Besides buying copies of "Mein Kampf" and "The Anarchist's Cookbook," what sort of flags could be construed as putting one's transactions over the limit?
The irony here is that real terrorists are unlikely to leave tracks as obvious as this (or so I assume - IANAT). Hence it is virtually guaranteed that most of our "homeland security" dollars are going to be wasted on wild goose chases and the harassment of the politically questionable and/or curious. This will allow everyone to claim that they're diligently doing their jobs, but we'll be no more "secure" as a result.
Hasn't worked for the millions of pot smokers being persecuted in the name of the children.
But what if pot dealers got together and started giving large campaign contributions to the Republican party? Anyone who wonders why tobacco is legal but pot smokers are persecuted need wonder no further. It's what big tobacco, the gun lobby, the big pharmcos, and just about every polluting industry in the country has known for years.
Re:Mensa is right based on Ockhams razor
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Pure Math, Pure Joy
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· Score: 1
Besides which... Invoking God is pretty much the most complicated way imaginable to explain anything. It only seems simple, because once we get to that level we're not supposed to ask any more questions!
Re:Mensa is right based on Ockhams razor
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Pure Math, Pure Joy
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· Score: 1
Unfortunatly without knowing the "CORRECT" answer to this question it is impossible to assertain wheather it is offensive or not.
And just where in my post did you see anyone taking offense? I merely used it as one of the more glaring (and obvious) examples of cultural bias in IQ testing. You have no idea whether I think white chicks or black chicks are prettier! Not to get even more off-topic, or anything...
Re:Mensa is right based on Ockhams razor
on
Pure Math, Pure Joy
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· Score: 1
There was once a question on the Stanford-Binet IQ test (until the early 60s, I think) that showed a drawing of a little pony-tailed white girl next to a girl with African features (broader nose, fuller lips) and asked, "Which is prettier?"
The question was from a book from MENSA Publications, but I don't remember the title (I'm working with a photocopied page here). I have no idea whether the question ever appeared on any official test they use to separate the wheat from the chaff. Also, I'm not so much criticizing the test as pointing out how education can work against you, at least with respect to questions like this. Someone told me once that this is exactly their point, but I really don't know. You seem to, though. Is it?
Re:Mensa is right based on Ockhams razor
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Pure Math, Pure Joy
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Well, according to Ockhams razor I would argue that Mensa is right. The concept of symmetry is much simpler than the concept of prime numbers.
Oh, I wouldn't argue that they were wrong; in fact I think that they set up the question this way deliberately to smack mathematically literate people who see numbers and assume that it's about number theory. They're measuring some function of intelligence minus education.
Speaking of prime numbers & slightly off-topic, on 5/31/2003 there was an eclipse (solar) over Norway from 4:43AM to 6:41AM. 5, 31, 2003, 443 & 641 are all prime...
Heh heh... If you noticed that then you would've failed this too. A while back my girlfriend showed me a question from a Mensa test that clued me in to what that organization is all about:
Which is the odd one out: (a) 4 (b) 15 (c) 9 (d) 12 (e) 5 (f) 8 (g) 30 (h) 18 (i) 24 (j) 10
Well, anyone who knows a prime from a hole in the ground would choose (e), but the correct answer was (f), 8. And why? Because it is the only "symmetrical" number, as printed on the page!
Don't interpret worker productivity as a measure of how hard people are working; it is very much affected by capital inputs. Comparisons between countries have a lot more to do with differences in capital infrastructure than with the respective levels of worker "effort".
Re:Learned Professionals?
on
Working Hard?
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· Score: 4, Insightful
Is it just me or does it seem like almost everything Dubya does is intended to lower the quality of life for the average American?
It's not just you, but sometimes I think it might as well be. The repubs - with passive acquiescence from the dems, I'm sorry to say - have been trying to feudalize society for years. Sometimes through legislation, sometimes through more subtle changes in rules and procedures, but always to the same end. That's why they like to keep their working-class constituency (!) drunk on other things, like religion (as always), war, flag-burning (!!), xenophobia, and the petty advantages that some other working stiff is getting.
If everyone who is getting it up the butt by the Republican Party (which is legal in Texas now, by the way) were to open their eyes for just a day, it would hardly last until the next election.
I'm also sure that many of these people have no idea that they're fascist. Hitler was not Satan incarnate, Nazi Germany did not come into existence overnight, and we must always be on guard against history repeating.
We're already halfway there, and the problem is that most people are willing to be lead the rest of the way as long as we don't call it "fascism". Most people don't think in terms of concepts and systems; instead, they do word associations. Branding, basically. The "Fascism" brand was sullied by Hitler and Mussolini in the same way that the "Socialism" brand was destroyed by Stalin. That's why the radical right is so obsessed with discrediting the reality of the Holocaust: If that didn't happen, then maybe the Fascism brand could be resurrected and even made fashionable again.
The leaders that will take us to Hell won't be wearing horns and pointy tails; they'll freely make use of God as a kind of cattle prod, and they may even believe themselves that they're doing God's work. What worries me to no end is that most people -- and in particular the religious who are being shamelessly manipulated through their faith -- seem to be blind to what is going on. We're in big trouble if they don't wake up soon.
What is not in dispute is that clinton is seeking to change the 22nd ammendment which limits anyone two terms in the presidency.
Yes Siree, that would be the biggest threat to American democracy today. We'd better let the Bushies grab even more power, so they can stamp out this insidious assault on our freedom and liberty by a humiliated ex-president (without a lot of pesky laws getting in the way)!
I'm all for getting people interested in science. But, is there some way to do that without only getting them to absorb a fraction of the information, and then going on to propogate gross misinformation?
Not if you're going to ask them to pay for the research...
Re:I've used genetic algorithms
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Digital Darwin
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· Score: 1
No one designed the Creator - He is self-existent and transcendant.
And so it goes...
Re:I've used genetic algorithms
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Digital Darwin
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· Score: 1
So... Because something can be successfully modeled and simulated, it's thereby disproven? That's one I've never seen before, even from creationists.
The reason evolutionists have to keep coming up with new proofs of their theory is that the old ones keep getting disproved! Wait until one has lasted a few decades, and then we'll talk.
No, it's because this is science, where truth is subject to quality control through observation. A lot messier than religion, where knowledge is absolute and frozen for all time. Do you reject all scientific knowledge that isn't delineated in the Bible, which after all reflects no more than mankind's understanding of the universe at the times it was written? Do the sun, moon, and the heavens all revolve around the earth at the center of the universe? Why is it only the theory of evolution that so threatens the faith, and not, say, theories of gravity or electromagnetism?
And lastly, could God have given us these wonderful brains and not expected that some of us would use them?
Re:I've used genetic algorithms
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Digital Darwin
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· Score: 3, Insightful
Indeed. Given the way that genetic inheritance works -- e.g., with mutation, crossover recombination, etc. -- you could argue that evolution is a matter of mathematical necessity. But faith always trumps reason with the creationists, and so it's usually an exercise in exasperation to debate the issue, no matter how solid your arguments are. They will refuse to comprehend them as a point of principle.
I've done some GA work myself, and it is quite fascinating. E.g., too high a mutation rate and the system destabilizes, but too low a rate and it never (or very slowly) finds its optimum fitness. Throw in some genetic recombination (simulating sexual reproduction) and evolution to higher mean levels of fitness accelerates considerably as useful "genes" are conserved while others quickly disappear. It's very cool.
Modern creationists are in the same place that official Christiandom was in the time of Galileo, I think. If you're religious, nothing in modern biology (which largely is evolution) really denies a role for a deity in kickstarting the whole shebang. Setting up the system to run itself unattended, in fact, would have been the smart way to do it. Those who insist that God would create a system far inferior to this -- i.e., that requires endless hand-tweaking of every minute detail -- are really delivering Him a kind of insult, aren't they?
[Note: Where I am, managers if given nothing to do will order whole departments to reorganize, taking an entire day, just so the Feng Shui of the office is better...at least, that is what it looks like to us.]
They do that because that's what they teach in B-School. When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail...
Yes. A child of, say, a white and a black, will tend to be seen as black by the "pure" whites and as white by the "pure" blacks (I mean "pure" as in "someone who belongs to a clearly defined 'large' race"). But this is because he or she will look different. When you start to have enough people with similar features, you have a new "race", and both "pure" blacks and "pure" whites will start seeing him / her as a "pure gray".
Have to disagree. How many "black" people in this country (US) are "pure black"? Even if you assume that there is such a thing as "pure" white or black (and know how to define it), there has been plenty of mixing over the time since Africans were brought here. Unless you just immigrated from Africa, chances are you have some caucasian ancestry. By your definition, there are actually very few "black" people in America. In general, it's closest to the truth here to say that if at least one of your parents is black, then you are black, too. It is true because society will treat you that way, and through your life you'll have the experiences of a black person.
No, they are socially relevant because if you have a village where everyone's black and one guy is white, he's going to look different. And that alone is socially relevant.
But we differ in a lot of ways other than skin color and the shape of our noses and lips. West Africans look "different" than East Africans, but few white Americans would make the distinction. Some people are tall and some are short, but we don't consider them racially different just because of that (although you could argue that there is height-based discrimination). Race is important because it carries a lot of historical baggage, and gives a convenient cue for social stratification.
Likewise, if I'm white and you're white and I'm telling about this hot chick I met, you'll tend to assume that she's white too, and I'll tend to omit that, because it's "unnecessary network traffic". If she was in fact black, I would tend to mention that, because I knew that you would probably assume she was white.
It would be a pretty good bet. But you'd be wrong in my case!;-)
Some people see this as discrimination and say "Why did you have to mention she was black? Does it make any difference?" But they're wrong. Mentioning she was black is perfectly normal (after all, I was describing her to you); the "strange" thing is why wouldn't I mention it if she was white.
I agree with you here. In mixed company, race is one of the first things we notice in others. It's the same whether you're white or black or asian or whatever. Black people have terms to describe shades of skin color like eskimos have words for snow. I'm white and my girlfriend is black, and we've been seeing each other for quite a long time. Someone asked me once whether this has made me less race-conscious, and was surprised when I replied that if anything, it has probably made me more so. While it has undoubtedly made me much more comfortable about racial differences, it has also made me much more aware of what race is and what it means in our society. Never had to think much about it before that.
Well, it's too nice out there to stay inside clacking away on this. Thanks for a good discussion!
So to answer your question: if a child is born to an interracial couple (meaning two people of clearly identifiable and distinct races), that child will usually inherit characteristics of both races. The child's race? Since you don't say which two races you're talking about, what kind of answer do you expect? It's like asking "if I mix two colours, what colour do I get?"... well, depends on the colours you mix, doesn't it?
That's exactly my point. It defeats the notion of race as a well-defined, discrete genetic concept. There is no genetically-based answer to that question, except that the child will likely share characteristics of both "races". But there is a cultural answer to the question. When one "race" is socially dominant over the other, the child will be classified with the subjugate race. It was once the law here in the U.S., in fact.
As global travel becomes more common, and as cultures influence each other, more and more "races" will be created. Instead of a rainbow with 7 well-defined colours, you'll have a smooth spectrum. The original colours will still be there, but the boundaries between them will be so blurred that it won't be possible to tell where one ends and the other begins.
Again, that was exactly the point that I made. The clusters of genotypes that underly our notion of race have blurred boundaries and are not cleanly separated. Moreover, the genetic variation involved is a very small part of the variation that defines us as individuals, regardless of race.
I have no idea what you mean by "the genetic difference between races".
I never used that phrase; maybe you're debating someone else?
A race is a set of many different characteristics. It's a "meta-characteristic". You won't find a gene that determines your "race". But you will probably find a gene (or a small group of genes) that determines the tone of your skin, and another that determines the colour of your hair. And another that determines the colour of your eyes. And another that determines how curly your hair is. And another that determines how long your nose is. And so on. And if a large group of people share a significant amount of features, voilá, you have a race.
Generally the association between genes and specific physical characteristics (like nose length) isn't one-to-one. Genes that are expressed in early development, for example, can have very widespread consequences. Sometimes the critical difference isn't in the gene itself, but in when, where, and to what degree it's expressed, or in what happens to the gene product after it's expressed. It's really a big & beautiful mess in there!
So what if a person's basic "racial" features (hair, eye and skin colour, etc.) are determined only be a handful of genes? They're still very visible and (socially) very relevant differences.
Exactly. They are socially relevant because we are taught that they are socially relevant. That's culture, which was the original point of my post. Hard as it is, if you look objectively at the clusters of characteristics that we use for racial classification, they're really fairly minor, and not even very consistent. Our culture trains us to amplify our perception of these diffences and their importance. If we were all identical except for, say, our eye color, then I have no doubt that this one difference would have been used through history as the basis for the same kind of slavery and oppression that we've seen based on other factors.
Re:Political correctness again loses against reali
on
Genome Surprise
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· Score: 1, Insightful
So, if a child is born to an interracial couple, the child's race is...?
The point is that the genetic differences behind our racial distinctions are really quite miniscule. The closer you look at them, the harder it is to divide humans into well-defined categories. It is you, I'm afraid, who are holding to a politically-motivated viewpoint that is divorced from reality.
The previous response notwithstanding, you're absolutely right. We're more complex than, say, an earthworm not so much in the number of our genes, but rather in the number of ways that they can be expressed. There are complex regulatory networks, messenger RNAs (the intermediates between genes and their protein products) can be spliced in various ways, etc. It's all very fascinating and mind-boggling, and a hell of a lot more complex than the genome sequence itself can reveal directly.
Slashdot Mirror
The irony here is that real terrorists are unlikely to leave tracks as obvious as this (or so I assume - IANAT). Hence it is virtually guaranteed that most of our "homeland security" dollars are going to be wasted on wild goose chases and the harassment of the politically questionable and/or curious. This will allow everyone to claim that they're diligently doing their jobs, but we'll be no more "secure" as a result.
But what if pot dealers got together and started giving large campaign contributions to the Republican party? Anyone who wonders why tobacco is legal but pot smokers are persecuted need wonder no further. It's what big tobacco, the gun lobby, the big pharmcos, and just about every polluting industry in the country has known for years.
Besides which... Invoking God is pretty much the most complicated way imaginable to explain anything. It only seems simple, because once we get to that level we're not supposed to ask any more questions!
And just where in my post did you see anyone taking offense? I merely used it as one of the more glaring (and obvious) examples of cultural bias in IQ testing. You have no idea whether I think white chicks or black chicks are prettier! Not to get even more off-topic, or anything...
There was once a question on the Stanford-Binet IQ test (until the early 60s, I think) that showed a drawing of a little pony-tailed white girl next to a girl with African features (broader nose, fuller lips) and asked, "Which is prettier?"
The question was from a book from MENSA Publications, but I don't remember the title (I'm working with a photocopied page here). I have no idea whether the question ever appeared on any official test they use to separate the wheat from the chaff. Also, I'm not so much criticizing the test as pointing out how education can work against you, at least with respect to questions like this. Someone told me once that this is exactly their point, but I really don't know. You seem to, though. Is it?
Oh, I wouldn't argue that they were wrong; in fact I think that they set up the question this way deliberately to smack mathematically literate people who see numbers and assume that it's about number theory. They're measuring some function of intelligence minus education.
Heh heh... If you noticed that then you would've failed this too. A while back my girlfriend showed me a question from a Mensa test that clued me in to what that organization is all about:
Which is the odd one out: (a) 4 (b) 15 (c) 9 (d) 12 (e) 5 (f) 8 (g) 30 (h) 18 (i) 24 (j) 10
Well, anyone who knows a prime from a hole in the ground would choose (e), but the correct answer was (f), 8. And why? Because it is the only "symmetrical" number, as printed on the page!
Don't interpret worker productivity as a measure of how hard people are working; it is very much affected by capital inputs. Comparisons between countries have a lot more to do with differences in capital infrastructure than with the respective levels of worker "effort".
It's not just you, but sometimes I think it might as well be. The repubs - with passive acquiescence from the dems, I'm sorry to say - have been trying to feudalize society for years. Sometimes through legislation, sometimes through more subtle changes in rules and procedures, but always to the same end. That's why they like to keep their working-class constituency (!) drunk on other things, like religion (as always), war, flag-burning (!!), xenophobia, and the petty advantages that some other working stiff is getting.
If everyone who is getting it up the butt by the Republican Party (which is legal in Texas now, by the way) were to open their eyes for just a day, it would hardly last until the next election.
We're already halfway there, and the problem is that most people are willing to be lead the rest of the way as long as we don't call it "fascism". Most people don't think in terms of concepts and systems; instead, they do word associations. Branding, basically. The "Fascism" brand was sullied by Hitler and Mussolini in the same way that the "Socialism" brand was destroyed by Stalin. That's why the radical right is so obsessed with discrediting the reality of the Holocaust: If that didn't happen, then maybe the Fascism brand could be resurrected and even made fashionable again.
The leaders that will take us to Hell won't be wearing horns and pointy tails; they'll freely make use of God as a kind of cattle prod, and they may even believe themselves that they're doing God's work. What worries me to no end is that most people -- and in particular the religious who are being shamelessly manipulated through their faith -- seem to be blind to what is going on. We're in big trouble if they don't wake up soon.
Yes Siree, that would be the biggest threat to American democracy today. We'd better let the Bushies grab even more power, so they can stamp out this insidious assault on our freedom and liberty by a humiliated ex-president (without a lot of pesky laws getting in the way)!
Or, at least when it comes to writing rock-solid code that reliably does the wrong thing...
Give me a nice beach just outside my sliding-glass door, and you can keep all this other crap...
Yeah, but then you'd have to give him $20 million just before he takes office. Not that it'd be a bad investment...
Not if you're going to ask them to pay for the research...
And so it goes...
The reason evolutionists have to keep coming up with new proofs of their theory is that the old ones keep getting disproved! Wait until one has lasted a few decades, and then we'll talk.
No, it's because this is science, where truth is subject to quality control through observation. A lot messier than religion, where knowledge is absolute and frozen for all time. Do you reject all scientific knowledge that isn't delineated in the Bible, which after all reflects no more than mankind's understanding of the universe at the times it was written? Do the sun, moon, and the heavens all revolve around the earth at the center of the universe? Why is it only the theory of evolution that so threatens the faith, and not, say, theories of gravity or electromagnetism?
And lastly, could God have given us these wonderful brains and not expected that some of us would use them?
I've done some GA work myself, and it is quite fascinating. E.g., too high a mutation rate and the system destabilizes, but too low a rate and it never (or very slowly) finds its optimum fitness. Throw in some genetic recombination (simulating sexual reproduction) and evolution to higher mean levels of fitness accelerates considerably as useful "genes" are conserved while others quickly disappear. It's very cool.
Modern creationists are in the same place that official Christiandom was in the time of Galileo, I think. If you're religious, nothing in modern biology (which largely is evolution) really denies a role for a deity in kickstarting the whole shebang. Setting up the system to run itself unattended, in fact, would have been the smart way to do it. Those who insist that God would create a system far inferior to this -- i.e., that requires endless hand-tweaking of every minute detail -- are really delivering Him a kind of insult, aren't they?
They do that because that's what they teach in B-School. When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail...
Have to disagree. How many "black" people in this country (US) are "pure black"? Even if you assume that there is such a thing as "pure" white or black (and know how to define it), there has been plenty of mixing over the time since Africans were brought here. Unless you just immigrated from Africa, chances are you have some caucasian ancestry. By your definition, there are actually very few "black" people in America. In general, it's closest to the truth here to say that if at least one of your parents is black, then you are black, too. It is true because society will treat you that way, and through your life you'll have the experiences of a black person.
No, they are socially relevant because if you have a village where everyone's black and one guy is white, he's going to look different. And that alone is socially relevant.
But we differ in a lot of ways other than skin color and the shape of our noses and lips. West Africans look "different" than East Africans, but few white Americans would make the distinction. Some people are tall and some are short, but we don't consider them racially different just because of that (although you could argue that there is height-based discrimination). Race is important because it carries a lot of historical baggage, and gives a convenient cue for social stratification.
Likewise, if I'm white and you're white and I'm telling about this hot chick I met, you'll tend to assume that she's white too, and I'll tend to omit that, because it's "unnecessary network traffic". If she was in fact black, I would tend to mention that, because I knew that you would probably assume she was white.
It would be a pretty good bet. But you'd be wrong in my case!;-)
Some people see this as discrimination and say "Why did you have to mention she was black? Does it make any difference?" But they're wrong. Mentioning she was black is perfectly normal (after all, I was describing her to you); the "strange" thing is why wouldn't I mention it if she was white.
I agree with you here. In mixed company, race is one of the first things we notice in others. It's the same whether you're white or black or asian or whatever. Black people have terms to describe shades of skin color like eskimos have words for snow. I'm white and my girlfriend is black, and we've been seeing each other for quite a long time. Someone asked me once whether this has made me less race-conscious, and was surprised when I replied that if anything, it has probably made me more so. While it has undoubtedly made me much more comfortable about racial differences, it has also made me much more aware of what race is and what it means in our society. Never had to think much about it before that.
Well, it's too nice out there to stay inside clacking away on this. Thanks for a good discussion!
That's exactly my point. It defeats the notion of race as a well-defined, discrete genetic concept. There is no genetically-based answer to that question, except that the child will likely share characteristics of both "races". But there is a cultural answer to the question. When one "race" is socially dominant over the other, the child will be classified with the subjugate race. It was once the law here in the U.S., in fact.
As global travel becomes more common, and as cultures influence each other, more and more "races" will be created. Instead of a rainbow with 7 well-defined colours, you'll have a smooth spectrum. The original colours will still be there, but the boundaries between them will be so blurred that it won't be possible to tell where one ends and the other begins.
Again, that was exactly the point that I made. The clusters of genotypes that underly our notion of race have blurred boundaries and are not cleanly separated. Moreover, the genetic variation involved is a very small part of the variation that defines us as individuals, regardless of race.
I have no idea what you mean by "the genetic difference between races".
I never used that phrase; maybe you're debating someone else?
A race is a set of many different characteristics. It's a "meta-characteristic". You won't find a gene that determines your "race". But you will probably find a gene (or a small group of genes) that determines the tone of your skin, and another that determines the colour of your hair. And another that determines the colour of your eyes. And another that determines how curly your hair is. And another that determines how long your nose is. And so on. And if a large group of people share a significant amount of features, voilá, you have a race.
Generally the association between genes and specific physical characteristics (like nose length) isn't one-to-one. Genes that are expressed in early development, for example, can have very widespread consequences. Sometimes the critical difference isn't in the gene itself, but in when, where, and to what degree it's expressed, or in what happens to the gene product after it's expressed. It's really a big & beautiful mess in there!
So what if a person's basic "racial" features (hair, eye and skin colour, etc.) are determined only be a handful of genes? They're still very visible and (socially) very relevant differences.
Exactly. They are socially relevant because we are taught that they are socially relevant. That's culture, which was the original point of my post. Hard as it is, if you look objectively at the clusters of characteristics that we use for racial classification, they're really fairly minor, and not even very consistent. Our culture trains us to amplify our perception of these diffences and their importance. If we were all identical except for, say, our eye color, then I have no doubt that this one difference would have been used through history as the basis for the same kind of slavery and oppression that we've seen based on other factors.
The point is that the genetic differences behind our racial distinctions are really quite miniscule. The closer you look at them, the harder it is to divide humans into well-defined categories. It is you, I'm afraid, who are holding to a politically-motivated viewpoint that is divorced from reality.
The previous response notwithstanding, you're absolutely right. We're more complex than, say, an earthworm not so much in the number of our genes, but rather in the number of ways that they can be expressed. There are complex regulatory networks, messenger RNAs (the intermediates between genes and their protein products) can be spliced in various ways, etc. It's all very fascinating and mind-boggling, and a hell of a lot more complex than the genome sequence itself can reveal directly.
Oops... yes. Sometimes data makes you forget what you know, or should have known. Spoofed or not, though, filtering out AOL works pretty well for me!