I know you're trying to win sympathy for your position with your anecdotes, but "what if" scenarios are just not that relevant to the discussion. NO ONE is suggesting that your college roommate or your children or your friend's children be retroactively aborted.
The core of the discussion is simple; fetuses that don't progress to being born DON'T have college roommates or children or friends. They never existed as a sentient being. The question on the table is whether or not the sentient beings that DO exist -- the potential parents -- have access to knowledge and right to act on that knowledge.
I'll admit that I don't have children of my own coloring my outlook, but my wife has suffered through three miscarriages in the last three years. Each one was a tragic end to our hopes and dreams at the time but it was NOT the equivalent to the death of a child or parent or friend. It's just not the same thing...
On the other hand, the outlaws would be terrible shots too and, in any case, who would mug someone if they'd have to risk $100?
Look at the economics, you have to spend $100 to get the contents of my wallet (which is generally a lot less than $100) while I only have to spend $100 to defend myself (which I value at somewhere around $900 gazillion dollars) which makes my choice much easier.
I've always been in favor of a $100/bullet tax that would be used to fund gun training, shock trauma centers, and law enforcement. No Constitutional issues there...
Actually, you can't "just as well argue" that. It would, in fact, be much harder to argue that proposition unless one were not particularly bright and speaking to an audience that was basically stupid.
Let's compare these arguments side by side: 1. SCOTUS lost all credibility after the 2000 election? OK, "all" is hyperbole. The court did not lose "all" credibility. However, the right wing of the court did manage to tarnish their reputation as being strict Constitutionalists by being so eager to jump into this issue.
2. Bush jammed the court with right-wing idealogues? Basically true if you define "right-wing" as equivalent to "Republican party line" as opposed to the traditional definition of Conservative. Neither Roberts nor Alito seem to have Scalia or Thomas's respect for the Constitution but seem to vote along party lines. Basically, both of them will vote according to what the Republican consensus (as reported on Fox News) tells them to vote.
Compare these arguments to your argument: 1. The SCOTUS was in the process of degenerating into a puddle of crypto-marxist Priests of the Temples of Syrinx? I just did a Google search and I was unable to even find a definition of "crypto-marxist". Is that something you just made up? But, if you mean that the pre-Bush appointments were closet Marxists, then it's pretty clear that you are wrong. At least since you can never know the inner thoughts of someone else, one must judge them on their actions. Justice Ginsberg -- referred to as the "most-liberal" of current justices -- is actually relatively moderate by the Segal-Cover ranking with a score of 0.6 on a 0.0 to 1.0 scale. Interestingly, Ginsberg is the richest member of the Supreme Court.
Secondly, it is also almost impossible to argue that any current or former member of the SCOTUS is or was a Priests (or Pristesss) of the Temples of Syrinx since: (a) it's a fictional group that doesn't enter (fictional) human history until at least 2060 according to the band Rush, and (b) go back and read (a) again.
Therefore, in summary, you are wrong and based on your knowledge of the SCOTUS I'm certainly not going to take your advice when it comes to presidential elections.
The difference is that I can lie about the drinking and the smoking and the drugging and the anonymous sex with a variety of partners and the X-treme! sports and the walking into redneck bars and asking for a wine cooler. I just can't lie about my fat ass.
As a consequence of this situation, the AI field simply raises the bar for itself every time it succeeds at something. As do all fields of science and engineering and, for that matter, sports and art.
There's a lot of cliches being bandied about in this conversation so let's add on more: don't let prefect be the enemy of the good.
As the parent mentioned, the only group willing to stand up for freedom is a fraction of the Democratic party. The entire Republican party has arrayed themselves against the Constitution. Remember that on election day.
This probably sounds perfectly reasonable to some. According to the "marriage is for heterosexuals only" crowd, the only purpose for marriage is to raise healthy, well-adjusted children. If you can't raise healthy children then that would be an appropriate reason to seek a different partnership.
This is not a position I agree with. My marriage is a partnership that transcends our desire to procreate. But, there are some who want to define marriage so specifically.
It's interesting that none of the "best case" scenarios deal positively with mental health but many of the "worst case" scenarios are based on a persons mental health records being revealed to the outside world. Are mental health diseases still so stigmatized that there could be no good to come from this?
For me, the "killer app" of Ruby was reading lines like 3.times { puts "Hello World!" } or ('a'..'e').each {|c| print c } in a basic tutorial and thinking to myself "this is a very pretty language". It's the first language I've taught myself because of the beauty of the code (as opposed to a work requirement).
Of course, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. YMMV
I thought from your first sentence that you'd be in favor of vat grown. Unlike a box of chocolates, with vat grown you always know what you're gonna get. You walk into that fast food restaurant and you never know which bite of hamburger was from the carcass of a twitching, barely-mobile, prion-filled, diseased cow.
Slightly off topic, but I think of it like this vegan buffet I went to a few weeks ago. I am not vegetarian, but a friend of mine is. Not brave enough to try the various whole grain, wild rice, concoctions, I filled my plate with "chicken and broccoli".
It was delicious. You know how when you walk into a cheap Chinese restaurant (like probably have in your local college area) and order something like this and every third bite is gristly or fatty or has a chunk of cartilage still attached? Not this meal. This was perfect. Every bite of tofu/gluten-based "chicken" was perfectly textured and had no globs of fat or bone fragments or cartilage. This is how I imagine vat grown meat will be like: the meat your body craves without all the gross bits!
As with so many things in this modern world, I doubt that it will ever be an either/or situation. In the long run, your frozen "sausage" pizza, "chiken" nuggets, and fast food hamburger will be grown in a vat. Why not? The criteria for the fast food meal are that they are cheap, filled with calories and doused with salt. I'm sure vat-grown will be more than sufficient to meet those. I really never noticed the subtleties of flavor from a fast food meal
On the other hand, when you go out for that $40 filet mignon you're going to want the real thing.
I think the best outcome of this type of research is the eventual death of the factory farm -- which would be replaced by vat grown meat -- and a resurgence of the local, family farm dedicated to growing high quality, real meat.
There are an astounding number of idiots on this thread who seem to think that speeding down city streets and gunning their way through yellow lights -- that they would have had plenty of time to stop for if they weren't speeding and their instinct wasn't to gun it -- should earn them group pity party.
Maybe it's just the East Coast city I happen to live in, but I just don't have a lot of sympathy for the whiners.
1. You are traveling towards an intersection and the light turns yellow. Do you?
a. Gun it, man! b. I'd stop if I could, but I'm going way too fast down these city streets so I'm going to speed up and see if I can make it. c. Show down and stop.
If you answered a or b, I don't have a lot of sympathy when you start crying "entrapment".
I'll bite. You're right, a free market works both ways. Let the competition come in an compete on a level playing field. No indentured servitude H1-B visas. No guest worker passes. No passports held under lock and key in the HR office. No two-tier benefits package. Just pure "at will" employment where the employee can switch jobs at the drop of a hat no matter their citizenship.
Let labor be free. I can compete with that and, to be honest, would really enjoy a year or two working in Dublin or Tel Aviv or Bangalore while I'm still young.
There are "at least" 1500 bases in the U.S. ( http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20071214023336AAao9RN ) and thousands more overseas supporting 1.4 million active and 1.4 million reserve troops. 1.4 million people is roughly the size of Philadelphia and you think that citizens should be forbidden from oversight over any of that? I guess you're looking forward to a N. Korean model where police darken the windows of trains that pass military bases and roads near those 1500 bases are closed "for national security" in case someone points their cell phone camera at a section of barbed wire fence?
My contention is that our country is stronger when things are NOT cloaked in secrecy by default. You're contention is that our country is stronger when things ARE cloaked in secrecy. I guess we'll have to agree to fucking disagree.
Slashdot Mirror
I know you're trying to win sympathy for your position with your anecdotes, but "what if" scenarios are just not that relevant to the discussion. NO ONE is suggesting that your college roommate or your children or your friend's children be retroactively aborted.
The core of the discussion is simple; fetuses that don't progress to being born DON'T have college roommates or children or friends. They never existed as a sentient being. The question on the table is whether or not the sentient beings that DO exist -- the potential parents -- have access to knowledge and right to act on that knowledge.
I'll admit that I don't have children of my own coloring my outlook, but my wife has suffered through three miscarriages in the last three years. Each one was a tragic end to our hopes and dreams at the time but it was NOT the equivalent to the death of a child or parent or friend. It's just not the same thing...
On the other hand, the outlaws would be terrible shots too and, in any case, who would mug someone if they'd have to risk $100?
Look at the economics, you have to spend $100 to get the contents of my wallet (which is generally a lot less than $100) while I only have to spend $100 to defend myself (which I value at somewhere around $900 gazillion dollars) which makes my choice much easier.
I've always been in favor of a $100/bullet tax that would be used to fund gun training, shock trauma centers, and law enforcement. No Constitutional issues there...
It's amazing what a "good man" can believe given a financial incentive and a lack of introspection (e.g. the 'divine mandate' of slavery).
Actually, you can't "just as well argue" that. It would, in fact, be much harder to argue that proposition unless one were not particularly bright and speaking to an audience that was basically stupid.
Let's compare these arguments side by side:
1. SCOTUS lost all credibility after the 2000 election? OK, "all" is hyperbole. The court did not lose "all" credibility. However, the right wing of the court did manage to tarnish their reputation as being strict Constitutionalists by being so eager to jump into this issue.
2. Bush jammed the court with right-wing idealogues? Basically true if you define "right-wing" as equivalent to "Republican party line" as opposed to the traditional definition of Conservative. Neither Roberts nor Alito seem to have Scalia or Thomas's respect for the Constitution but seem to vote along party lines. Basically, both of them will vote according to what the Republican consensus (as reported on Fox News) tells them to vote.
Compare these arguments to your argument:
1. The SCOTUS was in the process of degenerating into a puddle of crypto-marxist Priests of the Temples of Syrinx? I just did a Google search and I was unable to even find a definition of "crypto-marxist". Is that something you just made up? But, if you mean that the pre-Bush appointments were closet Marxists, then it's pretty clear that you are wrong. At least since you can never know the inner thoughts of someone else, one must judge them on their actions. Justice Ginsberg -- referred to as the "most-liberal" of current justices -- is actually relatively moderate by the Segal-Cover ranking with a score of 0.6 on a 0.0 to 1.0 scale. Interestingly, Ginsberg is the richest member of the Supreme Court.
Secondly, it is also almost impossible to argue that any current or former member of the SCOTUS is or was a Priests (or Pristesss) of the Temples of Syrinx since: (a) it's a fictional group that doesn't enter (fictional) human history until at least 2060 according to the band Rush, and (b) go back and read (a) again.
Therefore, in summary, you are wrong and based on your knowledge of the SCOTUS I'm certainly not going to take your advice when it comes to presidential elections.
The difference is that I can lie about the drinking and the smoking and the drugging and the anonymous sex with a variety of partners and the X-treme! sports and the walking into redneck bars and asking for a wine cooler. I just can't lie about my fat ass.
There's a lot of cliches being bandied about in this conversation so let's add on more: don't let prefect be the enemy of the good.
As the parent mentioned, the only group willing to stand up for freedom is a fraction of the Democratic party. The entire Republican party has arrayed themselves against the Constitution. Remember that on election day.
This probably sounds perfectly reasonable to some. According to the "marriage is for heterosexuals only" crowd, the only purpose for marriage is to raise healthy, well-adjusted children. If you can't raise healthy children then that would be an appropriate reason to seek a different partnership.
This is not a position I agree with. My marriage is a partnership that transcends our desire to procreate. But, there are some who want to define marriage so specifically.
It's interesting that none of the "best case" scenarios deal positively with mental health but many of the "worst case" scenarios are based on a persons mental health records being revealed to the outside world. Are mental health diseases still so stigmatized that there could be no good to come from this?
This is, of course, the real answer to the question. I wish I had mod points.
All the advantages of a language are lost if no one else writes in it.
The next question is how to get a large enough population of people to use your new language.
For me, the "killer app" of Ruby was reading lines like 3.times { puts "Hello World!" } or ('a'..'e').each {|c| print c } in a basic tutorial and thinking to myself "this is a very pretty language". It's the first language I've taught myself because of the beauty of the code (as opposed to a work requirement).
Of course, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. YMMV
It just might work. It their eyes are bleeding they can't read your sensitive data.
It would be really funny / ironic if this "plug-in" device WAS just knoppix on a thumb drive.
I thought from your first sentence that you'd be in favor of vat grown. Unlike a box of chocolates, with vat grown you always know what you're gonna get. You walk into that fast food restaurant and you never know which bite of hamburger was from the carcass of a twitching, barely-mobile, prion-filled, diseased cow.
Slightly off topic, but I think of it like this vegan buffet I went to a few weeks ago. I am not vegetarian, but a friend of mine is. Not brave enough to try the various whole grain, wild rice, concoctions, I filled my plate with "chicken and broccoli".
It was delicious. You know how when you walk into a cheap Chinese restaurant (like probably have in your local college area) and order something like this and every third bite is gristly or fatty or has a chunk of cartilage still attached? Not this meal. This was perfect. Every bite of tofu/gluten-based "chicken" was perfectly textured and had no globs of fat or bone fragments or cartilage. This is how I imagine vat grown meat will be like: the meat your body craves without all the gross bits!
As with so many things in this modern world, I doubt that it will ever be an either/or situation. In the long run, your frozen "sausage" pizza, "chiken" nuggets, and fast food hamburger will be grown in a vat. Why not? The criteria for the fast food meal are that they are cheap, filled with calories and doused with salt. I'm sure vat-grown will be more than sufficient to meet those. I really never noticed the subtleties of flavor from a fast food meal
On the other hand, when you go out for that $40 filet mignon you're going to want the real thing.
I think the best outcome of this type of research is the eventual death of the factory farm -- which would be replaced by vat grown meat -- and a resurgence of the local, family farm dedicated to growing high quality, real meat.
Whatever you may think about PETA's tactics, at least in this case they are putting their money where our mouths are.
Damn, I forgot the most recent one: If you open your WiFi then the terrorists have won!
OMG! Open WiFi == Pedophilia! Think of the children! There ought to be a law!
There are an astounding number of idiots on this thread who seem to think that speeding down city streets and gunning their way through yellow lights -- that they would have had plenty of time to stop for if they weren't speeding and their instinct wasn't to gun it -- should earn them group pity party.
Maybe it's just the East Coast city I happen to live in, but I just don't have a lot of sympathy for the whiners.
That's a pure hypothetical. No one, ever, drives "at or under the posted limit".
Quiz time!
1. You are traveling towards an intersection and the light turns yellow. Do you?
a. Gun it, man!
b. I'd stop if I could, but I'm going way too fast down these city streets so I'm going to speed up and see if I can make it.
c. Show down and stop.
If you answered a or b, I don't have a lot of sympathy when you start crying "entrapment".
Karl is already gone and the other two that are responsible will be gone in 9 months.
I'll bite. You're right, a free market works both ways. Let the competition come in an compete on a level playing field. No indentured servitude H1-B visas. No guest worker passes. No passports held under lock and key in the HR office. No two-tier benefits package. Just pure "at will" employment where the employee can switch jobs at the drop of a hat no matter their citizenship.
Let labor be free. I can compete with that and, to be honest, would really enjoy a year or two working in Dublin or Tel Aviv or Bangalore while I'm still young.
There are "at least" 1500 bases in the U.S. ( http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20071214023336AAao9RN ) and thousands more overseas supporting 1.4 million active and 1.4 million reserve troops. 1.4 million people is roughly the size of Philadelphia and you think that citizens should be forbidden from oversight over any of that? I guess you're looking forward to a N. Korean model where police darken the windows of trains that pass military bases and roads near those 1500 bases are closed "for national security" in case someone points their cell phone camera at a section of barbed wire fence?
My contention is that our country is stronger when things are NOT cloaked in secrecy by default. You're contention is that our country is stronger when things ARE cloaked in secrecy. I guess we'll have to agree to fucking disagree.