So you're saying everyone should somehow automatically know TJ Max gave away their credit card info.
No but if you don't at least skim through your statements each month to make sure everything is in order then you're asking for all sorts of problems. Not even necessarily theft but mistakes from the credit card company etc.
Sure you can say "most people use their credit cards too much to notice small charges etc." and if that's your excuse for not keeping closer tabs on your charges then fine that's your choice. But you're still asking for trouble IMO.
That's not to say that it's your fault if something happens. Identity thieves, people who trade in stolen passwords, pedophiles and even companies who lose customer data should be held accountable for their actions and prosecuted for every law they've broken but my only point was that people still have a personal responsibility to protect themselves and common sense dictates that if they fail to live up to that responsibility then undesirable things may occur.
While I am most certainly not saying that someone who doesn't report a lost or stolen credit deserves to be accused of being a pedophile, credit card companies do hold people responsible to cancel a card the moment it becomes lost or stolen and to report any purchases that are out of the ordinary or suspicious.
I agree with your entire message, I just want to point out that if you lose a credit card and don't immediately report it stolen then this type of thing can happen. People need to take the personal responsibility of protecting their assets. If you notice any kind of suspicious purchases on your credit card call the company immediately to cancel it and then notify the police.
As a candian who's been out of high school for about 7 years I can say that the culture is quite different in Canada. While there are "jocks" and "nerds" (as well as countless other labels) the "jocks" aren't as praised as they seem to be in American culture.
From what I remember in school, they've always had "zero tolerance" for violence and bullying. While I disagree with this proposed policy (due to free speech concerns as well as the fact that I think it's none of their business what students do outside of school), it's not really anything new for them. They've always cracked down hard on bullying.
I doubt either of us is qualified to make any real assertions on what the majority of people believe when it comes to whether or not copyright infringement is "wrong". However, there is a huge difference between stealing something, lending something to someone and making a copy of something. The digital age clouds all three of those. If you download a song are you really "taking" something from the artist ? What if you wouldn't have bought the cd anyway ? How have you wronged them if they neither gain nor lose ?
These are the types of questions I really wanted to stay away from in my original post because I had no interest in getting into a sociological debate. My only point was that pandora's box has been opened, so to speak. And obviously a lot of people don't have any moral issues downloading copyrighted works otherwise the RIAA and MPAA and author's guilds etc. would not be complaining.
Reading my original post I realize I made the error of implying that "everyone thinks it's ok". I honestly don't know, nor do I care, what everyone thinks. All I meant was that obviously a lot of people think it's ok.
However, since we did get on the subject of what other people think, I would like to respond to "its only people who have a huge torrent collection and try to rationalise that theft who hide behind "everyone I know does it".:
If I had to guess I would say that at least some portion of people who download music online are people who never owned a single CD in their life. Before the Internet came along they just kept the radio on all the time. When they found P2P it was just a cool new way to be more selective about what they wanted to listen to. They never had a single desire to shell out money for a CD and they got music for free on the radio so what's wrong with listening to music on the Internet ? Same concept as far as they're concerned. Only now they're thieves. The fact that the radio stations pay licenses and royalties to play the music is something that has never concerned them and never will. As far as they're concerned they got it for free before so what's the big deal now ? The big key to the moral ease is the fact that a) it was free before and b) they wouldn't have paid for it anyway.
That's where the real flaw with "most people realise that taking the fruits of someone elses hard work for free is theft." comes into play. The key word is "taking". What are these people taking, exactly ?
I'm not nearly smart enough to propose alternative business models for writers that actually stand a good chance of succeeding. However, the fact of the matter is that new technologies have replaced old business models countless times in the past, and the digital age is simply another example. It has made traditional publishing and distribution obsolete.
Whether or not copyright should be abolished or whether or not writers should be able to control their works is irrelevant. Now that every single person with a computer and an Internet connection has been given the ability to make unlimited copies of digital information and redistribute that information to whomever they like people will do it. Despite whether or not it's illegal.
It's nearly impossible to criminalize something that the vast majority of people do without deeming it wrong. So even if nothing changes with regards to copyright law, DRM and the likes, writers and other artists will be forced to adapt and come up with new and creative business models to survive. It simply does not matter what anyone wants. The only thing that matter is the present reality of the market.
BUT YES LET'S ALL INTERVENE IN DARFUR. That'll make it all OK.
No one has said anything about making it "all OK". But it's never too late to start doing something, and something is better than nothing so long as what you're doing is actually accomplishing something and not making things worse.
Sure. We can be judged for our past actions, or past inactions. That hardly means that we can't start doing things now.
The film was released in North America on September 30, 2005 by Universal Pictures. It received generally positive reviews and opened at number two, taking in $10.1 million its first weekend, spending two weeks in the top ten, and totaling a domestic box office gross of $25.5 million and a foreign box office gross of $13.3 million.[2] Serenity won film of the year awards from Film 2005[3] and FilmFocus.[4] It also won IGN Film's Best Sci-Fi, Best Story and Best Trailer awards and was runner up for the Overall Best Movie.[5] It also won the Nebula Award for Best Script for 2005, the 7th annual 'User Tomato Awards' for best Sci-Fi movie of 2005 at Rotten Tomatoes, the 2006 viewers choice Spacey Award for favorite movie, the 2006 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form[6] and the 2006 Prometheus Special Award.
Besides time? Time, the single most limited resource each of us has?
Granted but the point was doing something vs. doing nothing. Doing nothing is still wasting time IMO.
Ah, the classic ad hominem attack. Kind of comforting, really-- some things never change, like the fact that people who have no real arguments will resort to insulting their opponents.
What I said was not intended as an insult.
You actually have the gall to berate people for not "wasting their time"? Fantastic.
What is this a troll ? Talk about a twisted perspective on what I was trying to say. Perhaps I was not effective in communicating my point.
An argument of "I'm completely happy with my government. I have no descendants. I don't care much for people outside my immediate family and so I have better things to do with my valuable time than concern myself with politics" I would buy. However, an argument of "I hate my government and for that reason I will do absolutely nothing about it but use all of the reasons that I have for hating it to justify why I don't do anything" is rather lazy, and it, in itself, is doing nothing but wasting time.
My point was that the specific reasons the poster cited for not voting were not very good IMO. That's not to say that there aren't any at all.
None of those are reasons not to vote. They're just excuses for being lazy.
Even if you believe that your vote doesn't matter what do you lose from voting besides time ?
On the other hand, if you're wrong, and your vote does make a difference then you've had some say in the politics that affect your every day life. If that doesn't matter to you then, by all means, stay home and jerk off while others who actually care go out and try to change things for the better.
Even if they're just wasting their time at least they're actually doing something.
The way I see it you have three options:
1) You vote and try to change things through the system (writing angry letters, protesting etc.) 2) You don't vote and instead gather a group of supporters and draw arms and try to overthrow your government by force. 3) You do nothing and justify it by saying how futile doing something would be.
The point is the phone would always be turned off.
I'm the type of person who hates talking on the phone no matter the occasion or person. I don't even like ordering a pizza over the phone. I don't even like talking to my father whom I only see once every 5 years or so over the phone (though I do it anyway since it's our only means of communication, I still don't have to like it).
My wife is currently on vacation and there's undoubtedly dozens of messages waiting for us but I wouldn't even know because I won't check them and every phone in the house has had it's ringer turned off. I will not answer the phone. I hate it. I hate people who phone me. They're just plain annoying. If you want to get in touch with me send me an e-mail so I can read it / respond at my leisure. Phones are just so intrusive. If someone calls you your only options are to answer it and talk to someone you don't like at a time that's not good for you, let it ring a billion times and annoy the hell out of you or turn the ringer off / unplug it. When my wife isn't home I always do the latter. When she is home I try not to kill myself or anyone else when the phone rings. I have begged her many times to let us disconnect our phone line but she's female and doesn't hate everyone like I do so the phone stays (she also likes to use the "it's important for emergencies" line but the only time I've ever dialed 911 has been by accident when I was trying to order a pizza, the number started with 977 and I dialed 911 by mistake):(
So there's absolutely no point in me getting a cell phone. It would always be turned off 100% of the time.
Anyway I was hoping that my first post would get modded funny, not be taken so seriously. Even though I really am this way.
Did it ever occur to you that this is no one thing everyone wants or likes? Does everyone watch TV, listen to the radio, read the newspaper, have a (cell)phone?
Indeed. I'm one of the few people I know who does not own a cellphone, nor do I intend to get one in the forseeable future. I can't stand it when my land line rings. I don't need to carry that annoying crap with me every where I go.
I can just see it now... I get off my ass to go to the grocery store to get some milk. I say "be back soon, hon" to my wife as I leave the door. "Cya" she replies. On my way out of the grocery store with the milk in hand my pocket starts singing to me. I reach in to see what the fuck it wants. "Home is calling you" it says. Oh great.
"Yes, dear?" "Hon I forgot to tell you to buy hot dog buns".
While I do mostly agree with your message, I wanted to reply to this particular point:
For over a decade, sixty percent of the prison population is made up of minorities
60% is only 10% greater than 50%. If the prison population was 50/50 minority/majority isn't that pretty much what you'd expect from a purely chaotic system where there isn't any "targetting" going on ? I mean one minority group would obviously represent a small portion of the population (hence the term "minority") but if you take all of the different minorities and group them together how much of the population do they represent ? I'm in no position to be making any kind of guesses but I'm sure it's a lot. I've heard that in Los Angeles the population is 50% Hispanic. So it would make sense that in LA jails 50% of the population would be Hispanic. In other words, 50% would be a "minority".
I think this is most likely a case where statistics are used to bring awareness to a "problem" that doesn't really exist.
A recent related example comes to mind (and this is really OT but it's an example of a blind statistic): I was watching a debate on TVO (public television in Ontario) about genetic screening in embryos to detect predisposition to disabilities. In the course of their debate a statistic arose that claimed that 80% to 90% of mothers who request genetic screening chose to terminate the pregnancy if a genetic mutation is found. However, as sobering as the statistic may be, it is only a statistic with no perspective or context placed on it. It completely ignores the fact that the mothers who chose the genetic screening probably do so because they've already made up their minds to terminate the pregnancy if a genetic mutation is present. Chances are, all of the pregnant women who chose not to undergo the screening are the ones who don't care and will raise the child regardless of whether or not they have a disability and the statistic does nothing to indicate what ratio of pregnant women chose the genetic screening vs. those who don't.
To get back on topic, I would be very much interested in knowing what the total percentage of the population "minorities" (grouped together) represent in the USA. Take African Americans, Hispanics, Asians, Muslims and all racial and ethnic minorities and put them all together and I wouldn't be surprised if they, collectively, represented 50 - 60% of the population. Of course I may be completely wrong. But either way that simple statistic completely ignores that issue.
I often search for things on wikipedia and google just out of personal interest and curiosity. Every time I search for something related to weaponry or toxic substances etc. I can't help but think to myself "will this ever come back to haunt me?"
For example, the other night I was watching an action movie and it got me curious about exactly what plastic explosives are and how they work. You see them in movies all the time and there's obviously a lot of misinformation and hollywood make-believe at hand so I wanted to find out the real story. I wiki'd for it and had an interesting read.
Now the next time I go to cross the Canada/US border (I live on a border town) I half expect customs to detain me and bring up those searches:\
Those are all personal views on a given subject and differ for each person.
Basically you can sum up your entire argument as "if it's illegal then it is 'wrong'". Or at the very least everything that is "wrong" should be illegal.
But that is thinking in terms of black and white and no two people share the exact same opinion of what constitutes "right" and "wrong".
What about seatbelt laws ? Is it "wrong" to not wear a seatbelt ? How does that law have anything to do with morality ? I suppose you'll say that it is "wrong" to not wear a seatbelt but personally I feel that it is "wrong" to attempt to protect people from themselves. People should chose whether or not to put their own lives in risk. I suppose I may have just given you fuel for a rebuttal, though. You may say that it is "wrong" to allow people to put themselves in danger.
All personal opinion.
When it comes to the law, I don't think in terms of "right" or "wrong" because that's a personal point of view. Protecting public safety might be the "right" thing to do but there are people who disagree. Anarchists who feel that there should be no law, that people should be self-governed. In your argument you'd say that is "wrong" but I wouldn't agree.
In my opinion imposing morality on the public is "wrong".
Those are my "morals".
Now the only way to settle this is to call into question the motives of every single politician who has ever passed a law.
You are thinking in terms of "right" and "wrong" whereas I am thinking in terms of public safety.
Is it "wrong" to exploit someone else for personal gain ? Who am I to tell YOU what is right or wrong ? What I do know is that it HARMS the person who gets exploited. The laws are not there to dictate what is right or wrong, they are there to protect public safety. To prevent people from victimizing others. Not because it is wrong but because it is an attempt to create a fair playing field where everyone has a chance to live their life without worrying about some scumbag killing them, raping them, taking their money etc.
In the case of lying to the government, it is not the lying itself that is illegal, it is the act of gaining through the expense of someone else. If you lie on your tax return you are deceiving the government for personal gain. If you lie in a courtroom you are hindering a legal trial. If you lie to the police during an investigation you are obstructing the law. In all of the cases where "lying" is illegal is due to the direct and intentional harm of another being either for malice or personal gain.
That has absolutely nothing to do with morality. Of course you may consider it to be amoral to lie or to harm another or to gain through another's expense. That's fine. I even agree with you. However, morality has nothing to do with why those things are illegal.
Second, believe it or not you will not find a single legislator in any country at any time that does not believe their purpose is to legislate morality. I believe that one of their main purposes is to legislate morality. An believe it or not--you'd be lying if you say you don't either. Allow me to explain: why is murder illegal? Because it's immoral. Why is it illegal for a 25 year old to have sex with a 6 year old? Because it's immoral.
Um.... no
Those things are illegal because they put individual and public safety in jeopardy.
IMO legislation should be in place to do just that. To keep the public safe. I don't much care for people who try to kill me. Not because I feel that they are amoral but because I happen to like living. I also don't care much for grown adults who prey on children, not because I feel that they are amoral but because children are generally unable to defend themselves against fully grown adults. Some people also believe that children are unable to make informed and sound decisions governing their future.
Point being, which I've already stated but will do so again, those laws guard safety not morality.
While it's undeniable that there's tons of Crap on MySpace, it also has it's uses.
As an independent musician who has a CD out, MySpace has given me an excellent means of promotion and finding new listeners. I've also been able to find other musicians to form bands with using MySpace. I wouldn't have a bass player right now if it weren't for MySpace. It was simply a matter of heading over to google and typing "inurl:myspace.com (my city name) bass" (since MySpace lacks a useful search feature, heh) and I found tons of people in my city who played bass.
Yes MySpace is total crap from a technological point of view. I completely understand why the slashdot crowd would have big problems with it. I just, personally, have a hard time disliking it since so much good has come out of it for me.
"If you anounced on the radio that sales were exploding for an album by an unknown group and that the stores would be sold out before the end of the day people would line up so they wouldn't miss out knowing no more about the group than everyone else wanted the album."
Yup that is also a very common marketing trick too. It is exactly why every single new movie that comes out is "The #1 Movie In America!!!" and why every single new book is "The Best Selling Book" etc.
Don't know about your wife but mine has the opposite effect. When noise begins to come out of the unit I find myself with the sudden desire to accelerate quickly.. into any kind of solid object that may be available.
While I'm on a rant, why not crack down on some email spam so people can trust their inbox?
Another point. People choose not to give out their email addresses because of spam. I get asked for my email all the time now by my phone company, bank etc. They don't need my email address and so I simply tell them I don't have one. It wouldn't be any different for an airline. I simply would not trust them to keep it confidential and not send me junk.
I don't think that's petty at all. I don't use OO currently.. but that is one reason that I'm aprehensive about starting it.
I don't use a lot of office tools. Mostly I use a spreadsheet for updating some statistics every day.. but aside from e-mail (which I use Thunderbird for) that's pretty much the only "office"-type tool I use regularly. Excel loads pretty instant on my computer. If I had to wait for everything in Office to load just to open a spreadsheet and update some stats I would find something else.
I do use a word processor every now and again.. but the sheer thought of having to wait for every office app to load just to type up a quick document and print it or whatever makes me cringe. MS Word loads almost instantly on my PC.
Slashdot Mirror
So you're saying everyone should somehow automatically know TJ Max gave away their credit card info.
No but if you don't at least skim through your statements each month to make sure everything is in order then you're asking for all sorts of problems. Not even necessarily theft but mistakes from the credit card company etc.
Sure you can say "most people use their credit cards too much to notice small charges etc." and if that's your excuse for not keeping closer tabs on your charges then fine that's your choice. But you're still asking for trouble IMO.
That's not to say that it's your fault if something happens. Identity thieves, people who trade in stolen passwords, pedophiles and even companies who lose customer data should be held accountable for their actions and prosecuted for every law they've broken but my only point was that people still have a personal responsibility to protect themselves and common sense dictates that if they fail to live up to that responsibility then undesirable things may occur.
While I am most certainly not saying that someone who doesn't report a lost or stolen credit deserves to be accused of being a pedophile, credit card companies do hold people responsible to cancel a card the moment it becomes lost or stolen and to report any purchases that are out of the ordinary or suspicious.
I agree with your entire message, I just want to point out that if you lose a credit card and don't immediately report it stolen then this type of thing can happen. People need to take the personal responsibility of protecting their assets. If you notice any kind of suspicious purchases on your credit card call the company immediately to cancel it and then notify the police.
As a candian who's been out of high school for about 7 years I can say that the culture is quite different in Canada. While there are "jocks" and "nerds" (as well as countless other labels) the "jocks" aren't as praised as they seem to be in American culture.
From what I remember in school, they've always had "zero tolerance" for violence and bullying. While I disagree with this proposed policy (due to free speech concerns as well as the fact that I think it's none of their business what students do outside of school), it's not really anything new for them. They've always cracked down hard on bullying.
I doubt either of us is qualified to make any real assertions on what the majority of people believe when it comes to whether or not copyright infringement is "wrong". However, there is a huge difference between stealing something, lending something to someone and making a copy of something. The digital age clouds all three of those. If you download a song are you really "taking" something from the artist ? What if you wouldn't have bought the cd anyway ? How have you wronged them if they neither gain nor lose ?
These are the types of questions I really wanted to stay away from in my original post because I had no interest in getting into a sociological debate. My only point was that pandora's box has been opened, so to speak. And obviously a lot of people don't have any moral issues downloading copyrighted works otherwise the RIAA and MPAA and author's guilds etc. would not be complaining.
Reading my original post I realize I made the error of implying that "everyone thinks it's ok". I honestly don't know, nor do I care, what everyone thinks. All I meant was that obviously a lot of people think it's ok.
However, since we did get on the subject of what other people think, I would like to respond to "its only people who have a huge torrent collection and try to rationalise that theft who hide behind "everyone I know does it".:
If I had to guess I would say that at least some portion of people who download music online are people who never owned a single CD in their life. Before the Internet came along they just kept the radio on all the time. When they found P2P it was just a cool new way to be more selective about what they wanted to listen to. They never had a single desire to shell out money for a CD and they got music for free on the radio so what's wrong with listening to music on the Internet ? Same concept as far as they're concerned. Only now they're thieves. The fact that the radio stations pay licenses and royalties to play the music is something that has never concerned them and never will. As far as they're concerned they got it for free before so what's the big deal now ? The big key to the moral ease is the fact that a) it was free before and b) they wouldn't have paid for it anyway.
That's where the real flaw with "most people realise that taking the fruits of someone elses hard work for free is theft." comes into play. The key word is "taking". What are these people taking, exactly ?
I'm not nearly smart enough to propose alternative business models for writers that actually stand a good chance of succeeding. However, the fact of the matter is that new technologies have replaced old business models countless times in the past, and the digital age is simply another example. It has made traditional publishing and distribution obsolete.
Whether or not copyright should be abolished or whether or not writers should be able to control their works is irrelevant. Now that every single person with a computer and an Internet connection has been given the ability to make unlimited copies of digital information and redistribute that information to whomever they like people will do it. Despite whether or not it's illegal.
It's nearly impossible to criminalize something that the vast majority of people do without deeming it wrong. So even if nothing changes with regards to copyright law, DRM and the likes, writers and other artists will be forced to adapt and come up with new and creative business models to survive. It simply does not matter what anyone wants. The only thing that matter is the present reality of the market.
BUT YES LET'S ALL INTERVENE IN DARFUR. That'll make it all OK.
No one has said anything about making it "all OK". But it's never too late to start doing something, and something is better than nothing so long as what you're doing is actually accomplishing something and not making things worse.
Sure. We can be judged for our past actions, or past inactions. That hardly means that we can't start doing things now.
Obviously, I haven't taken a poll, but the box office results must mean SOMETHING.
Is that supposed to imply that Serenity was a failure at the box office ? In turn implying that few people liked it ?
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serenity_(film) :
The film was released in North America on September 30, 2005 by Universal Pictures. It received generally positive reviews and opened at number two, taking in $10.1 million its first weekend, spending two weeks in the top ten, and totaling a domestic box office gross of $25.5 million and a foreign box office gross of $13.3 million.[2] Serenity won film of the year awards from Film 2005[3] and FilmFocus.[4] It also won IGN Film's Best Sci-Fi, Best Story and Best Trailer awards and was runner up for the Overall Best Movie.[5] It also won the Nebula Award for Best Script for 2005, the 7th annual 'User Tomato Awards' for best Sci-Fi movie of 2005 at Rotten Tomatoes, the 2006 viewers choice Spacey Award for favorite movie, the 2006 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form[6] and the 2006 Prometheus Special Award.
Besides time? Time, the single most limited resource each of us has?
Granted but the point was doing something vs. doing nothing. Doing nothing is still wasting time IMO.
Ah, the classic ad hominem attack. Kind of comforting, really-- some things never change, like the fact that people who have no real arguments will resort to insulting their opponents.
What I said was not intended as an insult.
You actually have the gall to berate people for not "wasting their time"? Fantastic.
What is this a troll ? Talk about a twisted perspective on what I was trying to say. Perhaps I was not effective in communicating my point.
An argument of "I'm completely happy with my government. I have no descendants. I don't care much for people outside my immediate family and so I have better things to do with my valuable time than concern myself with politics" I would buy. However, an argument of "I hate my government and for that reason I will do absolutely nothing about it but use all of the reasons that I have for hating it to justify why I don't do anything" is rather lazy, and it, in itself, is doing nothing but wasting time.
My point was that the specific reasons the poster cited for not voting were not very good IMO. That's not to say that there aren't any at all.
None of those are reasons not to vote. They're just excuses for being lazy.
Even if you believe that your vote doesn't matter what do you lose from voting besides time ?
On the other hand, if you're wrong, and your vote does make a difference then you've had some say in the politics that affect your every day life. If that doesn't matter to you then, by all means, stay home and jerk off while others who actually care go out and try to change things for the better.
Even if they're just wasting their time at least they're actually doing something.
The way I see it you have three options:
1) You vote and try to change things through the system (writing angry letters, protesting etc.)
2) You don't vote and instead gather a group of supporters and draw arms and try to overthrow your government by force.
3) You do nothing and justify it by saying how futile doing something would be.
Well duh.
:(
The point is the phone would always be turned off.
I'm the type of person who hates talking on the phone no matter the occasion or person. I don't even like ordering a pizza over the phone. I don't even like talking to my father whom I only see once every 5 years or so over the phone (though I do it anyway since it's our only means of communication, I still don't have to like it).
My wife is currently on vacation and there's undoubtedly dozens of messages waiting for us but I wouldn't even know because I won't check them and every phone in the house has had it's ringer turned off. I will not answer the phone. I hate it. I hate people who phone me. They're just plain annoying. If you want to get in touch with me send me an e-mail so I can read it / respond at my leisure. Phones are just so intrusive. If someone calls you your only options are to answer it and talk to someone you don't like at a time that's not good for you, let it ring a billion times and annoy the hell out of you or turn the ringer off / unplug it. When my wife isn't home I always do the latter. When she is home I try not to kill myself or anyone else when the phone rings. I have begged her many times to let us disconnect our phone line but she's female and doesn't hate everyone like I do so the phone stays (she also likes to use the "it's important for emergencies" line but the only time I've ever dialed 911 has been by accident when I was trying to order a pizza, the number started with 977 and I dialed 911 by mistake)
So there's absolutely no point in me getting a cell phone. It would always be turned off 100% of the time.
Anyway I was hoping that my first post would get modded funny, not be taken so seriously. Even though I really am this way.
Did it ever occur to you that this is no one thing everyone wants or likes? Does everyone watch TV, listen to the radio, read the newspaper, have a (cell)phone?
... I get off my ass to go to the grocery store to get some milk. I say "be back soon, hon" to my wife as I leave the door. "Cya" she replies. On my way out of the grocery store with the milk in hand my pocket starts singing to me. I reach in to see what the fuck it wants. "Home is calling you" it says. Oh great.
:(
Indeed. I'm one of the few people I know who does not own a cellphone, nor do I intend to get one in the forseeable future. I can't stand it when my land line rings. I don't need to carry that annoying crap with me every where I go.
I can just see it now
"Yes, dear?"
"Hon I forgot to tell you to buy hot dog buns".
DIE BITCH DIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
No thanks.
Yes I'm rather anti-social
While I do mostly agree with your message, I wanted to reply to this particular point:
For over a decade, sixty percent of the prison population is made up of minorities
60% is only 10% greater than 50%. If the prison population was 50/50 minority/majority isn't that pretty much what you'd expect from a purely chaotic system where there isn't any "targetting" going on ? I mean one minority group would obviously represent a small portion of the population (hence the term "minority") but if you take all of the different minorities and group them together how much of the population do they represent ? I'm in no position to be making any kind of guesses but I'm sure it's a lot. I've heard that in Los Angeles the population is 50% Hispanic. So it would make sense that in LA jails 50% of the population would be Hispanic. In other words, 50% would be a "minority".
I think this is most likely a case where statistics are used to bring awareness to a "problem" that doesn't really exist.
A recent related example comes to mind (and this is really OT but it's an example of a blind statistic): I was watching a debate on TVO (public television in Ontario) about genetic screening in embryos to detect predisposition to disabilities. In the course of their debate a statistic arose that claimed that 80% to 90% of mothers who request genetic screening chose to terminate the pregnancy if a genetic mutation is found. However, as sobering as the statistic may be, it is only a statistic with no perspective or context placed on it. It completely ignores the fact that the mothers who chose the genetic screening probably do so because they've already made up their minds to terminate the pregnancy if a genetic mutation is present. Chances are, all of the pregnant women who chose not to undergo the screening are the ones who don't care and will raise the child regardless of whether or not they have a disability and the statistic does nothing to indicate what ratio of pregnant women chose the genetic screening vs. those who don't.
To get back on topic, I would be very much interested in knowing what the total percentage of the population "minorities" (grouped together) represent in the USA. Take African Americans, Hispanics, Asians, Muslims and all racial and ethnic minorities and put them all together and I wouldn't be surprised if they, collectively, represented 50 - 60% of the population. Of course I may be completely wrong. But either way that simple statistic completely ignores that issue.
I often search for things on wikipedia and google just out of personal interest and curiosity. Every time I search for something related to weaponry or toxic substances etc. I can't help but think to myself "will this ever come back to haunt me?"
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For example, the other night I was watching an action movie and it got me curious about exactly what plastic explosives are and how they work. You see them in movies all the time and there's obviously a lot of misinformation and hollywood make-believe at hand so I wanted to find out the real story. I wiki'd for it and had an interesting read.
Now the next time I go to cross the Canada/US border (I live on a border town) I half expect customs to detain me and bring up those searches
Those are all personal views on a given subject and differ for each person.
Basically you can sum up your entire argument as "if it's illegal then it is 'wrong'". Or at the very least everything that is "wrong" should be illegal.
But that is thinking in terms of black and white and no two people share the exact same opinion of what constitutes "right" and "wrong".
What about seatbelt laws ? Is it "wrong" to not wear a seatbelt ? How does that law have anything to do with morality ? I suppose you'll say that it is "wrong" to not wear a seatbelt but personally I feel that it is "wrong" to attempt to protect people from themselves. People should chose whether or not to put their own lives in risk. I suppose I may have just given you fuel for a rebuttal, though. You may say that it is "wrong" to allow people to put themselves in danger.
All personal opinion.
When it comes to the law, I don't think in terms of "right" or "wrong" because that's a personal point of view. Protecting public safety might be the "right" thing to do but there are people who disagree. Anarchists who feel that there should be no law, that people should be self-governed. In your argument you'd say that is "wrong" but I wouldn't agree.
In my opinion imposing morality on the public is "wrong".
Those are my "morals".
Now the only way to settle this is to call into question the motives of every single politician who has ever passed a law.
This is pointless.
This is where we differ.
You are thinking in terms of "right" and "wrong" whereas I am thinking in terms of public safety.
Is it "wrong" to exploit someone else for personal gain ? Who am I to tell YOU what is right or wrong ? What I do know is that it HARMS the person who gets exploited. The laws are not there to dictate what is right or wrong, they are there to protect public safety. To prevent people from victimizing others. Not because it is wrong but because it is an attempt to create a fair playing field where everyone has a chance to live their life without worrying about some scumbag killing them, raping them, taking their money etc.
In the case of lying to the government, it is not the lying itself that is illegal, it is the act of gaining through the expense of someone else. If you lie on your tax return you are deceiving the government for personal gain. If you lie in a courtroom you are hindering a legal trial. If you lie to the police during an investigation you are obstructing the law. In all of the cases where "lying" is illegal is due to the direct and intentional harm of another being either for malice or personal gain.
That has absolutely nothing to do with morality. Of course you may consider it to be amoral to lie or to harm another or to gain through another's expense. That's fine. I even agree with you. However, morality has nothing to do with why those things are illegal.
Already have it. It's called a PICS label.
Second, believe it or not you will not find a single legislator in any country at any time that does not believe their purpose is to legislate morality. I believe that one of their main purposes is to legislate morality. An believe it or not--you'd be lying if you say you don't either. Allow me to explain: why is murder illegal? Because it's immoral. Why is it illegal for a 25 year old to have sex with a 6 year old? Because it's immoral.
Um.... no
Those things are illegal because they put individual and public safety in jeopardy.
IMO legislation should be in place to do just that. To keep the public safe. I don't much care for people who try to kill me. Not because I feel that they are amoral but because I happen to like living. I also don't care much for grown adults who prey on children, not because I feel that they are amoral but because children are generally unable to defend themselves against fully grown adults. Some people also believe that children are unable to make informed and sound decisions governing their future.
Point being, which I've already stated but will do so again, those laws guard safety not morality.
While it's undeniable that there's tons of Crap on MySpace, it also has it's uses.
As an independent musician who has a CD out, MySpace has given me an excellent means of promotion and finding new listeners. I've also been able to find other musicians to form bands with using MySpace. I wouldn't have a bass player right now if it weren't for MySpace. It was simply a matter of heading over to google and typing "inurl:myspace.com (my city name) bass" (since MySpace lacks a useful search feature, heh) and I found tons of people in my city who played bass.
Yes MySpace is total crap from a technological point of view. I completely understand why the slashdot crowd would have big problems with it. I just, personally, have a hard time disliking it since so much good has come out of it for me.
It's funny because everything you said about Family Guy I think of the Simpsons the last few years.
The jokes got stupid, obvious and very corny.
Yup that is also a very common marketing trick too. It is exactly why every single new movie that comes out is "The #1 Movie In America!!!" and why every single new book is "The Best Selling Book" etc.
Don't know about your wife but mine has the opposite effect. When noise begins to come out of the unit I find myself with the sudden desire to accelerate quickly .. into any kind of solid object that may be available.
While I'm on a rant, why not crack down on some email spam so people can trust their inbox?
Another point. People choose not to give out their email addresses because of spam. I get asked for my email all the time now by my phone company, bank etc. They don't need my email address and so I simply tell them I don't have one. It wouldn't be any different for an airline. I simply would not trust them to keep it confidential and not send me junk.
I don't think that's petty at all. I don't use OO currently .. but that is one reason that I'm aprehensive about starting it.
.. but aside from e-mail (which I use Thunderbird for) that's pretty much the only "office"-type tool I use regularly. Excel loads pretty instant on my computer. If I had to wait for everything in Office to load just to open a spreadsheet and update some stats I would find something else.
.. but the sheer thought of having to wait for every office app to load just to type up a quick document and print it or whatever makes me cringe. MS Word loads almost instantly on my PC.
I don't use a lot of office tools. Mostly I use a spreadsheet for updating some statistics every day
I do use a word processor every now and again
You're absolutely right ..
It's difficult so lets not even try.
*sigh*