A constant background culture of violence, materialism and porn will create a different mood in society to a constant background of for instance, art, classical music and meditative exercises.
I think you are taking the easy way out by using "different mood" instead of what you imply - i.e. that it's much worse, but for which you have no proof. Bringing up porn into a discussion about violence follows the ususal patten of "modern western culture = bad" even though we have plenty of historical evidence that old-fashioned western values were no obstacle to lynching of blacks, slavery, genocide against Indians and plenty of war and aggression.
Compare how you feel after a yoga class and after watching a violent film - there will be a difference, I promise.
You are refering to that feeling of self-satisfied smugness which makes other people want to kill you?:-)
I think the whole idea of linking video games and actual violence is statistically absurd. Millions of people play these games, one or two shoot people. If the game was a major factor, then we should have an epidemic. There must be thousands of things in the lifes of these shooters, which they have in common with other people - watching TV, eating bread, drinking beer, being frustrated at school, being lonely. There is no sensible reason to make a connection with video games.
Actually, while there is no constitutional right in Germany to own a gun, that does not mean it's all that difficult to obtain one. All you have to do is join a rifle club, and get through the bureoucratic hurdles. (It seems the latter mainly requires patience.) IIRC that's what the guy in question did. Also since Germany has a draft, most males have received some gun training, too.
The shareholders are ultimately responsible, not the board.
I'd bet that not a single board member is so poor that he couldn't take the risk of getting fired over being anti-censorship and look for another job. If they do decide to instead direct the company without a sense of morals they don't do it because they are forced. There is nobody who could apply any pressure to them beyond - "oh I can't by another Porsche this year". So if they do suggest a policy like that they do it based on their own free will. They might genuinely believe that it's morally acceptable to comply with the Chinese regulations in this case, they might be motivated by nothing but greed - but if they think what they do is morally wrong they have no-one to blame but themselves. That other people could have stopped them, only means that they'd be guilty, too - I doesn't absolve them of their own responsibility.
But I'll take a president that offers wacko ideas just to break the monotony.
Alternatively you could see voting as a kind of civic responsibility, where you are called to make a responsible decision and vote in order to put someone reasonably qualified in charge. Then for entertainment maybe you could go to the cinema or a comedy club? Just a thought.
Increasing the number of Western occupying soldiers to 400,000, pushing aside the Iraqi government, and running Iraq as a colony on the basis of Western values (e.g., equality for women) will transform Iraq into a prosperous, liberal Western nation. At the end of 20 years of occupation, we can relinquish control to democratically elected Iraqi politicians who spent most of their youth in a Western-value-dominated colony.
That's nothing but wild speculation. It may be possible that 400000 soldiers could stabilize Iraq, it may not be. Troops are not the only factor in making a colony successful, you also need skill. How many troops do you have which even speak any of the local languages? How are you e.g. going to build a police force if you can't even communicate with the population? And then this timescale: 20 years. So after 20 years of violence people will have changed their minds about their basic beliefs like inequality of women? Beliefs which have been enforced by religion for roughly 1500 years? Will they also end religious conflicts which have been in existence for roughly the same time? And all this backed by nothing but military force? You Sir are an optimist...
So there is a strong case for prior art, with patents (?) already held by the National Socialist Workers Party of Germany.
Certainly not by the NSDAP - if anything either by the manufacturing company or by the German government. The Federal Republic of Germany is the legal successor of the 3rd Reich, so if there were any claims not invalidated after the capitulation, they'd be inheriting them. The NSDAP can not hold legal titles on anything, since it was disolved on the 8th of May 1945. I'm not sure where it's assets went to - either to the allies or to the German government.
There is no such thing as a western hemisphere. Where would you put it, at the west pole? Western as a geographic term is nothing but a direction, not a location. As a political term it refers to the European/American side of the cold war conflict. It only works as a direction if seen from Europe (as the most likely battle ground) - seen from the US the "east" was in the west.
Isn't the only direct aspect of their democracy that they have referendums on some issues? That's not terribly close to the Athen's model. (Not that that's a bad thing.)
This is an area where climatologists have no special competence
Climate scientists can not tell you what the best way is to combat climate change or it's effects. However they are best qualified to tell you what the effect of specific measures would be, and whether specific strategies would work or fail.
And if it turns out that the market does not respond to climate change, that is a sign that perhaps it's not as harmful to human activity as climatologists claim.
The market regulates supply and demand, and it is subject to universal mathematical rules like the prisoners dilemma. The market does not prevent you from destroying your environment any more than it prevents you from destroying your country by entering pointless wars. (The free market didn't prevent Austria from entering WW I, for example.)
Speculators [...] may not necessarily *produce* anything, but they are a necessary part of any free market. [...]
If prices fluctuate, there will be people trying to buy low and sell high. That's just the way things work.
Agreed to the latter, but in the first part of your comment you state speculators were necessary. I don't think that holds, and you haven't been able to find an argument for it either. You might very well argue that speculators were an unavoidable side effect of a free market, and that the benefits of that free market outweighs the damage done by speculators. That would not mean that they are doing something useful however, nor would it mean that they deserve respect. Quite to the contrary, attaching a low social status to that kind of occupation would actually be vital, as it would reduce the number of people from entering an unproductive occupation.
Development is not a solo effort, you need to talk to the users, the analysts, the other coders, the testers, there's a whole design process.
I have similar experiences showing that face to face is a lot more efficient than conference calls (though lousy conferencing equipment is one of the contributors to that). On the other hand, programming is a job which requires concentration, constant interruptions are a big problem. I have experience with that, too - when I'm in the office very late or very early I get so much more work done than during the day. So now if schedule permits I try and telecommute once a week, it helps my productivity and doesn't hurt communications with the rest of the team too much. I think it's a good tradeoff.
This might depend a bit on personal preferences, too - one of the most efficient of my colleagues works solely from home, so for him that must be ok, but I know others who claim to work from home, but don't show any results for that time.
You are right of course, thanks for pointing that out:
Shell chairman Sir Philip Watts risks stirring up a controversy in America today when he calls for global warming sceptics to get off the fence and accept that action needs to be taken "before it is too late". - see http://www.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,12 374,912530,00.html
In a Stanford University address, BP's chief executive John Browne said the United States together with Britain, China and other heavily industrialized nations need to create an "international climate agency" to reduce pollution linked to global climate change. (Look it up on google, and select the cache, there is registration involved otherwise)
Shell CEO John Hofmeister "It's a waste of time to debate it," he said. "Policymakers have a responsibility to address it. The nation needs a public policy. We'll adjust." - http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14733060/
Just the typical people you'd expect to be convinced by hippies. Stupid oil executives want us to believe in global warming so that they look good to their hippie friends. And that Bush guy just wants to court support from his hippie constituency.
ask his editor in chief to be nice to the advertisers that actually fund the magazine.
I'm eagerly awaiting your your explanation how that could be ethical. Oh dang - you expected an argument from me explaining why lying an cheating is unethical, right?
He didn't burn your peaceful peasant village.
Neither did he burn yours - very lucky too, all the straw men would have gone up in flames...
Lighten up on the guy.
That's exactly what puzzles me. Why? He is an asshole who would be perfectly happy to have one of his subordinates chose between his integrity and his job. Why would I go easy on him? I have to admit though, that I don't even care much about him particularly (none of my original post even mentions him, if you care to actually read it). My problem is with people who argue that his behaviour should be considered normal in a civilized society, i.e. people like - apparently - you.
Global warming may be happening and it may not be. Who can say with any absolute certainty that global warming is really happening?
Nobody, of course. The same does apply though about me dropping a stone to the ground - I can not say with absolute certainty that it will actually reach the ground. However I'm a lot more certain about this, than about global warming. So can we agree at least, that degrees of certainties (i.e. probabilities) do matter?
all we have are computer models and theories
I can write a model of the climate with a simple 10-line perl script, but it won't be very good. I would think the quality of the model is vital. All of science is just theory, but I trust it with my life each time I enter a plane, and each time I use my car. Even the methods used to evaluate the statics of the house I'm in are based on scientific theory, and not absolute certainty.
It is my belief that money, time, and energy are better spent in actively reducing air, ground, and water pollution than throwing money into global warming research.
I don't think that the money spent on climate _research_ is significant in comparison to what's needed to reduce pollution. In any case - that using the money to reduce polution would be beneficial is a belief with a very low degree of certainty. (Quite fairly you used "my belief" not "I'm 100% certain".) You base it on your private doubts about a theory which you (and me too, for sure) do not fully understand. Now if I build a house, I would listen to the engineer doing the statical calculations. Similarly, if I hired a professional in that field to check whether my house is still statically sound, I would listen to his advice if he concludes that it's not and make the required repairs.
I realize that there must be at least some people in the field who are not competent, so the chance that this engineer would be one of them is not zero. Nevertheless unless I'm able to do the calculations myself, I would go with the professional opinion. Now with global warming, the vast majority of experts agree. The probability that they are part of a huge conspiracy is not zero, but it has to be low considering the number of people who'd have to be involved. The risk of not taking their advice if they are not part of a huge conspiracy, is high. Given that we can not be 100% certain it seems sensible to err on the side of caution.
Wow. Not a single reference. Not a single discussion about how CO2 absorption works or how it compares to the absorption of other gases.
That's a silly comment. Do you seriously believe that Slashdot is the forum for cutting edge research on climate? It's nice that you've read some articles on global warming. This does not qualify you to engage in a debate with climate scientists anymore than having used Excel qualifies you to engage in a debate about running large-scale software projects. To get to the forefront of research in a scientific field requires years of study and hard work. Any comments before you complete these tasks only reflects who you chose to place your trust in. So you have a diagram somewhere? Who the fuck cares, there is no way you or anyone responding to you would be able to prove or disprove this diagram, merely by writing a slashdot post or by linking to some website or another.
I chose to believe the scientific mainstream on climate, because the scientific mainstream works in every other field. If our knowledge about the world wasn't constantly increasing, we wouldn't have semiconductors, jet engines and GPS. So the scientific method has been shown to work, the scientific mainstream is converging on the correct positions and progress is made. Why wouldn't that work with climate research? What's different in that field that's different from all the others?
Or alternatively: first assumption #1 is ridiculed, then #2, and now that debating #3 is no longer convincing anybody, the deniers move to erect a smokescreen around #4. Anybody who thinks that's silly should be ridiculed and banned, of course.
You are thinking of "Stern" not "Der Spiegel". The latter is a investigative political magazine with a good reputation, not the one of "Hitler's diaries" fame. Regardless the article is still a fluff piece.
Ok, let's take New Orleans and Katrina, was that situation a threat to the human species? Of course not, humanity will survive that. Damn unpleasant for the inhabits of New Orleans, though. To me it does make sense to expend effort to protect your city from flooding if you live in a coastal region. So what does your expectation that life itself (maybe humans included, maybe not) will survive climate change, really gain us? Nobody claimed it wouldn't, in the first place. The idea here is, that if we are faced with a potential catastrophe which could make entire countries uninhabitable, and severely impact the world economy, we might consider expending some effort to avoid that. So fine, cockroaches might easily survive such a situation - why would we care about that, though, instead of caring about our own fate and that of our children?
Errrr, climate change has both positive and negative effects.
Sure.
If the cost of reducing carbon emissions is greater than the sum of the positive and negative effects of global warming, why should we spend the money to reduce carbon emissions?
Cause that would require not just a slight increase in temperature to have a overall positive effect, but a steady rise in temperature caused by a steady rise of carbon emissions (which is the current state) to also have a overall positive effect. That's theoretically possible, but a bit too far-fetched to worry about.
Are you saying that scientists shouldn't do this research?
I can't be certain that he wouldn't say it, but he certainly didn't.:-)
What's the difference between you and a believer in creationism?
He's assuming the scientific mainstream is correct, a creationist on the other hand ignores the known available evidence so that he can cling to his faith.
They don't question cretinism, and you don't question global warming.
I don't question cretinism either - it's certainly around.;-) However he's questioning a fluff piece printed in a political magazine, based on the knowledge that some special interest groups are spending a lot of money in order to disseminate false information. I don't completely share the GPs concerns regarding Der Spiegel. It has a good reputation as an investigative political journal, though no particular expertise in science. I'd assume that the scientist they quoted is not a paid shill, cause they'd probably find out about that. However they lack the competence to evaluate science - they published because it sounds interesting and will attract readers. If you want valid information on new scientific developments you'd be better off with a science journal.
Slashdot Mirror
Ok, at least that's a fair warning ...
A constant background culture of violence, materialism and porn will create a different mood in society to a constant background of for instance, art, classical music and meditative exercises.
I think you are taking the easy way out by using "different mood" instead of what you imply - i.e. that it's much worse, but for which you have no proof. Bringing up porn into a discussion about violence follows the ususal patten of "modern western culture = bad" even though we have plenty of historical evidence that old-fashioned western values were no obstacle to lynching of blacks, slavery, genocide against Indians and plenty of war and aggression.
Compare how you feel after a yoga class and after watching a violent film - there will be a difference, I promise.
You are refering to that feeling of self-satisfied smugness which makes other people want to kill you? :-)
Really? It seems just like with Columbine blaming video games is one of the standard reactions, depending on your political background.
I think the whole idea of linking video games and actual violence is statistically absurd. Millions of people play these games, one or two shoot people. If the game was a major factor, then we should have an epidemic. There must be thousands of things in the lifes of these shooters, which they have in common with other people - watching TV, eating bread, drinking beer, being frustrated at school, being lonely. There is no sensible reason to make a connection with video games.
Actually, while there is no constitutional right in Germany to own a gun, that does not mean it's all that difficult to obtain one. All you have to do is join a rifle club, and get through the bureoucratic hurdles. (It seems the latter mainly requires patience.) IIRC that's what the guy in question did. Also since Germany has a draft, most males have received some gun training, too.
I'd bet that not a single board member is so poor that he couldn't take the risk of getting fired over being anti-censorship and look for another job. If they do decide to instead direct the company without a sense of morals they don't do it because they are forced. There is nobody who could apply any pressure to them beyond - "oh I can't by another Porsche this year". So if they do suggest a policy like that they do it based on their own free will. They might genuinely believe that it's morally acceptable to comply with the Chinese regulations in this case, they might be motivated by nothing but greed - but if they think what they do is morally wrong they have no-one to blame but themselves. That other people could have stopped them, only means that they'd be guilty, too - I doesn't absolve them of their own responsibility.
So what is it? Given that I don't know your party affiliation I have no idea what your interpretation would be.
You are right, I'm a moron. As president of the moron club I'd welcome you as a new member, though: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_world
Alternatively you could see voting as a kind of civic responsibility, where you are called to make a responsible decision and vote in order to put someone reasonably qualified in charge. Then for entertainment maybe you could go to the cinema or a comedy club? Just a thought.
That's nothing but wild speculation. It may be possible that 400000 soldiers could stabilize Iraq, it may not be. Troops are not the only factor in making a colony successful, you also need skill. How many troops do you have which even speak any of the local languages? How are you e.g. going to build a police force if you can't even communicate with the population? And then this timescale: 20 years. So after 20 years of violence people will have changed their minds about their basic beliefs like inequality of women? Beliefs which have been enforced by religion for roughly 1500 years? Will they also end religious conflicts which have been in existence for roughly the same time? And all this backed by nothing but military force? You Sir are an optimist...
Certainly not by the NSDAP - if anything either by the manufacturing company or by the German government. The Federal Republic of Germany is the legal successor of the 3rd Reich, so if there were any claims not invalidated after the capitulation, they'd be inheriting them. The NSDAP can not hold legal titles on anything, since it was disolved on the 8th of May 1945. I'm not sure where it's assets went to - either to the allies or to the German government.
There is no such thing as a western hemisphere. Where would you put it, at the west pole? Western as a geographic term is nothing but a direction, not a location. As a political term it refers to the European/American side of the cold war conflict. It only works as a direction if seen from Europe (as the most likely battle ground) - seen from the US the "east" was in the west.
Isn't the only direct aspect of their democracy that they have referendums on some issues? That's not terribly close to the Athen's model. (Not that that's a bad thing.)
Climate scientists can not tell you what the best way is to combat climate change or it's effects. However they are best qualified to tell you what the effect of specific measures would be, and whether specific strategies would work or fail.
And if it turns out that the market does not respond to climate change, that is a sign that perhaps it's not as harmful to human activity as climatologists claim.
The market regulates supply and demand, and it is subject to universal mathematical rules like the prisoners dilemma. The market does not prevent you from destroying your environment any more than it prevents you from destroying your country by entering pointless wars. (The free market didn't prevent Austria from entering WW I, for example.)
Agreed to the latter, but in the first part of your comment you state speculators were necessary. I don't think that holds, and you haven't been able to find an argument for it either. You might very well argue that speculators were an unavoidable side effect of a free market, and that the benefits of that free market outweighs the damage done by speculators. That would not mean that they are doing something useful however, nor would it mean that they deserve respect. Quite to the contrary, attaching a low social status to that kind of occupation would actually be vital, as it would reduce the number of people from entering an unproductive occupation.
I have similar experiences showing that face to face is a lot more efficient than conference calls (though lousy conferencing equipment is one of the contributors to that). On the other hand, programming is a job which requires concentration, constant interruptions are a big problem. I have experience with that, too - when I'm in the office very late or very early I get so much more work done than during the day. So now if schedule permits I try and telecommute once a week, it helps my productivity and doesn't hurt communications with the rest of the team too much. I think it's a good tradeoff.
This might depend a bit on personal preferences, too - one of the most efficient of my colleagues works solely from home, so for him that must be ok, but I know others who claim to work from home, but don't show any results for that time.
Shell chairman Sir Philip Watts risks stirring up a controversy in America today when he calls for global warming sceptics to get off the fence and accept that action needs to be taken "before it is too late". - see http://www.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,12 374,912530,00.html
In a Stanford University address, BP's chief executive John Browne said the United States together with Britain, China and other heavily industrialized nations need to create an "international climate agency" to reduce pollution linked to global climate change. (Look it up on google, and select the cache, there is registration involved otherwise)
Shell CEO John Hofmeister "It's a waste of time to debate it," he said. "Policymakers have a responsibility to address it. The nation needs a public policy. We'll adjust." - http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14733060/
Bush would outline steps the government will take to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/artic les/2007/01/22/bush_set_to_tackle_global_warming/
Just the typical people you'd expect to be convinced by hippies. Stupid oil executives want us to believe in global warming so that they look good to their hippie friends. And that Bush guy just wants to court support from his hippie constituency.
How very mature of you.
ask his editor in chief to be nice to the advertisers that actually fund the magazine.
I'm eagerly awaiting your your explanation how that could be ethical. Oh dang - you expected an argument from me explaining why lying an cheating is unethical, right?
He didn't burn your peaceful peasant village.
Neither did he burn yours - very lucky too, all the straw men would have gone up in flames...
Lighten up on the guy.
That's exactly what puzzles me. Why? He is an asshole who would be perfectly happy to have one of his subordinates chose between his integrity and his job. Why would I go easy on him? I have to admit though, that I don't even care much about him particularly (none of my original post even mentions him, if you care to actually read it). My problem is with people who argue that his behaviour should be considered normal in a civilized society, i.e. people like - apparently - you.
Nobody, of course. The same does apply though about me dropping a stone to the ground - I can not say with absolute certainty that it will actually reach the ground. However I'm a lot more certain about this, than about global warming. So can we agree at least, that degrees of certainties (i.e. probabilities) do matter?
all we have are computer models and theories
I can write a model of the climate with a simple 10-line perl script, but it won't be very good. I would think the quality of the model is vital. All of science is just theory, but I trust it with my life each time I enter a plane, and each time I use my car. Even the methods used to evaluate the statics of the house I'm in are based on scientific theory, and not absolute certainty.
It is my belief that money, time, and energy are better spent in actively reducing air, ground, and water pollution than throwing money into global warming research.
I don't think that the money spent on climate _research_ is significant in comparison to what's needed to reduce pollution. In any case - that using the money to reduce polution would be beneficial is a belief with a very low degree of certainty. (Quite fairly you used "my belief" not "I'm 100% certain".) You base it on your private doubts about a theory which you (and me too, for sure) do not fully understand. Now if I build a house, I would listen to the engineer doing the statical calculations. Similarly, if I hired a professional in that field to check whether my house is still statically sound, I would listen to his advice if he concludes that it's not and make the required repairs.
I realize that there must be at least some people in the field who are not competent, so the chance that this engineer would be one of them is not zero. Nevertheless unless I'm able to do the calculations myself, I would go with the professional opinion. Now with global warming, the vast majority of experts agree. The probability that they are part of a huge conspiracy is not zero, but it has to be low considering the number of people who'd have to be involved. The risk of not taking their advice if they are not part of a huge conspiracy, is high. Given that we can not be 100% certain it seems sensible to err on the side of caution.
It's called replying in a thread - you might want to look into that concept some time...
That's a silly comment. Do you seriously believe that Slashdot is the forum for cutting edge research on climate? It's nice that you've read some articles on global warming. This does not qualify you to engage in a debate with climate scientists anymore than having used Excel qualifies you to engage in a debate about running large-scale software projects. To get to the forefront of research in a scientific field requires years of study and hard work. Any comments before you complete these tasks only reflects who you chose to place your trust in. So you have a diagram somewhere? Who the fuck cares, there is no way you or anyone responding to you would be able to prove or disprove this diagram, merely by writing a slashdot post or by linking to some website or another.
I chose to believe the scientific mainstream on climate, because the scientific mainstream works in every other field. If our knowledge about the world wasn't constantly increasing, we wouldn't have semiconductors, jet engines and GPS. So the scientific method has been shown to work, the scientific mainstream is converging on the correct positions and progress is made. Why wouldn't that work with climate research? What's different in that field that's different from all the others?
Well, not even the attribution to the BBC is true. It was broadcast on channel4. The director does not exactly have a sterling reputation either http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Durkin_(televi sion_director) .
Or alternatively: first assumption #1 is ridiculed, then #2, and now that debating #3 is no longer convincing anybody, the deniers move to erect a smokescreen around #4. Anybody who thinks that's silly should be ridiculed and banned, of course.
You are thinking of "Stern" not "Der Spiegel". The latter is a investigative political magazine with a good reputation, not the one of "Hitler's diaries" fame. Regardless the article is still a fluff piece.
Ok, let's take New Orleans and Katrina, was that situation a threat to the human species? Of course not, humanity will survive that. Damn unpleasant for the inhabits of New Orleans, though. To me it does make sense to expend effort to protect your city from flooding if you live in a coastal region. So what does your expectation that life itself (maybe humans included, maybe not) will survive climate change, really gain us? Nobody claimed it wouldn't, in the first place. The idea here is, that if we are faced with a potential catastrophe which could make entire countries uninhabitable, and severely impact the world economy, we might consider expending some effort to avoid that. So fine, cockroaches might easily survive such a situation - why would we care about that, though, instead of caring about our own fate and that of our children?
Sure.
If the cost of reducing carbon emissions is greater than the sum of the positive and negative effects of global warming, why should we spend the money to reduce carbon emissions?
Cause that would require not just a slight increase in temperature to have a overall positive effect, but a steady rise in temperature caused by a steady rise of carbon emissions (which is the current state) to also have a overall positive effect. That's theoretically possible, but a bit too far-fetched to worry about.
Are you saying that scientists shouldn't do this research?
I can't be certain that he wouldn't say it, but he certainly didn't. :-)
What's the difference between you and a believer in creationism?
He's assuming the scientific mainstream is correct, a creationist on the other hand ignores the known available evidence so that he can cling to his faith.
They don't question cretinism, and you don't question global warming.
I don't question cretinism either - it's certainly around. ;-) However he's questioning a fluff piece printed in a political magazine, based on the knowledge that some special interest groups are spending a lot of money in order to disseminate false information. I don't completely share the GPs concerns regarding Der Spiegel. It has a good reputation as an investigative political journal, though no particular expertise in science. I'd assume that the scientist they quoted is not a paid shill, cause they'd probably find out about that. However they lack the competence to evaluate science - they published because it sounds interesting and will attract readers. If you want valid information on new scientific developments you'd be better off with a science journal.