Of course I'm familiar with that (mythological) apple. However, it has little to do with computers (especially compared to Turing's apple) and why is there a bite mark? A Wikipedia search confirms it though, there's a pic of Newton on the original logo. I however think my explanation is much much better.:-)
I've had a theory for some time that it's the apple that Alan Turing poisoned and used to kill himself with. So the bite-mark is from Turing's suicide. Pretty grotesque, but I don't know of any other famous apples in computing history.
In the beginning of 2001 - A Space Odyssey, the main character reads the news and personal messages from a small, flat handheld device, by pointing at icons on the screen. The movie is from 1968.
This particular branch of the discussion started when someone tried to refute my position by claiming that gun ownership was a "basic right" (by way of the right to defend oneself). That is, a right that doesn't need to be justified and can't be criticised, because it is "basic." I have no problems with the things you say above, and they also don't really seem to help that other person any.
Humans throughout history have found these rights to be both justified and necessary for humans to function in a society.
Actually, equal human rights have only existed in Western society since John Locke and the Enlightenment. Before that your rights were irrevocably decided by what cast you were born into. If you were a serf, your body belonged to your nobleman (as did the first night with your wife after your marriage, if you were English). These rights are not as eternal as they may seem to us.
You should obviously not base important decisions on your guesses. I live in Stockholm, Sweden. "Liberal-controlled" perhaps, but high crime, not really.
I think the point here is that I don't need a weapon to protect myself, and that is, according to some people here, not a possible situation. It's quite possible, it's even actual. And if it's possible here, I think it might be possible where you live.
I take it that you wouldn't object, then, if the rest of us got together and decided that the kind of lives that we want don't include you, theorized that we could achieve that by killing you, and went ahead and put that theory into practice? After all, it's not like you have any "inherent" rights...
That kind of plan has been tried, and it didn't work out.
This gets so complicated so quickly. If there are inherent rights, who can take them away? Who's to decide that the criminal has forfeited their right to live, and that you can shoot him with your precious gun? What is the rule book, how do I look this up? Sounds to me that it's all just opinions, that some try to shield from criticism by calling them "basic rights."
Whatever rights there are, we made them up because it improves our general situation and the situation of our offspring. They are not "inherent" or "natural" and least of all "basic." (If you take a look at nature, there is no right to life there, no justice, only eat or be eaten.) I can agree that every human has a right to live, and to have enough control over their life so that it is as much up to themselves to create the kind of life they want as is at all possible. That's how I'd like it to be. But carrying a gun is no right. It's not even a consequence of any right. Universal health care may however be a consequence of that right, as well as a reasonable minimum wage.
Yes, you've deluded yourself to believe that one will protect you, when in reality it only deters people from offending against you and punishes them after the fact.
I don't really understand what you try to say here. But if it "deters people from offending against me" then it protects me.
You're not defending the rule of law, stop with the straw men...
Am too.
So what ARE you relying on when you follow laws (made by people) and rely on police (who are people) and soldiers (who are people) to protect you? You made a statement the you wouldn't bet your life on their judgement, yet you are doing nothing but relying on others' judgement.
Sorry, no go. You already ripped that statement out of its context, and I have already elaborated on what it meant, which answers your question above. You'll have to find a new angle.
Do you even understand how disconnected from reality your points are? Do you have any idea how silly it sounds for you to disparage "posses" while trusting POLITICIANS to protect you?
Ah, so now I must defend democracy as well as rule of law? Oh boy, the US is in a bad state these days. Well, at least I don't live in Iraq!
Silly, there is no need, in my neighborhood 99.9% of homes are gun-free and everyone knows it. You make it sound again as if we're talking about some hypothetical, make-believe scenario. But most western democracies have gun control laws, and lo, murders by knife have not skyrocketed. There is a whole world outside the North American continent, and you would be amazed at the wonders that can be found there...
I haven't made any arguments for or against drug laws, I've only argued against some strange notions about gun control and its supposed consequences. I'm also not talking about some abstract theory, gun control exists in many places, my country is not special in that respect.
As for Timmy... Even if you remove his rational reasons to commit crimes, such as the need to sustain his addiction, the point here is that a meth head is not rational. While under the influence he needs no other reasons to start firing rocket-propelled grenades at his neighbours than the polka-dot leprechauns in his head telling him to. Sadly, no system of government and no laws can change that. So, there's one reason why the libertarian vision might not work.
"That it's illegal won't stop Timmy from acquiring his arsenal..."
It will of course make it considerably more complicated, and if he is truly a meth head he will likely not have the mental or monetary resources to do so. True, it could still happen. But we don't deal in absolutes in the real world, we deal in probabilities. And the probability that Timmy gets his hands on a grenade launcher if they can't be sold legally to private citizens at all is much much smaller.
Those are the risks one takes to live in a free society. Deal with it.
I don't have to deal with it because where I live owning a gun is not a human right and no one can buy assault weapons. You're the one who has to deal with it. Good luck.
I'm not in the US and I know private citizens own assault weapons in the US.
To the best of my knowledge no crime has ever been commited with an automatic weapon that was legally purchased and owned.
That sounds very unlikely. So no one has ever shot anyone in anger, or hurt someone through criminal negligence, with a legally owned weapon? Can you back that up? And none of the people who went bonkers and started randomly shooting people up were the legal owners of those weapons?
But even so, how many crimes have been committed with weapons that were stolen from ordinary citizens? And how many people have been accidentally killed by legally owned weapons? How many crimes have been committed using weapons stolen from weapons dealers that wouldn't exist if the weapons were illegal?
*yawn* That is not a consequence of anything I've said. As opposed to popular American libertarian theories, gun control makes it harder for everyone to get weapons. We don't need to theorize about this, only look at the contries that implement it. When ordinary people do not have assault weapons lying around at home, they can't use it if they go insane, they can't kill people by accident, and criminals can't steal it.
You mean there is no way to stop people who read their notes on the way to work, even though they swerve around on the road? Man, we should take away all cars, becuase we know only criminals use them during their getaways. There is no reason to have a 3000 lbs death machine unless you're going to use it to kill some poor helpless child in a parking lot.
There are too many silly straw men in this thread. It's mostly because nothing can apparently be said against my arguments, so new ones that I have never proposed must be introduced. Get back to me when I say anything about cars. Or knives. Or teeth!
If you had followed the thread you would know that I don't doubt that meth heads can be a threat to others (especially if they have a grenade launcher).
Way to completely miss the point. Whether there are or not, you're placing the resposibilty for your life in the hands of legislators. You are expecting them to make laws to protect you.
The difference between me having some confidence in our legal system as it is and me not having much confidence in a posse of citizens with guns, who believe themselves to be good, honest folks, should be fairly obvious. For one, the laws are public information, I know the rules. Secondly, they are in effect for all people at all times. That's something different to the good, honest folks applying whatever rules they please from one moment to the next. Isn't it just a bit amazing that I need to defend rule of law here?
Without knowing where here is, that too is essentially irrelevant.
Not at all. It's a democracy of the ordinary western variety. It means I have insight into and influence over the legal system, which is highly relevant.
Since you clearly know the difference, enlighten me. Answer your own questions.
No, I lean toward that there are no basic human rights. There certainly are no "natural rights," there are no rights in nature anywhere to be seen. What there are are ideas about what kinds of lives we want, and theories about how we can accomplish them. It's not the same thing.
As to the rest, yes I've never heard anything so ridiculous...
No, not "suspect", but actual, real, immediate threat, as in "methhead with a grenade launcher".
So a meth head is an actual, real, immediate threat? Even before he has committed any crimes? Then it seems we have enough information to categorically forbid meth heads from acquiring grenade launchers. Unless being an actual, real, immediate threat to others is a basic human right.
What about Jane, the non-violent Meth-head, who won the lottery and doesn't have to break any laws (except the drug laws) to get her fix and whose personality wouldn't have her break them while on a bender? She has to be locked up because you cannot tell the difference between her and Timmy?
I haven't said that anyone should be locked up or that meth should be illegal, but I don't think Jane (or anyone else) needs an assault weapon.
What about when deranged Timmy gets a knife and terrorizes the neighborhood, killing several old people and children? Did gun control save them? Do we need knife control?
The difference in the amount of damage Tim can make with a knife compared to an assault weapon is such that it justifies different rules. It's not more difficult than that.
What about Gina, who lives in a bad neighborhood because she's poor. When a criminal breaks into her house to rob or rape her she cannot defend herself because you put into place gun laws to protect you from Timmy.
Well, as many here have pointed out, you can't win them all. Even if Gina was allowed to have a gun, the assailant may simply have a bigger gun or a hand grenade. There are other ways to stop crime than to put a gun in every home.
The rest of the questions I think are not addressed to me (since I don't advocate drug laws or are a US citizen.)
So you're saying the ability to protect your life isn't a basic human right?
Wow. Just wow. That's the most ridiculous statment I've ever seen anyone make.
What's a "basic human right"? What makes something qualify for that epithet? Where do they come from? And if that's the most ridiculous statement you have ever heard, then I envy your innocence.
And as for Timmy the Methhead? If most people carried guns, he wouldn't last as long as the James gang did!
So your preference is for a wild west society were citizens--I should say, the "good, honest folks"--have a right to shoot and kill whoever they suspect may pose a threat, rather than a society where there is rule of law and such threats are minimized from the start? The judgment of good, honest folks is not something I'd bet my life on.
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Whatever. I guess you ran out of angles. :-)
Of course I'm familiar with that (mythological) apple. However, it has little to do with computers (especially compared to Turing's apple) and why is there a bite mark? A Wikipedia search confirms it though, there's a pic of Newton on the original logo. I however think my explanation is much much better. :-)
I've had a theory for some time that it's the apple that Alan Turing poisoned and used to kill himself with. So the bite-mark is from Turing's suicide. Pretty grotesque, but I don't know of any other famous apples in computing history.
In the beginning of 2001 - A Space Odyssey, the main character reads the news and personal messages from a small, flat handheld device, by pointing at icons on the screen. The movie is from 1968.
This particular branch of the discussion started when someone tried to refute my position by claiming that gun ownership was a "basic right" (by way of the right to defend oneself). That is, a right that doesn't need to be justified and can't be criticised, because it is "basic." I have no problems with the things you say above, and they also don't really seem to help that other person any.
Humans throughout history have found these rights to be both justified and necessary for humans to function in a society.
Actually, equal human rights have only existed in Western society since John Locke and the Enlightenment. Before that your rights were irrevocably decided by what cast you were born into. If you were a serf, your body belonged to your nobleman (as did the first night with your wife after your marriage, if you were English). These rights are not as eternal as they may seem to us.
You should obviously not base important decisions on your guesses. I live in Stockholm, Sweden. "Liberal-controlled" perhaps, but high crime, not really.
I think the point here is that I don't need a weapon to protect myself, and that is, according to some people here, not a possible situation. It's quite possible, it's even actual. And if it's possible here, I think it might be possible where you live.
I take it that you wouldn't object, then, if the rest of us got together and decided that the kind of lives that we want don't include you, theorized that we could achieve that by killing you, and went ahead and put that theory into practice? After all, it's not like you have any "inherent" rights...
That kind of plan has been tried, and it didn't work out.
This gets so complicated so quickly. If there are inherent rights, who can take them away? Who's to decide that the criminal has forfeited their right to live, and that you can shoot him with your precious gun? What is the rule book, how do I look this up? Sounds to me that it's all just opinions, that some try to shield from criticism by calling them "basic rights."
Whatever rights there are, we made them up because it improves our general situation and the situation of our offspring. They are not "inherent" or "natural" and least of all "basic." (If you take a look at nature, there is no right to life there, no justice, only eat or be eaten.) I can agree that every human has a right to live, and to have enough control over their life so that it is as much up to themselves to create the kind of life they want as is at all possible. That's how I'd like it to be. But carrying a gun is no right. It's not even a consequence of any right. Universal health care may however be a consequence of that right, as well as a reasonable minimum wage.
Yes, you've deluded yourself to believe that one will protect you, when in reality it only deters people from offending against you and punishes them after the fact.
I don't really understand what you try to say here. But if it "deters people from offending against me" then it protects me.
You're not defending the rule of law, stop with the straw men...
Am too.
So what ARE you relying on when you follow laws (made by people) and rely on police (who are people) and soldiers (who are people) to protect you? You made a statement the you wouldn't bet your life on their judgement, yet you are doing nothing but relying on others' judgement.
Sorry, no go. You already ripped that statement out of its context, and I have already elaborated on what it meant, which answers your question above. You'll have to find a new angle.
Do you even understand how disconnected from reality your points are? Do you have any idea how silly it sounds for you to disparage "posses" while trusting POLITICIANS to protect you?
Ah, so now I must defend democracy as well as rule of law? Oh boy, the US is in a bad state these days. Well, at least I don't live in Iraq!
Since you haven't read the thread you don't know what does and what doesn't "adequately support" my argument...
Silly, there is no need, in my neighborhood 99.9% of homes are gun-free and everyone knows it. You make it sound again as if we're talking about some hypothetical, make-believe scenario. But most western democracies have gun control laws, and lo, murders by knife have not skyrocketed. There is a whole world outside the North American continent, and you would be amazed at the wonders that can be found there...
I haven't made any arguments for or against drug laws, I've only argued against some strange notions about gun control and its supposed consequences. I'm also not talking about some abstract theory, gun control exists in many places, my country is not special in that respect.
As for Timmy... Even if you remove his rational reasons to commit crimes, such as the need to sustain his addiction, the point here is that a meth head is not rational. While under the influence he needs no other reasons to start firing rocket-propelled grenades at his neighbours than the polka-dot leprechauns in his head telling him to. Sadly, no system of government and no laws can change that. So, there's one reason why the libertarian vision might not work.
"That it's illegal won't stop Timmy from acquiring his arsenal..."
It will of course make it considerably more complicated, and if he is truly a meth head he will likely not have the mental or monetary resources to do so. True, it could still happen. But we don't deal in absolutes in the real world, we deal in probabilities. And the probability that Timmy gets his hands on a grenade launcher if they can't be sold legally to private citizens at all is much much smaller.
Those are the risks one takes to live in a free society. Deal with it.
I don't have to deal with it because where I live owning a gun is not a human right and no one can buy assault weapons. You're the one who has to deal with it. Good luck.
I'm not in the US and I know private citizens own assault weapons in the US.
To the best of my knowledge no crime has ever been commited with an automatic weapon that was legally purchased and owned.
That sounds very unlikely. So no one has ever shot anyone in anger, or hurt someone through criminal negligence, with a legally owned weapon? Can you back that up? And none of the people who went bonkers and started randomly shooting people up were the legal owners of those weapons?
But even so, how many crimes have been committed with weapons that were stolen from ordinary citizens? And how many people have been accidentally killed by legally owned weapons? How many crimes have been committed using weapons stolen from weapons dealers that wouldn't exist if the weapons were illegal?
*yawn* That is not a consequence of anything I've said. As opposed to popular American libertarian theories, gun control makes it harder for everyone to get weapons. We don't need to theorize about this, only look at the contries that implement it. When ordinary people do not have assault weapons lying around at home, they can't use it if they go insane, they can't kill people by accident, and criminals can't steal it.
You mean there is no way to stop people who read their notes on the way to work, even though they swerve around on the road? Man, we should take away all cars, becuase we know only criminals use them during their getaways. There is no reason to have a 3000 lbs death machine unless you're going to use it to kill some poor helpless child in a parking lot.
There are too many silly straw men in this thread. It's mostly because nothing can apparently be said against my arguments, so new ones that I have never proposed must be introduced. Get back to me when I say anything about cars. Or knives. Or teeth!
If you had followed the thread you would know that I don't doubt that meth heads can be a threat to others (especially if they have a grenade launcher).
Way to completely miss the point. Whether there are or not, you're placing the resposibilty for your life in the hands of legislators. You are expecting them to make laws to protect you.
The difference between me having some confidence in our legal system as it is and me not having much confidence in a posse of citizens with guns, who believe themselves to be good, honest folks, should be fairly obvious. For one, the laws are public information, I know the rules. Secondly, they are in effect for all people at all times. That's something different to the good, honest folks applying whatever rules they please from one moment to the next. Isn't it just a bit amazing that I need to defend rule of law here?
Without knowing where here is, that too is essentially irrelevant.
Not at all. It's a democracy of the ordinary western variety. It means I have insight into and influence over the legal system, which is highly relevant.
Since you clearly know the difference, enlighten me. Answer your own questions.
:-)
No, I lean toward that there are no basic human rights. There certainly are no "natural rights," there are no rights in nature anywhere to be seen. What there are are ideas about what kinds of lives we want, and theories about how we can accomplish them. It's not the same thing.
As to the rest, yes I've never heard anything so ridiculous...
Well, then I remain envious.
No, not "suspect", but actual, real, immediate threat, as in "methhead with a grenade launcher".
So a meth head is an actual, real, immediate threat? Even before he has committed any crimes? Then it seems we have enough information to categorically forbid meth heads from acquiring grenade launchers. Unless being an actual, real, immediate threat to others is a basic human right.
And yet you choose to obey the laws they made, in effect relying on their judgement.
There are no laws that would directly put me to death here, and seeing how this is a democracy, I do have some influence over the laws.
As you can probably guess, your theories and opinions about my mental states are highly significant to me.
What about Jane, the non-violent Meth-head, who won the lottery and doesn't have to break any laws (except the drug laws) to get her fix and whose personality wouldn't have her break them while on a bender? She has to be locked up because you cannot tell the difference between her and Timmy?
I haven't said that anyone should be locked up or that meth should be illegal, but I don't think Jane (or anyone else) needs an assault weapon.
What about when deranged Timmy gets a knife and terrorizes the neighborhood, killing several old people and children? Did gun control save them? Do we need knife control?
The difference in the amount of damage Tim can make with a knife compared to an assault weapon is such that it justifies different rules. It's not more difficult than that.
What about Gina, who lives in a bad neighborhood because she's poor. When a criminal breaks into her house to rob or rape her she cannot defend herself because you put into place gun laws to protect you from Timmy.
Well, as many here have pointed out, you can't win them all. Even if Gina was allowed to have a gun, the assailant may simply have a bigger gun or a hand grenade. There are other ways to stop crime than to put a gun in every home.
The rest of the questions I think are not addressed to me (since I don't advocate drug laws or are a US citizen.)
So you're saying the ability to protect your life isn't a basic human right?
Wow. Just wow. That's the most ridiculous statment I've ever seen anyone make.
What's a "basic human right"? What makes something qualify for that epithet? Where do they come from? And if that's the most ridiculous statement you have ever heard, then I envy your innocence.
And as for Timmy the Methhead? If most people carried guns, he wouldn't last as long as the James gang did!
So your preference is for a wild west society were citizens--I should say, the "good, honest folks"--have a right to shoot and kill whoever they suspect may pose a threat, rather than a society where there is rule of law and such threats are minimized from the start? The judgment of good, honest folks is not something I'd bet my life on.