"Not really. Children have guardians who are responsible for them. Those guardians are also responsible to society for the wellbeing of the children. That's not the same thing as "rights". It becomes somewhat of a grey area for teenagers when they are old enough to start being minimally responsble."
Okay, found the post. I see now that you are making this up as you go along. It's your personal theory about what rights are and who or what should have them. Obviously, the world doesn't work this way. Children have rights, as children and as human beings, period. That's the law. Likewise, animals have certain rights, as has been pointed out. You don't want to call those rights, because it doesn't rhyme with your theory of how rights should work, but in the real world, that's what everyone calls them.
"The difference between humanity and the animals is an important one. Humans have more value than animals in every sense of the word "value". Failure to recognize this fact is not in the best interests of humans. And it's the best interest of humans that matters."
Well, a lot of people seem to disagree with you there. *shrug*
I don't think I understand what you mean by "morality" at all, and I can't find the post "above" where you answered this question, so I'd really like to hear why we shouldn't produce human babies for research purposes. The difference between this question and your followup example of a "cartoon-like argument" is that the former actually follows from what you have said here while you grabbed the latter out of thin air.
Are they tied in any way to performance? Here in Sweden you need to get a passing grade for the courses for which you have applied for student loans, or you will have to refund them immediately. Is there something similar in the US?
As a safe alternative for sober computer gamers, I recommend...
FRAG!
'Frag is a computer game without a computer. It's a "first-person shooter" on a tabletop. Move your fighter and frag your foes; draw cards for weapons, armor, and gadgets; move through the blood spatters to restore your own health! If you die, you respawn and come back shooting!' http://www.sjgames.com/frag/
Every one of those emails would be spam if they arrived in my mailbox, since I don't know any of those people and have no contact with those companies.
The average read-Slashdot-during-work-while-coding Slashdotter is not in his league, so decrying his adhominem attacks, or "I would do X instead" arguments just dont hold much water.
Except the thing with ad hominem attacks is exactly that if you make them you are wrong regardless of whatever else you may be right about. It's a bit like shooting yourself in the head, rhetorically speaking.
I also claim that Slashdot people usually are smelly and eat their boogers, and have an IQ slightly lower than my daughters pet hamster (that's "hamster" without a "p", btw, for any slashdot posters out there. Try to follow me, ok?).
Furthermore, I claim that anybody that hasn't noticed by now that I'm an opinionated bastard, and that "impolite" is my middle name, is lacking a few clues.
Finally, it's clear that I'm not only the smartest person around, I'm also incredibly good-looking, and that my infallible charm is also second only to my becoming modesty.
So there. Just to clarify.
He forgot most mature! Most mature person around! *sigh* Well, if he can't trust the/. crowd to put up with his attitude, what reaction does he expect to get from people who don't give a microchannel's @ss about kernel code?
But that's not what I was saying. I was saying that people who think that everyone is a little bit right are simply ignorant and confused, and that things are little bit more certain than that. But to know how it is, you need to learn some things. That's the downside to it. You need to make an effort, read some books, take a course. Or, you could take another puff off your joint and settle on that everyone is a bit right, and let's stay friends and talk about something else. Up to you.
Wow. You should email Edward Daeschler of the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia and explain to him that he is being silly, and that if he had just read up on some different kinds of fishies he would know that this is nothing remarkable.
Oh yea, verily I say unto you--it sure seems people are unlearning a lot about science these days. So, one more time for the record:
Claiming that a scientific theory is weak because it has not been proven is like claiming that Peter Forsberg is a poor athlete because he didn't make a single homerun last season. Wrong game. Science deals in evidence, which makes a theory more or less likely. Biological evolution has a lot of evidence, non of which proves it, but enough to make it very, very likely. Similarly, the theory of gravity (you know, the theory that stuff falls down) has lots of evidence, but not enough to prove that it's true. Nor did Charles Darwin make a single homerun last season.
Bonus redundant explanation: the end product of science is theory, not fact. Facts are things observed in nature, that may constitute evidence to corroborate or refute a theory. (For the logically inclined, facts tend to be existentially quantified, theories universally quantified.) Theories are what scientists produce and work with, and they never stop being theories to become facts, just like baseballs don't become hockey pucks. They just become more or less likely. Evolution through random mutations and natural selection is more.
Lets not be so sterotypical here in your comments! I would say I'm an evangelical christian. I love science.
You are reinforcing the stereotype. If you are so fond of science, why don't you have a clue about how it works? Makes me suspect that your fondness is somewhat selective. Science never proved a thing. I thought everyone knew by now that the empirical sciences work with evidence, and proofs belong in formal systems such as math and logic. Claiming that a scientific theory is guesswork because it has not been proven is like claiming that Peter Forsberg is a poor athlete because he didn't make a single home-run last season. Wrong game.
Evolutionist are only looking at it w/ one objective, it must fit evolution and further its objectives.
It is a very intriguing phenomenon. Obviously religion has something to do with it. It is no friend of open-minded discovery, of course, rather considers it both unnecessary and hazardous, so not really recommended. One of the early church fathers, I don't remember his name, said that since we have the Bible, humanity has no need of any further knowledge. At least 30% of US citizens proclaim to be evangelical Christians. Is it so strange that they would advocate a dead-end alternative to science, that makes empirical investigation pointless?
I'm afraid you have the process backward. The theory of biological evolution predicts that there must have lived a creature with features that are morphologically "halfway" between those of a fish and those of a land-living animal. So when precisely such a creature is found, it is of course of immense importance for the theory. Every scientist today is also perfectly aware that this does not "prove" the theory (there is no such thing as proving a theory), it merely "corroborates" it, as Popper called it.
Our evolutionary theory also predicts that whenever you find a fossil, you can be certain that it will not be of an animal that is morphologically halfway between a bird and a mammal (because reptiles are according to the theory the common early ancestor). This prediction has also come true so far, and that is yet more corroborating evidence for the theory.
There is of course a lot more. Biological evolution declares that intermediate forms must be abundant, that in fact every form is intermediate in the long perspective. As far as I know it is the only theory of the development of life on this planet that predicts the existence of intermediate forms, and the kind of relationships that we constantly find in nature. Just look at this: Transitional forms
I'm not saying I'm against darwinism, but where is the proof? A poorly written article on a no-name website? That dosn't exactly scream nobel prize winning work.
Huh? What no-name website? The Guardian is not exactly no-name, but more importantly, the source is Nature, as snooty a peer-reviewed science journal as you could wish for.
Why doesn't Bill Gates get that he can't win against open source with his old monopoly tactics? Open Office is open source, so we will just branch it and keep developing it and using it for free.
Is that a royal "we", Mr. Bigot? (Don't complain about me calling you names, just exercising my right to free speech. Up to you if you want to be offended or not.)
There is already pr0n in the movies. Check out the scene where Han and Leia are ducking stormtrooper fire outside the entrance to the force field generator in RotJ. At one time Leia falls down, Han leans down and asks "Are you okay?" and quickly feels her breast. Scout's honor. Just slowmo through the scene and you'll see that Harrison Ford does it intentionally . As opposed to the OP, this is not an April Fool's joke.
Slashdot Mirror
"Not really. Children have guardians who are responsible for them. Those guardians are also responsible to society for the wellbeing of the children. That's not the same thing as "rights". It becomes somewhat of a grey area for teenagers when they are old enough to start being minimally responsble."
Okay, found the post. I see now that you are making this up as you go along. It's your personal theory about what rights are and who or what should have them. Obviously, the world doesn't work this way. Children have rights, as children and as human beings, period. That's the law. Likewise, animals have certain rights, as has been pointed out. You don't want to call those rights, because it doesn't rhyme with your theory of how rights should work, but in the real world, that's what everyone calls them.
"The difference between humanity and the animals is an important one. Humans have more value than animals in every sense of the word "value". Failure to recognize this fact is not in the best interests of humans. And it's the best interest of humans that matters."
Well, a lot of people seem to disagree with you there. *shrug*
I don't think I understand what you mean by "morality" at all, and I can't find the post "above" where you answered this question, so I'd really like to hear why we shouldn't produce human babies for research purposes.
The difference between this question and your followup example of a "cartoon-like argument" is that the former actually follows from what you have said here while you grabbed the latter out of thin air.
Are they tied in any way to performance? Here in Sweden you need to get a passing grade for the courses for which you have applied for student loans, or you will have to refund them immediately. Is there something similar in the US?
As a safe alternative for sober computer gamers, I recommend...
FRAG!
'Frag is a computer game without a computer. It's a "first-person shooter" on a tabletop. Move your fighter and frag your foes; draw cards for weapons, armor, and gadgets; move through the blood spatters to restore your own health! If you die, you respawn and come back shooting!'
http://www.sjgames.com/frag/
Another ad finds its way into /. article space. Even the link in the author's name is to a Perplex City movie.
Took me 14 minutes to download the 425MB version.
Every one of those emails would be spam if they arrived in my mailbox, since I don't know any of those people and have no contact with those companies.
The fee was a contribution to the FSF of course.
"By charging for autographs and for poses, I raised a few hundred dollars for the FSF and FSF Latin America..."
The average read-Slashdot-during-work-while-coding Slashdotter is not in his league, so decrying his adhominem attacks, or "I would do X instead" arguments just dont hold much water.
Except the thing with ad hominem attacks is exactly that if you make them you are wrong regardless of whatever else you may be right about. It's a bit like shooting yourself in the head, rhetorically speaking.
I also claim that Slashdot people usually are smelly and eat their boogers, and have an IQ slightly lower than my daughters pet hamster (that's "hamster" without a "p", btw, for any slashdot posters out there. Try to follow me, ok?).
/. crowd to put up with his attitude, what reaction does he expect to get from people who don't give a microchannel's @ss about kernel code?
Furthermore, I claim that anybody that hasn't noticed by now that I'm an opinionated bastard, and that "impolite" is my middle name, is lacking a few clues.
Finally, it's clear that I'm not only the smartest person around, I'm also incredibly good-looking, and that my infallible charm is also second only to my becoming modesty.
So there. Just to clarify.
He forgot most mature! Most mature person around! *sigh* Well, if he can't trust the
Where did those fun arcade games go? I remember putting two coins in that police game and play with one big, plastic Colt 45 in each hand was a hoot.
But that's not what I was saying. I was saying that people who think that everyone is a little bit right are simply ignorant and confused, and that things are little bit more certain than that. But to know how it is, you need to learn some things. That's the downside to it. You need to make an effort, read some books, take a course. Or, you could take another puff off your joint and settle on that everyone is a bit right, and let's stay friends and talk about something else. Up to you.
Wow. You should email Edward Daeschler of the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia and explain to him that he is being silly, and that if he had just read up on some different kinds of fishies he would know that this is nothing remarkable.
Oh yea, verily I say unto you--it sure seems people are unlearning a lot about science these days. So, one more time for the record:
Claiming that a scientific theory is weak because it has not been proven is like claiming that Peter Forsberg is a poor athlete because he didn't make a single homerun last season. Wrong game. Science deals in evidence, which makes a theory more or less likely. Biological evolution has a lot of evidence, non of which proves it, but enough to make it very, very likely. Similarly, the theory of gravity (you know, the theory that stuff falls down) has lots of evidence, but not enough to prove that it's true. Nor did Charles Darwin make a single homerun last season.
Bonus redundant explanation: the end product of science is theory, not fact. Facts are things observed in nature, that may constitute evidence to corroborate or refute a theory. (For the logically inclined, facts tend to be existentially quantified, theories universally quantified.) Theories are what scientists produce and work with, and they never stop being theories to become facts, just like baseballs don't become hockey pucks. They just become more or less likely. Evolution through random mutations and natural selection is more.
Lets not be so sterotypical here in your comments! I would say I'm an evangelical christian. I love science.
You are reinforcing the stereotype. If you are so fond of science, why don't you have a clue about how it works? Makes me suspect that your fondness is somewhat selective. Science never proved a thing. I thought everyone knew by now that the empirical sciences work with evidence, and proofs belong in formal systems such as math and logic. Claiming that a scientific theory is guesswork because it has not been proven is like claiming that Peter Forsberg is a poor athlete because he didn't make a single home-run last season. Wrong game.
Evolutionist are only looking at it w/ one objective, it must fit evolution and further its objectives.
Pot, meet kettle...
It is a very intriguing phenomenon. Obviously religion has something to do with it. It is no friend of open-minded discovery, of course, rather considers it both unnecessary and hazardous, so not really recommended. One of the early church fathers, I don't remember his name, said that since we have the Bible, humanity has no need of any further knowledge. At least 30% of US citizens proclaim to be evangelical Christians. Is it so strange that they would advocate a dead-end alternative to science, that makes empirical investigation pointless?
I'm afraid you have the process backward. The theory of biological evolution predicts that there must have lived a creature with features that are morphologically "halfway" between those of a fish and those of a land-living animal. So when precisely such a creature is found, it is of course of immense importance for the theory. Every scientist today is also perfectly aware that this does not "prove" the theory (there is no such thing as proving a theory), it merely "corroborates" it, as Popper called it.
Our evolutionary theory also predicts that whenever you find a fossil, you can be certain that it will not be of an animal that is morphologically halfway between a bird and a mammal (because reptiles are according to the theory the common early ancestor). This prediction has also come true so far, and that is yet more corroborating evidence for the theory.
There is of course a lot more. Biological evolution declares that intermediate forms must be abundant, that in fact every form is intermediate in the long perspective. As far as I know it is the only theory of the development of life on this planet that predicts the existence of intermediate forms, and the kind of relationships that we constantly find in nature. Just look at this:
Transitional forms
I'm not saying I'm against darwinism, but where is the proof? A poorly written article on a no-name website? That dosn't exactly scream nobel prize winning work.
Huh? What no-name website? The Guardian is not exactly no-name, but more importantly, the source is Nature, as snooty a peer-reviewed science journal as you could wish for.
The fish that crawled out of the water
"The latest Slackware distro was made with a 486 with 4MB of RAM..."
No, it really wasn't. I guess that's the amazing thing with Linux, that too many people have forgotten about.
The latest Slackware distro is guaranteed to run on a 486 with 4MB of RAM. :-D
Why doesn't Bill Gates get that he can't win against open source with his old monopoly tactics? Open Office is open source, so we will just branch it and keep developing it and using it for free.
Tell me about it!
Is that a royal "we", Mr. Bigot? (Don't complain about me calling you names, just exercising my right to free speech. Up to you if you want to be offended or not.)
There is already pr0n in the movies. Check out the scene where Han and Leia are ducking stormtrooper fire outside the entrance to the force field generator in RotJ. At one time Leia falls down, Han leans down and asks "Are you okay?" and quickly feels her breast. Scout's honor. Just slowmo through the scene and you'll see that Harrison Ford does it intentionally . As opposed to the OP, this is not an April Fool's joke.