Anyone who doesn't assume that everything s/he says or does will somehow end up online, especially if there is visual evidence of the deed, is just an idiot.
You're an idiot.
Lots of things people do and/or say, even if there's visual evidence, does not ever end up online.
For example, I did something yesterday, and created visual evidence by making a video recording.Yet you don't know about it, and it never ended up online; won't, either, as I have the only recording in existence and no plans to share it with the world.
Maybe sites like this serve a purpose in society by taxing the stupid into learning a life lesson or twelve.
Right, and maybe all those people Saddam Hussein tortured to death really deserved it.
Are you suggesting mandatory training simulators for operating car navigation systems? Or are you insinuating that I'm somehow incompetent because I attempted to use a GPS in mid trip?
I'm saying, specifically, that it would be utterly terrifying if commercial airline pilots engaged in that kind of behavior: you took it personally for reasons only you could know.
You taking your eyes off the road to fiddle with a GPS could, at most, kill the handful of people around you. A pilot flying a 747 with his head up his ass could kill a shitload of people, and cause massive amounts of property damage, depending on where he crashes.
chill out on the internet insults.
You need to 'chill out' on the emotional responses. FYI, that wasn't an insult; if I wanted to be insulting, I would have substituted the word "guy" for something with a bit more punch, like maybe "narcissistic fuckhead."
They may be easy since they're semi-anonymous and it can be fun to pretend you're smarter than your target, but since you don't know your target, you run the risk of insulting someone much smarter than yourself and you could end up being the one looking foolish.
Kinda like when you make yourself look foolish by lashing out at a perceived insult, when the person you're lashing out at never actually said whatever it is you decided to be offended by, huh?
I recently drove a family member's "smart car" and tried to change the GPS destination in mid trip. The voice control kept misinterpreting the address, requiring me to choose from an onscreen menu full of wrong choices. Eventually I gave up on the voice control and tried to have a passenger enter it in manually while I continued to drive in the general direction of our destination. However, the car refused to take manual input while it was in motion despite the fact that the input was coming from a passenger. Even worse, once the car started moving, it erased all of the information that had been entered up until that point! That meant pulling over on a busy road or frantically typing it in at a red light while trying to get the address in before the light turned green. What should have been a simple process that could be done while the car was in motion turned out to a be a very frustrating and distracting experience because the car thought it was smart.
Hey, wanna scare the crap out of yourself?
Imagine this guy is a commercial airline pilot.
"Well, I've never flown one of these kinds of planes before, but no biggie, I'll figure out the controls as we go along."
Actually I find this set of tools to be particularly vulnerable to being corrupted by a minority... of people. So they deserve a good share of the blame.
Who, the people corrupting the tools? You're not doing a very good job of countering my premise if you're actually trying to say the tools themselves are to blame, you know.
Riiiight. Next you're going to say that a bank that did not have a vault, locks on its front door or any other form of security should be held blameless if it gets burglarised. And you'll put the blame on everyone else, including those who did not have anything to do with the theft, just like you're doing here. Nice logic.
Sorry, but logic is one thing I'm not finding in your posts.
Just what, exactly is your premise? Because it sounds like you're trying to say that inanimate objects and ideas are to blame for what human beings do with them, and that surely can't be right.
There is now a.308 (a rifle cartridge) in test markets that's a polymer case, metal primer, powder and metal bullet.
They are trying to find ways to contain the heat a bit longer, long enough to get it out of the breech on a bolt gun.
The purpose of that is to keep the rifle barrel at a lower and more stable temp longer with sustained fire, making snipers more effective because a warmer barrel puts the bullet in a different place.
It will not be long before the case and possibly the primer will be plastic. Leaving only the projectile as the last step.
Here's an article from almost 2 years ago talking about how plastic cartridges are "just around the corner." Not to mention, plastic ammunition has been around since the 1970's in some form or another.
Yet, most armies still choose the standard brass/lead/copper ammunition for anything more important than target practice. Probably a good reason for that - metal ammo works now, as opposed to maybe working sometime in the indeterminate future.
Of course, all that is ignoring the fact that you missed my point - it's not likely that a plastic barreled muzzle loader would be able to withstand the pressures released when touching the powder load off. In the case of a cap-and-ball pistol, you're looking at catastrophic detonation of the cylinder... not what I would want happening to something I'm holding in my hand.
Note: I get the feeling, when referring to events that occurred long before Gutenberg was born, the phrase "many scholars believe" pretty much equates to "OK, so we have no empirical data to support our claims, but this is what we think happened."
You might consider looking into the Dead Sea Scrolls as well, perhaps their texts can offer further insight.
Communism, just like capitalism and socialism, looks like a really good idea on paper. You said it yourself: the problem is with people, specifically small groups of people accumulating all the power. That makes people bad, not the tools themselves.
Actually I find this set of tools to be particularly vulnerable to being corrupted by a minority... of people. So they deserve a good share of the blame.
Who, the people corrupting the tools? You're not doing a very good job of countering my premise if you're actually trying to say the tools themselves are to blame, you know.
Ever been to Food Not Bombs? It's not a christian organization,
I presume, then, that the dove on their front page is supposed to symbolize peace, and not the earthly incarnation of the Holy Spirit.
Anyway, that's only 1 group, and citing it does nothing to negate my point: Most services for the poor and homeless in America are provided by Christian organizations, so that whole "religion is by default harmful" meme is utter bullshit.
I'm an athiest, and I've helped out. So stuff it.
Yea, real helpful, compassionate attitude you're showing there.
Warning for all UNIX newbies: that command will reset the file to 0 bytes. Just that you know.
(I've seen some cases when a rookie is setting up a Linux system and people jokingly throw him these "rm -rf/" commands and the poor guy actually ends up wrecking his system.)
I think the general consensus is that if you're stupid enough to run a command you got from SomeRandomInternetAsshole420 without verifying what it will do first, you deserve to have your system wiped.
rapes rarely involve guns at all so they were not directly affected.
That's not what I asked, you're trying to deflect (probably because you know the truth doesn't coincide with your philosophy); did the rate increase, or decrease, after Australia banned guns?
No but they know that only ones in power are who it would be worth making one to assassinate them. That is why they're shitting themselves over it and going out of the way to stop a nonexistent threat.
Oh yea, this.
TPTB are terrified of this technology, because it means someone might actually be able to get a firearm close to one of them.
Or, go muzzle loader (not a gun per federal law then) and use a piezoelectric spark to ignite your powder, use a glass marble or other non-metallic item (ceramic?) as your bullet. Plenty effective at short ranges.
Yea, but a plastic muzzleloader (or rather, considering the implications here, a plastic cap-and-ball pistol)? With no cartridge to contain the explosion?
You don't seem to understand how the I.Q. scale works either. Oh dear. Perhaps this will help others understand why giving you firearms isn't such a good idea my primitive friend.
I know you're going for an air of intellectual superiority, but at this point your argument has devolved into, essentially, the realm of 'unreasonable dick who can't handle criticism, regardless of how accurate it may be.'
Seriously, dude, all you've brought to the table so far is ad hominem attacks, non sequiturs, and hyperbole. I'd suggest you quit while you're ahead, but we're already too far gone for that.
Actually antitheist has now come to mean, at least in the secular crowd, one who is opposed to the idea of religion and gods, i.e. in the usage of Hitchens: "I'm not even an atheist so much as I am an antitheist; I not only maintain that all religions are versions of the same untruth, but I hold that the influence of churches, and the effect of religious belief, is positively harmful."
Hmm, this Hitchens fellow must have been lucky enough to have never been homeless and/or starving.
How many atheist/anti-theist soup kitchens have you ever seen?
Religion is just like any other tool: in the right hands it does a job, in the wrong hands people get hurt. I mean, really, you might as well be trying to convince the world that ideas themselves are deadly weapons.
A bible sitting on a table is no more dangerous than any other inanimate, non-volatile* object at a state of rest.
* because you know if I didn't qualify that, some idiot would come along with some "dur, bomb!" comment. Hell, I half expect it anyway.
I don't think that's a particularly good argument. That or you'd also have to agree that:
Communism is just like any other tool: in the right hands it does a job, in the wrong hands people get hurt. I mean, really, you might as well be trying to convince the world that ideas themselves are deadly weapons.
Das Kapital sitting on a table is no more dangerous than any other inanimate, non-volatile* object at a state of rest.
* because you know if I didn't qualify that, some idiot would come along with some "dur, bomb!" comment. Hell, I half expect it anyway.
Surprise: I do agree with that, as a matter of fact.
Communism, just like capitalism and socialism, looks like a really good idea on paper. You said it yourself: the problem is with people, specifically small groups of people accumulating all the power. That makes people bad, not the tools themselves.
Anyone who thinks McDonalds' workers should earn more is free to leave them a tip next time they visit.
Actually, you're not, because McDonald's does not allow their workers to accept tips. Manager is supposed to confiscate and add to the nightly totals. Employees who are caught accepting tips get fired.
The same goes for Burger King and Sonic (except carhops, obviously); can't speak for anywhere else because I never worked there.
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Anyone who doesn't assume that everything s/he says or does will somehow end up online, especially if there is visual evidence of the deed, is just an idiot.
You're an idiot.
Lots of things people do and/or say, even if there's visual evidence, does not ever end up online.
For example, I did something yesterday, and created visual evidence by making a video recording.Yet you don't know about it, and it never ended up online; won't, either, as I have the only recording in existence and no plans to share it with the world.
Maybe sites like this serve a purpose in society by taxing the stupid into learning a life lesson or twelve.
Right, and maybe all those people Saddam Hussein tortured to death really deserved it.
Idiot.
It is interesting how much more intelligence is feared than malice and stupidity.
Well, humans do have a tendency to fear and want to destroy things they are incapable of understanding...
Are you suggesting mandatory training simulators for operating car navigation systems? Or are you insinuating that I'm somehow incompetent because I attempted to use a GPS in mid trip?
I'm saying, specifically, that it would be utterly terrifying if commercial airline pilots engaged in that kind of behavior: you took it personally for reasons only you could know.
You taking your eyes off the road to fiddle with a GPS could, at most, kill the handful of people around you. A pilot flying a 747 with his head up his ass could kill a shitload of people, and cause massive amounts of property damage, depending on where he crashes.
chill out on the internet insults.
You need to 'chill out' on the emotional responses. FYI, that wasn't an insult; if I wanted to be insulting, I would have substituted the word "guy" for something with a bit more punch, like maybe "narcissistic fuckhead."
They may be easy since they're semi-anonymous and it can be fun to pretend you're smarter than your target, but since you don't know your target, you run the risk of insulting someone much smarter than yourself and you could end up being the one looking foolish.
Kinda like when you make yourself look foolish by lashing out at a perceived insult, when the person you're lashing out at never actually said whatever it is you decided to be offended by, huh?
I recently drove a family member's "smart car" and tried to change the GPS destination in mid trip. The voice control kept misinterpreting the address, requiring me to choose from an onscreen menu full of wrong choices. Eventually I gave up on the voice control and tried to have a passenger enter it in manually while I continued to drive in the general direction of our destination. However, the car refused to take manual input while it was in motion despite the fact that the input was coming from a passenger. Even worse, once the car started moving, it erased all of the information that had been entered up until that point! That meant pulling over on a busy road or frantically typing it in at a red light while trying to get the address in before the light turned green. What should have been a simple process that could be done while the car was in motion turned out to a be a very frustrating and distracting experience because the car thought it was smart.
Hey, wanna scare the crap out of yourself?
Imagine this guy is a commercial airline pilot.
"Well, I've never flown one of these kinds of planes before, but no biggie, I'll figure out the controls as we go along."
Thing is, it doesn't take an enormous amount of intelligence to drive.
Well, that explains the abysmally low accident rate...
Oh, wait.
Somebody used to have this as a sig:
"Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people!" -- Dick Solomon, Third Rock from the Sun
Always loved that one.
Actually I find this set of tools to be particularly vulnerable to being corrupted by a minority ... of people. So they deserve a good share of the blame.
Who, the people corrupting the tools? You're not doing a very good job of countering my premise if you're actually trying to say the tools themselves are to blame, you know.
Riiiight. Next you're going to say that a bank that did not have a vault, locks on its front door or any other form of security should be held blameless if it gets burglarised. And you'll put the blame on everyone else, including those who did not have anything to do with the theft, just like you're doing here. Nice logic.
Sorry, but logic is one thing I'm not finding in your posts.
Just what, exactly is your premise? Because it sounds like you're trying to say that inanimate objects and ideas are to blame for what human beings do with them, and that surely can't be right.
There is now a .308 (a rifle cartridge) in test markets that's a polymer case, metal primer, powder and metal bullet.
They are trying to find ways to contain the heat a bit longer, long enough to get it out of the breech on a bolt gun.
The purpose of that is to keep the rifle barrel at a lower and more stable temp longer with sustained fire, making snipers more effective because a warmer barrel puts the bullet in a different place.
It will not be long before the case and possibly the primer will be plastic. Leaving only the projectile as the last step.
Here's an article from almost 2 years ago talking about how plastic cartridges are "just around the corner." Not to mention, plastic ammunition has been around since the 1970's in some form or another.
Yet, most armies still choose the standard brass/lead/copper ammunition for anything more important than target practice. Probably a good reason for that - metal ammo works now, as opposed to maybe working sometime in the indeterminate future.
Of course, all that is ignoring the fact that you missed my point - it's not likely that a plastic barreled muzzle loader would be able to withstand the pressures released when touching the powder load off. In the case of a cap-and-ball pistol, you're looking at catastrophic detonation of the cylinder... not what I would want happening to something I'm holding in my hand.
Anytime.
Note: I get the feeling, when referring to events that occurred long before Gutenberg was born, the phrase "many scholars believe" pretty much equates to "OK, so we have no empirical data to support our claims, but this is what we think happened."
You might consider looking into the Dead Sea Scrolls as well, perhaps their texts can offer further insight.
I would have guessed "inside Dick Cheney's heart".
Which one? The bastard goes through 'em like Paul Reubens goes through Kleenex.
Here is a good starting point.
Communism, just like capitalism and socialism, looks like a really good idea on paper. You said it yourself: the problem is with people, specifically small groups of people accumulating all the power. That makes people bad, not the tools themselves.
Actually I find this set of tools to be particularly vulnerable to being corrupted by a minority ... of people. So they deserve a good share of the blame.
Who, the people corrupting the tools? You're not doing a very good job of countering my premise if you're actually trying to say the tools themselves are to blame, you know.
Ever been to Food Not Bombs? It's not a christian organization,
I presume, then, that the dove on their front page is supposed to symbolize peace, and not the earthly incarnation of the Holy Spirit.
Anyway, that's only 1 group, and citing it does nothing to negate my point: Most services for the poor and homeless in America are provided by Christian organizations, so that whole "religion is by default harmful" meme is utter bullshit.
I'm an athiest, and I've helped out. So stuff it.
Yea, real helpful, compassionate attitude you're showing there.
And yet, one of FLOSS's selling points is our great community support...
Every community with a notable population size is going to have its share of bad actors.
Besides, ever since you were a kid you've been taught to not trust strangers based on their word alone.
Warning for all UNIX newbies: that command will reset the file to 0 bytes. Just that you know.
(I've seen some cases when a rookie is setting up a Linux system and people jokingly throw him these "rm -rf /" commands and the poor guy actually ends up wrecking his system.)
I think the general consensus is that if you're stupid enough to run a command you got from SomeRandomInternetAsshole420 without verifying what it will do first, you deserve to have your system wiped.
Murder rates went down,
citation?
rapes rarely involve guns at all so they were not directly affected.
That's not what I asked, you're trying to deflect (probably because you know the truth doesn't coincide with your philosophy); did the rate increase, or decrease, after Australia banned guns?
No but they know that only ones in power are who it would be worth making one to assassinate them. That is why they're shitting themselves over it and going out of the way to stop a nonexistent threat.
Oh yea, this.
TPTB are terrified of this technology, because it means someone might actually be able to get a firearm close to one of them.
Or, go muzzle loader (not a gun per federal law then) and use a piezoelectric spark to ignite your powder, use a glass marble or other non-metallic item (ceramic?) as your bullet. Plenty effective at short ranges.
Yea, but a plastic muzzleloader (or rather, considering the implications here, a plastic cap-and-ball pistol)? With no cartridge to contain the explosion?
Sounds like a real hand-remover to me.
Gun crime in Australia rose after the ban, but then fell rapidly as illegal guns slowly became more and more inaccessible.
OP didn't say "gun crime," he said "violent crime," of which gun crime is but a subset. What happened to their rape, murder, and assault rates?
You don't seem to understand how the I.Q. scale works either. Oh dear. Perhaps this will help others understand why giving you firearms isn't such a good idea my primitive friend.
I know you're going for an air of intellectual superiority, but at this point your argument has devolved into, essentially, the realm of 'unreasonable dick who can't handle criticism, regardless of how accurate it may be.'
Seriously, dude, all you've brought to the table so far is ad hominem attacks, non sequiturs, and hyperbole. I'd suggest you quit while you're ahead, but we're already too far gone for that.
Actually antitheist has now come to mean, at least in the secular crowd, one who is opposed to the idea of religion and gods, i.e. in the usage of Hitchens:
"I'm not even an atheist so much as I am an antitheist; I not only maintain that all religions are versions of the same untruth, but I hold that the influence of churches, and the effect of religious belief, is positively harmful."
Hmm, this Hitchens fellow must have been lucky enough to have never been homeless and/or starving.
How many atheist/anti-theist soup kitchens have you ever seen?
Methinks thou dost not understand the meaning of the term, "deadly"
Since none of the links you provided give examples of people actually being killed by ideas.
Religion is just like any other tool: in the right hands it does a job, in the wrong hands people get hurt. I mean, really, you might as well be trying to convince the world that ideas themselves are deadly weapons.
A bible sitting on a table is no more dangerous than any other inanimate, non-volatile* object at a state of rest.
* because you know if I didn't qualify that, some idiot would come along with some "dur, bomb!" comment. Hell, I half expect it anyway.
I don't think that's a particularly good argument. That or you'd also have to agree that:
Communism is just like any other tool: in the right hands it does a job, in the wrong hands people get hurt. I mean, really, you might as well be trying to convince the world that ideas themselves are deadly weapons.
Das Kapital sitting on a table is no more dangerous than any other inanimate, non-volatile* object at a state of rest.
* because you know if I didn't qualify that, some idiot would come along with some "dur, bomb!" comment. Hell, I half expect it anyway.
Surprise: I do agree with that, as a matter of fact.
Communism, just like capitalism and socialism, looks like a really good idea on paper. You said it yourself: the problem is with people, specifically small groups of people accumulating all the power. That makes people bad, not the tools themselves.
Anyone who thinks McDonalds' workers should earn more is free to leave them a tip next time they visit.
Actually, you're not, because McDonald's does not allow their workers to accept tips. Manager is supposed to confiscate and add to the nightly totals. Employees who are caught accepting tips get fired.
The same goes for Burger King and Sonic (except carhops, obviously); can't speak for anywhere else because I never worked there.
So ... Gods Playing Poker as a reverse Dogs Playing Poker?
Ha ha! This one gets me!
Because that's precisely what I was picturing when I wrote that post.