So, here's an interesting theory: Pregnant women who are around allergens sometimes pass those allergens through to the developing embryo, which spontaneously aborts if it can't handle it. If this happens within the first few days of pregnancy, it'll never register as a miscarriage - she was just "a few days late".
Thus, people who grow up in less-than-cleanroom conditions are *born* hardier, because natural selection takes out the rest of us before we're born. In ultra-hygenic areas, mothers are exposed to less potential allergens and low-grade toxins, and thus more fetuses with potential immunodeficiencies come to term.
Well, white, "normal looking", and with signs of reasonable affluence.
As with all things, it helps to look sharp - whenever you find yourself in a potentially dodgy situation, stop and ask yourself, "how expensive of a lawyer do I look like I can afford?"
I've always said, "All civilized men are just two meals and a bath away from clawing each other to death with their bare hands".
It's a stupid, vicious world, and I don't know what to do about it - other than start playing the power game for my own self-protection, thereby making it that much worse.
Starvation. Organized crime exists because there is a service that people need, that the government is unwilling or unable to provide (historically drugs, prostitution, gambling, murder-for-hire, or adequate police protection). Provide safe and legal channels to satisfy the need, and organized crime rapidly loses power.
Of course, sometimes the service being provided isn't in the best interest of society to promote - murder-for-hire certainly falls into this category, while gambling, prostitution and drugs could go either way depending on your particular morals. The service being provided here - "vast lists of suckers ripe for fleecing" - would certainly fit this pattern. So the best solution at that point is to try to starve it from the other end - reduce the demand for the service, by convincing people and businesses not to engage in behavior that the service supports.
Let me get this straight. You want to perform vigilante action against people who are verifiably fundewd by organized crime and who have already shown themselves VERY eager to escalate tit-for-tat?
What is the response when they start feeding programmers' hands to meat-grinders in retaliation?
Ah, but there is a difference! In the interest-based case, if you miss a payment, you end up owing an additional $100 or so because of the extra interest. In the Sharia case, you are ONLY ever obligated for the $10,800. That's why Sharia condemns loaning-at-interest - because it's theoretically possible to cause someone to be infinitely indebted to you, if their capacity to pay ever falls below the interest rate.
what predictions does it make of the future than could be checked out by experiment?
Here's one: If you expose a microbe to a toxin that does not entirely wipe out the microbe, that microbe will gradually evolve to become resistant to that toxin.
Like, say, staph and penicillin.
You can go ahead and run this experiment yourself on non-resistant staph strains; I predict (via the Theory of Evolution) that if you vary the dosage of penicillin until it does not result in a die-off, that any samples you take from the exposed cultures will be statistically more resistant (i.e., take longer to die-off in subsequent trials) than non-resistant cultures that have not been exposed.
Please, get back to me and let me know how it turns out.
Interestingly enough, Bagdad (which is built on Babylon, where the Tower of Babel was mythically first built) is at the right latitude for a space-elevator.
Are you familiar with the concept of "out of sight, out of mind"? Basically, fertility clinics are good because they let barren women conceive (insert happy face and thumbs up). They also require that SEVERAL embryos be created, many of which are destroyed (insert frowny face and shaking finger). This is bad, but in order to acknowledge that it is bad, we'd have to stop letting rich white women have the precious little babies they so desperately want (back to happy face and thumbs up). Therefore, we simply choose to pretend that the frowny-face thing we regrettably mentioned earlier isn't actually happening. Unfortunately, if we start actually deriving uses from said frowny-face, we have to actually own up to the reality of its occurance - which noone wants to do. So we avoid doing a good thing because to do so would involve acknowledging that another good thing we're already doing has a side-effect that many people would call bad.
Wow. This girl makes a wonderful testimonial to the power of modern science.
Congratulations to the research team that pulled this off, and my heartfelt thanks in case I ever (gods forbid) find myself in need of similar treatment.
We may not end all human suffering in our lifetime, but we're certainly getting there incrementally, in steady steps. Wow.
Honestly? It's the fact that children aren't treated as persons under the law de facto, but we're not allowed to come out and say that they're property. This creates a level of tension that leads to a lot of nasty behavior on both sides of the 18-year barrier.
Slashdot Mirror
... until those children become adults with problems of their own, at which point they should quietly commit suicide.
Careful - "curiosity" is the same as pedophilia around these parts.
So, here's an interesting theory: Pregnant women who are around allergens sometimes pass those allergens through to the developing embryo, which spontaneously aborts if it can't handle it. If this happens within the first few days of pregnancy, it'll never register as a miscarriage - she was just "a few days late".
Thus, people who grow up in less-than-cleanroom conditions are *born* hardier, because natural selection takes out the rest of us before we're born. In ultra-hygenic areas, mothers are exposed to less potential allergens and low-grade toxins, and thus more fetuses with potential immunodeficiencies come to term.
Well, white, "normal looking", and with signs of reasonable affluence.
As with all things, it helps to look sharp - whenever you find yourself in a potentially dodgy situation, stop and ask yourself, "how expensive of a lawyer do I look like I can afford?"
what happens when all the torrent sites are shut down?
Incidentally, when's the last time YOU won a game of "whack-a-mole" with an infinite number of levels?
I've always said, "All civilized men are just two meals and a bath away from clawing each other to death with their bare hands".
It's a stupid, vicious world, and I don't know what to do about it - other than start playing the power game for my own self-protection, thereby making it that much worse.
You're describing a very Hobbsean system - in the "nasty, brutish and short" sense.
We were supposed to have evolved past that by now, but it's VERY important for everyone to remember that we haven't - and probably never will.
Try the toothpaste analogy next.
Except that you CAN'T ignore them, because there's far more of them than there are rational, non-hypocritical people, and they tend to vote more.
These jerks are the ones running the country, and they KNOW they're full of shit. Sometimes I think they just like the power trip.
Starvation. Organized crime exists because there is a service that people need, that the government is unwilling or unable to provide (historically drugs, prostitution, gambling, murder-for-hire, or adequate police protection). Provide safe and legal channels to satisfy the need, and organized crime rapidly loses power.
Of course, sometimes the service being provided isn't in the best interest of society to promote - murder-for-hire certainly falls into this category, while gambling, prostitution and drugs could go either way depending on your particular morals. The service being provided here - "vast lists of suckers ripe for fleecing" - would certainly fit this pattern. So the best solution at that point is to try to starve it from the other end - reduce the demand for the service, by convincing people and businesses not to engage in behavior that the service supports.
Let me get this straight. You want to perform vigilante action against people who are verifiably fundewd by organized crime and who have already shown themselves VERY eager to escalate tit-for-tat?
What is the response when they start feeding programmers' hands to meat-grinders in retaliation?
Ah, but there is a difference! In the interest-based case, if you miss a payment, you end up owing an additional $100 or so because of the extra interest. In the Sharia case, you are ONLY ever obligated for the $10,800. That's why Sharia condemns loaning-at-interest - because it's theoretically possible to cause someone to be infinitely indebted to you, if their capacity to pay ever falls below the interest rate.
Unfortunately, so do your neighbors.
well, whatever rich people do with more money
Mostly, find more ways to stay rich no matter what happens.
what predictions does it make of the future than could be checked out by experiment?
Here's one: If you expose a microbe to a toxin that does not entirely wipe out the microbe, that microbe will gradually evolve to become resistant to that toxin.
Like, say, staph and penicillin.
You can go ahead and run this experiment yourself on non-resistant staph strains; I predict (via the Theory of Evolution) that if you vary the dosage of penicillin until it does not result in a die-off, that any samples you take from the exposed cultures will be statistically more resistant (i.e., take longer to die-off in subsequent trials) than non-resistant cultures that have not been exposed.
Please, get back to me and let me know how it turns out.
Fark is two doors down, sir. Sorry about any confusion.
That word would be "maleficent". Malicious : Maleficent :: Intent : Effect.
Interestingly enough, Bagdad (which is built on Babylon, where the Tower of Babel was mythically first built) is at the right latitude for a space-elevator.
It might be fun to tweak that in God's nose.
Are you familiar with the concept of "out of sight, out of mind"? Basically, fertility clinics are good because they let barren women conceive (insert happy face and thumbs up). They also require that SEVERAL embryos be created, many of which are destroyed (insert frowny face and shaking finger). This is bad, but in order to acknowledge that it is bad, we'd have to stop letting rich white women have the precious little babies they so desperately want (back to happy face and thumbs up). Therefore, we simply choose to pretend that the frowny-face thing we regrettably mentioned earlier isn't actually happening. Unfortunately, if we start actually deriving uses from said frowny-face, we have to actually own up to the reality of its occurance - which noone wants to do. So we avoid doing a good thing because to do so would involve acknowledging that another good thing we're already doing has a side-effect that many people would call bad.
It's called "doublethink".
Wow. This girl makes a wonderful testimonial to the power of modern science.
Congratulations to the research team that pulled this off, and my heartfelt thanks in case I ever (gods forbid) find myself in need of similar treatment.
We may not end all human suffering in our lifetime, but we're certainly getting there incrementally, in steady steps. Wow.
Guys. It's an unsecured windows box in a military instillation with UFO pictures on it.
Does anyone here know the term "Honeypot"?
That would, indeed, rock. The best we seem to have is getting one's driver's liscense, which if you ask me, just doesn't cut it.
And if only our culture reflected that attitude, everything would be fine. Unfortunately, it often doesn't.
Honestly? It's the fact that children aren't treated as persons under the law de facto, but we're not allowed to come out and say that they're property. This creates a level of tension that leads to a lot of nasty behavior on both sides of the 18-year barrier.
We should send the 5 majority judges on this a T-shirt.
// 1. .Speech) || Agent.Action.Abridges(Agent.Action.AffectedParties .Press) || Agent.Action.Abridges(Agent.Action.AffectedParties .Assembly) || Agent.Action.Abridges(Agent.Action.AffectedParties .Petition ) ) // 2. // A well-regulated militia is necessary for the security of a free state // 3. // 4. // People should be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures. // 5. .Life) || Agent.Action.Deprives(Agent.Action.AffectedParties .Liberty) || Agent.Action.Deprives(Agent.Action.AffectedParties .Property) .Property) && Agent.Action.Compensation(Agent.Action.AffectedPar ties).Value ToDollars(20) ) // 8.
On the front:
"I can replace you with a small shell script."
On the back:
if( Agent.IsCongress && Agent.Action.IsLaw )
{
if( Agent.Action.IsReligious || Agent.Action.Restricts(Agent.Action.AffectedPartie s.Religion)
return ILLEGAL_ACTION;
if( Agent.Action.Abridges(Agent.Action.AffectedParties
return ILLEGAL_ACTION;
}
if ( Abridges(Agent.Action, Agent.AffectedParties.Armament )
return ILLEGAL_ACTION;
if ( Agent.IsSoldier && Agent.Action.IsQuartering )
{
if (Agent.Action.Globals.StatusFlags & DECLARED_WAR)
return PassedLaws(Agent.Action.Jurisdiction ).IsLegal(Agent.Action)
else if( !Agent.Action.AffectedParties.Consent(Agent.Action ) )
return ILLEGAL_ACTION;
}
if( Agent.Action.IsSearch || Agent.Action.IsSeizure )
{
If(!Agent.Action.Warrant)
return ILLEGAL_ACTION;
If(!Agent.Action.Warrant.Oath)
return ILLEGAL_ACTION;
if(!Contains(Agent.Action.ProbableCause )
return ILLEGAL_ACTION;
if(!Contains(Agent.Action.Warrant.Items, Agent.Action.AffectedParties.Items )
return ILLEGAL_ACTION;
if(!Contains(Agent.Action.Warrant.Places, Agent.Action.AffectedParties.Items.Places )
return ILLEGAL_ACTION;
}
if(Agent.Action.IsProsecution)
{
if(Agent.Action.Crime.IsCapital || Agent.Action.Crime.IsInfamous ))
{
if (!(Agent.Action.Globals.StatusFlags & (DECLARED_WAR | NATIONAL_EMERGENCY) && Agent.Action.Juristiction.IsMilitary && Agent.Action.Target.IsMilitary ))
{
if(!Agent.IsGrandJury )
return ILLEGAL_ACTION;
}
}
if( Agent.Action.Target.History.Prosecutions.Offense.C ontains(Agent.Action.Offense) )
{
return ILLEGAL_ACTION;
}
if( Agent.Action.IsWitness && Agent.Action.Target == Agent.Prosecution.Target )
{
return ILLEGAL_ACTION;
}
if( Agent.Action.Deprives(Agent.Action.AffectedParties
{
if(!Agent.Action.Juristiction.DueProcess(Agent.Act ion)
return ILLEGAL_ACTION;
}
}
if (Agent.Action.AffectedParties.IsPrivate && Agent.Action.Deprives(Agent.Action.AffectedParties
{
if(!Agent.IsJury)
return ILLEGAL_ACTION;
}
if( Agent.Action.IsFactualExamination && Agent.Action.Facts.History.ContainsProperty(IsJury ) )
{
if ( !Agent.Action.IsCommonLaw )
return ILLEGAL_ACTION;
}
if ( (Agent.Action.IsBail || Agent.Action.IsFine) && Agent.Action.Value.IsExcessive)
return ILLEGAL_ACTION;
if (Agent.Action.IsPunishment && Agent.Action.Value.IsCruel && Agent.Action.Value.IsUnusual )
return ILLEGAL_ACTION;