He did not try to convince you to change your religion.
You're the first person to use that phrase.
If you read my post, no where did I accuse OP of trying "to convince [me] to change [my] religion."
OP said:
Tell me, when was the last time you had atheists... trying to pressure and intimidate you into changing your beliefs?
which, as I pointed out, is exactly what OP tries to do when they, referring to religions other than their own, state:
That might be because religion is an irrational, illogical, omnipresent belief in fairy tales with zero supporting evidence that has been used for thousands of years as a means of indoctrination, control and justification to kill.
OP is the pot calling the kettle black, which was the point I was making.
This is the problem with religion. At the moment it just happens to be Islam that's in fashion with the young and impressionable.
No, that's the problem with selfish idiots.
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.
Those aren't Commandments, those are your (mostly incorrect) interpretations of them.
"Don't work on Sunday (but don't forget to attend church so you can be indoctrinated by his earthly minions),"
The Commandment is actually, "Remember the Sabbath, and keep it Holy," the Sabbath being the Seventh Day of Creation (much argument about which actual weekday this coincides with, but the Bible predates the Gregorian calendar by about 1500 years, I'd say that's fair to interpret as one pleases). "Keep it Holy" is explained elsewhere in the book as, essentially, "don't do any work worth being paid for."
"Don't say bad stuff about God (and by extension, his earthly minions),"
Actually, that one is, "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain," which again doesn't rule out saying "bad stuff about God;" as the dictionary defines "to take in vain" as "abuse, misuse, and/or perversion," that means that one is not to, say, claim that an act or statement is done in the name of God when it really isn't.
Like evangalists taking collections "for God," then using the money to buy 17 gold-plated Cadillacs for himself.
"You're not allowed to worship other Gods but me (which once again benefits his earthly minions)."
This is another one a lot of people get wrong; the Commandment is actually, "Thou shalt not have any Gods before me." So basically, it's OK to be polytheistic, so long as you consider the Abrahamic God as the top tier; your Zeus or Odin, as it were.
Ignorance is the problem, not faith in and of itself. And that's a two-way street.
It may or may not be offensive to an Atheist... but did CanHasDIY say he was an Atheist? Maybe he is a Satanist and the ten commandments ARE offensive to him... Why are you assuming things?
... Or maybe he was making a point that just because someone claims to find something offensive doesn't mean it shouldn't be allowed.
OP said he found the satanist statue offensive (even though he probably doesn't even know what it's going to be a statue of); I turned the tables. That's all.
That might be because religion is an irrational, illogical, omnipresent belief in fairy tales with zero supporting evidence that has been used for thousands of years as a means of indoctrination, control and justification to kill. It's time that the human race moved beyond religion and superstition.
Tell me, when was the last time you had atheists come to your door or hand you a pamphlet trying to pressure and intimidate you into changing your beliefs?
Uh... did you actually read your own post?
The only thing you didn't do was knock on my door with a pamphlet; otherwise, you're guilty of the same crimes you're accusing the religious of committing. Feel good about yourself?
Well, OK, maybe $15/hr is a bit nuts, but that's not really the point I was trying to make - anyone claiming that they can't afford to raise wages at all, because it would require the business to sell $10 burgers, either failed Econ 101, is hoping that everyone in the audience did, or they're a blatant liar.
Yes businesses must have buyers and buyers must have money. So the people get a real pay check from the government and the businesses pay the taxes to support it all. Lousy businesses go bust as people will tend not to support them. Good businesses thrive as people do support them.
Wonderful idea, but not going to happen without a lot of pain and bloodshed.
If you lived in England in 1400 the people belonged to the land. After the age of revolutions that changed and land belonged to people.
It was a total reversal in social policy.
Right - after several generations of bloody conflict. And, for the record, the land didn't belong to all the people - there were still social classes divided by wealth, and the people of the lower classes were considered chattels to the elites.
I mean, even in the days of Charles Dickens, orphaned children were treated as property, and that society wasn't far removed from our own. So, less a "total reversal" and more a "slow, painful process."
The keydifference between the statue of the ten commandments and the statue of the satanist is that the statue of the satanist is offensive. This is why the statue of the satanist should not be allowed.
I find the statue of the ten commandments offensive. 1 for 1.
I agree that the mantra of $15/hr is just plain silly, but that doesn't really have a bearing on my point.
Until the dollar devalues so much that $10 in current money == $3 today, McDonald's won't be charging ten bucks for a burger. They'd lose so much business there would be no way to keep the company solvent.
Of course, we get to that point, and $10 Big Mac's will be the least of our concerns.
Some people exist as a warning to others. Don't make the decisions they made. Pay attention in school, don't have kids you can't afford.
"Most generalizations are false, including this one." -- Mark Twain
First, you have no empirical evidence to support your contention, so I will summarily ignore it.
Second, even assuming you are correct, that's no excuse for treating people like shit. From what I understand, we don't have a caste system here in the USA, something I'm thankful for.
$15/hour for burger flipping is a good way to get a $10.00 burger.
No.
Until the day the official poverty line hovers somewhere around $50,000/yr, that won't happen.
Why? Basic economics, that's why: McDonald's wouldn't be able to sell $10 Big Macs, because no one in their right mind would pay that. McDonald's knows this; they also know that the most reasonable way to pay $15/hr while still turning a fat profit would be to cut executive pay proportionally.
Which means the guys who make these decisions would make slightly-less-obscene amounts of money. Which they can't even fathom. Which is why we're seeing the anti-paying-a-living-wage media blitz.
TL;DR version - Anyone who thinks McDonald's would ever charge $10 for a burger has absolutely zero understanding of Economics.
Thousands (?millions?) of people are vilified every day by pandering politicians for being lazy and not pulling up their boot straps.
FTFY.
If you think that's fixed, it's obvious that you don't actually listen to what other people say.
There's an article on Yahoo right now titled How to stick it to the poor: A congressional strategy; Why don't you head on over to the comments section for that story, then come back here and try to say it's "pandering politicians" who demonize the poor.
How is an ostensibly tech-oriented site such a hotbed of Luddism?
It's not. Pointing out that a certain technology has potential negative consequences is not the same thing as destroying technology out of fear and misunderstanding. The opposite, really.
Has noone considered how the quality of life goes UP as the number of people required for menial labor goes down?
Depends on how you measure quality of life, and who we're measuring it for.
Ask yourself this: What was the quality of life for black people in the US right after they were emancipated? You might be surprised by the facts, because it wasn't all sunshine and rainbows.
Has noone even looked in a history book, to see if concerns about vanishing workforces have EVER come true?
Has there ever been a time in history where the majority of the workforce could be replaced quickly and cheaply by a single technology? If not, then there's no comparison to make; we kind of jumped the shark in terms of employment when we came up with robotics.
Have all of these so-called geeks never considered how its BETTER to have a more educated workforce than to have one comprised primarily of factory workers?
A matter of opinion, and a bad one at that - what, so if a guy works in a factory he's automatically less intelligent, and worth less than the "educated" manager, who got an MBA but never learned what the word "work" actually means? Pardon me if I take offense to that concept.
Or on the flipside, perhaps one of you can explain why it is preferable that we (as a society / economy) spend money paying people to do non-creative work that can easily be done by an automaton, rather than spending it on art / design / innovation / work that cannot easily be done by a robot?
Because to sell products, you need customers, and for customers to buy products, they need money, and to acquire money, most people need a job, menial or otherwise. I think they call that the Law of Supply and Demand, or some such nonsense.
There are plenty of workers who will work for minimum. Demanding $15/hour for burger flipping is a good way to get $0/hour.
Yup, so then we end up paying for even more welfare, because low-wage, high-profit companies like McDonald's and Wal-Mart refuse to pay a decent wage. In other words, the rest of us taxpayers get to subsidize their shitty wages.
Slashdot Mirror
You sure busted my chops for sarcastically posting a sentiment, by sarcastically posting the same sentiment.
Aw, damn, I was hoping we could get a few more recursions in!
TL;DR - yea, no, I was agreeing with you, dawg.
He did not try to convince you to change your religion.
You're the first person to use that phrase.
If you read my post, no where did I accuse OP of trying "to convince [me] to change [my] religion."
OP said:
Tell me, when was the last time you had atheists... trying to pressure and intimidate you into changing your beliefs?
which, as I pointed out, is exactly what OP tries to do when they, referring to religions other than their own, state:
That might be because religion is an irrational, illogical, omnipresent belief in fairy tales with zero supporting evidence that has been used for thousands of years as a means of indoctrination, control and justification to kill.
OP is the pot calling the kettle black, which was the point I was making.
Then they should have tried harder, because as it reads it comes off as butt hurt, accusatory, petulant nonsense.
This is the problem with religion. At the moment it just happens to be Islam that's in fashion with the young and impressionable.
No, that's the problem with selfish idiots.
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.
Those aren't Commandments, those are your (mostly incorrect) interpretations of them.
"Don't work on Sunday (but don't forget to attend church so you can be indoctrinated by his earthly minions),"
The Commandment is actually, "Remember the Sabbath, and keep it Holy," the Sabbath being the Seventh Day of Creation (much argument about which actual weekday this coincides with, but the Bible predates the Gregorian calendar by about 1500 years, I'd say that's fair to interpret as one pleases). "Keep it Holy" is explained elsewhere in the book as, essentially, "don't do any work worth being paid for."
"Don't say bad stuff about God (and by extension, his earthly minions),"
Actually, that one is, "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain," which again doesn't rule out saying "bad stuff about God;" as the dictionary defines "to take in vain" as "abuse, misuse, and/or perversion," that means that one is not to, say, claim that an act or statement is done in the name of God when it really isn't.
Like evangalists taking collections "for God," then using the money to buy 17 gold-plated Cadillacs for himself.
"You're not allowed to worship other Gods but me (which once again benefits his earthly minions)."
This is another one a lot of people get wrong; the Commandment is actually, "Thou shalt not have any Gods before me." So basically, it's OK to be polytheistic, so long as you consider the Abrahamic God as the top tier; your Zeus or Odin, as it were.
Ignorance is the problem, not faith in and of itself. And that's a two-way street.
It may or may not be offensive to an Atheist... but did CanHasDIY say he was an Atheist? Maybe he is a Satanist and the ten commandments ARE offensive to him... Why are you assuming things?
... Or maybe he was making a point that just because someone claims to find something offensive doesn't mean it shouldn't be allowed.
OP said he found the satanist statue offensive (even though he probably doesn't even know what it's going to be a statue of); I turned the tables. That's all.
That might be because religion is an irrational, illogical, omnipresent belief in fairy tales with zero supporting evidence that has been used for thousands of years as a means of indoctrination, control and justification to kill. It's time that the human race moved beyond religion and superstition.
Tell me, when was the last time you had atheists come to your door or hand you a pamphlet trying to pressure and intimidate you into changing your beliefs?
Uh... did you actually read your own post?
The only thing you didn't do was knock on my door with a pamphlet; otherwise, you're guilty of the same crimes you're accusing the religious of committing. Feel good about yourself?
Yeah, stick to your confirmation bias though.
Considering the post this quote is attached to, the hilarious irony is not lost on me.
And fucking up once should condemn a person and their entire family to generations of abject poverty?
That must be easy for you perfect, infallible types to say.
Well, OK, maybe $15/hr is a bit nuts, but that's not really the point I was trying to make - anyone claiming that they can't afford to raise wages at all, because it would require the business to sell $10 burgers, either failed Econ 101, is hoping that everyone in the audience did, or they're a blatant liar.
Player's choice.
Yes businesses must have buyers and buyers must have money. So the people get a real pay check from the government and the businesses pay the taxes to support it all. Lousy businesses go bust as people will tend not to support them. Good businesses thrive as people do support them.
Wonderful idea, but not going to happen without a lot of pain and bloodshed.
If you lived in England in 1400 the people belonged to the land. After the age of revolutions that changed and land belonged to people.
It was a total reversal in social policy.
Right - after several generations of bloody conflict. And, for the record, the land didn't belong to all the people - there were still social classes divided by wealth, and the people of the lower classes were considered chattels to the elites.
I mean, even in the days of Charles Dickens, orphaned children were treated as property, and that society wasn't far removed from our own. So, less a "total reversal" and more a "slow, painful process."
I recommend a statue of Jesus, the FSM, Vishnu, and Abraham, all playing poker.
Vish, keep those hands where we can see them!
The keydifference between the statue of the ten commandments and the statue of the satanist is that the statue of the satanist is offensive.
This is why the statue of the satanist should not be allowed.
I find the statue of the ten commandments offensive. 1 for 1.
Your move, self-righteous jackass.
Yea; I mean, what would a guy who spent most of his life trying to help uplift the poor know about poverty?
I agree that the mantra of $15/hr is just plain silly, but that doesn't really have a bearing on my point.
Until the dollar devalues so much that $10 in current money == $3 today, McDonald's won't be charging ten bucks for a burger. They'd lose so much business there would be no way to keep the company solvent.
Of course, we get to that point, and $10 Big Mac's will be the least of our concerns.
Some people exist as a warning to others. Don't make the decisions they made. Pay attention in school, don't have kids you can't afford.
"Most generalizations are false, including this one." -- Mark Twain
First, you have no empirical evidence to support your contention, so I will summarily ignore it.
Second, even assuming you are correct, that's no excuse for treating people like shit. From what I understand, we don't have a caste system here in the USA, something I'm thankful for.
I believe that any job that can be replaced by a machine, should be replaced by a machine.
So, all jobs should be replaced by machines.
Because, let's face it, there really isn't a such thing as a job that can't be automated.
Automation like this only benefits two groups, factory owners and the consumers of the product
That is, until the consumers lose their jobs due to automation.
Another way of spinning that would be "Raising the minimum wage will lead to advances in robotic technology."
Spinning? Hell, you put so much English on that one, it managed to circumnavigate the table without touching a single bank!
$15/hour for burger flipping is a good way to get a $10.00 burger.
No.
Until the day the official poverty line hovers somewhere around $50,000/yr, that won't happen.
Why? Basic economics, that's why: McDonald's wouldn't be able to sell $10 Big Macs, because no one in their right mind would pay that. McDonald's knows this; they also know that the most reasonable way to pay $15/hr while still turning a fat profit would be to cut executive pay proportionally.
Which means the guys who make these decisions would make slightly-less-obscene amounts of money. Which they can't even fathom. Which is why we're seeing the anti-paying-a-living-wage media blitz.
TL;DR version - Anyone who thinks McDonald's would ever charge $10 for a burger has absolutely zero understanding of Economics.
Thousands (?millions?) of people are vilified every day by pandering politicians for being lazy and not pulling up their boot straps.
FTFY.
If you think that's fixed, it's obvious that you don't actually listen to what other people say.
There's an article on Yahoo right now titled How to stick it to the poor: A congressional strategy; Why don't you head on over to the comments section for that story, then come back here and try to say it's "pandering politicians" who demonize the poor.
What, you mean 'trickle-down' isn't working?
How is an ostensibly tech-oriented site such a hotbed of Luddism?
It's not. Pointing out that a certain technology has potential negative consequences is not the same thing as destroying technology out of fear and misunderstanding. The opposite, really.
Has noone considered how the quality of life goes UP as the number of people required for menial labor goes down?
Depends on how you measure quality of life, and who we're measuring it for.
Ask yourself this: What was the quality of life for black people in the US right after they were emancipated? You might be surprised by the facts, because it wasn't all sunshine and rainbows.
Has noone even looked in a history book, to see if concerns about vanishing workforces have EVER come true?
Has there ever been a time in history where the majority of the workforce could be replaced quickly and cheaply by a single technology? If not, then there's no comparison to make; we kind of jumped the shark in terms of employment when we came up with robotics.
Have all of these so-called geeks never considered how its BETTER to have a more educated workforce than to have one comprised primarily of factory workers?
A matter of opinion, and a bad one at that - what, so if a guy works in a factory he's automatically less intelligent, and worth less than the "educated" manager, who got an MBA but never learned what the word "work" actually means? Pardon me if I take offense to that concept.
Or on the flipside, perhaps one of you can explain why it is preferable that we (as a society / economy) spend money paying people to do non-creative work that can easily be done by an automaton, rather than spending it on art / design / innovation / work that cannot easily be done by a robot?
Because to sell products, you need customers, and for customers to buy products, they need money, and to acquire money, most people need a job, menial or otherwise. I think they call that the Law of Supply and Demand, or some such nonsense.
There are plenty of workers who will work for minimum. Demanding $15/hour for burger flipping is a good way to get $0/hour.
Yup, so then we end up paying for even more welfare, because low-wage, high-profit companies like McDonald's and Wal-Mart refuse to pay a decent wage. In other words, the rest of us taxpayers get to subsidize their shitty wages.
Jobs are drying up so fast yet the population just keeps growing.
Actually, in industrial countries the native populations are decreasing.
Maybe, but since OP never made a distinction between native and migrant populations, this is still a non-point.