Eyewitness misidentification is the single greatest cause of wrongful convictions nationwide, playing a role in nearly 75% of convictions overturned through DNA testing.
While eyewitness testimony can be persuasive evidence before a judge or jury, 30 years of strong social science research has proven that eyewitness identification is often unreliable. Research shows that the human mind is not like a tape recorder; we neither record events exactly as we see them, nor recall them like a tape that has been rewound. Instead, witness memory is like any other evidence at a crime scene; it must be preserved carefully and retrieved methodically, or it can be contaminated.
While back in the reality only thing you can safely assume is that there is more hay.
Only way to be sure that there IS a needle prior to searching trough ALL the hay (at least twice) is if you're the one who's put it there. And if you're certain that THERE is there and not over there or here.
And even if you find one - how can you tell if it's the only one? How can you tell that you haven't missed many needles while finding that one? How can you even tell it's a needle? Maybe it's a nail? Or a piece of wire?
False positives are a bitch too... Just like confirmation bias.
[on Jaws: The Revenge (1987)] I have never seen it, but by all accounts it is terrible. However, I have seen the house that it built, and it is terrific.
By promoting said "Rep-a-trrrst service". What's the point of a program no one knows about, right?
It's a mere 150k grant for 13 counties, so it's not about simply spending taxpayer's money. At least not at this stage. Their care may be genuine. As in genuinely delusional.
Those making reports must provide their name and contact information.... For iWATCH, people are less likely to be targeted by rumors or malicious accusations. Also, it gives investigators the opportunity to further interview the person reporting the activity.
"It's always a concern that someone may be setting up a neighbor," Rutherford said.
Godforbid, someone should get the idea of misrepresenting one's identity to get one's neighbor (or two) in trouble with the authorities.
I mean, it's not like one could just say his or her name is Neighbor A and report on Neighbor B - and then watch snickering while police pays a visit to both neighbors. At the very least, one of the neighbors will start being paranoid about the other.
The only reason I'm running an 8.01 at the moment of is because I couldn't be bothered to track down a 5.0 version at the time of the installation. Which still works just fine on my old box.
Neil deGrasse Tyson comes off as a bit arrogant to me,
Indeed. I completely understand his "I shall suffer no fools any longer" attitude, but he does put a barrier where there shouldn't be any. Also, he seems to be aware that he is often rather negative in his approach to explanation, with his tendency to end his talks and discussions with a joke.
Brian Cox on the other hand seems much more opened, approachable and optimistically enthusiastic.
Before tighter regulation (which is supposed to make people safer), vs. last year that I could find = 40% increase in violent crime.
Why not before colonization? Just imagine THAT increase.
If you're cherry picking your data points while purposefully ignoring all others your data and calculations from them are beyond worthless. And on the wrong side of the beyond. Picking two data points more than a decade apart and calling the change between those points "40% increase" is utter nonsense. Decades are compared to decades. Years to years. And both have to take account of ongoing trends if they are to mean anything in context. You did no such thing.
What you did do is compare (over) a decade of changes while presenting it as an annual change.
Which makes what you did there a falsification of arguments - or if you like it better, setting up a strawman that you can easily tear down. And no, sorry, "I didn't find better data" does not cut it. It's right there at your source. You CHOSE to ignore all those years in between.
I never said that it was a ban.
Again, you are missing the point. Utterly and completely. I mention the absence of "gun ban" as it points out that REGULATION WORKS without it meaning or constituting banning (clearly, even you agree on murder being down, though you cherry pick that one too) and that the guns removed HAD NO EFFECT ON AVAILABILITY OF GUNS TO CIVILIANS for personal protection.
I.e. your assault/sexual assault correlation to gun regulation being BULLSHIT, cause handguns (you know... kind that those rape victims could have been carrying) were not regulated-out.
Which kinda makes your so called "facts" completely false.
Fact: Gun control is argued as being about making people safer. Fact: It failed (for whatever reason). Fact: Violent crime went UP by 40% since the great gun grab in Australia.
Now... Those are either errors or utter lies. As you have been explained your error, your further insistence on the correctness of that error makes it into a lie. You are now officially lying.
And the life is far to short to waste one's Sundays on arguing with liars. So please do kindly fuck off.
...and fitting numbers into your bias without thinking about what they mean. So, while there may be no conscious "deception" from your side - there is plenty of delusion.
One - you use only 2 points of data with over a decade in between. The fact that you would go out of your way to make a deliberate spreadsheet WHILE at the same time omitting all that data points out your (possibly subconscious) bias. You're presenting a very distorted image of the real situation - and making false conclusions based on that. Because...
Two - you are ignoring trends. Rise in assaults fits BOTH Australian gun regulation laws. There were TWO. One in 1996 and another one in 2002. Which should be reflected in both your data AND in the trends - it doesn't. And that one REALLY breaks your entire argument.
Because three...
1996 law "banned all semi-automatic rifles and all semi-automatic and pump-action shotguns". So that thing about assault and sexual assault going up and correlating with gun regulation only makes sense if all those assaulted people were prancing around with "semi-automatic rifles, semi-automatic and pump-action shotguns" prior to the ban. Which they very probably weren't.
The 2002 law further regulated handguns - but again NO GUN BAN.
Changes included a 10-round magazine capacity limit, a calibre limit of not more than.38 inches (9.65 mm), a barrel length limit of not less than 120 mm (4.72 inches) for semi-automatic pistols and 100 mm (3.94 inches) for revolvers, and even stricter probation and attendance requirements for sporting target shooters.
Gun regulation does NOT mean "no guns at all". Your logic (and spreadsheet) only work under the assumption that gun_regulation == gun_ban. So, all your further logic, data interpretation and even your data acquisition suffer - starting from that FALSE assumption.
i don't have time to go into art history with you... but i can assure you that all attempts to define art once and for all have failed.
see impressionism, fauvism, in fact any ism that was disruptive to previous isms. they've all been condemned as "not art". can i call upon the principle of induction to say that all further attempts will have the same result?
One, I was not talking about what ISN'T art. The "definition" above does not discard ANY form of art, in fact it includes EVERY form of human expression.
Two, it works because it is not designed to be a tool for recognizing or creating "art" or for determining its "value". It just explains what art IS, not how to create it. A VERY broad definition - not a map or tutorial.
It essentially describes EVERYTHING that the man does or thinks about in order to express himself as art. From acting to Zen Buddhism. Including masturbation.
Over the course of approximately 10 hours, casher cells in 24 countries executed approximately 36,000 transactions worldwide and withdrew about $40 million from ATMs. From 3 p.m. on February 19 through 1:26 a.m. on February 20, the defendants and their co-conspirators withdrew approximately $2.4 million in nearly 3,000 ATM withdrawals in the New York City area.
2904 withdrawals, not ATMs. About 10 hours, not EXACTLY 10 hours. Also, it's 8 persons with 12 accounts per person. All they needed to cover was about 30 ATMs. Which comes out to about 20 minutes per ATM, meaning that each TEAM (i.e. at least one to withdraw the money, one to drive the car and keep lookout) had about 8 minutes to get from one ATM to the next.
Good critical thinking on your part though. Just too much noise in the signal.
By having the camera sending photos/videos to the interwebz.
It could probably already be done in under 100 grams of additional weight. At least for all domestic shipments. International though... Not until they come up with a camera-GPS-transmitter-battery combo that can work for a month and weighs 100 grams or less.
His was a straw man in that he misrepresented his opponents position.
The person he was responding to never made any such claim and such is indeed a straw man.
I never stated that comparison was a straw man...
1 - It is not a strawman when you're pointing out a flaw in one's logic. OP was questioning GP's logic of comparison.
2 - GP was implying higher ethical standards for one side. OP was using sarcasm to question that implication and to point out the case of "pot meet kettle".
3 - Questioning the comparison with some imaginary notion of "USA ethics" as if it is some kind of a measurable standard IS THE POINT of OP's comment.
You are seeing a strawman in a "Yeah? Who died and made YOU a judge of ethics?" statement.
From crushing people with a road grader, propping up North Korea, sending North Korean refugees back, environmental crimes, Tibet, damming the river ruining lives and property and likely eventually resulting in the greatest disaster the world has ever seen (that's what I'm expecting anyways), to far far more I can go on listing ways. I can do the same thing for the American government as well. At the end of the tabulation I'd say that it is obvious which is less ethical.
Oh, please do. Tabulate.
Really. I'd love to see that. Don't forget to wind it back all the way to first European colonists landing on North American soil. Then do a tally of all genocides, wars, human rights violations internal and external and generally calculate the "historic asshole index" of China and USA. And don't forget to mention the lynching of Negroes and whatever is the Chinese equivalent.*
And you know what's the best part? IT DOESN'T... FUCKING... MATTER! There is no way one can quantify a country's "historic asshole index" NOR would it matter if it could be done. Should Germany be forever blamed for WWII and everything that came after that? How about Austria? Japan? I know! Let us begin every conversation by first mentioning American slavery, racism and genocide of the native population and end every conversation with the mention that Americans nuked innocent civilians and a special mention of Vietnam and Iraq.
GP's error (and yours in supporting the idea of comparison of "ethical standards of countries" as if it is a real thing) is one of generalization and labeling. He basically said "All Chinese are... {insert whatever here}".
INDIVIDUALS have ethical standards - NOT COUNTRIES. Not peoples or nations. Such generalization is WRONG ON MANY LEVELS. That's what the OP was sarcastically pointing out.
*Just to be completely clear, I'm pointing out that "And you are..." and such attempts at quantification of the "historic asshole index" are a fallacy.
I'm talking here about the first part of your post. The whole strawman thing.
All you're doing is going round-and-round inside a circular argument. China's ethics is bad, cause compared to America's ethics which IS bad China's ethics is bad, disagreeing is "completely delusional or intellectually dishonest" - ergo, China is "demonstrably worse".
BTW... do you even recall what was it you called a strawman? Here, let me refresh your memory.
Yeah, this makes sense because America is the most ethical country on the planet.
And this is you, just now.
America has had some serious ethical violations recently and I believe our country is less because of them. I am ashamed and dishonored on behalf of my country. What we have done is horrific and may have consequences for years to come.
So... Questioning comparison to USA's ethics is a strawman, BUT pointing out those ethics as bankrupt and then using that position to "prove" China's ethics as worse is OK? Sorry, but that's not even a strawman.
What it is though, is a case of confirmation bias and conditioning with stereotypes. Same way many people in the USA equate socialism with communism, with a foregone conclusion that it's "bad" - while being fans of Star Trek and Federation which is a complete communist utopia.
Now, besides branding and comparing "ethics" of an entire country/nation/people being an utterly nonsensical generalization, actual comparison between USA and China would lead to only one result. Namely that, should "ethics" of a country be judged by it's actions (trying to make that generalization at least SOMEWHAT based on facts) - USA has no ethical leg to stand on.
Well... that's several things, but mostly observer bias and rosy retrospection
In the days of old I came to Slashdot and I made my argument and, sometimes, I got my ass handed to me as people piled on with the various logical arguments that they had. They'd debate with well-reasoned and well articulated responses quite frequently.
What about those that didn't "pile on with the various logical arguments"? Or did you not make any logical arguments of your own, refuting others' illogical points?
These days it seems those debates and learning experiences are rare. Seldom do experts opine from behind their obscure education. It seems that there are fewer posting who have a profession in academia while more people are posting with little thought to accuracy, honesty, and logic. The signal to noise ratio has increased and reasoned debate is rarer. Fewer people are willing to change their views even when shown the faulty logic and the accurate conclusions.
Nah... it's just that there is more people here, so you have a greater chance of reading something written by a troll or an extremist as they are more active.
As for willingness for change... You shouldn't even be looking for that. On one hand admitting one's faults is not really the greatest pastime so you're probably not going to see a lot of that, and on the other, expecting it is kinda... rude.
Instead, just present facts and logical arguments. Forget changing minds or winning arguments and simply inform, accepting that those actually accepting your arguments probably won't even comment while those too set in their beliefs will just end up being more convinced that THEY are right. http://idle.slashdot.org/story/10/07/14/1235220/given-truth-the-misinformed-believe-lies-more
He's just pointing out that "lees ethical" is a comparison.
So, less ethical than who or what? You seem to acknowledge that it's not the USA, with it's faults and all. Such an acknowledgment would actually recognize the original poster's ethics comment as a strawman.
Cause... If it's not USA and China ethics we're comparing, tossing in ethics is a meaningless digression in a form of a generalization that borders on chauvinist propaganda on one side and racism on the other. "Chinese have fewer ethics! BAM! We've beaten them on the moral battlefield already!"
A strawman if I ever saw one. Though, in OP's defense, probably an unconscious one. Heck, his post is actually praising Chinese an prophesying them as winners or at least on the same level as the USA, in some imaginary battle.
It's just that Chinese have been memed into that position of inherently lower morality through centuries of sinophobic propaganda. They've been yellow peril and godless commies for generations (and if that doesn't mean they have no morals...). It's perfectly understandable that they are also nothing but thieves and copiers of other people's tech and makers of cheap junk practically incapable of creativity. And that they would fight harder and with fewer ethics - i.e. fight dirty.
Skateboards are in the "powered by humans" category. Segway needs external power to work.
Fun is secondary to devices ability to transport one from A to B. Without external power, Segway is a very expensive and not very "fun" coat rack. Or a boat anchor.
They are slow scooters that require the entire world to adjust to them so those with more money than sense could walk less. They take up more room than a walking human, have zero cargo capacity AND can't do stairs.
But most importantly they represent an overpriced way of doing something most people can do by just walking - moving slowly in a straight line.
Slashdot Mirror
http://www.innocenceproject.org/understand/Eyewitness-Misidentification.php
Eyewitness misidentification is the single greatest cause of wrongful convictions nationwide, playing a role in nearly 75% of convictions overturned through DNA testing.
While eyewitness testimony can be persuasive evidence before a judge or jury, 30 years of strong social science research has proven that eyewitness identification is often unreliable. Research shows that the human mind is not like a tape recorder; we neither record events exactly as we see them, nor recall them like a tape that has been rewound. Instead, witness memory is like any other evidence at a crime scene; it must be preserved carefully and retrieved methodically, or it can be contaminated.
While back in the reality only thing you can safely assume is that there is more hay.
Only way to be sure that there IS a needle prior to searching trough ALL the hay (at least twice) is if you're the one who's put it there.
And if you're certain that THERE is there and not over there or here.
And even if you find one - how can you tell if it's the only one?
How can you tell that you haven't missed many needles while finding that one?
How can you even tell it's a needle? Maybe it's a nail? Or a piece of wire?
False positives are a bitch too... Just like confirmation bias.
[on Jaws: The Revenge (1987)] I have never seen it, but by all accounts it is terrible. However, I have seen the house that it built, and it is terrific.
By promoting said "Rep-a-trrrst service".
What's the point of a program no one knows about, right?
It's a mere 150k grant for 13 counties, so it's not about simply spending taxpayer's money. At least not at this stage.
Their care may be genuine. As in genuinely delusional.
Those making reports must provide their name and contact information. ...
For iWATCH, people are less likely to be targeted by rumors or malicious accusations. Also, it gives investigators the opportunity to further interview the person reporting the activity.
"It's always a concern that someone may be setting up a neighbor," Rutherford said.
Godforbid, someone should get the idea of misrepresenting one's identity to get one's neighbor (or two) in trouble with the authorities.
I mean, it's not like one could just say his or her name is Neighbor A and report on Neighbor B - and then watch snickering while police pays a visit to both neighbors.
At the very least, one of the neighbors will start being paranoid about the other.
Swans!
There are not enough pictures or other shiny material on Slashdot to attract children that far down the comment thread.
Grown adults with minds of the children on the other hand...
The only reason I'm running an 8.01 at the moment of is because I couldn't be bothered to track down a 5.0 version at the time of the installation.
Which still works just fine on my old box.
Neil deGrasse Tyson comes off as a bit arrogant to me,
Indeed.
I completely understand his "I shall suffer no fools any longer" attitude, but he does put a barrier where there shouldn't be any.
Also, he seems to be aware that he is often rather negative in his approach to explanation, with his tendency to end his talks and discussions with a joke.
Brian Cox on the other hand seems much more opened, approachable and optimistically enthusiastic.
The physicist, not the actor.
Before tighter regulation (which is supposed to make people safer), vs. last year that I could find = 40% increase in violent crime.
Why not before colonization? Just imagine THAT increase.
If you're cherry picking your data points while purposefully ignoring all others your data and calculations from them are beyond worthless.
And on the wrong side of the beyond.
Picking two data points more than a decade apart and calling the change between those points "40% increase" is utter nonsense.
Decades are compared to decades. Years to years.
And both have to take account of ongoing trends if they are to mean anything in context.
You did no such thing.
What you did do is compare (over) a decade of changes while presenting it as an annual change.
Which makes what you did there a falsification of arguments - or if you like it better, setting up a strawman that you can easily tear down.
And no, sorry, "I didn't find better data" does not cut it. It's right there at your source.
You CHOSE to ignore all those years in between.
I never said that it was a ban.
Again, you are missing the point. Utterly and completely.
I mention the absence of "gun ban" as it points out that REGULATION WORKS without it meaning or constituting banning (clearly, even you agree on murder being down, though you cherry pick that one too) and that the guns removed HAD NO EFFECT ON AVAILABILITY OF GUNS TO CIVILIANS for personal protection.
I.e. your assault/sexual assault correlation to gun regulation being BULLSHIT, cause handguns (you know... kind that those rape victims could have been carrying) were not regulated-out.
Which kinda makes your so called "facts" completely false.
Fact: Gun control is argued as being about making people safer.
Fact: It failed (for whatever reason).
Fact: Violent crime went UP by 40% since the great gun grab in Australia.
Now... Those are either errors or utter lies.
As you have been explained your error, your further insistence on the correctness of that error makes it into a lie.
You are now officially lying.
And the life is far to short to waste one's Sundays on arguing with liars.
So please do kindly fuck off.
...and fitting numbers into your bias without thinking about what they mean.
So, while there may be no conscious "deception" from your side - there is plenty of delusion.
One - you use only 2 points of data with over a decade in between.
The fact that you would go out of your way to make a deliberate spreadsheet WHILE at the same time omitting all that data points out your (possibly subconscious) bias.
You're presenting a very distorted image of the real situation - and making false conclusions based on that.
Because...
Two - you are ignoring trends.
Rise in assaults fits BOTH Australian gun regulation laws. There were TWO. One in 1996 and another one in 2002.
Which should be reflected in both your data AND in the trends - it doesn't.
And that one REALLY breaks your entire argument.
Because three...
1996 law "banned all semi-automatic rifles and all semi-automatic and pump-action shotguns".
So that thing about assault and sexual assault going up and correlating with gun regulation only makes sense if all those assaulted people were prancing around with "semi-automatic rifles, semi-automatic and pump-action shotguns" prior to the ban.
Which they very probably weren't.
The 2002 law further regulated handguns - but again NO GUN BAN.
Changes included a 10-round magazine capacity limit, a calibre limit of not more than .38 inches (9.65 mm), a barrel length limit of not less than 120 mm (4.72 inches) for semi-automatic pistols and 100 mm (3.94 inches) for revolvers, and even stricter probation and attendance requirements for sporting target shooters.
Gun regulation does NOT mean "no guns at all".
Your logic (and spreadsheet) only work under the assumption that gun_regulation == gun_ban.
So, all your further logic, data interpretation and even your data acquisition suffer - starting from that FALSE assumption.
i don't have time to go into art history with you... but i can assure you that all attempts to define art once and for all have failed.
see impressionism, fauvism, in fact any ism that was disruptive to previous isms. they've all been condemned as "not art". can i call upon the principle of induction to say that all further attempts will have the same result?
One, I was not talking about what ISN'T art. The "definition" above does not discard ANY form of art, in fact it includes EVERY form of human expression.
Two, it works because it is not designed to be a tool for recognizing or creating "art" or for determining its "value".
It just explains what art IS, not how to create it. A VERY broad definition - not a map or tutorial.
It essentially describes EVERYTHING that the man does or thinks about in order to express himself as art.
From acting to Zen Buddhism.
Including masturbation.
http://www.justice.gov/usao/nye/pr/2013/2013may09.html
Over the course of approximately 10 hours, casher cells in 24 countries executed approximately 36,000 transactions worldwide and withdrew about $40 million from ATMs. From 3 p.m. on February 19 through 1:26 a.m. on February 20, the defendants and their co-conspirators withdrew approximately $2.4 million in nearly 3,000 ATM withdrawals in the New York City area.
2904 withdrawals, not ATMs. About 10 hours, not EXACTLY 10 hours.
Also, it's 8 persons with 12 accounts per person. All they needed to cover was about 30 ATMs.
Which comes out to about 20 minutes per ATM, meaning that each TEAM (i.e. at least one to withdraw the money, one to drive the car and keep lookout) had about 8 minutes to get from one ATM to the next.
Good critical thinking on your part though. Just too much noise in the signal.
By having the camera sending photos/videos to the interwebz.
It could probably already be done in under 100 grams of additional weight. At least for all domestic shipments.
International though...
Not until they come up with a camera-GPS-transmitter-battery combo that can work for a month and weighs 100 grams or less.
Art escapes all attempts to define it. enjoy being wrong.
...your onus is showing.
Art is both a process and the product of an attempt to encapsulate and transfer a human experience through a medium.
Without audience, it's just masturbation.
His was a straw man in that he misrepresented his opponents position.
The person he was responding to never made any such claim and such is indeed a straw man.
I never stated that comparison was a straw man...
1 - It is not a strawman when you're pointing out a flaw in one's logic. OP was questioning GP's logic of comparison.
2 - GP was implying higher ethical standards for one side. OP was using sarcasm to question that implication and to point out the case of "pot meet kettle".
3 - Questioning the comparison with some imaginary notion of "USA ethics" as if it is some kind of a measurable standard IS THE POINT of OP's comment.
You are seeing a strawman in a "Yeah? Who died and made YOU a judge of ethics?" statement.
From crushing people with a road grader, propping up North Korea, sending North Korean refugees back, environmental crimes, Tibet, damming the river ruining lives and property and likely eventually resulting in the greatest disaster the world has ever seen (that's what I'm expecting anyways), to far far more I can go on listing ways. I can do the same thing for the American government as well. At the end of the tabulation I'd say that it is obvious which is less ethical.
Oh, please do. Tabulate.
Really. I'd love to see that.
Don't forget to wind it back all the way to first European colonists landing on North American soil.
Then do a tally of all genocides, wars, human rights violations internal and external and generally calculate the "historic asshole index" of China and USA.
And don't forget to mention the lynching of Negroes and whatever is the Chinese equivalent.*
Ah fuck it. Just wind it back to 1950s and count the military actions around the world.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_history_of_China_(1949%E2%80%93present)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_United_States_military_operations#1950.E2.80.931959
And you know what's the best part? IT DOESN'T... FUCKING... MATTER!
There is no way one can quantify a country's "historic asshole index" NOR would it matter if it could be done.
Should Germany be forever blamed for WWII and everything that came after that? How about Austria? Japan?
I know! Let us begin every conversation by first mentioning American slavery, racism and genocide of the native population and end every conversation with the mention that Americans nuked innocent civilians and a special mention of Vietnam and Iraq.
GP's error (and yours in supporting the idea of comparison of "ethical standards of countries" as if it is a real thing) is one of generalization and labeling.
He basically said "All Chinese are... {insert whatever here}".
INDIVIDUALS have ethical standards - NOT COUNTRIES. Not peoples or nations. Such generalization is WRONG ON MANY LEVELS.
That's what the OP was sarcastically pointing out.
*Just to be completely clear, I'm pointing out that "And you are..." and such attempts at quantification of the "historic asshole index" are a fallacy.
I'm talking here about the first part of your post. The whole strawman thing.
All you're doing is going round-and-round inside a circular argument.
China's ethics is bad, cause compared to America's ethics which IS bad China's ethics is bad, disagreeing is "completely delusional or intellectually dishonest" - ergo, China is "demonstrably worse".
BTW... do you even recall what was it you called a strawman? Here, let me refresh your memory.
Yeah, this makes sense because America is the most ethical country on the planet.
And this is you, just now.
America has had some serious ethical violations recently and I believe our country is less because of them. I am ashamed and dishonored on behalf of my country. What we have done is horrific and may have consequences for years to come.
So... Questioning comparison to USA's ethics is a strawman, BUT pointing out those ethics as bankrupt and then using that position to "prove" China's ethics as worse is OK?
Sorry, but that's not even a strawman.
What it is though, is a case of confirmation bias and conditioning with stereotypes.
Same way many people in the USA equate socialism with communism, with a foregone conclusion that it's "bad" - while being fans of Star Trek and Federation which is a complete communist utopia.
Now, besides branding and comparing "ethics" of an entire country/nation/people being an utterly nonsensical generalization, actual comparison between USA and China would lead to only one result.
Namely that, should "ethics" of a country be judged by it's actions (trying to make that generalization at least SOMEWHAT based on facts) - USA has no ethical leg to stand on.
It would be a kettle calling kettle a kettle.
Well... that's several things, but mostly observer bias and rosy retrospection
In the days of old I came to Slashdot and I made my argument and, sometimes, I got my ass handed to me as people piled on with the various logical arguments that they had. They'd debate with well-reasoned and well articulated responses quite frequently.
What about those that didn't "pile on with the various logical arguments"? Or did you not make any logical arguments of your own, refuting others' illogical points?
These days it seems those debates and learning experiences are rare. Seldom do experts opine from behind their obscure education. It seems that there are fewer posting who have a profession in academia while more people are posting with little thought to accuracy, honesty, and logic. The signal to noise ratio has increased and reasoned debate is rarer. Fewer people are willing to change their views even when shown the faulty logic and the accurate conclusions.
Nah... it's just that there is more people here, so you have a greater chance of reading something written by a troll or an extremist as they are more active.
As for willingness for change... You shouldn't even be looking for that.
On one hand admitting one's faults is not really the greatest pastime so you're probably not going to see a lot of that, and on the other, expecting it is kinda... rude.
Instead, just present facts and logical arguments.
Forget changing minds or winning arguments and simply inform, accepting that those actually accepting your arguments probably won't even comment while those too set in their beliefs will just end up being more convinced that THEY are right.
http://idle.slashdot.org/story/10/07/14/1235220/given-truth-the-misinformed-believe-lies-more
He's just pointing out that "lees ethical" is a comparison.
So, less ethical than who or what?
You seem to acknowledge that it's not the USA, with it's faults and all.
Such an acknowledgment would actually recognize the original poster's ethics comment as a strawman.
Cause... If it's not USA and China ethics we're comparing, tossing in ethics is a meaningless digression in a form of a generalization that borders on chauvinist propaganda on one side and racism on the other.
"Chinese have fewer ethics! BAM! We've beaten them on the moral battlefield already!"
A strawman if I ever saw one.
Though, in OP's defense, probably an unconscious one.
Heck, his post is actually praising Chinese an prophesying them as winners or at least on the same level as the USA, in some imaginary battle.
It's just that Chinese have been memed into that position of inherently lower morality through centuries of sinophobic propaganda.
They've been yellow peril and godless commies for generations (and if that doesn't mean they have no morals...).
It's perfectly understandable that they are also nothing but thieves and copiers of other people's tech and makers of cheap junk practically incapable of creativity.
And that they would fight harder and with fewer ethics - i.e. fight dirty.
We had a discussion about that about a year ago.
http://science.slashdot.org/story/12/04/07/167230/colony-collapse-disorder-linked-to-pesticide-high-fructose-corn-syrup
NOT neocotinids. Fuck!
Still haven't learned NOT to copy/paste from the summary.
what it's like in other parts of the country or the world. But to many people, more expensive food is the same as no food at all.
Fortunately, EU countries where neocotinids have been temporarily banned, tend not to be among such countries.
No, not even Greece.
Skateboards are in the "powered by humans" category. Segway needs external power to work.
Fun is secondary to devices ability to transport one from A to B.
Without external power, Segway is a very expensive and not very "fun" coat rack. Or a boat anchor.
On what planet exactly?
They are slow scooters that require the entire world to adjust to them so those with more money than sense could walk less.
They take up more room than a walking human, have zero cargo capacity AND can't do stairs.
But most importantly they represent an overpriced way of doing something most people can do by just walking - moving slowly in a straight line.