And if there is some thing which nobody ever wants, then why would we live in a world where that thing is so incredibly common while at the same time being so easy to get rid of?
Listen, people: if we don't want to be surrounded by advertising all the time, we don't have to be. If we want to, we could get rid of most of it with a few simple changes to the law.
The rest are nerds on sites like Slashdot pretending that they represent any kind of majority opinion
Well, okay, but just to be clear, I think the nerds on Slashdot are making the argument that segmenting data with opt-in is the Right thing to do even if it is not the Popular thing to do.
You consent when you clicked the "I agree" button while signing up.
I know this is the state of the world and of the law, but I don't think it's Right. My armchair understanding of contract law is that a contract is only valid when the parties have a "meeting of the minds". If I click a checkbox without reading a contract, then plainly there is no meeting of the minds. Furthermore, even if I DO read it, I'm not a lawyer thus cannot possibly understand it, and thus plainly there is no meeting of the minds. The only "contract" which does not require a meeting of the minds is the law.
So, what would I propose? I propose that we have two thresholds for contracts:
1. A person is presented with a contract, which is read to him word-for-word by a personal attorney which he himself has paid for. The person asks questions about anything he doesn't understand, and the lawyer has the responsibility to explain things that are commonly misunderstood. The person then signs the contract with his written signature (or digital signature which must include a personally held secret) and the contract is stored for as long as it is to be valid. If any of this is not done correctly, the contract is invalid and the law applies; OR
2. The law applies.
That would put the responsibility for good consumer-producer agreements onto the political system, where I think it belongs. The current free-ish market for license agreements is, I think, Bad. I think this proposal would result in a Better World, and I'm a political moderate whose policy preferences are for whatever will lead to a Better World.
Perhaps. It depends on how you define 'human' I guess. In any case, we've had some form of human-ish society for a hell of a long time, and if language is a meme (and it is) then I think it's fair to say that memes can last that long, even if we don't speak the same language today as a million years ago. If you object to the order of magnitude implied by "millions", but agree to the order of magnitude implied by "thousands", then that is sufficient to cover the topic at hand, which is whether black people today are poorer because their great-granddaddies were poorer. I think that is well within the realm of reason for following cause and effect through human generations.
Yes. I'm claiming that humans became more-human-than-inhuman something on the order of two million years ago. (Heck, we've been cooking for a million years.) That's my understanding of the current state of the field of human evolutionary biology. What is your understanding?
You can say that, but it isn't true. We DID have a weak federal government -- you might recall the Confederacy. That failed so we came back with a stronger federal government. There was a national conversation about the Constitution, and it was adopted. You saying that the states would never ratify our Constitution is nonsense because the states did in fact ratify our Constitution.
It's cute that you tried to invent your own definition of what general welfare is, but if you aren't a Supreme Court justice, then you don't have any more prerogative for that definition than any of your 300 million fellow voters. It's cute that you tried to negate 99% of the plain meaning of "interstate commerce", but if all it meant was that licenses transferred between states, then we wouldn't need the commerce clause at all, because the full-faith-and-credit clause would take care of it.
Hey, look, if you want to make it so that Congress can't promote the general welfare, then all you need is a simple Amendment:
The Congress shall not have the power to promote the general welfare. All laws premised on the general welfare are null and void.
Boom, done. Good luck with that. Until then, what you've said is nonsense.
I can answer your meaningless rhetorical rant simply: the general-welfare clause gives to Congress the powers which the Judiciary and the Executive branches agree to, as well as voters. Congress can't euthanize anyone; only the executive branch could do that. If the executive branch won't do it because it's unconstitutional, then it doesn't happen. (Remember all those Bush signing statements? That's what I'm talking about. Congress can say stuff, and then that stuff is never acted on, because the executive thinks its unconstitutional.) Congress can't lay down a capital conviction against a person for trivialities; only the judicial branch could do that. If the judicial branch won't do it because it's unconstitutional, then it doesn't happen. Finally, Congress is beholden to the voters, who have a direct voice in the definition of the general welfare.
The general welfare clause can't endorse an institution of religion, either; nor impose slavery; nor change the length of a Presidential term, because of other Constitutional constraints.
Although it is theoretically impossible to prove a negative, science has shown us beyond a reasonable doubt that we live in a natural universe. Effect follows cause by natural laws in every case. There's no such thing as magic. If you want me to consider a God, that is very interesting, but you'd better be describing a natural God, because if you describe a magical God (a God which produce effects without a preceding cause), I am closed-minded to that. I am not a free thinker; my thoughts are constrained by sense and logic.
I disagree. Religion is not simply your own personal reason for doing things. Religion DOES tell you what is likely to happen when you do something. To take the immediate example, Christianity tells you that if you behave according to certain rules, you will go to heaven. That claim is false, and we know it's false because of science, which has established beyond reasonable doubt that we live in a natural universe. All that is left is unreasonable doubt.
I disagree. The reason black people are poorer (on average) today is similar to the reason that Jews worship the same way their ancestors do, and the same reason we speak almost the same language as Shakespeare.
Memes pass down through generations, for thousands or millions of years. That is so abundantly clear and true that to deny it, as you have done, is untenable. I think it is perfectly clear why MOST children end up in the same socioeconomic class as their parents, even in a world with prevailing economic mobility.
Yeah. It's a problem. The individual mandate SHOULD have been implemented as a tax: raise taxes for everyone, and give an equal rebate to anyone with insurance. I can't fathom the reason why they didn't choose that route, but instead they choose a straight-up normal civil fine for failing to have insurance, thus opening the law to a constitutional challenge. It was foolish, but I'm still not sure how the SCUSA will rule on it.
He quoted those four words from the preamble, but if you had ever read it, you would know that the same four words are found in the list of enumerated powers for Congress.
Really, dude, try reading it some time. It might be really informative for you. It's a wonderful document which doesn't say many of the things people claim about it.
Dude, don't expect to change his mind about the Constitution by quoting the Constitution to him. You will never, EVER convince him that Congress has the Constitutional power to promote the general welfare -- NEVER. He will NEVER admit that. He will NEVER acknowledge that A1S8 exists, or that it gives Congress broad power -- which it does, and does.
Just to be absolutely clear, for everyone who doesn't know, Apple's multi-touch technology was bought from a company called Fingerworks, which sold a multi-touch gesture keyboard a decade ago. I bought one then, and still have it. We all called that thing a multi-touch keyboard, and I'm not sure but if Fingerworks didn't trademark "multi-touch", then it seems to me that Apple officially missed the boat.
Man, I wish commercials were a dealbreaker for more people. They are also a dealbreaker for me, and if they were a dealbreaker for, oh say 15% of people, then that would be enough of a margin, enough of a niche, to carve out solutions for us. Alas, i think we're more like 2-3%.
Indeed, and most of the lightning doesn't even come down and contact the Earth; most lightning, and the biggest lightning, jumps between clouds, as shown in the video.
I think you read into my comment things that weren't there. Don't be so upset. I was warning you to be careful. If you think you'll be okay just because a girl says "yes", then you're wrong. The men at my college received this warning during orientation: specifically, that hearing "yes" wasn't good enough in court. That was a big eye-opener to me. Also, there was no sarcasm. Also, your opinion could, in fact, make you a future rapist, if you behave according to your extremely reasonable opinion, instead of the incredibly unreasonable law. Finally, I decline to fuck off, mostly because you didn't seem to understand what I was trying to tell you, and by extension other readers.
And if I checked my Slashdot comments more than every couple weeks, then others might have benefited from this response.
Mmm hmm. I appreciate your sentiment, but I think you are mistaken to direct your feelings at America. The USA just happens to be the powerful country today. All powerful countries through all of history have always acted as you describe. The problem is human, not American. Trust me, if Portugal or Chad or Tibet were the most powerful country, you'd be upset (rightly) with those humans.
Me? I'm an American. If I were President, I wouldn't have done what Bush did, but whatever I did do probably wouldn't have been popular with a majority of the world's human population. I'd like to think I wouldn't have fucked up everything so badly as Bush, though.
I see what you are saying, but real money seems equally nonsensical. What, I'm supposed to believe that a guy is a millionaire because he let a computer make a zillion sub-one-second stock-market trades in a single day? And yet, here I am, buying things with dollars, and accepting them as pay for my work.
If by "destroy" you mean "reduce by the fraction of inflation", then maybe; and even then, only if you ignore all those gigantic positive economics benefits which come along with the inflation.
Slashdot Mirror
Why would anybody op in for more marketing?
Uh, presumably because they want it.
And if there is some thing which nobody ever wants, then why would we live in a world where that thing is so incredibly common while at the same time being so easy to get rid of?
Listen, people: if we don't want to be surrounded by advertising all the time, we don't have to be. If we want to, we could get rid of most of it with a few simple changes to the law.
The rest are nerds on sites like Slashdot pretending that they represent any kind of majority opinion
Well, okay, but just to be clear, I think the nerds on Slashdot are making the argument that segmenting data with opt-in is the Right thing to do even if it is not the Popular thing to do.
You consent when you clicked the "I agree" button while signing up.
I know this is the state of the world and of the law, but I don't think it's Right. My armchair understanding of contract law is that a contract is only valid when the parties have a "meeting of the minds". If I click a checkbox without reading a contract, then plainly there is no meeting of the minds. Furthermore, even if I DO read it, I'm not a lawyer thus cannot possibly understand it, and thus plainly there is no meeting of the minds. The only "contract" which does not require a meeting of the minds is the law.
So, what would I propose? I propose that we have two thresholds for contracts:
1. A person is presented with a contract, which is read to him word-for-word by a personal attorney which he himself has paid for. The person asks questions about anything he doesn't understand, and the lawyer has the responsibility to explain things that are commonly misunderstood. The person then signs the contract with his written signature (or digital signature which must include a personally held secret) and the contract is stored for as long as it is to be valid. If any of this is not done correctly, the contract is invalid and the law applies; OR
2. The law applies.
That would put the responsibility for good consumer-producer agreements onto the political system, where I think it belongs. The current free-ish market for license agreements is, I think, Bad. I think this proposal would result in a Better World, and I'm a political moderate whose policy preferences are for whatever will lead to a Better World.
Perhaps. It depends on how you define 'human' I guess. In any case, we've had some form of human-ish society for a hell of a long time, and if language is a meme (and it is) then I think it's fair to say that memes can last that long, even if we don't speak the same language today as a million years ago. If you object to the order of magnitude implied by "millions", but agree to the order of magnitude implied by "thousands", then that is sufficient to cover the topic at hand, which is whether black people today are poorer because their great-granddaddies were poorer. I think that is well within the realm of reason for following cause and effect through human generations.
Yes. I'm claiming that humans became more-human-than-inhuman something on the order of two million years ago. (Heck, we've been cooking for a million years.) That's my understanding of the current state of the field of human evolutionary biology. What is your understanding?
You can say that, but it isn't true. We DID have a weak federal government -- you might recall the Confederacy. That failed so we came back with a stronger federal government. There was a national conversation about the Constitution, and it was adopted. You saying that the states would never ratify our Constitution is nonsense because the states did in fact ratify our Constitution.
It's cute that you tried to invent your own definition of what general welfare is, but if you aren't a Supreme Court justice, then you don't have any more prerogative for that definition than any of your 300 million fellow voters. It's cute that you tried to negate 99% of the plain meaning of "interstate commerce", but if all it meant was that licenses transferred between states, then we wouldn't need the commerce clause at all, because the full-faith-and-credit clause would take care of it.
Hey, look, if you want to make it so that Congress can't promote the general welfare, then all you need is a simple Amendment:
The Congress shall not have the power to promote the general welfare. All laws premised on the general welfare are null and void.
Boom, done. Good luck with that. Until then, what you've said is nonsense.
I can answer your meaningless rhetorical rant simply: the general-welfare clause gives to Congress the powers which the Judiciary and the Executive branches agree to, as well as voters. Congress can't euthanize anyone; only the executive branch could do that. If the executive branch won't do it because it's unconstitutional, then it doesn't happen. (Remember all those Bush signing statements? That's what I'm talking about. Congress can say stuff, and then that stuff is never acted on, because the executive thinks its unconstitutional.) Congress can't lay down a capital conviction against a person for trivialities; only the judicial branch could do that. If the judicial branch won't do it because it's unconstitutional, then it doesn't happen. Finally, Congress is beholden to the voters, who have a direct voice in the definition of the general welfare.
The general welfare clause can't endorse an institution of religion, either; nor impose slavery; nor change the length of a Presidential term, because of other Constitutional constraints.
...except that it is legal.
Although it is theoretically impossible to prove a negative, science has shown us beyond a reasonable doubt that we live in a natural universe. Effect follows cause by natural laws in every case. There's no such thing as magic. If you want me to consider a God, that is very interesting, but you'd better be describing a natural God, because if you describe a magical God (a God which produce effects without a preceding cause), I am closed-minded to that. I am not a free thinker; my thoughts are constrained by sense and logic.
Someone else pointed this out, but you picked a very bad example saying that no religious text demands the death of a gay person.
"'If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death."
I could imagine the retort may be that the kid was merely gay, and didn't actually commit a gay sex act -- but that would be nonsense.
I could imagine the retort that the kid was a KID and not a MAN -- but that would be nonsense.
I could imagine the retort that the kid should be KILLED and not DRIVEN TO SUICIDE -- but that would be nonsense.
The Bible does, in fact, demand the death of homosexuals. Bible-believing Christians are tasked with defending that, and many of them do.
I disagree. Religion is not simply your own personal reason for doing things. Religion DOES tell you what is likely to happen when you do something. To take the immediate example, Christianity tells you that if you behave according to certain rules, you will go to heaven. That claim is false, and we know it's false because of science, which has established beyond reasonable doubt that we live in a natural universe. All that is left is unreasonable doubt.
I disagree. The reason black people are poorer (on average) today is similar to the reason that Jews worship the same way their ancestors do, and the same reason we speak almost the same language as Shakespeare.
Memes pass down through generations, for thousands or millions of years. That is so abundantly clear and true that to deny it, as you have done, is untenable. I think it is perfectly clear why MOST children end up in the same socioeconomic class as their parents, even in a world with prevailing economic mobility.
Yeah. It's a problem. The individual mandate SHOULD have been implemented as a tax: raise taxes for everyone, and give an equal rebate to anyone with insurance. I can't fathom the reason why they didn't choose that route, but instead they choose a straight-up normal civil fine for failing to have insurance, thus opening the law to a constitutional challenge. It was foolish, but I'm still not sure how the SCUSA will rule on it.
He quoted those four words from the preamble, but if you had ever read it, you would know that the same four words are found in the list of enumerated powers for Congress.
Really, dude, try reading it some time. It might be really informative for you. It's a wonderful document which doesn't say many of the things people claim about it.
Dude, don't expect to change his mind about the Constitution by quoting the Constitution to him. You will never, EVER convince him that Congress has the Constitutional power to promote the general welfare -- NEVER. He will NEVER admit that. He will NEVER acknowledge that A1S8 exists, or that it gives Congress broad power -- which it does, and does.
Just to be absolutely clear, for everyone who doesn't know, Apple's multi-touch technology was bought from a company called Fingerworks, which sold a multi-touch gesture keyboard a decade ago. I bought one then, and still have it. We all called that thing a multi-touch keyboard, and I'm not sure but if Fingerworks didn't trademark "multi-touch", then it seems to me that Apple officially missed the boat.
I don't at all mind the blog whoring, but copy-paste is pretty easy.
Man, I wish commercials were a dealbreaker for more people. They are also a dealbreaker for me, and if they were a dealbreaker for, oh say 15% of people, then that would be enough of a margin, enough of a niche, to carve out solutions for us. Alas, i think we're more like 2-3%.
Indeed, and most of the lightning doesn't even come down and contact the Earth; most lightning, and the biggest lightning, jumps between clouds, as shown in the video.
I tried to ignore "then", but you followed it up with "loose".
I think you read into my comment things that weren't there. Don't be so upset. I was warning you to be careful. If you think you'll be okay just because a girl says "yes", then you're wrong. The men at my college received this warning during orientation: specifically, that hearing "yes" wasn't good enough in court. That was a big eye-opener to me. Also, there was no sarcasm. Also, your opinion could, in fact, make you a future rapist, if you behave according to your extremely reasonable opinion, instead of the incredibly unreasonable law. Finally, I decline to fuck off, mostly because you didn't seem to understand what I was trying to tell you, and by extension other readers.
And if I checked my Slashdot comments more than every couple weeks, then others might have benefited from this response.
We have a theocracy. Nobody can win a major seat in our government without professing to be a person of faith.
Luckily, that isn't the description of a theocracy. That's the description of a democracy with a religious population.
Mmm hmm. I appreciate your sentiment, but I think you are mistaken to direct your feelings at America. The USA just happens to be the powerful country today. All powerful countries through all of history have always acted as you describe. The problem is human, not American. Trust me, if Portugal or Chad or Tibet were the most powerful country, you'd be upset (rightly) with those humans.
Me? I'm an American. If I were President, I wouldn't have done what Bush did, but whatever I did do probably wouldn't have been popular with a majority of the world's human population. I'd like to think I wouldn't have fucked up everything so badly as Bush, though.
I see what you are saying, but real money seems equally nonsensical. What, I'm supposed to believe that a guy is a millionaire because he let a computer make a zillion sub-one-second stock-market trades in a single day? And yet, here I am, buying things with dollars, and accepting them as pay for my work.
If by "destroy" you mean "reduce by the fraction of inflation", then maybe; and even then, only if you ignore all those gigantic positive economics benefits which come along with the inflation.