Because, what? You say so?: No, because it follows from logic and reason.
So why don't right-to-lifers declare that a "holocaust of the unborn" is happening every time a virile male doesn't fertilize an egg?: Because it does not follow from logic that a male sperm cell is human. Human life does not begin until an egg is fertilized. Biology 101.
"But what they miss is that stem cell research is about saving lives".: I don't think anyone is missing this. But it's a question of ethics. Is it right to kill 1 innocent person to save 2 other people? The strict utilitarian worldview would say "yes, of course". By this logic, people with AIDS should probably be rounded up and put into concentration camps, maybe even executed, because we'll be saving the lives of all those to whom they might spread the disease in the future. You can think of all kinds of other examples.
In fact, we could probably make the case for killing any one person to give their organs to people who would die without transplants. Just think, your heart, kidneys, liver, whatever, could "save people".
I doubt this will be a valid concern. Young fresh parts are desireable. Why would you want old parts from someone with a debilitating sickness?: Fair enough. If your parts aren't fresh enough, we'll just throw them away after we kill you. Either way, you've become a burden to society and you aren't valuable anymore.
Lab rats? Clinical trials on Chimpanzees? These types of tests go on every day and I would certainly say some percentage of them are to the detrimant of those being used for the tests.: I do not believe the parent poster was talking about animal experiments, my understanding was that he was saying that "just about all of modern medicine" is founded on unethical human experimentation, which is really not a defensible argument, in my opinion. If he actually was referring to animal experimentation, then he may have more of a point. However, that is a different area of debate. For the record, I personally believe that we as humans have the right to use animals for medical experimentation for the benefit of humanity. And I find it ironic that many who would disagree with me on this point see no problem with therapeutic cloning...in other words, they value animals more than they value young humans.
Hey, here's a thought...maybe we could limit all medical experiments to use only non-human embryos or fetuses. That way, neither side should (in theory) have a problem with it. What do you think?
Your comment is typical of the utilitarian viewpoint (the philosophy that says that whatever course of action provides the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people is the most ethical one). Your comment also smacks of elitism ("religious fanatical mob") and demonstrates your willingness to let "those who are knowledgable" make all your decisions for you.
"Just because you have your particular defintion of human life doesn't mean the rest of us should suffer because of it.": So what is your definition of human life? And whatever it is, why should I accept your definition as any better than mine?
"When I am old and suffering from Parkinson's so bad my whole body shakes, I will be glad when a doctor suggests some type of stem cell treatment. ": The way things are going in our culture, when you are old and suffering from Parkinson's you won't be cured, rather you'll be harvested for parts. The thinking at that time will be that you aren't human anymore, or that you are too much of a burden for society. I hope I'm wrong, but I fear not.
"Just about all of modern medicine has grown from research that has been conducted (to the detriment on some group) through experimentation": I call B.S. Care to offer some evidence for this sweeping statement? I have no problem with medical advancement, just with "advancement" that is conducted at the expense of someone who has no say in the matter.
You say, "In my mind, it's not a human until it has some form of sentient thought". A question: do infants have sentient thought? How do you measure sentient thought, anyway? How about severely mentally retarded people, or people with advanced Alzheimers? Are they not human either? This isn't a theoretical question.
You also say "if it was created specifically for this purpose by cloning then it would never have existed otherwise so we're not taking away any more than we add". Well, that is an interesting argument, very utilitarian I must say.
Consider this scenario: a woman has a child for the specific purpose of providing a donor heart to another woman's child who is sick. Of course, the heart will not be ready until the donor child is older, let's say six years old. At that point, the donor child's heart is removed and given to the other child. Of course, this means that the donor child will die. But since it was "created specifically for this purpose" (according to your terms), it's perfectly ethical.
I hope you can see the problem here. Once it becomes possible to create a human life specifically for the purpose of harvesting it at some later point, a dangerous line is crossed.
This only begs the question: beneficial to whom? Isn't there someone you're forgetting, someone who doesn't benefit from so-called "therapeutic" cloning, namely the unborn human being who is being harvested for parts for the benefit of others? How is this different from the Nazi-era human experimentation that we all (hopefully) abhor?
It's easy to block out people talking back and forth, even if they're being loud; however, blocking out someone who is loudly seemingly talking to themselves is much more jarring to your brain's white noise filter.
I think that's quite true. I have a Very Loud coworker who has numerous and lengthy conversations with people in her cube (in person). Her voice is so much louder than anyone else's that it is the same effect as hearing her talk on a cell phone. Absolutely annoying, beyond belief. Thank God for headphones.
I hear about people proposing that we should be prepared to attack or deflect any large asteroid heading towards Earth. Instead of trying to do that, I think we should try to understand why the asteroids are attacking us. We need to examine what we have done to the asteroids to make them hate us so much. Ultimately, that's the only way to stop asteroid attacks.
I disagree. The health care system is a problem, sure, but the root of our society's ills is greed and a "victim culture," which basically means that nothing is ever just an accident anymore, there is always someone to blame. Oh, and by the way, don't blame me, either, it is someone else's fault.
Actually, no, the continents are North America and South America. There is no continent called America.
Secondly, the idea that Americans can be stuck with the term USians doesn't make sense. After all, that term could just as easily apply to people from the United States of Mexico, or probably a dozen other countries with United States in their name.
Finally, I think I'm going to start calling people from the U.K. "UKians", and I'm also going to start calling people from the E.U. "EUians". After all, someone from the E.U. can't call themselves a "European", since that is the name of the continent and the E.U. does not comprise all the European nations.
In short, all you jokers who think it's fun to tweak Americans with the stupid name "USians", get a life. We're Americans; deal with it.
Calling a lock "unpickable" seems presumptuous at best. Doesn't history show that there never has been and never will be a "final solution" to security?
I think the only time I used Gopher was when I was a student back at the University of Minnesota (whose mascot, the Golden Gopher, provided the inspiration for the protocol's name for those at the U of M who developed it). I think that was 1992 or '93.
It didn't really make too much of an impression on me, though. I dimly remember that is was a very rigidly hierarchical menu-based system, difficult to use if you didn't know where in the hierarchy to look. But that's about all I remember.
Take a look at this usenet thread where someone describes a similar problem. In this case, it appears that the person was infected with the "QHosts Trojan". Message #3 in the thread gives some links.
Um, pardon me, but what are you talking about? I have the latest version of the Google toolbar (2.0.106) and am not seeing behavior anything like what you are suggesting.
If you are serious (and not just trying to flame Google), perhaps you actually have some kind of spyware resident on your system?
This is the second time in the same thread that you have posted a plagiarized review. What gives? How stupid are you, anyway?
Exhibit A: The customer review section from Amazon. Note that the first review matches the above review.
Exhibit B: The first plagiarization post in this thread. Note how it is eerily similar to the second customer review in the Amazon page.
Exhibit C: relrelrel's comment (as an Anonymous Coward) complaining about the first time I pointed out his plagiarization. But if it truly was your own comment (which is possible, I concede), how is it possible that you actually wrote both Amazon customer reviews??
Webmin works pretty well for a GUI Apache config editor, although I have to confess that I will often end up going back to editing httpd.conf by hand; if you know what you're doing it is usually a lot faster. Not that I always know what I'm doing!
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Because, what? You say so?: No, because it follows from logic and reason.
So why don't right-to-lifers declare that a "holocaust of the unborn" is happening every time a virile male doesn't fertilize an egg?: Because it does not follow from logic that a male sperm cell is human. Human life does not begin until an egg is fertilized. Biology 101.
"But what they miss is that stem cell research is about saving lives".: I don't think anyone is missing this. But it's a question of ethics. Is it right to kill 1 innocent person to save 2 other people? The strict utilitarian worldview would say "yes, of course". By this logic, people with AIDS should probably be rounded up and put into concentration camps, maybe even executed, because we'll be saving the lives of all those to whom they might spread the disease in the future. You can think of all kinds of other examples.
In fact, we could probably make the case for killing any one person to give their organs to people who would die without transplants. Just think, your heart, kidneys, liver, whatever, could "save people".
I doubt this will be a valid concern. Young fresh parts are desireable. Why would you want old parts from someone with a debilitating sickness?: Fair enough. If your parts aren't fresh enough, we'll just throw them away after we kill you. Either way, you've become a burden to society and you aren't valuable anymore.
Lab rats? Clinical trials on Chimpanzees? These types of tests go on every day and I would certainly say some percentage of them are to the detrimant of those being used for the tests.: I do not believe the parent poster was talking about animal experiments, my understanding was that he was saying that "just about all of modern medicine" is founded on unethical human experimentation, which is really not a defensible argument, in my opinion. If he actually was referring to animal experimentation, then he may have more of a point. However, that is a different area of debate. For the record, I personally believe that we as humans have the right to use animals for medical experimentation for the benefit of humanity. And I find it ironic that many who would disagree with me on this point see no problem with therapeutic cloning...in other words, they value animals more than they value young humans.
Hey, here's a thought...maybe we could limit all medical experiments to use only non-human embryos or fetuses. That way, neither side should (in theory) have a problem with it. What do you think?
Your comment is typical of the utilitarian viewpoint (the philosophy that says that whatever course of action provides the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people is the most ethical one). Your comment also smacks of elitism ("religious fanatical mob") and demonstrates your willingness to let "those who are knowledgable" make all your decisions for you.
You're doubtlessly joking, but if not...the life of a human being begins at conception, and not before.
"Just because you have your particular defintion of human life doesn't mean the rest of us should suffer because of it.": So what is your definition of human life? And whatever it is, why should I accept your definition as any better than mine?
"When I am old and suffering from Parkinson's so bad my whole body shakes, I will be glad when a doctor suggests some type of stem cell treatment. ": The way things are going in our culture, when you are old and suffering from Parkinson's you won't be cured, rather you'll be harvested for parts. The thinking at that time will be that you aren't human anymore, or that you are too much of a burden for society. I hope I'm wrong, but I fear not.
"Just about all of modern medicine has grown from research that has been conducted (to the detriment on some group) through experimentation": I call B.S. Care to offer some evidence for this sweeping statement? I have no problem with medical advancement, just with "advancement" that is conducted at the expense of someone who has no say in the matter.
You say, "In my mind, it's not a human until it has some form of sentient thought". A question: do infants have sentient thought? How do you measure sentient thought, anyway? How about severely mentally retarded people, or people with advanced Alzheimers? Are they not human either? This isn't a theoretical question.
You also say "if it was created specifically for this purpose by cloning then it would never have existed otherwise so we're not taking away any more than we add". Well, that is an interesting argument, very utilitarian I must say.
Consider this scenario: a woman has a child for the specific purpose of providing a donor heart to another woman's child who is sick. Of course, the heart will not be ready until the donor child is older, let's say six years old. At that point, the donor child's heart is removed and given to the other child. Of course, this means that the donor child will die. But since it was "created specifically for this purpose" (according to your terms), it's perfectly ethical.
I hope you can see the problem here. Once it becomes possible to create a human life specifically for the purpose of harvesting it at some later point, a dangerous line is crossed.
This only begs the question: beneficial to whom? Isn't there someone you're forgetting, someone who doesn't benefit from so-called "therapeutic" cloning, namely the unborn human being who is being harvested for parts for the benefit of others? How is this different from the Nazi-era human experimentation that we all (hopefully) abhor?
I think that's quite true. I have a Very Loud coworker who has numerous and lengthy conversations with people in her cube (in person). Her voice is so much louder than anyone else's that it is the same effect as hearing her talk on a cell phone. Absolutely annoying, beyond belief. Thank God for headphones.
I hear about people proposing that we should be prepared to attack or deflect any large asteroid heading towards Earth. Instead of trying to do that, I think we should try to understand why the asteroids are attacking us. We need to examine what we have done to the asteroids to make them hate us so much. Ultimately, that's the only way to stop asteroid attacks.
Seconded. It's also worth pointing out that you do not have to own a Squeezebox/Slimp3 to use Slimserver.
I disagree. The health care system is a problem, sure, but the root of our society's ills is greed and a "victim culture," which basically means that nothing is ever just an accident anymore, there is always someone to blame. Oh, and by the way, don't blame me, either, it is someone else's fault.
No offense, but if you don't even know what GetItNow is, why are you posting a bunch of hypotheses that are most certainly incorrect?
Actually, no, the continents are North America and South America. There is no continent called America.
Secondly, the idea that Americans can be stuck with the term USians doesn't make sense. After all, that term could just as easily apply to people from the United States of Mexico, or probably a dozen other countries with United States in their name.
Finally, I think I'm going to start calling people from the U.K. "UKians", and I'm also going to start calling people from the E.U. "EUians". After all, someone from the E.U. can't call themselves a "European", since that is the name of the continent and the E.U. does not comprise all the European nations.
In short, all you jokers who think it's fun to tweak Americans with the stupid name "USians", get a life. We're Americans; deal with it.
Calling a lock "unpickable" seems presumptuous at best. Doesn't history show that there never has been and never will be a "final solution" to security?
I think the only time I used Gopher was when I was a student back at the University of Minnesota (whose mascot, the Golden Gopher, provided the inspiration for the protocol's name for those at the U of M who developed it). I think that was 1992 or '93.
It didn't really make too much of an impression on me, though. I dimly remember that is was a very rigidly hierarchical menu-based system, difficult to use if you didn't know where in the hierarchy to look. But that's about all I remember.
Wikipedia has a good article on Gopher.
Take a look at this usenet thread where someone describes a similar problem. In this case, it appears that the person was infected with the "QHosts Trojan". Message #3 in the thread gives some links.
You should get the same results between searching using the toolbar and using google.com's search page directly (I do).
If you get the page of ads using the regular search page, then something is screwy.
Um, pardon me, but what are you talking about? I have the latest version of the Google toolbar (2.0.106) and am not seeing behavior anything like what you are suggesting.
If you are serious (and not just trying to flame Google), perhaps you actually have some kind of spyware resident on your system?
"Shave and a haircut..."
I'm sorry, I can't hear you, I have a banana in my ear.
This is the second time in the same thread that you have posted a plagiarized review. What gives? How stupid are you, anyway?
Exhibit A: The customer review section from Amazon. Note that the first review matches the above review.
Exhibit B: The first plagiarization post in this thread. Note how it is eerily similar to the second customer review in the Amazon page.
Exhibit C: relrelrel's comment (as an Anonymous Coward) complaining about the first time I pointed out his plagiarization. But if it truly was your own comment (which is possible, I concede), how is it possible that you actually wrote both Amazon customer reviews??
I rest my case, your honor.
If it's your own comment then why are you too ashamed to respond to me with your real name, Mr. Coward?
Is it that hard to write your own comment, instead of plagiarizing someone else's?
Webmin works pretty well for a GUI Apache config editor, although I have to confess that I will often end up going back to editing httpd.conf by hand; if you know what you're doing it is usually a lot faster. Not that I always know what I'm doing!