Oh, okay, that's the kind of thing I meant by "we'd have to see how the technology worked". Okay, let's see, I'd probably put the demarcation of individual humanity at the beginning of the persistence of individual memory. That's pretty much where I put it with today's wetware technology, but since that line is very much difficult to define (since persistence of memory isn't a clear line), we slide the scale waaaaaaaay back to birth, to be super sure about it.
Well, the great reason to take a righteous stand against Evil Religion is that it is evil. Surely we can all agree on that. But I even take a righteous stand against non-Evil Religion, because even non-Evil Religion is wrong. Opposition to religion is merely a side effect of my preference for truth.
Hmmm. We'd have to see how the technology worked, but the most obvious answer would be that the fetus becomes a baby and assumes its own life when it is disconnected from the machines. It probably wouldn't be a perfectly clear line, just as it currently is not a perfectly clear line, seeing as how we have an energetic discourse about that line. So we'd all have to get together as a society and answer that question, just like we do now.
Yeah, pretty much, the difference is the choice of the mother.
"In what nightmare do you want us to live, where the lives of tiny children can be snuffed out for the convenience of those that are too stupid to properly use birth control?"
Hmmm. Well, I guess I want us to live in the current world, which is exactly as you describe it. I don't think it's much of a nightmare. I prefer this society to any previous society, or to any current society without these freedoms, so it's more of a wonderful dream, but if America in 2012 is a nightmare scenario to you, then yeah, that's what I'm describing.
A strawman argument is where you make an argument that is a caricature of the real argument made by your opponent. I have not done that. Anti-abortion folks do in fact equate a blastocyst with a full-grown adult human being, and every stage in between.
On the other hand, you have equated support for abortion rights with justifying murder. That is in fact a strawman argument.
"why do you think you can twist what the bible says?"
Why do I think I can? Hardly, I'm sure that I can twist what the Bible says! I mean, I'm not as good at it as Christians are, but at least I can try. It's really hard for Christians to turn "love your neighbor" into "hate fags", but they manage to do it. The real underlying point is that if you can twist a text into either of two opposite conclusions, then you can simply skip the text in the first place and focus on the actual issue without all the religious nonsense clouding things.
Perhaps there is "no difference at all", if you ignore the part about the fetus being part of the woman. I hope you can understand why that is a "difference" to many people. Also, in order to determine there is "no difference at all" you have to ignore the next statement you make, about babies being poop machines. Fetuses don't poop, so that's another difference. I already pointed out that fetuses don't breathe, so that's another difference. Babies aren't connected to and dependent upon a placenta, either, so that's another difference. Fetuses also don't qualify as a tax deduction, so that's another difference. Fetuses don't cry, so that's another difference. From my perspective as an expectant father, the biggest difference is that I don't get up in the middle of the night to feed a fussy fetus. Gosh, you know it doesn't seem very hard to come up with quite a list of differences. I wasn't even trying very hard!
Are you still sure there is "no difference at all"? To be clear, just because there are differences doesn't mean that abortion is morally acceptable. They are separate questions. If you concede there are a lot of substantial differences, you can still maintain a moral stance against abortion without being a hypocrite.
Instead of dismissing stories as folk tales, you could simply look at history. We have, what, five or ten thousand years of fiscal policy to examine, and we have one or two hundred years of modern fiscal policy to examine. We have learned during that time what seems to work and what doesn't. I'm not sure why you resist facts and history and experience and want to cleave to a mathematical formula, as if a formula has a magical hold on the truth.
" People don't *need* dollars or gold, they need bread to eat, cars to drive, tar for their roofs, boots for their feet, gas for their stoves etc."
Yeah. But that only costs a couple tens of thousands of dollars per year. "Needs" only account for a small fraction of our economy. I shudder to think of a world where the market incentive is to buy only what you need, and nothing else. This economy we have today is much better, where people buy what they want and can afford. Very few middle class people are going to buy an iPod for 100 Bitcoin if they can get it tomorrow for 99 Bitcoin. Very few rich folks are going to buy a yacht for 1M Bitcoin if they can get a bigger yacht for 1M Bitcoin next year.
You do address this:
"I don't think people would stop spending even in the face appreciable and obvious deflation. Not even on luxuries."
That is a fair assertion, but I disagree with it. I think it is totally obvious that people will and often have done exactly that. If that weren't the case, then deflation wouldn't be considered a problem.
You also address that:
"The mainstream economists are wrong about deflation being a threat."
That is also a fair assertion, but again I'm going with the consensus of educated professionals on this point.
"inflation will destroy their savings if they don't swap cash for assets."
Yes. Inflation is an incentive to swap cash for assets, also known as investing in the economy, for instance by buying stocks or other things. For plain cash, you can earn a rate slightly lower than inflation simply by using a savings account.
"Theoretically bitcoins could avoid the deflationary spiral if there was some central organization making sure there would be an adequate supply"
Right. That is exactly what BitCoin was designed to avoid. In my opinion it is a big weakness.
"I've had the same 50 dollar note in my wallet for 4 months, I am, in effect, hoarding that cash."
Sort of. The way I think of it, it's not the same 50 dollar note. It was a 50 dollar note when you got it, but now it's worth a penny or so less -- or it would be if you held it long enough. Since the note is losing real value over time, you have an incentive to spend the note and try to earn some more money at the new higher inflated rate. If you spent an hour to earn that 50, maybe your hour now earns you 51.
Inflation is both good and bad. Too high is very bad, negative is very bad, but even zero is bad. We need inflation in order to stop money holders from hoarding. During my lifetime, American policy has held inflation at low-but-positive values, and I think that is very good policy. Today I think we could stand to have a little higher inflation.
Oh, that is wonderful. My first child is due next month. You commented on the difference between a just-about-to-be-born fetus and a just-recently-born baby; would you also comment on the difference between a blastocyst and a baby? In my experience as an expectant father, there seems to be a big difference between a blastocyst and a near-term fetus, so there must be an even bigger one compared to a fully born baby. For me, the important distinction is that when it's inside a woman, it's part of the woman, literally and figuratively and legally; and women are empowered to do as they choose with their bodies.
It's not really a religious issue, though, from my perspective -- not for Christians anyway. The Bible defines life as beginning with breath, while tattoos are explicitly prohibited. It's not clear to me why Christians get so bothered about abortion, which is not prohibited in their holy book, but never seem to spend much energy picketing tattoo parlors.
He might have had some criticisms but he always asserted that Afghanistan was the 'good war' and Iraq was the 'bad war'. As President, he administered those two wars consistently with that position.
If you want to critique him on the wars, there's plenty to critique, but hypocrisy isn't part of that. For instance, perhaps you could argue that both wars were bad and should have been shut down on the first day; or that both wars were good and should have been prosecuted at a higher level.
I wonder if that minister ever read the parts of his own holy book which specifically command him to kill people.
I've often said that hypocrisy is the only thing that makes Christians tolerable. Can you imagine if they actually stoned to death women who have premarital sex? or homosexuals? can you imagine if they actually cut off the hands of thieves? or if they all literally gave up all their worldly possessions to live a life of asceticism (think of the economic devastation!)? Can you imagine a legal system where we set free parents who murder their children when they claim that "God told them to do it"? Can you imagine arresting people who shop on Sunday (or on Saturday, the true Sabbath)?
These things would all be intolerable, and these things are all commanded by the Bible. Thank 'God' almost all Christians are hypocrites.
Yeah, Romney is definitely a gladhanding two-faced lying hypocrite, but so many politicians are. I'm for Obama -- I've already voted -- but I'll let you in on a secret (shhhh!): Obama is also a gladhanding two-faced say-anything-to-get-elected politician. I voted for Obama simply because he represented my interests best in 2008, and during his first term. I won't slander him as a lying hypocrite because I don't think he is either of those things, but he certainly engages in funny math and half-truths and hand-waving and distraction tactics. So let's not pretend that motivated half-truths disqualify a person from leadership.
Romney would be fine, if it weren't for the rest of his party. McCain would have been fine, if it weren't for Palin and the rest of his party. Bush? No, Bush would not have been fine, and wasn't: he was a damn disaster. Other Pub candidates would be a disaster: Cain, Santorum, Bachmann, all those rejected cartoonishly ignorant Pubs would be disasters, and that's why they were all rejected by even Republican voters.
Yeah. Both Obama and Romney are moderates. I don't think it's right, though, to say there is no difference. There are differences. Most of the difference would come from legislation which neither candidate would pursue out of personal agenda but would happily sign or veto based on the preferences of his party or base.
You think? I thought she was more aggressive than I've ever seen a moderator at a Pres/VP debate. She cut off each one of them more than once. She visibly tried to divide the time and her questions were pretty specific. I was not familiar with that (probably very famous) journalist but I thought she was pretty decent.
* Gitmo is still open - good, it should be, he was wrong to say he'd close it and he was right to reverse himself * Afghanistan - he increased the effort there in accordance with his promise to do so, which was good policy, and the most common criticism is that he didn't send more or leave them there longer * Friendly Congress - yeah, totally, he got nothing done, except you know the culmination of 90 years of progressive activism
I suspect, though, that you were baiting, so I will return your wink./wink
Normally no, and not this year, but four years ago there was a special exception. You could say that Palin was too scary to be that close to the Presidency, or you could say that picking her was an indication of McCain's terrible judgement. Either way, 2008 was an outlier. This year Ryan and Biden are both reasonably capable and highly informed individuals. Neither of them are terrible or dangerous.
They could do the following the following. The only way to dismiss the dialog box would be to click 'no' or 'OK' with 'OK' as the default. Anyone who simply clicks through would enable DNT. But I myself prefer what Microsoft is doing: turn it on silently by default and allow the user to turn it off if they know about it.
Internet Explorer 10 can help protect your privacy online. A setting called 'Do Not Track' will tell advertisers that you do not want them to follow your browsing. Turn on Do Not Track?
Slashdot Mirror
Oh, okay, that's the kind of thing I meant by "we'd have to see how the technology worked". Okay, let's see, I'd probably put the demarcation of individual humanity at the beginning of the persistence of individual memory. That's pretty much where I put it with today's wetware technology, but since that line is very much difficult to define (since persistence of memory isn't a clear line), we slide the scale waaaaaaaay back to birth, to be super sure about it.
What do you think? Where would you draw the line?
Well, the great reason to take a righteous stand against Evil Religion is that it is evil. Surely we can all agree on that. But I even take a righteous stand against non-Evil Religion, because even non-Evil Religion is wrong. Opposition to religion is merely a side effect of my preference for truth.
Hmmm. We'd have to see how the technology worked, but the most obvious answer would be that the fetus becomes a baby and assumes its own life when it is disconnected from the machines. It probably wouldn't be a perfectly clear line, just as it currently is not a perfectly clear line, seeing as how we have an energetic discourse about that line. So we'd all have to get together as a society and answer that question, just like we do now.
"(the love of the mother)"
Yeah, pretty much, the difference is the choice of the mother.
"In what nightmare do you want us to live, where the lives of tiny children can be snuffed out for the convenience of those that are too stupid to properly use birth control?"
Hmmm. Well, I guess I want us to live in the current world, which is exactly as you describe it. I don't think it's much of a nightmare. I prefer this society to any previous society, or to any current society without these freedoms, so it's more of a wonderful dream, but if America in 2012 is a nightmare scenario to you, then yeah, that's what I'm describing.
A strawman argument is where you make an argument that is a caricature of the real argument made by your opponent. I have not done that. Anti-abortion folks do in fact equate a blastocyst with a full-grown adult human being, and every stage in between.
On the other hand, you have equated support for abortion rights with justifying murder. That is in fact a strawman argument.
"why do you think you can twist what the bible says?"
Why do I think I can? Hardly, I'm sure that I can twist what the Bible says! I mean, I'm not as good at it as Christians are, but at least I can try. It's really hard for Christians to turn "love your neighbor" into "hate fags", but they manage to do it. The real underlying point is that if you can twist a text into either of two opposite conclusions, then you can simply skip the text in the first place and focus on the actual issue without all the religious nonsense clouding things.
Perhaps there is "no difference at all", if you ignore the part about the fetus being part of the woman. I hope you can understand why that is a "difference" to many people. Also, in order to determine there is "no difference at all" you have to ignore the next statement you make, about babies being poop machines. Fetuses don't poop, so that's another difference. I already pointed out that fetuses don't breathe, so that's another difference. Babies aren't connected to and dependent upon a placenta, either, so that's another difference. Fetuses also don't qualify as a tax deduction, so that's another difference. Fetuses don't cry, so that's another difference. From my perspective as an expectant father, the biggest difference is that I don't get up in the middle of the night to feed a fussy fetus. Gosh, you know it doesn't seem very hard to come up with quite a list of differences. I wasn't even trying very hard!
Are you still sure there is "no difference at all"? To be clear, just because there are differences doesn't mean that abortion is morally acceptable. They are separate questions. If you concede there are a lot of substantial differences, you can still maintain a moral stance against abortion without being a hypocrite.
Instead of dismissing stories as folk tales, you could simply look at history. We have, what, five or ten thousand years of fiscal policy to examine, and we have one or two hundred years of modern fiscal policy to examine. We have learned during that time what seems to work and what doesn't. I'm not sure why you resist facts and history and experience and want to cleave to a mathematical formula, as if a formula has a magical hold on the truth.
" People don't *need* dollars or gold, they need bread to eat, cars to drive, tar for their roofs, boots for their feet, gas for their stoves etc."
Yeah. But that only costs a couple tens of thousands of dollars per year. "Needs" only account for a small fraction of our economy. I shudder to think of a world where the market incentive is to buy only what you need, and nothing else. This economy we have today is much better, where people buy what they want and can afford. Very few middle class people are going to buy an iPod for 100 Bitcoin if they can get it tomorrow for 99 Bitcoin. Very few rich folks are going to buy a yacht for 1M Bitcoin if they can get a bigger yacht for 1M Bitcoin next year.
You do address this:
"I don't think people would stop spending even in the face appreciable and obvious deflation. Not even on luxuries."
That is a fair assertion, but I disagree with it. I think it is totally obvious that people will and often have done exactly that. If that weren't the case, then deflation wouldn't be considered a problem.
You also address that:
"The mainstream economists are wrong about deflation being a threat."
That is also a fair assertion, but again I'm going with the consensus of educated professionals on this point.
"inflation will destroy their savings if they don't swap cash for assets."
Yes. Inflation is an incentive to swap cash for assets, also known as investing in the economy, for instance by buying stocks or other things. For plain cash, you can earn a rate slightly lower than inflation simply by using a savings account.
"Theoretically bitcoins could avoid the deflationary spiral if there was some central organization making sure there would be an adequate supply"
Right. That is exactly what BitCoin was designed to avoid. In my opinion it is a big weakness.
"I've had the same 50 dollar note in my wallet for 4 months, I am, in effect, hoarding that cash."
Sort of. The way I think of it, it's not the same 50 dollar note. It was a 50 dollar note when you got it, but now it's worth a penny or so less -- or it would be if you held it long enough. Since the note is losing real value over time, you have an incentive to spend the note and try to earn some more money at the new higher inflated rate. If you spent an hour to earn that 50, maybe your hour now earns you 51.
Inflation is both good and bad. Too high is very bad, negative is very bad, but even zero is bad. We need inflation in order to stop money holders from hoarding. During my lifetime, American policy has held inflation at low-but-positive values, and I think that is very good policy. Today I think we could stand to have a little higher inflation.
Oh, that is wonderful. My first child is due next month. You commented on the difference between a just-about-to-be-born fetus and a just-recently-born baby; would you also comment on the difference between a blastocyst and a baby? In my experience as an expectant father, there seems to be a big difference between a blastocyst and a near-term fetus, so there must be an even bigger one compared to a fully born baby. For me, the important distinction is that when it's inside a woman, it's part of the woman, literally and figuratively and legally; and women are empowered to do as they choose with their bodies.
It's not really a religious issue, though, from my perspective -- not for Christians anyway. The Bible defines life as beginning with breath, while tattoos are explicitly prohibited. It's not clear to me why Christians get so bothered about abortion, which is not prohibited in their holy book, but never seem to spend much energy picketing tattoo parlors.
Yep. All of that is true. That's how the sausage gets made.
He might have had some criticisms but he always asserted that Afghanistan was the 'good war' and Iraq was the 'bad war'. As President, he administered those two wars consistently with that position.
Cite: http://www.boston.com/news/politics/politicalintelligence/2008/07/obama_afghanist.html
If you want to critique him on the wars, there's plenty to critique, but hypocrisy isn't part of that. For instance, perhaps you could argue that both wars were bad and should have been shut down on the first day; or that both wars were good and should have been prosecuted at a higher level.
I wonder if that minister ever read the parts of his own holy book which specifically command him to kill people.
I've often said that hypocrisy is the only thing that makes Christians tolerable. Can you imagine if they actually stoned to death women who have premarital sex? or homosexuals? can you imagine if they actually cut off the hands of thieves? or if they all literally gave up all their worldly possessions to live a life of asceticism (think of the economic devastation!)? Can you imagine a legal system where we set free parents who murder their children when they claim that "God told them to do it"? Can you imagine arresting people who shop on Sunday (or on Saturday, the true Sabbath)?
These things would all be intolerable, and these things are all commanded by the Bible. Thank 'God' almost all Christians are hypocrites.
Yeah, Romney is definitely a gladhanding two-faced lying hypocrite, but so many politicians are. I'm for Obama -- I've already voted -- but I'll let you in on a secret (shhhh!): Obama is also a gladhanding two-faced say-anything-to-get-elected politician. I voted for Obama simply because he represented my interests best in 2008, and during his first term. I won't slander him as a lying hypocrite because I don't think he is either of those things, but he certainly engages in funny math and half-truths and hand-waving and distraction tactics. So let's not pretend that motivated half-truths disqualify a person from leadership.
Romney would be fine, if it weren't for the rest of his party. McCain would have been fine, if it weren't for Palin and the rest of his party. Bush? No, Bush would not have been fine, and wasn't: he was a damn disaster. Other Pub candidates would be a disaster: Cain, Santorum, Bachmann, all those rejected cartoonishly ignorant Pubs would be disasters, and that's why they were all rejected by even Republican voters.
Yeah. Both Obama and Romney are moderates. I don't think it's right, though, to say there is no difference. There are differences. Most of the difference would come from legislation which neither candidate would pursue out of personal agenda but would happily sign or veto based on the preferences of his party or base.
You think? I thought she was more aggressive than I've ever seen a moderator at a Pres/VP debate. She cut off each one of them more than once. She visibly tried to divide the time and her questions were pretty specific. I was not familiar with that (probably very famous) journalist but I thought she was pretty decent.
Hmmm. I don't know.
* Gitmo is still open - good, it should be, he was wrong to say he'd close it and he was right to reverse himself
* Afghanistan - he increased the effort there in accordance with his promise to do so, which was good policy, and the most common criticism is that he didn't send more or leave them there longer
* Friendly Congress - yeah, totally, he got nothing done, except you know the culmination of 90 years of progressive activism
I suspect, though, that you were baiting, so I will return your wink. /wink
Normally no, and not this year, but four years ago there was a special exception. You could say that Palin was too scary to be that close to the Presidency, or you could say that picking her was an indication of McCain's terrible judgement. Either way, 2008 was an outlier. This year Ryan and Biden are both reasonably capable and highly informed individuals. Neither of them are terrible or dangerous.
Yeah. I've never read anything by Dawkins.
Oh, what's that you say? There's no such thing as magic and evolution is be best-supported theory in all of science? Yeah, I already knew that.
Then again, his books are on the long list of books I might read some day. I don't reject them, I simply don't seek them out.
Let me guess, you are a George Hrab fan.
Oh, burn. By only one minute you bonked your chance at finally scoring a first post.
It would work just like email works now. Why does anyone invest money in email?
I feel I have cited my claims adequately: "Compare to do-not-call and annualcreditreport.com."
They could do the following the following. The only way to dismiss the dialog box would be to click 'no' or 'OK' with 'OK' as the default. Anyone who simply clicks through would enable DNT. But I myself prefer what Microsoft is doing: turn it on silently by default and allow the user to turn it off if they know about it.
Internet Explorer 10 can help protect your privacy online. A setting called 'Do Not Track' will tell advertisers that you do not want them to follow your browsing. Turn on Do Not Track?
[no] {OK}