I don't see the democrat-controlled congress doing anything about those things.
Who says they aren't? They are trying. Don't-ask-don't-tell is on the chopping block, there steps towards legalization of drugs, and abortion restrictions are being rolled back.
But there is just so much intrusive government that the Republicans have created that it will take a long time to clean up. And then there are the big messes that need cleaning up and take up so much time: health care, the deficit, and the economy.
It is different, you've obviously never tried to read a novel on a monitor.
I've read dozens of novels on LCDs. It's fine.
my eyes get really tired after 15min
That may just be psychosomatic or postural.
I mean, which property of the LCD screen do you think makes you "tired"? It's all just light and darkness from a flat surface. The LCD has higher contrast, but if you don't like that, just lower it.
Huh. That is not what I was taught. This is why I hate school...
The Nazis started out with a program of traditional conservative values, support for families, law-and-order, strong military, strong corporations, Christian values, etc. Sound familiar?
My understanding is that Heaven, Purgatory, and Hell are less actual places than spiritual states of being based on your relationship with God.
So? What difference does that make? The fact remains that you are rewarded/punished based on what you do.
The first appears to be a reference to the story of Abraham and Issac, but how did that really turn out? It was a test of faith, not for God's benefit but for Abraham's
You're missing the point. The point is that Abraham was willing to follow God's command and considered it moral because it was a command from God. Whether God's command itself was moral is irrelevant.
Christ gave us only one real command, to love both God and one another as much as most people love themselves. He did this not to establish a basis of morality
So, if God commanded you to kill your son, you would refuse? Or would you obey?
The problem is that that kind of user interface sucks. Come on, are you really going to move applications between monitors from the command line? And then you can only move them all at once. No good.
No, what you really need here is a window manager that is smarter when it comes to multiple monitors.
Liberals want you to not be allowed to have a gun,
Yes, because you can hurt me with guns.
and want teenagers to get abortions without informing the parents
Seems liberal to me.
Also criminalize any form of violence-- please never fight back, just run away.
There's no evidence that there's any difference between liberals and conservatives on self-defense.
Basically everyone who wants to be in politics thinks some segment X of people are too stupid to self-govern and we need to pass laws nobody likes for their own misguided good.
Nope, sorry, your argument doesn't work. Liberal causes like gun control and health care attempt to protect people from each other. Conservative causes like drug laws and sex laws interfere in personal decisions that harm nobody other than consenting adults.
To protect the people from themselves, you know. Like the Nazis, or Lennin, or... anyone, hell modern Britain is a great example.
You throw around those names as if you actually know what they mean.
but as a Catholic that has independently studied Christian theology many years and there is nothing by from Jesus, the Apostles, the Gospel writers, or other important figures of the early church (e.g. St. Augustine of Hippo, Thomas Aquinas, etc...) which say you should value expediency over the basic moral tenets of Christianity.
It's at the core of Christian theology: God judges you and your life and you either get rewarded or punished.
ut you find that with any philosophy where the ethical and moral requirements are more rigorous than "doing whatever I want is justified".
You want to be saved and go to paradise, right? And you'll do what "God" (actually, the church) tells you in order to accomplish that end. If God tells you to kill your son, that's what you have to do. If God tells you to kill the infidels, that's what you have to do. If God tells you to curl up and die, well, that's what you do to. Morality has been removed from the equation: you're simply following instructions in order to achieve the grand reward of "paradise".
which say you should value expediency over the basic moral tenets of Christianity.
Christianity doesn't have any moral tenets; it has rules, laws, obedience, and judgment.
I don't know about you but my first instinct when someone disagrees with me (and prevents me from doing something) is to knock him/her out of the way. If that leads to any reaction other than submission my instinct is to beat the crap out of the asshole.
I have not once in my life felt that way. (I realize some people do, they're fairly easy to spot, and I avoid them in real life.)
It seems to me a LOT of instincts involve the application of direct physical violence. I'm sure that's just me.
It's not "just" you, but I think it's pretty clear you're in a minority.
How exactly would a democracy work if people acted like that in general ?
Probably not very well. Fortunately, most people seem to be non-violent by nature. They don't need either religion or laws to keep impulses in check, they just naturally do the right thing.
The amount of self-control a democracy requires
It doesn't require any self-control when people don't have the impulses.
What do a theocracy and morality have to do with one another?
In fact, what do religion and morality have to do with one another?
Religions (at least like Christianity) are the antithesis of morality, since they replace doing the right thing (moral behavior) with doing the most expedient thing (utilitarianism).
The reason why there are such laws is because we feel that we should have a moral responsibility to help those who are in immediate life-threatening danger when we are in a position to help them without (too much) personal sacrifice.
The reason why there are such laws is also because too many people are intellectually lazy, like you are, and trying to assuage their guilty conscience with quick fixes.
Laws are just one of many ways of influencing human behavior, and apparently not a particularly good one at that. A far more effective way of dealing with the bystander effect is likely educational campaigns and public service messages. But that costs money and time. You and your kind of politician want a quick and cheap fig-leaf, something that says that you have done your duty even if it achieves nothing.
So, yes, standing around watching a rape and doing nothing is immoral, even though it seems to be the natural thing to do. Your fallacy is that you think your moral responsibility is discharged by passing a law, but it is not.
By advocating a solution you ought to know full well is ineffective, you are actually guilty of immoral behavior yourself.
The whole point of morality, religion, and by extension laws and such is that we can do better than these stupid instincts.
You're confusing morality and the law.
Morality is when you voluntarily do the right thing.
The law is forcing people to do the right thing; if you force them to do the right thing, morality is out of the picture.
Modern society (or any city with more than 50 people) would be utterly impossible without actively punishing people for following their instincts.
Human societies wouldn't work if they relied on punishment to achieve social order; it's far too easy to get away with crime and cheating.
People usually do the right thing because that's in their nature. Occasionally, you get psychopaths, but that's the rare exception (and punishment doesn't work on them anyway).
If you can't fathom that most people behave decently towards each other for no other reason than that it's the right thing to do, there's something really wrong with you and your grasp or morality. I find anybody who has your kind of worldview to be suspicious: I think you can't fathom that people are decent because you yourself secretly don't trust your own impulses. I'm glad the law (and the fear of God) helps to keep people like you in check. I'm also glad that most people aren't like you.
Modern liberalism is premised on the exact opposite. Modern liberalism is based in a sort of duty-based ethic whereas it's ethical to force others to do what you think is ethical.
Actually, no, that's modern conservatism. Modern conservatism tries to force people to behave according to conservative moral standards using the power of law and government. That's why conservatives pass all those law-and-order statutes, criminalize drug, sex, nudity, abortion, and other things.
Neither Apple nor NeXT had central, Internet-accessible software repositories with automatic updates prior to iPhone. The first general purpose OS that had that feature was Linux AFAIK. The first mobile platform that had it was Danger.
NeXT did have something called a "package", but it was just a tar file and a manifest; it had no dependency or version tracking and pretty much lacks everything that a package system should have.
OS X is not locked down. This is something that started with the iPhone.
If you want open and free, go somewhere else and take your chances.
I will. iPad may not be useful in itself, and it is certainly not the first, but all of Apple's marketing dollars may finally get this market segment to take off.
But if you're like me and you tend to read straight text,
Almost everybody reads lots of news, blogs, recipes, howto manuals, travel guides, photo albums, and tons of other materials for which browsing and page flipping are common.
LCD-based devices are vastly superior for everything other than linear text. And for linear text, it's really a toss-up: eInk has longer battery life, but LCD has better contrast, resolution, and supports better user interfaces.
Are you really going to carry around two different reading devices, deal with two contracts, two different UIs, and all that hassle? I'm not.
Can I read material without it? Yes. But I don't want to anymore. Remember, just because someone disagrees with you, it's not group think.
It is when they mod me down as a "Troll" for stating my preference.
I have a Kindle, and it's wonderful.
And I have several other eInk readers and tried the Kindle, and I think they all suck: slow refresh, low contrast, no color, bad user interface. I can't fathom why anybody would want to do that to themselves.
What's there to patent? We've had touch-screen based devices like this for decades. Except for multi-touch, where Apple has managed to get some patents (unjustified IMO), there's nothing new about these devices.
What's happening now is just that they are getting small, cheap, and light enough that people actually want to use them.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't see the democrat-controlled congress doing anything about those things.
Who says they aren't? They are trying. Don't-ask-don't-tell is on the chopping block, there steps towards legalization of drugs, and abortion restrictions are being rolled back.
But there is just so much intrusive government that the Republicans have created that it will take a long time to clean up. And then there are the big messes that need cleaning up and take up so much time: health care, the deficit, and the economy.
It is different, you've obviously never tried to read a novel on a monitor.
I've read dozens of novels on LCDs. It's fine.
my eyes get really tired after 15min
That may just be psychosomatic or postural.
I mean, which property of the LCD screen do you think makes you "tired"? It's all just light and darkness from a flat surface. The LCD has higher contrast, but if you don't like that, just lower it.
Huh. That is not what I was taught. This is why I hate school...
The Nazis started out with a program of traditional conservative values, support for families, law-and-order, strong military, strong corporations, Christian values, etc. Sound familiar?
My understanding is that Heaven, Purgatory, and Hell are less actual places than spiritual states of being based on your relationship with God.
So? What difference does that make? The fact remains that you are rewarded/punished based on what you do.
The first appears to be a reference to the story of Abraham and Issac, but how did that really turn out? It was a test of faith, not for God's benefit but for Abraham's
You're missing the point. The point is that Abraham was willing to follow God's command and considered it moral because it was a command from God. Whether God's command itself was moral is irrelevant.
Christ gave us only one real command, to love both God and one another as much as most people love themselves. He did this not to establish a basis of morality
So, if God commanded you to kill your son, you would refuse? Or would you obey?
Mark my words, the x86 mac is dying, [...] I have other shocking predictions but you aren't ready for them.
Nothing shocking about it. And you know what, there's a big market for simple to use, limited function desktops and laptops.
But who cares? Apple's market share is negligible. There are plenty of other manufacturers.
The problem is that that kind of user interface sucks. Come on, are you really going to move applications between monitors from the command line? And then you can only move them all at once. No good.
No, what you really need here is a window manager that is smarter when it comes to multiple monitors.
Ah, user-friendliness Mac style.
No, thanks; for heavy-duty computing, I just use a better OS.
OS X is fine for iTunes.
Liberals want you to not be allowed to have a gun,
Yes, because you can hurt me with guns.
and want teenagers to get abortions without informing the parents
Seems liberal to me.
Also criminalize any form of violence-- please never fight back, just run away.
There's no evidence that there's any difference between liberals and conservatives on self-defense.
Basically everyone who wants to be in politics thinks some segment X of people are too stupid to self-govern and we need to pass laws nobody likes for their own misguided good.
Nope, sorry, your argument doesn't work. Liberal causes like gun control and health care attempt to protect people from each other. Conservative causes like drug laws and sex laws interfere in personal decisions that harm nobody other than consenting adults.
To protect the people from themselves, you know. Like the Nazis, or Lennin, or ... anyone, hell modern Britain is a great example.
You throw around those names as if you actually know what they mean.
but as a Catholic that has independently studied Christian theology many years and there is nothing by from Jesus, the Apostles, the Gospel writers, or other important figures of the early church (e.g. St. Augustine of Hippo, Thomas Aquinas, etc...) which say you should value expediency over the basic moral tenets of Christianity.
It's at the core of Christian theology: God judges you and your life and you either get rewarded or punished.
ut you find that with any philosophy where the ethical and moral requirements are more rigorous than "doing whatever I want is justified".
You want to be saved and go to paradise, right? And you'll do what "God" (actually, the church) tells you in order to accomplish that end. If God tells you to kill your son, that's what you have to do. If God tells you to kill the infidels, that's what you have to do. If God tells you to curl up and die, well, that's what you do to. Morality has been removed from the equation: you're simply following instructions in order to achieve the grand reward of "paradise".
which say you should value expediency over the basic moral tenets of Christianity.
Christianity doesn't have any moral tenets; it has rules, laws, obedience, and judgment.
I don't know about you but my first instinct when someone disagrees with me (and prevents me from doing something) is to knock him/her out of the way. If that leads to any reaction other than submission my instinct is to beat the crap out of the asshole.
I have not once in my life felt that way. (I realize some people do, they're fairly easy to spot, and I avoid them in real life.)
It seems to me a LOT of instincts involve the application of direct physical violence. I'm sure that's just me.
It's not "just" you, but I think it's pretty clear you're in a minority.
How exactly would a democracy work if people acted like that in general ?
Probably not very well. Fortunately, most people seem to be non-violent by nature. They don't need either religion or laws to keep impulses in check, they just naturally do the right thing.
The amount of self-control a democracy requires
It doesn't require any self-control when people don't have the impulses.
What do a theocracy and morality have to do with one another?
In fact, what do religion and morality have to do with one another?
Religions (at least like Christianity) are the antithesis of morality, since they replace doing the right thing (moral behavior) with doing the most expedient thing (utilitarianism).
The reason why there are such laws is because we feel that we should have a moral responsibility to help those who are in immediate life-threatening danger when we are in a position to help them without (too much) personal sacrifice.
The reason why there are such laws is also because too many people are intellectually lazy, like you are, and trying to assuage their guilty conscience with quick fixes.
Laws are just one of many ways of influencing human behavior, and apparently not a particularly good one at that. A far more effective way of dealing with the bystander effect is likely educational campaigns and public service messages. But that costs money and time. You and your kind of politician want a quick and cheap fig-leaf, something that says that you have done your duty even if it achieves nothing.
So, yes, standing around watching a rape and doing nothing is immoral, even though it seems to be the natural thing to do. Your fallacy is that you think your moral responsibility is discharged by passing a law, but it is not.
By advocating a solution you ought to know full well is ineffective, you are actually guilty of immoral behavior yourself.
The whole point of morality, religion, and by extension laws and such is that we can do better than these stupid instincts.
You're confusing morality and the law.
Morality is when you voluntarily do the right thing.
The law is forcing people to do the right thing; if you force them to do the right thing, morality is out of the picture.
Modern society (or any city with more than 50 people) would be utterly impossible without actively punishing people for following their instincts.
Human societies wouldn't work if they relied on punishment to achieve social order; it's far too easy to get away with crime and cheating.
People usually do the right thing because that's in their nature. Occasionally, you get psychopaths, but that's the rare exception (and punishment doesn't work on them anyway).
If you can't fathom that most people behave decently towards each other for no other reason than that it's the right thing to do, there's something really wrong with you and your grasp or morality. I find anybody who has your kind of worldview to be suspicious: I think you can't fathom that people are decent because you yourself secretly don't trust your own impulses. I'm glad the law (and the fear of God) helps to keep people like you in check. I'm also glad that most people aren't like you.
Modern liberalism is premised on the exact opposite. Modern liberalism is based in a sort of duty-based ethic whereas it's ethical to force others to do what you think is ethical.
Actually, no, that's modern conservatism. Modern conservatism tries to force people to behave according to conservative moral standards using the power of law and government. That's why conservatives pass all those law-and-order statutes, criminalize drug, sex, nudity, abortion, and other things.
I'm surprised that the USA does not already have a bill like this. In other countries (e.g. Germany) helping people in need is mandatory.
You say that as if it's a good thing; I don't think it is. But maybe you can answer some questions:
Evidence that the law is working?
How often is it being enforced?
What's the broader moral and social implication for German society if an act of kindness and compassion now becomes mandatory?
You'd be surprised how many laws Germany has that don't exist in the US. And Americans actually like it that way.
Get a Mac. It's damn easy to use multiple monitors with it
Yeah, I love how I have to navigate the mouse between the two screens just to use the menu bar. Keeps my wrists well-exercised.
Windows 7 dual-monitor setup is simple because Windows 7 doesn't even have virtual desktops. That kind of trivial setup also works easily on Linux.
Those are nice and useful for moving windows between remote and local displays. But they are not really useful for working with multiple monitors.
So Mac OS X is clearly getting more and more locked down in the areas where Apple is positioning itself (movies, music etc).
That's typical Apple proprietary stupidity; they've been doing this for 20 years. But it isn't the same as locking down the machine.
Apple isn't yet attempting to control what software you install.
Neither Apple nor NeXT had central, Internet-accessible software repositories with automatic updates prior to iPhone. The first general purpose OS that had that feature was Linux AFAIK. The first mobile platform that had it was Danger.
NeXT did have something called a "package", but it was just a tar file and a manifest; it had no dependency or version tracking and pretty much lacks everything that a package system should have.
Buying an Apple and expecting freedom is like
OS X is not locked down. This is something that started with the iPhone.
If you want open and free, go somewhere else and take your chances.
I will. iPad may not be useful in itself, and it is certainly not the first, but all of Apple's marketing dollars may finally get this market segment to take off.
Doesn't even Ubuntu try to mimic this in some respects with its downloader?
I'd rather say that Apple is "mimicking" what Linux distributions have been doing for a decade.
However, Apple doesn't have to restrict the ability to install software from other sources; that is a typical Apple-restriction.
But if you're like me and you tend to read straight text,
Almost everybody reads lots of news, blogs, recipes, howto manuals, travel guides, photo albums, and tons of other materials for which browsing and page flipping are common.
LCD-based devices are vastly superior for everything other than linear text. And for linear text, it's really a toss-up: eInk has longer battery life, but LCD has better contrast, resolution, and supports better user interfaces.
Are you really going to carry around two different reading devices, deal with two contracts, two different UIs, and all that hassle? I'm not.
Can I read material without it? Yes. But I don't want to anymore. Remember, just because someone disagrees with you, it's not group think.
It is when they mod me down as a "Troll" for stating my preference.
I have a Kindle, and it's wonderful.
And I have several other eInk readers and tried the Kindle, and I think they all suck: slow refresh, low contrast, no color, bad user interface. I can't fathom why anybody would want to do that to themselves.
What's there to patent? We've had touch-screen based devices like this for decades. Except for multi-touch, where Apple has managed to get some patents (unjustified IMO), there's nothing new about these devices.
What's happening now is just that they are getting small, cheap, and light enough that people actually want to use them.