparing apples to oranges. European governments and the American government are two fairly different systems that result in different parties. Now, I am not saying that Americans don't have their whack-jobs that would look at a European right winger and applaud. That said, they get almost no voice in the US. The US system shoves everyone to the center. A pure anti-immigration platform (like Le Penn's party in France) will get you seats in parliament and potentially a spot in a coalition government. In the US, it is nearly impossible for such people to get elected on a federal level. The lack of a coalition system for government means that even if such a person does get elected, they get little influence over the workings of the government.
So, I agree the lack of a strong extremist ultra-nationalist politicians (that get elected) in the US is not a unique feature of the culture, it is a unique feature of the political system. Even when such people do get elected, they are deeply marginalized. I don't have any doubt that if the US had a parliamentary style of government you would find the US having just as many (if not more) xenophobic right wing nationalist party.
My larger point is that Europeans some times assume that because the US left is like their right, the US right must be like there extreme right. This isn't the case. The things that define the European right really don't define the American right. The American right is far more concerned with economics and the occasional pet social issues, and give only passing thought to immigration. Right leaning European governments almost always are deeply concerned with immigration nationalist identity. The two are very different from each other and would likely kill each other if left in the same room for too long.
America has culture and culture to spare. Hell, didn't this entire thread get started because someone was complaining about how Americans act? Culture is not old buildings and long histories. Culture is the fabric of how we act, the opinions we have, the things we do, and general aesthetics and style. To deny that Americans don't have a distinct way of going about things is laughable. Now, you can argue that it might not be a good culture, but it certainly is unique.
Anyone who can't tell the difference between the culture in Boston, New York, Chicago, small town mid-west, small town deep south, Silicon Valley, Texas, New Orleans, and L.A. is either extremely oblivious or flat out stupid. All of these places are about as different as you can get while inside the same nation still speaking the same language. If you really believe that American is homogeneous, I suggest getting out more and seeing more then your tiny little plot of the world.
It should be pointed out that Europe's far right and America's 'normal' right really only vaguely relate. European far right parties would generally be considered extremely xenophobic by the American right. European far right parties almost always revolve around anti-immigration positions. The American right does hold sometimes hold some limited anti-immigration views, but they are rarely front and center, and they are absolutely nowhere near the extreme of their European counterparts. Comparing the American right to any European political parties is generally a mistake. While the American left has some fairly close European counterparts, the American right is fairly unique in the world.
Dude, I don't know where the hell you live, but I can tell you that there is a hell of a lot more in my area then casinos, brothels, and strip malls. Maybe you need to live some place other then Vegas?
Second Life is like cyberpunk hell. Want to know what Second Life looks like? Read Snowcrash, then take out anything at all cool about that world. It is one big unending strip mall comprised mostly of casinos, sex shops, and brothels.
Second Life is in no danger of becoming anything bigger. It is messy, awkward to use, and has little interesting going on in it. Something more interesting might grow from the original idea (which in truth, is not all that original), but it has a long way to go before it even begins to touch the sort of mass media acceptance of games like World of Warcraft.
Here is the issue. The next time a drug company is sitting on a few billion dollars from their latest Viagra spin off that Americans happily shell out a few hundred dollars per bottle, they are going to have to make a choice. They can either drop a few billion into doing AIDs and malaria research... both of which are diseases that affect the third world FAR more then the rich western world, or they can go after Alzheimer's disease, erectile dysfunction, and other such issues that rich western nations worry about more then poor third world nations. They can either pick the one where their short 14 year patent will be respected and they can make back the billions of dollars they spent plus profit, or they can make a cure that will be promptly have the patent violated and where (after spending billions) they will then have to compete with a generic version of their own drug. Further, it isn't just in the poor nation where you need to compete with the generic. In a globolized world, it isn't like cheap Brazilian generics stay in Brazil.
It isn't a hard choice for drug companies to make.
We need to find a better solution other then taking patents. Taking a patent from a drug company just means that they are going to avoid spending money on R&D into diseases that afflict the third world. You gain a generic drug in the short term, but in the long term drug advancements stop coming your way.
There are solutions that preserve the drug companies willingness to develop drugs for third world nations AND provide cheap drugs to those people, but no one is going to like them. It all basically boils down to 'the people with the money are the ones who will end up paying'. The people with the money are you and me. How we end up paying can vary.
1) It could be a direct tax on 'us' (rich developed nations) that is given to the Brazilian government that then buys the drugs are market value and hands it out the Brazilian people how they see fit.
2) Strict import controls could be imposed on drugs crossing national lines. This way you could have very high prices in places in the US, but 'at cost' prices in places like Brazil. You would need to be willing to fight black market forces in order to do this (see drug war). Further, only drugs that have an appeal to both developed and developing nations would be produced (no cures for malaria, but slow work on AIDs).
It is an ugly situation with no easy answers. To claim that there is a clear back and white answer is naive to the extreme. Every option has consequences. In the end, if everyone wants the drugs, SOMEONE is going to have to pay for them.
How is it that there is a "natural selection" for inanimate objects? How can such beautiful, non-living structures be works of randomness? There has to be an intelligent creator-being, no?
Give God a little credit. If there is a God, he doesn't need to use magic every thirty seconds to keep the universe on the track that he wants it. A truly omnipotent god would have flicked off the big bang and walked away, trusting in its omnipotence to be able to flick off the big bang in such a way that all that it wanted would come to pass.
Think of it like this. If you are a skilled bowler, you can roll a bowling ball in such a way that you knock over all of the pins. You angle, spin, and toss the ball in such a way that it hits all the pins it needs to hit. You don't throw the bowling ball down the lane, then cry "oh shit!" and run after it to correct its course (if you are good bowler).
If there is a god, I highly doubt that it cries "oh shit!" from time to time and needs to use magic to correct the universe. If there is a god, I imagine that it can enact its will and create a universe using only laws of nature that we humans can find and understand. To insinuate that God needs to reach down every now and then and 'fix' the universe by hand is to insinuate that God is less-then omnipotent and needs to correct its mistakes.
I think it is safe to say that 'nature' has not 'perfected' anything. Certainly there is a lot out there to be inspired by, but when it comes down to it nature performs a lot of guess and check to solve problems (although, even the use of the word problems is debatable, nature isn't a think that has problems).
Personally, I think that you can step back and view all of 'nature' and include humanity. If you do, I think you will come to the surprising conclusion that humans are just another step on the path. I am not saying the path leads anywhere, but you see a sort of progression going on.
Picture the universe how it was. It used to just be a mess of boring old atom parts. The parts formed up into atoms, and the atoms started forming up into molecules. Now, there are some molecules out there that form pretty easily. Hydrogen merrily grabs other hydrogens, carbon loves a pair of oxygen, so and and so forth. We are still talking about a pretty simple universe. At some point more interesting things started to happen. These molecules started to form into more complex molecules. Long complex strands of organic molecules started popping up (among other things). The universe is starting to get a little more diverse at this point. On Earth, at some point, these organic molecules started to show some really crazy behavior. They started self assembling into even more complex structures and forms. We have a sort of non-biotic evolution going on that slowly leads to more complex molecules and systems of molecules. At some point, we get the first bits and pieces of life.
Once life shows up, things really kick into over drive. This slow multi-billion year process that got us basic organic molecules explodes as pieces of the universe come together to form the truly complex chemical system that makes up life. Evolution takes over and life begins to change rapidly. We are still talking about single celled organisms. At some point in a not-too-distant-past (well, on a cosmic scale) life started to get really complex, really quickly, as multi-celled organisms burst onto the scene. At some point, in just a blink of an eye on the cosmic scale, humans popped up from the evolution of multi-celled life.
With the introduction of humans, this natural evolution towards complexity dramatically speeds up. Non-biotic evolution was slow. Biotic evolution was faster, but still took millions of years. Intelligence though... that was fast. Where evolution found it was by tedious chance, intelligence could find its way through rapid (although messy) computation. Throw in language and writing which allows easier data retention, and intelligence gets even faster.
There is a theme to this. Greater complexity, faster and faster. Personally, I think that we are on the cusp of the next great revolution in this universe. In the same way the universe moving from random molecules bumping around to evolution, and moving from evolution to intelligence was a dramatic change, I think we are on the cusp of the next revolution. The next revolution is of course strong AI, which can create ever accelerating growth in intelligence. I am not saying it is good or bad, just that it is next. I think to separate intelligence and (eventually) AI from evolution and molecules randomly bouncing off each other misses a larger trend. It isn't human Vs inhuman, it is the universe rapidly finding better ways to create more complex systems, and create them faster and faster.
So, to go back to the original poster... I don't think you really can separate the works of man from the works of nature. A computer is a work of nature at its finest. The fact that a computer is wrought from human intelligence doesn't make it any less an awesome work of nature then a monkey that got to be the way it is through evolution, or a molecule that got to be the way it is through a chemical reaction. The greatest work of nature (from my perspective of course, it isn't like 'nature' has a goal in mind) is human intelligence. That said, I doubt that intelligence is the last step on the path. I think the greatest works of nature are yet to come.
You are missing a distinction. A libertarian who wants to shoot the tax man is not any more or less "selfish" then a socialist. When you pay your taxes, it isn't a 'selfless' act of self sacrifice. Nationalized health care is not a selfless act. Selfless would be voluntarily giving your money over to a universal national health insurance charity. Giving your tax money over to the government that then hands it over to a nationalized heath care industry is just being rational and not getting your ass thrown in jail.
If a libertarian doesn't want to pay taxes, but gives half of his money to charity, that is selfless. If a socialist gives half of his money to the government but no money to charity, that is covering his own ass and not getting thrown in jail.
Selfless acts can not forced by threatening someone with jail time. Selfless acts come in the absence of force (government).
I am not advocating tearing down the government. I don't particularly like the Libertarian Party and consider them wildly impractical. I do advocate the government collecting taxes, and I am not terribly offended if some of those taxes go to social programs. That said, I would NEVER consider the government collecting taxes with the threat of force to be a sign of 'selflessness'. Selflessness comes through voluntary charity, not a threat of jail time.
Maybe we should make a law that there can be no more laws.
You joke, but I could think of a good law that do almost that. How about a law that states that the number of words that can be used to create laws is now fixed at its current levels. So, pretend that you want to pass a law with 10,000 words in it. That would mean that you would need to either remove a law, or reword a current law such that you free up 10,000 words.
What would be the result? Well, I bet you would find government pork would drop like a rock and laws would become much simpler to understand. Shit, need some words to pass the new health care law? Let's axe an old law giving pig farmer subsidies to do anti-terror research. Trying to pass a new tax bill? If you try and make it archaic and full of loopholes you are going to have to go hack up some OTHER archaic and richly worded law... or just write a simple law that makes sense as a normal human can read.
Under some circumstances, it probably would not have been the end of the world. It certainly deserves a reprimand under any circumstance, but perhaps not sacking her altogether. The real issue is that this woman was the dean of admissions. You can't have someone who lied to get into their position be responsible for admissions. The kind of message it would have sent would have been intolerable. It isn't a hard leap to rationalize misrepresenting yourself on your entrance qualifications under the justification that the frigging dean of admissions did it too.
It is sad and perhaps a little telling about how much weight we give to pieces of paper, but people in positions of such responsibility can't lie about their credentials and then have the moral authority to demand that no one else does the same.
1) The laser does not need to fire in the visible range. The red glow from a laser firing is laser light scattering off of air. If the laser is not in the visible spectrum, you could fire it through fog and see none of this glow.
2) The heating of the air would not make much of a visible trail. It isn't going to cause the air to glow or anything of that nature. At worst, you might see a 'ripple' effect along the trail the laser followed very briefly (like looking down a hot road on a summer day). Even then, I doubt that the laser would be able to transfer that much heat into the air that quickly because air is a terrible conductor of heat. For a laser in the non-visible region, you would likely see nothing.
3) There might be a 'crack' noise if the laser fires long enough to create a vacuum along its trail, but all sniper rifles today make that same noise as the bullet travels as super-sonic speeds.
4) If the laser is high powered enough, the 'shot' could be short enough that the human eye would not register it, even if it was in the visible spectrum.
Finally, if the laser is powerful enough, you could shoot over miles. Imagine if this 'sniper' laser is really massive laser strapped into the body of a cargo airplane. Imagine if the 'sniper' on the ground has a non-visible, completely harmless, low powered, laser pointer like weapon. He just shoots the target with his laser pointer, the airplane sees it, and fires off its massive laser from a few miles away, hitting that spot. Sure, the bad guys know where the airplane is, but they don't have a damn clue where the sniper is. This way, you could fire a massive laser the likes of which could burn holes through armor.
But with music, software, etc., I just don't see how leasing is beneficial to anyone but the seller.
There is a difference between renting and getting crippleware. Buying a DRMed song or getting a Sony rootkit is cripple ware and I am completely against such things. On the other hand subscription services serve some people very well. I have Rhapsody and 3000+ songs from the subscription service. For me, it works well. I download what I want, load it into my MP3 player, and think nothing of it. To do the same in iTunes would mean dropping a few thousand dollars.
It depends upon your philosophy of usage. If you want to use something only a few times then move onto other things, or you want to try many things that you might not like to find something that you do like, subscription models make a lot of sense. To people who use subscription models, music is almost 'disposable'. You consume music without bothering to think about the cost. Hear one interesting song? Don't think twice, just go download the entire... hell, download everything that artist ever made. With a purchasing model, you can't do that without paying a hefty financial burden. Arbitrarily deciding to download every song by a single artist could mean dropping a small pile of money for music you might not like.
If you are a collector, buying music makes sense. If you have established tastes and know what you like, buying might very well make sense. If you listen to the same music over and over, buying is economical.
Personally, I think that there is room for both flavors of services. Some people (like myself) want to explore music liberally without worry of the cost. For people like that, subscription models work well because there is no penalty to downloading and listening to everything you can get your hands on. For collector type personalities with established tastes and a narrower range of artists that interest them, buying makes sense. These are just two different models that serve two different types of personalities.
No, but I might pay 15 / month for every single MS product ever made.
There is a reason why services like Netflix and Gametap are doing well. Some times people would prefer to have access to a wide ranger of products at a fixed monthly cost, then be forced to pick and choose products at a higher one time cost. I personally go through piles of Netflix DvDs each month but don't own a single DvD. It saves me a pile of money and leaves me only mildly irritated if I rant a bad movie.
Your analogies are bad. It is the difference between a Netflix like service where for $15 a month you can get as many DvD as you want, but have to return them if you ever cancel your subscription, or pay $12 for each DvD, but getting to keep it forever. Personally, I like the rental model. I have Rhapsody and 3000+ songs 'rented' that I can put on my MP3 player. I don't think twice about downloading new songs or trying new things. If I hear a song that catches my fancy, I go download the whole album. If I find an artist I like, I go download everything by similar artists. I drop on one of the Rhapsody radio stations and whenever I hear a song I like, I just go download it without thinking twice. To do the same with iTunes, I would have to drop thousands of dollars. With Rhapsody, I drop just $15 a month. For people who listen to music the way I do, subscription models are a steal.
It really depends upon your listening style. If you are the type to listen to a few bands over and over and you know what you like, buying makes complete sense. If you are a "collector" and your goal is to amass a pile of music that is "yours", buying DRM free music makes sense. If on the other hand you have wide tastes, don't generally listen to songs repetitively, and like to explore wide ranges of music with little financial consequence, the subscription models make a lot of sense.
I don't mind DRM to support a 'rental' model. The rental model works extremely well for some people. I wouldn't want to see music rentals vanish any more then I would want to see DvD rentals vanish. I do mind it very much so when it is being used to cripple music that you BUY. If you are buying the music to keep it forever, it should come uncrippled... and it sure as shit should not give your computer a rootkit virus
No, all of his sponsers dropped him because they did not want to be unassociated with him. Further, black members of NBC were pissed off and told NBC and started to threaten to quit. This is free speech at its finest. Say what you want, but don't expect other people to like what you say. Further, Imus is hardly a victim. Imus is a millionaire. Not only is he a millionaire, but he is a millionaire likely to pick up a big fat contract from satellite radio if he so desires.
Freedom of speech is not promise that people have to associate with you. The KKK can run around screaming for blacks to go back to Africa, but it isn't like anyone is obligated to give them coverage. Freedom of speech is as much about saying whatever you damn well please as it is being able to freely associate or not associate with whomever you damn well please.
Imus free speech rights are have been perfectly protected... as have the rights of all the people who decided to speak negative things about him or refuse to give him money to continue speaking.
Foreign journalists can go basically anywhere they want in Cuba and they will not get killed or tortured.
That simply is not true. Journalist absolutely can NOT leave Havana or the resort areas of Cuba. Like North Korea, Cuba has its for-show areas that are fairly prosperous that they are happy to show off. Try leaving these areas and you will quickly run into trouble. Cuba is less then happy to show the areas that cause thousands of Cuban refugees to try and cross to Florida in a bath tube.
One additional thing that I didn't mention on my previous post. RMS wasn't talking about Cuba. He was talking about things happening in an US base. So it is an American criticizing the US government. I don't see anything wrong with that.
Here is the issue. If the guy quietly slipped into a horrible dictatorship that violently oppresses political opposition to protest a place where the US compromises its otherwise good record on protecting individual liberty, I would be able to stomach it. My issue is that the guy gets flown in by the Cuban government, put up in a nice Cuban hotel, gets treated like a hero, and is apart of a laughable protest where Cubans are shuttled in by the government to protest against a lack of liberty committed by another nation, while the same protest against their own government actions (which are on a much grander and more brutal scale) would get them tossed in less then prison cell that would make Gitmo feel like paradise. In other words, he merrily participates in a propaganda campaign put on by a government that ranks close to the bottom of every single scale that measures liberty.
Does this justify US support of shit holes like Saudi Arabia? Hell no. The response to the US supporting brutal and oppressive client states should not be to go find some OTHER brutal and oppressive client states to go support. The proper response should be to reject all brutal dictatorships and speak out when democracies start to compromise their commitment to liberty... but not speak out in such a manner that you serve as a puppet for a brutal dictatorship's propaganda wing.
Look, there is now way to justify it. Going to Cuba to protest some other nations lack of complete liberty is a joke. The guy looks like a complete jack ass who is so comparatively wealthy, prosperous, and free as to fail to recognize or appreciate what oppression really looks like. Real oppression is when you can't leave your nation, can't hold protests that are not government sponsored, and sure as shit can't go protest in other nations and expect anything but a jail cell when you get back. I promise you that when get gets back to his nice comfy house in the US, the government is not going to toss him in jail. The inverse would not be true if a Cuban when to Miami to protest the Cuban government and tried to return home.
You do realize that all of 'client states' listed are all in the bottom 10, right? It is like nit picking over who is worse, the guy who killed 30 and raped 20, or the guy who killed 25, but raped 50. They are all places with no measurable amount of liberty and the race to the bottom is based upon who is the most brutal in enforcing a complete lack of freedom.
I would call the guy a douche if he was protesting a lack of liberty in France while in Saudi Arabia too. I am not saying don't go point out injustice in other democracies, I am just saying that people need to get some fucking perspective. Going to a place with one of the most horrifically oppressive governments in the world to protest another nation bending its otherwise good record on liberty is down right stupid.
Does anyone else appreciate the extreme irony of going to protest in Cuba, a nation that was rated as having the second least free press (just behind North Korea) in the world, no political freedom of any sort, and thousands of political prisoners. Cuba is a nation where if someone decided to go protest against the political prisoners held in Cuban jails, they would be rounded up and tossed into jail. Going to Cuba to protest some other nations violations of liberty is the sort of thing that should make people laugh until they cry.
The whole idea is silly beyond words. WHY on Earth would you connect two nations, both of which have many viable ports, with a massive tunnel to their least populated and most distant parts?
The link between France and England makes sense. The tunnel spits people out very close to densely populated zones and provides access to the rest of Europe with a few hours (or less) of train rides. The link between Russia and the US would spit people and goods out as far as you can possibly get them from populated zones. The cultural benefits would be almost nil as it makes no sense to fly a few hours from the lower 48 states, land in Alaska, then take a train ride to the middle of nowhere Russia. You might as well just fly the whole way and go somewhere more interesting then frozen wastelands. If you want to ship goods to the US or Russia, you are better off just to load up a boat.
I was reading the paper on this theory. I found this part VERY interesting. It is like my whole life has meaning now.
Cubicism, Not group theory. If ignorant of the almighty Time Cube Creation Truth, you deserve to be killed. Killing you is not immoral - but justified to save life on Earth for future generations. Academic taught singularity within universe of opposites, has lobotomized your mind. You are Enslaved by Word - no whip or shackle required. You do not have the freedom to discuss/debate Time Cube. Academia destroys your mind by suppressing opposite view. God equals self masturbation of mind - for opposites create. You are educated singularities. YOU DESERVE DEATH - FOR SINGULARITY EVIL in the Universe of Opposites. No God Can Make Himself as singularity is death, not life. Planets nor human are entities as they equal Zero Opposites. You are educated singularity stupid and evil, unfit for life in the Universe of Opposites.
The laws against child porn in the US are defended on the ground that the act of making the child porn itself is illegal. You CAN own fake child porn (i.e. hand drawn or CGI with no real people). The Supreme Court even recently struck down a law trying to make CGI child porn illegal. It is the fact that it is illegal to strip a kid naked and have sex with him/her that makes owning child porn illegal, not because it is an unacceptable form of free speech. You can write the sickest and most twisted child porn story you can come up with, give it CGI pictures to go along with it, and you will have not broken a single law.
There are a lot of things I dislike about the US judicial system. The fanaticism with which the judicial system protects speech that would get you tossed in jail for decades in many other democracies is one of the things to admire about the American system. If there is one thing the Americans do very well, probably better then anyone else in the world, it is free speech protection.
Quite. Except the lack of gun control makes it far easier to cause a large amount of damage. A computer-gaming Marilyn Manson obsessed repressed Islamic fundamentalist, inconsistently educated mentalist engineer with an Arabic look about him, does a lot less damage when armed with a toothpick.
He also does a lot less damage when a red neck armed with a pistol is sitting next to him.
Gun control isn't the issue. There are other nations in this world far more armed to the teeth then Americans (Canadians and Swedes come to mind) that have much reduced levels of gun death. We should be able to be both armed to the teeth and able avoid blood baths. The problem is deeper then guns, and it sure as hell won't be solved by attempting the utterly futile (and certainly likely to be lethal) act of trying to take away the guns from Americans.
Trying to deny the domination of American entertainment in the world is laughable. Sure, Americans shoot movies all over the world. An American production company dragging a crew half way around the world for the perfect shot doesn't suddenly make it a non-American production. It just means that the US doesn't have the right combination of scenery/tax breaks.
Hollywood DOES dominate the world's entertainment. It is utterly undeniable. That isn't to say that there are not alternatives, just that they make up a just a small fraction of the eyeballs Hollywood steals. I am not saying Hollywood stuff is particularly great, but its mass market appeal is completely undeniable. The amount of money moving through Hollywood dwarfs the GDP of small European nations.
Now, do I think the world would end if all of a sudden American style copyright protections vanished in this world? Hell no. You would see all sorts alternatives to Hollywood. That said, you wouldn't see Hollywood. Multi-million dollar movies get made only in an environment of copyright and gobs of cash. If that is a good or bad thing... well, that is a matter of taste.
During the Vietnam War a unit armed with anti-aircraft autocannons were surrounded by Vietcong. Technically, they were not allowed to open fire on anything other then equipment with such weapons. Not really being a fan of dying, the leader of this unit order his men to open fire and slaughtered the VC. During his court marshal hearing he was asked if he understood the rules of engagement. He said that he did. He was then asked if he had violated the rules of engagement. He responded that he did not violate his rules of engagement. He was asked how opening fire with his weapons upon half-naked VC did not violate his rules of engagement. His answer? He did not order his men to fire at the VC. He told his men to shoot at the VCs guns and canteens, hence he was shooting that their equipment.
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Of course I am comparing apples to oranges. European governments and the American government are two fairly different systems that result in different parties. Now, I am not saying that Americans don't have their whack-jobs that would look at a European right winger and applaud. That said, they get almost no voice in the US. The US system shoves everyone to the center. A pure anti-immigration platform (like Le Penn's party in France) will get you seats in parliament and potentially a spot in a coalition government. In the US, it is nearly impossible for such people to get elected on a federal level. The lack of a coalition system for government means that even if such a person does get elected, they get little influence over the workings of the government.
So, I agree the lack of a strong extremist ultra-nationalist politicians (that get elected) in the US is not a unique feature of the culture, it is a unique feature of the political system. Even when such people do get elected, they are deeply marginalized. I don't have any doubt that if the US had a parliamentary style of government you would find the US having just as many (if not more) xenophobic right wing nationalist party.
My larger point is that Europeans some times assume that because the US left is like their right, the US right must be like there extreme right. This isn't the case. The things that define the European right really don't define the American right. The American right is far more concerned with economics and the occasional pet social issues, and give only passing thought to immigration. Right leaning European governments almost always are deeply concerned with immigration nationalist identity. The two are very different from each other and would likely kill each other if left in the same room for too long.
America has culture and culture to spare. Hell, didn't this entire thread get started because someone was complaining about how Americans act? Culture is not old buildings and long histories. Culture is the fabric of how we act, the opinions we have, the things we do, and general aesthetics and style. To deny that Americans don't have a distinct way of going about things is laughable. Now, you can argue that it might not be a good culture, but it certainly is unique.
Anyone who can't tell the difference between the culture in Boston, New York, Chicago, small town mid-west, small town deep south, Silicon Valley, Texas, New Orleans, and L.A. is either extremely oblivious or flat out stupid. All of these places are about as different as you can get while inside the same nation still speaking the same language. If you really believe that American is homogeneous, I suggest getting out more and seeing more then your tiny little plot of the world.
It should be pointed out that Europe's far right and America's 'normal' right really only vaguely relate. European far right parties would generally be considered extremely xenophobic by the American right. European far right parties almost always revolve around anti-immigration positions. The American right does hold sometimes hold some limited anti-immigration views, but they are rarely front and center, and they are absolutely nowhere near the extreme of their European counterparts. Comparing the American right to any European political parties is generally a mistake. While the American left has some fairly close European counterparts, the American right is fairly unique in the world.
Dude, I don't know where the hell you live, but I can tell you that there is a hell of a lot more in my area then casinos, brothels, and strip malls. Maybe you need to live some place other then Vegas?
Second Life is like cyberpunk hell. Want to know what Second Life looks like? Read Snowcrash, then take out anything at all cool about that world. It is one big unending strip mall comprised mostly of casinos, sex shops, and brothels.
Second Life is in no danger of becoming anything bigger. It is messy, awkward to use, and has little interesting going on in it. Something more interesting might grow from the original idea (which in truth, is not all that original), but it has a long way to go before it even begins to touch the sort of mass media acceptance of games like World of Warcraft.
Here is the issue. The next time a drug company is sitting on a few billion dollars from their latest Viagra spin off that Americans happily shell out a few hundred dollars per bottle, they are going to have to make a choice. They can either drop a few billion into doing AIDs and malaria research... both of which are diseases that affect the third world FAR more then the rich western world, or they can go after Alzheimer's disease, erectile dysfunction, and other such issues that rich western nations worry about more then poor third world nations. They can either pick the one where their short 14 year patent will be respected and they can make back the billions of dollars they spent plus profit, or they can make a cure that will be promptly have the patent violated and where (after spending billions) they will then have to compete with a generic version of their own drug. Further, it isn't just in the poor nation where you need to compete with the generic. In a globolized world, it isn't like cheap Brazilian generics stay in Brazil.
It isn't a hard choice for drug companies to make.
We need to find a better solution other then taking patents. Taking a patent from a drug company just means that they are going to avoid spending money on R&D into diseases that afflict the third world. You gain a generic drug in the short term, but in the long term drug advancements stop coming your way.
There are solutions that preserve the drug companies willingness to develop drugs for third world nations AND provide cheap drugs to those people, but no one is going to like them. It all basically boils down to 'the people with the money are the ones who will end up paying'. The people with the money are you and me. How we end up paying can vary.
1) It could be a direct tax on 'us' (rich developed nations) that is given to the Brazilian government that then buys the drugs are market value and hands it out the Brazilian people how they see fit.
2) Strict import controls could be imposed on drugs crossing national lines. This way you could have very high prices in places in the US, but 'at cost' prices in places like Brazil. You would need to be willing to fight black market forces in order to do this (see drug war). Further, only drugs that have an appeal to both developed and developing nations would be produced (no cures for malaria, but slow work on AIDs).
It is an ugly situation with no easy answers. To claim that there is a clear back and white answer is naive to the extreme. Every option has consequences. In the end, if everyone wants the drugs, SOMEONE is going to have to pay for them.
How is it that there is a "natural selection" for inanimate objects? How can such beautiful, non-living structures be works of randomness? There has to be an intelligent creator-being, no?
Give God a little credit. If there is a God, he doesn't need to use magic every thirty seconds to keep the universe on the track that he wants it. A truly omnipotent god would have flicked off the big bang and walked away, trusting in its omnipotence to be able to flick off the big bang in such a way that all that it wanted would come to pass.
Think of it like this. If you are a skilled bowler, you can roll a bowling ball in such a way that you knock over all of the pins. You angle, spin, and toss the ball in such a way that it hits all the pins it needs to hit. You don't throw the bowling ball down the lane, then cry "oh shit!" and run after it to correct its course (if you are good bowler).
If there is a god, I highly doubt that it cries "oh shit!" from time to time and needs to use magic to correct the universe. If there is a god, I imagine that it can enact its will and create a universe using only laws of nature that we humans can find and understand. To insinuate that God needs to reach down every now and then and 'fix' the universe by hand is to insinuate that God is less-then omnipotent and needs to correct its mistakes.
I think it is safe to say that 'nature' has not 'perfected' anything. Certainly there is a lot out there to be inspired by, but when it comes down to it nature performs a lot of guess and check to solve problems (although, even the use of the word problems is debatable, nature isn't a think that has problems).
Personally, I think that you can step back and view all of 'nature' and include humanity. If you do, I think you will come to the surprising conclusion that humans are just another step on the path. I am not saying the path leads anywhere, but you see a sort of progression going on.
Picture the universe how it was. It used to just be a mess of boring old atom parts. The parts formed up into atoms, and the atoms started forming up into molecules. Now, there are some molecules out there that form pretty easily. Hydrogen merrily grabs other hydrogens, carbon loves a pair of oxygen, so and and so forth. We are still talking about a pretty simple universe. At some point more interesting things started to happen. These molecules started to form into more complex molecules. Long complex strands of organic molecules started popping up (among other things). The universe is starting to get a little more diverse at this point. On Earth, at some point, these organic molecules started to show some really crazy behavior. They started self assembling into even more complex structures and forms. We have a sort of non-biotic evolution going on that slowly leads to more complex molecules and systems of molecules. At some point, we get the first bits and pieces of life.
Once life shows up, things really kick into over drive. This slow multi-billion year process that got us basic organic molecules explodes as pieces of the universe come together to form the truly complex chemical system that makes up life. Evolution takes over and life begins to change rapidly. We are still talking about single celled organisms. At some point in a not-too-distant-past (well, on a cosmic scale) life started to get really complex, really quickly, as multi-celled organisms burst onto the scene. At some point, in just a blink of an eye on the cosmic scale, humans popped up from the evolution of multi-celled life.
With the introduction of humans, this natural evolution towards complexity dramatically speeds up. Non-biotic evolution was slow. Biotic evolution was faster, but still took millions of years. Intelligence though... that was fast. Where evolution found it was by tedious chance, intelligence could find its way through rapid (although messy) computation. Throw in language and writing which allows easier data retention, and intelligence gets even faster.
There is a theme to this. Greater complexity, faster and faster. Personally, I think that we are on the cusp of the next great revolution in this universe. In the same way the universe moving from random molecules bumping around to evolution, and moving from evolution to intelligence was a dramatic change, I think we are on the cusp of the next revolution. The next revolution is of course strong AI, which can create ever accelerating growth in intelligence. I am not saying it is good or bad, just that it is next. I think to separate intelligence and (eventually) AI from evolution and molecules randomly bouncing off each other misses a larger trend. It isn't human Vs inhuman, it is the universe rapidly finding better ways to create more complex systems, and create them faster and faster.
So, to go back to the original poster... I don't think you really can separate the works of man from the works of nature. A computer is a work of nature at its finest. The fact that a computer is wrought from human intelligence doesn't make it any less an awesome work of nature then a monkey that got to be the way it is through evolution, or a molecule that got to be the way it is through a chemical reaction. The greatest work of nature (from my perspective of course, it isn't like 'nature' has a goal in mind) is human intelligence. That said, I doubt that intelligence is the last step on the path. I think the greatest works of nature are yet to come.
You are missing a distinction. A libertarian who wants to shoot the tax man is not any more or less "selfish" then a socialist. When you pay your taxes, it isn't a 'selfless' act of self sacrifice. Nationalized health care is not a selfless act. Selfless would be voluntarily giving your money over to a universal national health insurance charity. Giving your tax money over to the government that then hands it over to a nationalized heath care industry is just being rational and not getting your ass thrown in jail.
If a libertarian doesn't want to pay taxes, but gives half of his money to charity, that is selfless. If a socialist gives half of his money to the government but no money to charity, that is covering his own ass and not getting thrown in jail.
Selfless acts can not forced by threatening someone with jail time. Selfless acts come in the absence of force (government).
I am not advocating tearing down the government. I don't particularly like the Libertarian Party and consider them wildly impractical. I do advocate the government collecting taxes, and I am not terribly offended if some of those taxes go to social programs. That said, I would NEVER consider the government collecting taxes with the threat of force to be a sign of 'selflessness'. Selflessness comes through voluntary charity, not a threat of jail time.
Maybe we should make a law that there can be no more laws.
You joke, but I could think of a good law that do almost that. How about a law that states that the number of words that can be used to create laws is now fixed at its current levels. So, pretend that you want to pass a law with 10,000 words in it. That would mean that you would need to either remove a law, or reword a current law such that you free up 10,000 words.
What would be the result? Well, I bet you would find government pork would drop like a rock and laws would become much simpler to understand. Shit, need some words to pass the new health care law? Let's axe an old law giving pig farmer subsidies to do anti-terror research. Trying to pass a new tax bill? If you try and make it archaic and full of loopholes you are going to have to go hack up some OTHER archaic and richly worded law... or just write a simple law that makes sense as a normal human can read.
I could see only good things coming out of this.
Under some circumstances, it probably would not have been the end of the world. It certainly deserves a reprimand under any circumstance, but perhaps not sacking her altogether. The real issue is that this woman was the dean of admissions. You can't have someone who lied to get into their position be responsible for admissions. The kind of message it would have sent would have been intolerable. It isn't a hard leap to rationalize misrepresenting yourself on your entrance qualifications under the justification that the frigging dean of admissions did it too.
It is sad and perhaps a little telling about how much weight we give to pieces of paper, but people in positions of such responsibility can't lie about their credentials and then have the moral authority to demand that no one else does the same.
A few points:
1) The laser does not need to fire in the visible range. The red glow from a laser firing is laser light scattering off of air. If the laser is not in the visible spectrum, you could fire it through fog and see none of this glow.
2) The heating of the air would not make much of a visible trail. It isn't going to cause the air to glow or anything of that nature. At worst, you might see a 'ripple' effect along the trail the laser followed very briefly (like looking down a hot road on a summer day). Even then, I doubt that the laser would be able to transfer that much heat into the air that quickly because air is a terrible conductor of heat. For a laser in the non-visible region, you would likely see nothing.
3) There might be a 'crack' noise if the laser fires long enough to create a vacuum along its trail, but all sniper rifles today make that same noise as the bullet travels as super-sonic speeds.
4) If the laser is high powered enough, the 'shot' could be short enough that the human eye would not register it, even if it was in the visible spectrum.
Finally, if the laser is powerful enough, you could shoot over miles. Imagine if this 'sniper' laser is really massive laser strapped into the body of a cargo airplane. Imagine if the 'sniper' on the ground has a non-visible, completely harmless, low powered, laser pointer like weapon. He just shoots the target with his laser pointer, the airplane sees it, and fires off its massive laser from a few miles away, hitting that spot. Sure, the bad guys know where the airplane is, but they don't have a damn clue where the sniper is. This way, you could fire a massive laser the likes of which could burn holes through armor.
But with music, software, etc., I just don't see how leasing is beneficial to anyone but the seller.
There is a difference between renting and getting crippleware. Buying a DRMed song or getting a Sony rootkit is cripple ware and I am completely against such things. On the other hand subscription services serve some people very well. I have Rhapsody and 3000+ songs from the subscription service. For me, it works well. I download what I want, load it into my MP3 player, and think nothing of it. To do the same in iTunes would mean dropping a few thousand dollars.
It depends upon your philosophy of usage. If you want to use something only a few times then move onto other things, or you want to try many things that you might not like to find something that you do like, subscription models make a lot of sense. To people who use subscription models, music is almost 'disposable'. You consume music without bothering to think about the cost. Hear one interesting song? Don't think twice, just go download the entire... hell, download everything that artist ever made. With a purchasing model, you can't do that without paying a hefty financial burden. Arbitrarily deciding to download every song by a single artist could mean dropping a small pile of money for music you might not like.
If you are a collector, buying music makes sense. If you have established tastes and know what you like, buying might very well make sense. If you listen to the same music over and over, buying is economical.
Personally, I think that there is room for both flavors of services. Some people (like myself) want to explore music liberally without worry of the cost. For people like that, subscription models work well because there is no penalty to downloading and listening to everything you can get your hands on. For collector type personalities with established tastes and a narrower range of artists that interest them, buying makes sense. These are just two different models that serve two different types of personalities.
No, but I might pay 15 / month for every single MS product ever made.
There is a reason why services like Netflix and Gametap are doing well. Some times people would prefer to have access to a wide ranger of products at a fixed monthly cost, then be forced to pick and choose products at a higher one time cost. I personally go through piles of Netflix DvDs each month but don't own a single DvD. It saves me a pile of money and leaves me only mildly irritated if I rant a bad movie.
Your analogies are bad. It is the difference between a Netflix like service where for $15 a month you can get as many DvD as you want, but have to return them if you ever cancel your subscription, or pay $12 for each DvD, but getting to keep it forever. Personally, I like the rental model. I have Rhapsody and 3000+ songs 'rented' that I can put on my MP3 player. I don't think twice about downloading new songs or trying new things. If I hear a song that catches my fancy, I go download the whole album. If I find an artist I like, I go download everything by similar artists. I drop on one of the Rhapsody radio stations and whenever I hear a song I like, I just go download it without thinking twice. To do the same with iTunes, I would have to drop thousands of dollars. With Rhapsody, I drop just $15 a month. For people who listen to music the way I do, subscription models are a steal.
It really depends upon your listening style. If you are the type to listen to a few bands over and over and you know what you like, buying makes complete sense. If you are a "collector" and your goal is to amass a pile of music that is "yours", buying DRM free music makes sense. If on the other hand you have wide tastes, don't generally listen to songs repetitively, and like to explore wide ranges of music with little financial consequence, the subscription models make a lot of sense.
I don't mind DRM to support a 'rental' model. The rental model works extremely well for some people. I wouldn't want to see music rentals vanish any more then I would want to see DvD rentals vanish. I do mind it very much so when it is being used to cripple music that you BUY. If you are buying the music to keep it forever, it should come uncrippled... and it sure as shit should not give your computer a rootkit virus
No, all of his sponsers dropped him because they did not want to be unassociated with him. Further, black members of NBC were pissed off and told NBC and started to threaten to quit. This is free speech at its finest. Say what you want, but don't expect other people to like what you say. Further, Imus is hardly a victim. Imus is a millionaire. Not only is he a millionaire, but he is a millionaire likely to pick up a big fat contract from satellite radio if he so desires.
Freedom of speech is not promise that people have to associate with you. The KKK can run around screaming for blacks to go back to Africa, but it isn't like anyone is obligated to give them coverage. Freedom of speech is as much about saying whatever you damn well please as it is being able to freely associate or not associate with whomever you damn well please.
Imus free speech rights are have been perfectly protected... as have the rights of all the people who decided to speak negative things about him or refuse to give him money to continue speaking.
Foreign journalists can go basically anywhere they want in Cuba and they will not get killed or tortured.
That simply is not true. Journalist absolutely can NOT leave Havana or the resort areas of Cuba. Like North Korea, Cuba has its for-show areas that are fairly prosperous that they are happy to show off. Try leaving these areas and you will quickly run into trouble. Cuba is less then happy to show the areas that cause thousands of Cuban refugees to try and cross to Florida in a bath tube.
One additional thing that I didn't mention on my previous post. RMS wasn't talking about Cuba. He was talking about things happening in an US base. So it is an American criticizing the US government. I don't see anything wrong with that.
Here is the issue. If the guy quietly slipped into a horrible dictatorship that violently oppresses political opposition to protest a place where the US compromises its otherwise good record on protecting individual liberty, I would be able to stomach it. My issue is that the guy gets flown in by the Cuban government, put up in a nice Cuban hotel, gets treated like a hero, and is apart of a laughable protest where Cubans are shuttled in by the government to protest against a lack of liberty committed by another nation, while the same protest against their own government actions (which are on a much grander and more brutal scale) would get them tossed in less then prison cell that would make Gitmo feel like paradise. In other words, he merrily participates in a propaganda campaign put on by a government that ranks close to the bottom of every single scale that measures liberty.
Does this justify US support of shit holes like Saudi Arabia? Hell no. The response to the US supporting brutal and oppressive client states should not be to go find some OTHER brutal and oppressive client states to go support. The proper response should be to reject all brutal dictatorships and speak out when democracies start to compromise their commitment to liberty... but not speak out in such a manner that you serve as a puppet for a brutal dictatorship's propaganda wing.
Look, there is now way to justify it. Going to Cuba to protest some other nations lack of complete liberty is a joke. The guy looks like a complete jack ass who is so comparatively wealthy, prosperous, and free as to fail to recognize or appreciate what oppression really looks like. Real oppression is when you can't leave your nation, can't hold protests that are not government sponsored, and sure as shit can't go protest in other nations and expect anything but a jail cell when you get back. I promise you that when get gets back to his nice comfy house in the US, the government is not going to toss him in jail. The inverse would not be true if a Cuban when to Miami to protest the Cuban government and tried to return home.
You do realize that all of 'client states' listed are all in the bottom 10, right? It is like nit picking over who is worse, the guy who killed 30 and raped 20, or the guy who killed 25, but raped 50. They are all places with no measurable amount of liberty and the race to the bottom is based upon who is the most brutal in enforcing a complete lack of freedom.
I would call the guy a douche if he was protesting a lack of liberty in France while in Saudi Arabia too. I am not saying don't go point out injustice in other democracies, I am just saying that people need to get some fucking perspective. Going to a place with one of the most horrifically oppressive governments in the world to protest another nation bending its otherwise good record on liberty is down right stupid.
Does anyone else appreciate the extreme irony of going to protest in Cuba, a nation that was rated as having the second least free press (just behind North Korea) in the world, no political freedom of any sort, and thousands of political prisoners. Cuba is a nation where if someone decided to go protest against the political prisoners held in Cuban jails, they would be rounded up and tossed into jail. Going to Cuba to protest some other nations violations of liberty is the sort of thing that should make people laugh until they cry.
The whole idea is silly beyond words. WHY on Earth would you connect two nations, both of which have many viable ports, with a massive tunnel to their least populated and most distant parts?
The link between France and England makes sense. The tunnel spits people out very close to densely populated zones and provides access to the rest of Europe with a few hours (or less) of train rides. The link between Russia and the US would spit people and goods out as far as you can possibly get them from populated zones. The cultural benefits would be almost nil as it makes no sense to fly a few hours from the lower 48 states, land in Alaska, then take a train ride to the middle of nowhere Russia. You might as well just fly the whole way and go somewhere more interesting then frozen wastelands. If you want to ship goods to the US or Russia, you are better off just to load up a boat.
The whole idea is stupid.
If ignorant of the almighty
Time Cube Creation Truth,
you deserve to be killed.
Killing you is not immoral -
but justified to save life on
Earth for future generations.
Academic taught singularity
within universe of opposites,
has lobotomized your mind.
You are Enslaved by Word -
no whip or shackle required.
You do not have the freedom
to discuss/debate Time Cube.
Academia destroys your mind
by suppressing opposite view.
God equals self masturbation
of mind - for opposites create.
You are educated singularities.
YOU DESERVE DEATH -
FOR SINGULARITY EVIL
in the Universe of Opposites.
No God Can Make Himself
as singularity is death, not life.
Planets nor human are entities
as they equal Zero Opposites.
You are educated singularity
stupid and evil, unfit for life
in the Universe of Opposites.
The laws against child porn in the US are defended on the ground that the act of making the child porn itself is illegal. You CAN own fake child porn (i.e. hand drawn or CGI with no real people). The Supreme Court even recently struck down a law trying to make CGI child porn illegal. It is the fact that it is illegal to strip a kid naked and have sex with him/her that makes owning child porn illegal, not because it is an unacceptable form of free speech. You can write the sickest and most twisted child porn story you can come up with, give it CGI pictures to go along with it, and you will have not broken a single law.
There are a lot of things I dislike about the US judicial system. The fanaticism with which the judicial system protects speech that would get you tossed in jail for decades in many other democracies is one of the things to admire about the American system. If there is one thing the Americans do very well, probably better then anyone else in the world, it is free speech protection.
Quite. Except the lack of gun control makes it far easier to cause a large amount of damage. A computer-gaming Marilyn Manson obsessed repressed Islamic fundamentalist, inconsistently educated mentalist engineer with an Arabic look about him, does a lot less damage when armed with a toothpick.
He also does a lot less damage when a red neck armed with a pistol is sitting next to him.
Gun control isn't the issue. There are other nations in this world far more armed to the teeth then Americans (Canadians and Swedes come to mind) that have much reduced levels of gun death. We should be able to be both armed to the teeth and able avoid blood baths. The problem is deeper then guns, and it sure as hell won't be solved by attempting the utterly futile (and certainly likely to be lethal) act of trying to take away the guns from Americans.
Trying to deny the domination of American entertainment in the world is laughable. Sure, Americans shoot movies all over the world. An American production company dragging a crew half way around the world for the perfect shot doesn't suddenly make it a non-American production. It just means that the US doesn't have the right combination of scenery/tax breaks.
Hollywood DOES dominate the world's entertainment. It is utterly undeniable. That isn't to say that there are not alternatives, just that they make up a just a small fraction of the eyeballs Hollywood steals. I am not saying Hollywood stuff is particularly great, but its mass market appeal is completely undeniable. The amount of money moving through Hollywood dwarfs the GDP of small European nations.
Now, do I think the world would end if all of a sudden American style copyright protections vanished in this world? Hell no. You would see all sorts alternatives to Hollywood. That said, you wouldn't see Hollywood. Multi-million dollar movies get made only in an environment of copyright and gobs of cash. If that is a good or bad thing... well, that is a matter of taste.
During the Vietnam War a unit armed with anti-aircraft autocannons were surrounded by Vietcong. Technically, they were not allowed to open fire on anything other then equipment with such weapons. Not really being a fan of dying, the leader of this unit order his men to open fire and slaughtered the VC. During his court marshal hearing he was asked if he understood the rules of engagement. He said that he did. He was then asked if he had violated the rules of engagement. He responded that he did not violate his rules of engagement. He was asked how opening fire with his weapons upon half-naked VC did not violate his rules of engagement. His answer? He did not order his men to fire at the VC. He told his men to shoot at the VCs guns and canteens, hence he was shooting that their equipment.