No, actually, that's not the weakness of the First Cause argument.
That argument depends on rejection of the idea of infinite regress, and an extrapolation based on our limited experience that all physical things must have causes external to themselves. Both of those are assumptions, not self-evident truths.
But start with those, and you have to wind up with a First Cause that is not a physical thing.
All the examples you criticized in "The Root of All Evil" are from Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Are the bad effects you speak of common to all religion?
A grateful world sends its thanks that there is one person left who knows the difference and uses the correct phrasing, the one that actually makes sense.
You can't sue prosecutors for accusing you of a crime, in general. This official wasn't a prosecutor, but does the principle apply?
I wonder if Assange has considered a business interference suit as well. Inducing Mastercard to go back on a contract might be a tort, depending on the outcome of some questions I'm not even qualified to enumerate.
He will be going through air, and if you move through air faster than a sound wave would, there are qualitative changes to your aerodynamics.
He will be at "terminal velocity", which means the force of air resistance will equal his own weight.
Considering what happens to the structure of an airplane as it goes transonic, he's taking some interesting chances. Air moving around a body moves at different speeds in different places. When some of it is supersonic and some isn't things are weirder than when you're completely subsonic or completely supersonic.
For which the correct term would be "tabletop exercise", not "simulation", but it's still valuable and I recommend it to clients as the first step in testing their BC/DR plans.
The courts are specifically prohibited from acting unless there is a "case or controversy". Every branch of government needs a check on its power, and that's the check on the judiciary.
I can imagine a lawyer saying "interesting", which is a word you never want to hear from a lawyer if you're the one paying.
It would be really hard to ban resistance heating. If those resistance heaters happened to be in a near-vacuum, with tungsten instead of nichrome, someone could argue it's still the same thing. Then the home center store relocates the 100-watt bulbs to the space heater section, where they belonged in the first place.
Not what my doctor says, though it is a plausible contributor to one of the problems he identifies. He's been paying malpractice insurance premiums for forty years and has been an expert witness in malpractice cases, so he knows what he's talking about.
He sees the problem as fueled by unnecessary procedures and caramelization (wow, that's a great autocorrect failure. I wrote cartel-ization). Unnecessary procedures might be caused by fear of litigation(*), or by a desire to milk the system.
Drug companies like to say that their prices are necessary to recoup research costs, but that doesn't explain doubling the price of a drug after it's already on the market. He's seen that happen.
Health insurance companies have lavish offices in expensive parts of downtown. They didn't get that money by being lean, scrappy competitors.
What he wants to see happen is single payer! That doesn't have to mean government, by the way. A nonprofit mutual insurance company is an option.
(*) If skipping a test might lead to a lawsuit, then skipping the test might lead to a patient getting hurt, in which case it's a necessary test.
An electronic record system would have allowed automatic sanity checks that would have prevented an incident I know about.
The patient's daughter was a nurse, and reviewed an itemized bill. The daughter challenged one of the items. The billing department patronizingly reassured her that it was correct. The item was a prostate exam for her mother.
Legalized possession of images of child abuse allows a market for such things to grow larger that it would be otherwise, creating a demand for more child abuse. There could still be laws against profiting from child abuse, but the drug market has proved that where there is money to be made there will be supply.
Someone who has evidence of child molestation could also be considered an accessory if they don't alert the authorities.
That said, the article raised a point that's not at all hypothetical. Not long ago, here on Slashdot, an ISP mentioned occasionally finding kiddie porn on their servers. At first they tried notifying the police. After getting threatened with prosecution, they switched to a policy of quietly deleting it.
Another key point that should be beyond argument is that the rape of a young child has *nothing* in common morally with a 17.9 year old sexting and the law should treat them separately.
Sulfur dioxide restrictions were implemented flexibly by a cap and trade system. The economic impact was obviously manageable, and the problem got addressed.
It's instructive to look at the political history of the idea of using market forces to distribute the effort of pollution reduction. Look up whose idea it was in the first place.
It's nowhere near as good as satellite data, but we can infer data about past Arctic ice from geological observations.
It's important because it's not just an effect, it's a cause. Arctic ice levels affect climate patterns.
Pointing out that the climate has changed in the past does dispose of the idiots saying "Save the planet!", because the planet will be just fine. It does, however, hide the issue that matters to a lot of humans, which is whether we can still grow enough food for seven billion of us and continue having cities on coastlines.
Notice how it foams up as soon as it hits blood? Blood is full of peroxidase. Breaking down hydrogen peroxide into water and oxygen is routine housekeeping, since your body actually produces hydrogen peroxide as a weapon for the immune system to use.
So: toxic, but gets detoxified almost instantly, and anyway wouldn't it be in the equivalent of a fuel tank?
"The hardening of my arteries is just a natural cycle". "What do doctors know? They can't even tell whether you'll be alive next week, so how can they forecast a decade ahead?" "What do doctors know? My Aunt Nellie's doctor was wrong about something fifteen years go." "Well, of course doctors want to push this 'heart disease' and 'save your life' idea. Look how much money there is in it!" "Well, I found a veterinarian who says just the opposite!"
Slashdot Mirror
"you still have to explain where god came from"
No, actually, that's not the weakness of the First Cause argument.
That argument depends on rejection of the idea of infinite regress, and an extrapolation based on our limited experience that all physical things must have causes external to themselves. Both of those are assumptions, not self-evident truths.
But start with those, and you have to wind up with a First Cause that is not a physical thing.
All the examples you criticized in "The Root of All Evil" are from Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Are the bad effects you speak of common to all religion?
A grateful world sends its thanks that there is one person left who knows the difference and uses the correct phrasing, the one that actually makes sense.
That's $9000 in 2015 dollars.
The VW Beetle came to the US, if memory serves, at $1666 in 1960s dollars.
At least Google lets you get your data out.
You can't sue prosecutors for accusing you of a crime, in general. This official wasn't a prosecutor, but does the principle apply?
I wonder if Assange has considered a business interference suit as well. Inducing Mastercard to go back on a contract might be a tort, depending on the outcome of some questions I'm not even qualified to enumerate.
He will be going through air, and if you move through air faster than a sound wave would, there are qualitative changes to your aerodynamics.
He will be at "terminal velocity", which means the force of air resistance will equal his own weight.
Considering what happens to the structure of an airplane as it goes transonic, he's taking some interesting chances. Air moving around a body moves at different speeds in different places. When some of it is supersonic and some isn't things are weirder than when you're completely subsonic or completely supersonic.
For which the correct term would be "tabletop exercise", not "simulation", but it's still valuable and I recommend it to clients as the first step in testing their BC/DR plans.
The courts are specifically prohibited from acting unless there is a "case or controversy". Every branch of government needs a check on its power, and that's the check on the judiciary.
A long-standing police activity is to walk down the street and try the doors of closed businesses to be sure they're locked.
Of course you're "allowed" to mention it. At most you'll suffer a negative moderation. Even that you can combat by showing evidence.
The commuters would still be paying the substantial expenses of car operation.
I can imagine a lawyer saying "interesting", which is a word you never want to hear from a lawyer if you're the one paying.
It would be really hard to ban resistance heating. If those resistance heaters happened to be in a near-vacuum, with tungsten instead of nichrome, someone could argue it's still the same thing. Then the home center store relocates the 100-watt bulbs to the space heater section, where they belonged in the first place.
Not what my doctor says, though it is a plausible contributor to one of the problems he identifies. He's been paying malpractice insurance premiums for forty years and has been an expert witness in malpractice cases, so he knows what he's talking about.
He sees the problem as fueled by unnecessary procedures and caramelization (wow, that's a great autocorrect failure. I wrote cartel-ization). Unnecessary procedures might be caused by fear of litigation(*), or by a desire to milk the system.
Drug companies like to say that their prices are necessary to recoup research costs, but that doesn't explain doubling the price of a drug after it's already on the market. He's seen that happen.
Health insurance companies have lavish offices in expensive parts of downtown. They didn't get that money by being lean, scrappy competitors.
What he wants to see happen is single payer! That doesn't have to mean government, by the way. A nonprofit mutual insurance company is an option.
(*) If skipping a test might lead to a lawsuit, then skipping the test might lead to a patient getting hurt, in which case it's a necessary test.
An electronic record system would have allowed automatic sanity checks that would have prevented an incident I know about.
The patient's daughter was a nurse, and reviewed an itemized bill. The daughter challenged one of the items. The billing department patronizingly reassured her that it was correct. The item was a prostate exam for her mother.
Legalized possession of images of child abuse allows a market for such things to grow larger that it would be otherwise, creating a demand for more child abuse. There could still be laws against profiting from child abuse, but the drug market has proved that where there is money to be made there will be supply.
Someone who has evidence of child molestation could also be considered an accessory if they don't alert the authorities.
That said, the article raised a point that's not at all hypothetical. Not long ago, here on Slashdot, an ISP mentioned occasionally finding kiddie porn on their servers. At first they tried notifying the police. After getting threatened with prosecution, they switched to a policy of quietly deleting it.
Another key point that should be beyond argument is that the rape of a young child has *nothing* in common morally with a 17.9 year old sexting and the law should treat them separately.
Remember when there was a problem with acid rain?
Sulfur dioxide restrictions were implemented flexibly by a cap and trade system. The economic impact was obviously manageable, and the problem got addressed.
It's instructive to look at the political history of the idea of using market forces to distribute the effort of pollution reduction. Look up whose idea it was in the first place.
It's nowhere near as good as satellite data, but we can infer data about past Arctic ice from geological observations.
It's important because it's not just an effect, it's a cause. Arctic ice levels affect climate patterns.
Pointing out that the climate has changed in the past does dispose of the idiots saying "Save the planet!", because the planet will be just fine. It does, however, hide the issue that matters to a lot of humans, which is whether we can still grow enough food for seven billion of us and continue having cities on coastlines.
Didn't Seymour Cray pioneer the concept?
But closely related to the YF-12, which could carry a missile.
It could take off with full fuel tanks. It was just an incredibly stupid idea that would cause unnecessary wear.
That airframe could not have survived Mach 5 and the engines would not have provided thrust.
The SR-71 is not mothballed, it's dead: spare parts destroyed.
Notice how it foams up as soon as it hits blood? Blood is full of peroxidase. Breaking down hydrogen peroxide into water and oxygen is routine housekeeping, since your body actually produces hydrogen peroxide as a weapon for the immune system to use.
So: toxic, but gets detoxified almost instantly, and anyway wouldn't it be in the equivalent of a fuel tank?
"The hardening of my arteries is just a natural cycle".
"What do doctors know? They can't even tell whether you'll be alive next week, so how can they forecast a decade ahead?"
"What do doctors know? My Aunt Nellie's doctor was wrong about something fifteen years go."
"Well, of course doctors want to push this 'heart disease' and 'save your life' idea. Look how much money there is in it!"
"Well, I found a veterinarian who says just the opposite!"
And so on.
Poor people are going to be the hardest hit.
Rich people can move to high ground and outbid poor people for food.
>church organs
So he was an organ donor?
"The more complex the mind, the greater the need for the simplicity of play".