You could easily argue that the 10% are among them as well? After all, they seem reluctant to believe in a being whose very
existence defies comprehension or understanding.
Agreed. I consider myself in that 10%; I also consider myself to be a product of the Protector. The Protector did not create the universe; did not create this galaxy; did not create this solar system; and did not create this earth. It did, however, have a hand in creating me, just like I (who created none of the aforementioned) had a hand in creating the most recent generation of cells in my body. Those cells can point to me and say "God", or be more specific and say "Protector, as long as we're not cancerous", and "Creator of latest generation, but two other male/female individuals created Protector, so Protector is not Creator of all existence."
I absolutely believe in a Protector. We (and other organisms; I'm not sure if it's "higher only", or "any organism with a brain that performs quantum calculations") power the Protector, while we're sleeping, and it protects us. I do not believe in a Creator (apart from the idea that the Protector created me), since I'm not the first generation of humans on this planet and I have some anecdotal evidence that Protector existed before I did.
I'm working on devising experiments to prove/disprove the existence and utility of the Protector. I'm fairly certain the Protector does not rely on blind faith; it relies on quantum mechanics. So, experiments that expose the Protector's inner workings won't cause the Protector to disappear in a puff of smoke like Douglas Adams did.
I'm really looking forward to finding a way, if I might use a car analogy, to add some turbochargers to Protector's performance.
The second is the drug war. The citizens are to blame here as they keep USING.
Exactly! Just as the failed alcohol prohibition in the 1920s would have succeeded, if not for those meddling citizen users!
Yes, you heard that right: your argument makes as much sense as the Scooby Do villains. C'mon dude, there's a demand that will never go away. Restricting the supply simply increases the price. Economics 101? Oh, right, you're stuck in cartoon land.
By the way, all drug users should be rehabilitated and then have to check in FOR LIFE. Addiction is hard to kick and we should recognize that.
By the way, all oxygen users should be rehabilitated and then have to check in FOR LIFE. Elemental addiction is hard to kick and we should recognize that, even if it suits our agenda and we cannot think of any possible way that our agenda can be turned against us...
Stay tuned to my next idea...of giving our military [blahblahblah]
First: why would you want to give the military-industrial complex any additional reason for perpetuating its existence? Second:..., oh who the fuck cares, American Idle is on.
Nonono. According to the documentary, "White Collar", these are used in the US and have managed to even assist in the capture of at least one criminal per episode of use. Sometimes, even, when the unit has been disabled!
[...] and not worry about whatever the killer of the week is.
It's either reading comprehension, or because I'm about to self-medicate, but anyway: I read that as "not worry about whatever the killer weed is", and I thought to myself, "ARE YOU FUCKING HIGH?" Then I realized how funny my thought was. (To me, anyway.)
I completely agree with you about the garden grown tomatoes, though. The red ones are especially tasty, and the leafy ones, they make good cookies.
0:6, really; the heavy drinkers are nicely relaxed at the point of collision, while the non-drinkers (and their family, and that pedestrian who strode too close) are all freaking out and muscles tensed, so they're going to experience more damage. Yeah, I know, I'm not getting the Funny mod, but I've lost people, so there.
Depends on what you call "home", I suppose... (Seriously: thanks to Time for Timer[1], I used to think that the bacteria in my teeth had briefcases, and had some "home" that they went to, when they weren't busy removing my plaque... Ah, childish notions...)
[1] -- "When my ten-gallon hat is feeling five-gallons flat, I hanker for a hunk of cheese!" I think that did far more than the "Got Milk?" campaign did, especially when they started suing any "Got X?"-alikes.
I don't remember who said "Ninety percent of everything is crap."
It's generally called Sturgeon's Law, by (an editor, of course, named) Theodore Sturgeon. Wiki article, which explains the real Law, and that nobody uses it these days, and that it was originally a different four-letter word, "crud". (I read a lot of Analog and Asimov's magazines, as a kid.:)
[reader's voice: that must be a heck of a long way!]
Yeah -- especially because, after having read the other thread about the severed head in one hand, ax in another, being true Evil, I read your credentials as "decapitational ethnography" and thought that I wouldn't want to be anywhere near you if I was hanging with some minorities...
Seldane? Even better, L-Tryptophan. This (which helps me sleep nightly) was taken off the market in the 90s because its name sounded like some other drug that kids were using to get high. I mean, seriously, W... T... F!??! At least they let it back on in a decade or so, unlike marijuana or cocaine.
Your argument sounds an awful lot like the broken window fallacy to me. Drag the whole industry down, to make a few jump through hoops to be "more creative"? No thanks, open the damn industry up, I say. Or perhaps we should just cut everyone's left hands off, so that they can struggle that much harder to be creative righties? Or cut off everyone's foreskin, so that they can last longer?
I think the risk is the same while driving a car. I mean, after all, you're sitting...
The rest of your comment reminds me of a great short story in Asimov's (or Analog, I subscribed to both as a teenager), where a female author was writing in the first person a female protagonist, who was giving birth and said "By this act I bring another death into the world."
Organ harvesting (even so far as your example of "body harvesting") will likely be a short-lived phenomena; we will be able to grow organs (and bodies) in short order. The "stepped in front of a bus" problem is easily solvable: I'll have a transmitter in my body, sending all of my sensory input as well as my thoughts up to my backup server, located somewhere safe like down a deep hole, or up a steep gravity well. If my plane happens to crash into a mountain, all of my existence including the screaming as the plane is about to hit will be preserved (depending on how often it updates; I plan to have one that is constantly sending, so perhaps a few milli-seconds might be lost).
The benefit to this is not only that I'll "wake up" with all my memories intact -- I can also participate in the disaster recovery program, perhaps I saw something on the wing that caused the plane to go down (or others on the plane did, etc), and can help make the plane stronger and more resistant to that type of failure.
Of course, with that type of technology we won't still have "planes" (or the need for them; we could move around virtually at far faster speeds, and interact virtually faster than we could in person, especially if we were nano-enhanced for direct brain interface, ad nauseum).
Big crunch won't happen; it was proven that the universe is expanding faster than it could possibly be able to contract, back in the late 90s if memory serves. I agree with your confidence that death happens to most people. I like Woody Allen's quote, "I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve immortality through not dying!" He also said "Don't knock masturbation, it's sex with someone I love!" (in Annie Hall), which I think touches all of us, here at Slashdot. Me, I intend to be immortal, but don't tell my parents, they might cut something else off me.
Interesting ship idea, filled almost entirely with hydrogen bombs -- initially! As the journey proceeds, we'll be able to convert storage to more and more living space, which could hold the new people being born during the journey. I like it. Also useful is the ground-based-laser-propelled spacecraft, although the farther it gets from us the less power it will receive... But it does mean the ship doesn't need to carry as much "fuel".
Slashdot Mirror
Your ad hominem attack failed.
Agreed. I consider myself in that 10%; I also consider myself to be a product of the Protector. The Protector did not create the universe; did not create this galaxy; did not create this solar system; and did not create this earth. It did, however, have a hand in creating me, just like I (who created none of the aforementioned) had a hand in creating the most recent generation of cells in my body. Those cells can point to me and say "God", or be more specific and say "Protector, as long as we're not cancerous", and "Creator of latest generation, but two other male/female individuals created Protector, so Protector is not Creator of all existence."
I absolutely believe in a Protector. We (and other organisms; I'm not sure if it's "higher only", or "any organism with a brain that performs quantum calculations") power the Protector, while we're sleeping, and it protects us. I do not believe in a Creator (apart from the idea that the Protector created me), since I'm not the first generation of humans on this planet and I have some anecdotal evidence that Protector existed before I did.
I'm working on devising experiments to prove/disprove the existence and utility of the Protector. I'm fairly certain the Protector does not rely on blind faith; it relies on quantum mechanics. So, experiments that expose the Protector's inner workings won't cause the Protector to disappear in a puff of smoke like Douglas Adams did.
I'm really looking forward to finding a way, if I might use a car analogy, to add some turbochargers to Protector's performance.
Yep. I'm currently reading "The Puzzle Palace", about the birth of the NSA; fascinating stuff.
Exactly! Just as the failed alcohol prohibition in the 1920s would have succeeded, if not for those meddling citizen users!
Yes, you heard that right: your argument makes as much sense as the Scooby Do villains. C'mon dude, there's a demand that will never go away. Restricting the supply simply increases the price. Economics 101? Oh, right, you're stuck in cartoon land.
By the way, all oxygen users should be rehabilitated and then have to check in FOR LIFE. Elemental addiction is hard to kick and we should recognize that, even if it suits our agenda and we cannot think of any possible way that our agenda can be turned against us...
First: why would you want to give the military-industrial complex any additional reason for perpetuating its existence? Second: ..., oh who the fuck cares, American Idle is on.
Says the poster whose signature states:
Perhaps, the OP had a government whose only hammer was a bullet through the brain? (China, perhaps?)
Nonono. According to the documentary, "White Collar", these are used in the US and have managed to even assist in the capture of at least one criminal per episode of use. Sometimes, even, when the unit has been disabled!
Lots of us agree.
Wait, sorry, what I meant (drunk again!) was to respond to something earlier:
Bender FTW!
Salmon's little female friend?
It's either reading comprehension, or because I'm about to self-medicate, but anyway: I read that as "not worry about whatever the killer weed is", and I thought to myself, "ARE YOU FUCKING HIGH?" Then I realized how funny my thought was. (To me, anyway.)
I completely agree with you about the garden grown tomatoes, though. The red ones are especially tasty, and the leafy ones, they make good cookies.
My favorite raw food is salmon, though.
Sure there is! OP spelled "diseases" as "deceases"! Shirley you can't agree with that!
0:6, really; the heavy drinkers are nicely relaxed at the point of collision, while the non-drinkers (and their family, and that pedestrian who strode too close) are all freaking out and muscles tensed, so they're going to experience more damage. Yeah, I know, I'm not getting the Funny mod, but I've lost people, so there.
THERE'S UNICORNS!
Depends on what you call "home", I suppose... (Seriously: thanks to Time for Timer[1], I used to think that the bacteria in my teeth had briefcases, and had some "home" that they went to, when they weren't busy removing my plaque... Ah, childish notions...)
[1] -- "When my ten-gallon hat is feeling five-gallons flat, I hanker for a hunk of cheese!" I think that did far more than the "Got Milk?" campaign did, especially when they started suing any "Got X?"-alikes.
It's generally called Sturgeon's Law, by (an editor, of course, named) Theodore Sturgeon. Wiki article, which explains the real Law, and that nobody uses it these days, and that it was originally a different four-letter word, "crud". (I read a lot of Analog and Asimov's magazines, as a kid. :)
Yeah -- especially because, after having read the other thread about the severed head in one hand, ax in another, being true Evil, I read your credentials as "decapitational ethnography" and thought that I wouldn't want to be anywhere near you if I was hanging with some minorities...
Seldane? Even better, L-Tryptophan. This (which helps me sleep nightly) was taken off the market in the 90s because its name sounded like some other drug that kids were using to get high. I mean, seriously, W ... T ... F!??! At least they let it back on in a decade or so, unlike marijuana or cocaine.
Your argument sounds an awful lot like the broken window fallacy to me. Drag the whole industry down, to make a few jump through hoops to be "more creative"? No thanks, open the damn industry up, I say. Or perhaps we should just cut everyone's left hands off, so that they can struggle that much harder to be creative righties? Or cut off everyone's foreskin, so that they can last longer?
Literally, I literally understand literally what you're literally talking about. Litteraly! (Now I'm just talking trash.)
I think the risk is the same while driving a car. I mean, after all, you're sitting...
The rest of your comment reminds me of a great short story in Asimov's (or Analog, I subscribed to both as a teenager), where a female author was writing in the first person a female protagonist, who was giving birth and said "By this act I bring another death into the world."
Organ harvesting (even so far as your example of "body harvesting") will likely be a short-lived phenomena; we will be able to grow organs (and bodies) in short order. The "stepped in front of a bus" problem is easily solvable: I'll have a transmitter in my body, sending all of my sensory input as well as my thoughts up to my backup server, located somewhere safe like down a deep hole, or up a steep gravity well. If my plane happens to crash into a mountain, all of my existence including the screaming as the plane is about to hit will be preserved (depending on how often it updates; I plan to have one that is constantly sending, so perhaps a few milli-seconds might be lost).
The benefit to this is not only that I'll "wake up" with all my memories intact -- I can also participate in the disaster recovery program, perhaps I saw something on the wing that caused the plane to go down (or others on the plane did, etc), and can help make the plane stronger and more resistant to that type of failure.
Of course, with that type of technology we won't still have "planes" (or the need for them; we could move around virtually at far faster speeds, and interact virtually faster than we could in person, especially if we were nano-enhanced for direct brain interface, ad nauseum).
Big crunch won't happen; it was proven that the universe is expanding faster than it could possibly be able to contract, back in the late 90s if memory serves. I agree with your confidence that death happens to most people. I like Woody Allen's quote, "I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve immortality through not dying!" He also said "Don't knock masturbation, it's sex with someone I love!" (in Annie Hall), which I think touches all of us, here at Slashdot. Me, I intend to be immortal, but don't tell my parents, they might cut something else off me.
Hate to break it to you, but it's only a twelve ounce curl the first rep. (It's a diminishing pyramid set, or something.)
Interesting ship idea, filled almost entirely with hydrogen bombs -- initially! As the journey proceeds, we'll be able to convert storage to more and more living space, which could hold the new people being born during the journey. I like it. Also useful is the ground-based-laser-propelled spacecraft, although the farther it gets from us the less power it will receive... But it does mean the ship doesn't need to carry as much "fuel".
Each individual use was correct, but c'mon, 5 instances of "literally" in one post? Wow.