This is the model proposed by the book being reviewed, if I understand the summaries correctly. The idea is that our universe exists on the surface of a higher-dimensional membrane, and some of the stranger large-scale effects in it can be explained as interactions with other universes on other membranes. The author appears to be proposing a scenario where two membranes collide/intersect, which would have very noticeable effects, to say the least.
I find many things about this model of the universe suspicious, but don't know enough of the details to dismiss it out of hand. YMMV.
Actually, that makes the most logical sense.
While it's common to call the universe "everything," it's really just "everything we can sense or extrapolate." There very very well might be a much much larger "macroverse" out there--but to get to this point, we're firmly out of science (which is a search for knowledge) and into theory--also known as "religion", "dreaming", and "half-assed speculation."
You mean, "God just made it like this, okay?" I'm sorry, that doesn't constitute anything akin to knowing or understanding. Furthermore, we have no choice but to accept an experimental fact - God serves no purpose here.
That's an atheist assumption.
If there is a God, then that has implications on the macro issues of the universe. If there isn't a God, there are other implications.
Understanding the implications of either is both knowing and understanding--but assuming that one is true and the other false isn't knowledge, understanding, or science--it's a religious assumpion. Nothing more, and nothing less.
Most of the populous consists of Jocks, that's why they bully geeks. Geeks are protected by the police and government because they are of financial use (Jock populous wants shiny stuff). This kid whether he's talking crap or not is acting to protect us hardcore geeks that are incapable of making molotov cocktails, getting drunk and shooting cops because we are worn down after a lifetime of bullying, and are only now capable of vegitating in front of a VAX's green screen glow in the basement. I think this kid is a hero.
*blink, blink*
"Jocks", as a social strata, are actually fairly minor. So too are "geeks." The vast, vast majority are the "intermixed." They have an essentially random distribution of characteristics from the various percieved social strata of the america developmental environment.
Some of the smartest people I know are jocks, some of the biggest geeks I know enjoy playing sports, and most of the people I know are a very firm geek/jock crossbreed.
'course, higher education isn't one shit about how smart you are--it's about being dealt a stack of cards that you can deal with (part luck, part skill) and picking the right path for your strengths (self knowledge.)
Sleeping and drugging your way through high school, so long as you retain enough to grasp the next year's class and pass the tests, isn't a great detriment to getting a high-middle education. Paradoxially, being intelligent and going through HS without effort is probably worse than being kicked out--droppoing a grade in HS means that you repeat it; dropping a grade in higher ed could mean you working hand to mouth for a few years.
As for the upper echelon of the highly educated--they often start fanatically early in life, hardly notice high school, hardly notice college, and marry by accident or because of their money.
Speaking for the masses, I'd much rather be right where I am than Suma cum laude of an Ivy league school and alone. Think you're special because you're a "Geek"? Fine. I know I'm special because a beautiful woman loves me.;)
Not that I'm an atheist or anything, but I've been developing a feeling off late, that religion was introduced in ancient times as a deterrent against perceived immoral/harmful behavior. In the absence of effective law-enforcement agencies, the best way to encourage people to act peacefully/etc was to lay down a set of rules of "acceptable behaviour" and make it known that breach of the rules would result in punishment in the form of hell or alternately reward in the form of heaven.
Religion is not the truth.
Religion is a tool to help you reach the truth. Well, not you personally, but the common masses. And, as you've noted, part of that truth is following the rules of acceptable behavior.
I think the world has developed enough now, that we no longer need religion as a deterrent. It serves more as a tool for discrimination/fanaticism, rather than what it was intended for.
Religion is not used today as a tool for mass restraint--though in some countriles it should be. (Especially where it's mis-used by dissidents and anarchists to advance their temporal cause, at the expense of spirital credibility--for example, I doubt Islam almost sloely because of the terrorists.)
Religion's proper use is, like I said earlier, helping us find the truth. Not "a truth", not "a personaly truth", but "the truth." The major religions survive and conflict with each other because of their different statements of what the Truth is. Thankfully, most of them agree on "act nice and take care of the world" as part of the Truth, and they're all so different that we're all likely to know the truth once we die.
Oh, and most of the things noted by religion as sin or immoral ARE harmful, to the individual or to the society for which the religion was created.
But, is this a good thing? Do you really want your company to employ "load and run" administrators? Or would you rather have someone who actually knows a bit about the computers they are supporting?
My company has six people in it, and none of us are IT professionals. We have to hire scumball contractors to do the heavy work--and they ra--I mean, charge by the hour. The easier the setup is, the better.
'course, we don't use MS--but we use someone else that uses their model.
You don't need to be a C++ guru to be a good admin on any platform, but you should be able to write simple scripts in perl/vbscript/something to automate tasks. I'd hate to have to administer either system without having ANY programming tools at my disposal.
That's an excuse for one license--just the one, not one per server. And if the company only HAS one server, (and it's not a supercomputer-type), then they shouldn't have a full time very-expeirenced IT guru. Which means that "simple administration" is the key.
I have not been given a single homework assignment in college.
Neither have I, actually.
But the darn thing is, for the classes where I'm really learning something, I do rather poorly if I don't study on my own. A habit that I wish I was better at, and I probably would have been if I'd have done my homework in HS.
(note to self: If offspring don't do their homework and their grades are OK, bump them up a grade. If that doesn't work, home school...)
Oh did I mention the cost for the software? Windows 2003 Server, Exchange 2000, SQL 2000,.Net developer tools (you need to be able to program that server) are around 1200 + 800 + 1200 + 900 for a total of $4100 (approx). Not too expensive but not free either.
You're missing MS's design pitch. Not every sysadmin is a programmer, and for a sizeable portion of the business world, "load and run" is more valuable than "free OS."
A good test, actually, would be to randomly configure a bunch of computers and to hook them up to the network. Change, change, and more change--adapting to change is, IMO, the biggest place where MS has a leg up over Linux.
but i haven't seen one mention or form of the word God in a non masculine way
"All the gods." "By the gods."
They're group-forms, inclusive of any divinity. "Whatever god you pray to" is also a gender-neutral use.
"Goddess" exists partly as a holdover from our very sexist days. (And, unless it's referring to 'The Goddess', it's lower-case.)
Oh, and for the record... "executrix" and "madam president" are the feminine forms.
One thing you must realize is that if you are a Muslim, you believe that information from the pre-Muhammad era has been incorrect in some way by the time Muhammed was born. A lot is similar but Allah has sent the verses of the Quran to his messenger Muhammed (SAW) because we needed a new guide and have strayed too far from the original beliefs. (This is not limited to just beliefs in multiple Gods and or Goddesses).
Oh, that's God's MO since Eden. Send message, people get message, people forget message, send message again. Christ, IMO, was God trying to show how to behave properly by example. (My opinion's still out on the celestial relevance of Muhammad. One one hand, there's J.C.'s warnings of false prophets and the common media perception; on the other, there's the actual teachings of the Quran/Qur'an/Koran and the theological implasiblity of God ignoring any who claim to follow Him.)
BTW, all religions are usually capitalized... not just Muslims.
True. But that's because they're proper nouns. The grammatical rule about capitializing a reference to the Supreme Being, be It a He or a She or an It, is a special case above and beyond religous reference.
It's not necessary to always capitalize "god"--only when using it (or its feminine form or pronoun) to refer to that Almighty being that humans alternatly call God, The Goddess, Allah, Bhramain, Yahweh, Jehovah, YHVH, etc.
Technically allah isn't a god as there is no sex associated with allah (god implies a masculine deity).
bzzt.
God, like many other English words, is "male-neutral." Other good ones are "editor," "executor", and "president." (There ARE feminine forms of these titles, but when in doubt, use the male.)
Oh, and Allah (you should ALWAYS capitalize the reference to the Supreme Being, no matter if you call said Omnipotence God, Allah, or The Great Fuzzy One) was worshiped as a father-god of pre-Muhammad post-Ishmael arabs.
And while I've got your attention--how come Muslims don't translate their word for God? Both the jews and the christians translate the word from its historic form when using English; why is the arabic so different?
Yes, because homework is pointless, people don't want to do work at home, school is built for a reason, there is a time and place for school work and thats at school
That's what study hall's for.
And, really, getting kids to do homework is essential prep for college, where half of the learning IS homework. (Not the practice, not the memorization--the actual learning. You can't learn how to paint, or code, or write, in a classroom--you learn by doing. And doing's homework.)
For example, some people would lump your use of the word "redneck" in that category, some Asians I know might jump to that conclusion when you call them "oriental" [as in rug].
I've just got a penchant for linquistic sensability.
"Asian", as a denoter of a human ethnicity, is a lousy word. You can't lump in Chinese, Indians, Arabs, Polynesians, and Russians in the same group--doing that widens the grouping so much you might as well include everyone.
'course, I'm also miffed at the use of the word "pagan", which has meant "one who doesn't follow God" (i.e., non Christian, Jew, or Muslim) for the entirety of our language, to mean "polytheist."
wrong. the hatred of the "black american" is the same as that of the mexicans, asians, irish, italians,
Stop right there.
There isn't a lot of hatred against irish or italians anymore--and with "asians" (which is a really bad name to call orientals), there's almost more of a resentful revereance than hatred.
Of course, you're arguing by referencing pop culture arguments that were popularized during the height of the civil rights movement. *sigh*
While we still have prejudice and a few pockets of real ethnic hatred in the USA, it's slowly but surely dying out. (note how three redneck who purpetrate a murder are sentenced to the full extent of the law, instead of being let go by jury nullification) The few instances where there's still "hatred", there are real causes that are more than just "they're different."
Absent a distinct grouping and percieved culture, any difference will just cause odd looks rather than hatred. And cyborgs will likely have neither, unless a bunch of snooty "post-humans" whine enough to make it an issue.
If you're willing to believe everything the RIAA says, then the battle has already been lost. Has this claim by the RIAA ever been upheld in court?
YES!
The MP3.com case, which went to court, established clear case law for this. It doesn't matter if I already own The Lord of the Rings in ten languages and five printings--downloading a pirated ebook is still copyright infringement, even if I could scan the book myself.
On the other hand, I have a feeling you could probably easily raise a pitchfork-wielding parade of yokels against the cyborg family who've moved in down the street with arguments along those lines...
I doubt it. There aren't any cyborg families--and when/if there ever are, they'll come from extant social groups--(again, just like pilots and bikers did.)
I'm convinced that many people hate wearing suits for this reason -- because they're too out-of-shape to properly wear formal attire.
Actually, we (men) hate wearing it because it's largely unfunctional. The same reason that tomboys don't like being forced to wear skirts; hampers what they can do.
Of course, just like my tomboy wife, I don't mind dressing up every now and then.
I didn't say that. I listed slavery as one of many "special-case" roots, and summed up the modern prejudicial remnant as baggage. 'course, I didn't get into "reverse discrimination", which probably has oodles of other factors.
The fear of cyborgs will be more of a fear of what one does not understand
As for building the next generation of super-cyborgs, you'd obviously use rational thought rather than randomly shaking a bag of traits and seeing what comes out
Dear me, no. Eugenics (which is exactly what you're describing) is a foolish endeavor. The computational power to adapt to all possibilities is far too large; redundancy and variation are the keys to survival.
Rational thought only needs to enter into reproduction to ensure sufficient saftey and material, to educate the next generation, and to excise the most undesriable of traits. (That's were capital punishment comes from--getting the worst bits of humanity out of the gene pool.)
Well, it's been hundreds of years, and plenty of white Americans still hate black people just because they're black... so why wouldn't people hate cyborgs just because they're... well... cyborgs?
Because they don't.
Most of the "black american" hatred is due to slavery, civil rights, labor disputes, and an old cultural image of Africans as "those savages from the other side of the Mediteranean." It's essentially cultural baggage that's not-quite excised.
Cyborgs, if they ever become a subculture at all, will be judged as a "new thing." More like bikers or pilots than blacks.
The best solution is for everybody to agree quite clearly, that unfettered free trade is a fucking stupid idea, and that NOBODY should be forced to submit themselves to free trade agreements in the way that many 3rd world countries have been forced to before they were allowed vital foreign aid.
Oh, for Christ's sake.
The 3rd world countries are being paid to implement free trade. If they can make more money out of "un-free" trade, they can go right ahead and do that for all I care.
But if they're taking my government's money, then they shouldn't whine when my goverment sets conditions. They can just say "no", suck it up, and let us get back to paying off our debt, you know...
But it also doesn't deny the right of citizens to marry someone of their own gender.
Which, of course, leaves us back in common understanding--and at no time in the history of our civilization, present time excepted, have citizens been able to marry their own gender. (Depending on how you cut "our civilization", you wind up with either no abberate marriages or a tolerance for unmarried homosexuality.)
And (according to the law) if something isn't expressly forbidden, then it's allowed.
Not quite. There are, after all, legal statutes that prohibit gay marriages now--if there weren't, VT wouldn't need to have their "Civil Unions."
(This is a good place for me to point out that I think that homosexuals, polygamists, and polyamorists should be able to -- and encouraged to -- solidfy their romantic relationships with the same legal mechanisms that bind traditional heterosexuals, like myself. We're just not at this point, and thinking that we are someplace we're not is never productive.)
Baning gay marriage is roughly equivalent to banning civilian ownership of tanks
Because gay marriages have the same destrutive capability as howitzer wrapped 10 tons of armor-plated steel?
Jebus, that's gotta be the most stupid comparisons I've ever heard.
It's a legal distinction (and my name's not Jebus!)
A law baning tanks or howitzers (they're different things!) is, constitutionally speaking, roughly equivalent to baning gay marriages. Or banning drugs. Or setting a national speed limit on the interstate. Or the laws supporting state secrets or the UCMJ.
To spell it out--the bans are valid, be they spelled out or not, regardless of a minority reading of the constitution. If we want the bans lifted, we need to address them as a thing that the various legislatures can address--not something that we already have a right to.
the constutional right to profit is right there in the bill of rights with the right to privacy...
Sort of.
While both can be infered from the 10th amendment, the "right to profit" would only protect you from the government (no 100% sales tax), not compel the government to help you. (You don't get soap-boxes or guns from the government until you join it.)
Plus, the right to privacy can be infered from the right to be free of unlawful search and siezure--it's essentially a due process thing.
Isn't this exactly like the candle manufacturers suing the electric utilities, claiming electricity will cause massive job loss? On the other hand, what are all those losers whose only skill is having a big mouth and being able to follow a script going to do for a living now?...go into politics...first-level tech support...re-dub foreign shows with bad voices...act
This would effectively be the first constitutional amendment since the 18th(prohibition), ratified in 1919, that is specifically intended to revoke the rights of citizens instead of granting new ones.
Nope.
The current interpretation of the US Constitution doesn't give citizens the right to marry someone of their own gender--or more than one other person. Baning gay marriage is roughly equivalent to banning civilian ownership of tanks--there just isn't a lot of instances of either in the nation today.
Plus, Frist didn't say that he's promoting the amendment--he said that he would support it.
Slashdot Mirror
This is the model proposed by the book being reviewed, if I understand the summaries correctly. The idea is that our universe exists on the surface of a higher-dimensional membrane, and some of the stranger large-scale effects in it can be explained as interactions with other universes on other membranes. The author appears to be proposing a scenario where two membranes collide/intersect, which would have very noticeable effects, to say the least.
I find many things about this model of the universe suspicious, but don't know enough of the details to dismiss it out of hand. YMMV.
Actually, that makes the most logical sense.
While it's common to call the universe "everything," it's really just "everything we can sense or extrapolate." There very very well might be a much much larger "macroverse" out there--but to get to this point, we're firmly out of science (which is a search for knowledge) and into theory--also known as "religion", "dreaming", and "half-assed speculation."
You mean, "God just made it like this, okay?" I'm sorry, that doesn't constitute anything akin to knowing or understanding. Furthermore, we have no choice but to accept an experimental fact - God serves no purpose here.
That's an atheist assumption.
If there is a God, then that has implications on the macro issues of the universe. If there isn't a God, there are other implications.
Understanding the implications of either is both knowing and understanding--but assuming that one is true and the other false isn't knowledge, understanding, or science--it's a religious assumpion. Nothing more, and nothing less.
Most of the populous consists of Jocks, that's why they bully geeks. Geeks are protected by the police and government because they are of financial use (Jock populous wants shiny stuff). This kid whether he's talking crap or not is acting to protect us hardcore geeks that are incapable of making molotov cocktails, getting drunk and shooting cops because we are worn down after a lifetime of bullying, and are only now capable of vegitating in front of a VAX's green screen glow in the basement. I think this kid is a hero.
;)
*blink, blink*
"Jocks", as a social strata, are actually fairly minor. So too are "geeks." The vast, vast majority are the "intermixed." They have an essentially random distribution of characteristics from the various percieved social strata of the america developmental environment.
Some of the smartest people I know are jocks, some of the biggest geeks I know enjoy playing sports, and most of the people I know are a very firm geek/jock crossbreed.
'course, higher education isn't one shit about how smart you are--it's about being dealt a stack of cards that you can deal with (part luck, part skill) and picking the right path for your strengths (self knowledge.)
Sleeping and drugging your way through high school, so long as you retain enough to grasp the next year's class and pass the tests, isn't a great detriment to getting a high-middle education. Paradoxially, being intelligent and going through HS without effort is probably worse than being kicked out--droppoing a grade in HS means that you repeat it; dropping a grade in higher ed could mean you working hand to mouth for a few years.
As for the upper echelon of the highly educated--they often start fanatically early in life, hardly notice high school, hardly notice college, and marry by accident or because of their money.
Speaking for the masses, I'd much rather be right where I am than Suma cum laude of an Ivy league school and alone. Think you're special because you're a "Geek"? Fine. I know I'm special because a beautiful woman loves me.
Not that I'm an atheist or anything, but I've been developing a feeling off late, that religion was introduced in ancient times as a deterrent against perceived immoral/harmful behavior. In the absence of effective law-enforcement agencies, the best way to encourage people to act peacefully/etc was to lay down a set of rules of "acceptable behaviour" and make it known that breach of the rules would result in punishment in the form of hell or alternately reward in the form of heaven.
Religion is not the truth.
Religion is a tool to help you reach the truth. Well, not you personally, but the common masses. And, as you've noted, part of that truth is following the rules of acceptable behavior.
I think the world has developed enough now, that we no longer need religion as a deterrent. It serves more as a tool for discrimination/fanaticism, rather than what it was intended for.
Religion is not used today as a tool for mass restraint--though in some countriles it should be. (Especially where it's mis-used by dissidents and anarchists to advance their temporal cause, at the expense of spirital credibility--for example, I doubt Islam almost sloely because of the terrorists.)
Religion's proper use is, like I said earlier, helping us find the truth. Not "a truth", not "a personaly truth", but "the truth." The major religions survive and conflict with each other because of their different statements of what the Truth is. Thankfully, most of them agree on "act nice and take care of the world" as part of the Truth, and they're all so different that we're all likely to know the truth once we die.
Oh, and most of the things noted by religion as sin or immoral ARE harmful, to the individual or to the society for which the religion was created.
But, is this a good thing? Do you really want your company to employ "load and run" administrators? Or would you rather have someone who actually knows a bit about the computers they are supporting?
My company has six people in it, and none of us are IT professionals. We have to hire scumball contractors to do the heavy work--and they ra--I mean, charge by the hour. The easier the setup is, the better.
'course, we don't use MS--but we use someone else that uses their model.
You don't need to be a C++ guru to be a good admin on any platform, but you should be able to write simple scripts in perl/vbscript/something to automate tasks. I'd hate to have to administer either system without having ANY programming tools at my disposal.
That's an excuse for one license--just the one, not one per server. And if the company only HAS one server, (and it's not a supercomputer-type), then they shouldn't have a full time very-expeirenced IT guru. Which means that "simple administration" is the key.
I have not been given a single homework assignment in college.
Neither have I, actually.
But the darn thing is, for the classes where I'm really learning something, I do rather poorly if I don't study on my own. A habit that I wish I was better at, and I probably would have been if I'd have done my homework in HS.
(note to self: If offspring don't do their homework and their grades are OK, bump them up a grade. If that doesn't work, home school...)
Oh did I mention the cost for the software? .Net developer tools (you need to be able to program that server) are around 1200 + 800 + 1200 + 900 for a total of $4100 (approx). Not too expensive but not free either.
Windows 2003 Server, Exchange 2000, SQL 2000,
You're missing MS's design pitch. Not every sysadmin is a programmer, and for a sizeable portion of the business world, "load and run" is more valuable than "free OS."
A good test, actually, would be to randomly configure a bunch of computers and to hook them up to the network. Change, change, and more change--adapting to change is, IMO, the biggest place where MS has a leg up over Linux.
but i haven't seen one mention or form of the word God in a non masculine way
"All the gods." "By the gods."
They're group-forms, inclusive of any divinity. "Whatever god you pray to" is also a gender-neutral use.
"Goddess" exists partly as a holdover from our very sexist days. (And, unless it's referring to 'The Goddess', it's lower-case.)
Oh, and for the record... "executrix" and "madam president" are the feminine forms.
One thing you must realize is that if you are a Muslim, you believe that information from the pre-Muhammad era has been incorrect in some way by the time Muhammed was born. A lot is similar but Allah has sent the verses of the Quran to his messenger Muhammed (SAW) because we needed a new guide and have strayed too far from the original beliefs. (This is not limited to just beliefs in multiple Gods and or Goddesses).
Oh, that's God's MO since Eden. Send message, people get message, people forget message, send message again. Christ, IMO, was God trying to show how to behave properly by example. (My opinion's still out on the celestial relevance of Muhammad. One one hand, there's J.C.'s warnings of false prophets and the common media perception; on the other, there's the actual teachings of the Quran/Qur'an/Koran and the theological implasiblity of God ignoring any who claim to follow Him.)
BTW, all religions are usually capitalized... not just Muslims.
True. But that's because they're proper nouns. The grammatical rule about capitializing a reference to the Supreme Being, be It a He or a She or an It, is a special case above and beyond religous reference.
It's not necessary to always capitalize "god"--only when using it (or its feminine form or pronoun) to refer to that Almighty being that humans alternatly call God, The Goddess, Allah, Bhramain, Yahweh, Jehovah, YHVH, etc.
Technically allah isn't a god as there is no sex associated with allah (god implies a masculine deity).
bzzt.
God, like many other English words, is "male-neutral." Other good ones are "editor," "executor", and "president." (There ARE feminine forms of these titles, but when in doubt, use the male.)
Oh, and Allah (you should ALWAYS capitalize the reference to the Supreme Being, no matter if you call said Omnipotence God, Allah, or The Great Fuzzy One) was worshiped as a father-god of pre-Muhammad post-Ishmael arabs.
And while I've got your attention--how come Muslims don't translate their word for God? Both the jews and the christians translate the word from its historic form when using English; why is the arabic so different?
Yes, because homework is pointless, people don't want to do work at home, school is built for a reason, there is a time and place for school work and thats at school
That's what study hall's for.
And, really, getting kids to do homework is essential prep for college, where half of the learning IS homework. (Not the practice, not the memorization--the actual learning. You can't learn how to paint, or code, or write, in a classroom--you learn by doing. And doing's homework.)
For example, some people would lump your use of the word "redneck" in that category, some Asians I know might jump to that conclusion when you call them "oriental" [as in rug].
I've just got a penchant for linquistic sensability.
"Asian", as a denoter of a human ethnicity, is a lousy word. You can't lump in Chinese, Indians, Arabs, Polynesians, and Russians in the same group--doing that widens the grouping so much you might as well include everyone.
'course, I'm also miffed at the use of the word "pagan", which has meant "one who doesn't follow God" (i.e., non Christian, Jew, or Muslim) for the entirety of our language, to mean "polytheist."
wrong. the hatred of the "black american" is the same as that of the mexicans, asians, irish, italians,
Stop right there.
There isn't a lot of hatred against irish or italians anymore--and with "asians" (which is a really bad name to call orientals), there's almost more of a resentful revereance than hatred.
Of course, you're arguing by referencing pop culture arguments that were popularized during the height of the civil rights movement. *sigh*
While we still have prejudice and a few pockets of real ethnic hatred in the USA, it's slowly but surely dying out. (note how three redneck who purpetrate a murder are sentenced to the full extent of the law, instead of being let go by jury nullification) The few instances where there's still "hatred", there are real causes that are more than just "they're different."
Absent a distinct grouping and percieved culture, any difference will just cause odd looks rather than hatred. And cyborgs will likely have neither, unless a bunch of snooty "post-humans" whine enough to make it an issue.
If you're willing to believe everything the RIAA says, then the battle has already been lost. Has this claim by the RIAA ever been upheld in court?
YES!
The MP3.com case, which went to court, established clear case law for this. It doesn't matter if I already own The Lord of the Rings in ten languages and five printings--downloading a pirated ebook is still copyright infringement, even if I could scan the book myself.
On the other hand, I have a feeling you could probably easily raise a pitchfork-wielding parade of yokels against the cyborg family who've moved in down the street with arguments along those lines...
I doubt it. There aren't any cyborg families--and when/if there ever are, they'll come from extant social groups--(again, just like pilots and bikers did.)
There is no such thing as reverse discrimination.
It's a term of political jargon--essentially, those traditionaly discriminated against having a discrimination against their supposed foes.
I'm convinced that many people hate wearing suits for this reason -- because they're too out-of-shape to properly wear formal attire.
Actually, we (men) hate wearing it because it's largely unfunctional. The same reason that tomboys don't like being forced to wear skirts; hampers what they can do.
Of course, just like my tomboy wife, I don't mind dressing up every now and then.
First, the black thing is no longer about slavery
:)
I didn't say that. I listed slavery as one of many "special-case" roots, and summed up the modern prejudicial remnant as baggage. 'course, I didn't get into "reverse discrimination", which probably has oodles of other factors.
The fear of cyborgs will be more of a fear of what one does not understand
Just like pilots and biker gangs.
As for building the next generation of super-cyborgs, you'd obviously use rational thought rather than randomly shaking a bag of traits and seeing what comes out
Dear me, no. Eugenics (which is exactly what you're describing) is a foolish endeavor. The computational power to adapt to all possibilities is far too large; redundancy and variation are the keys to survival.
Rational thought only needs to enter into reproduction to ensure sufficient saftey and material, to educate the next generation, and to excise the most undesriable of traits. (That's were capital punishment comes from--getting the worst bits of humanity out of the gene pool.)
Well, it's been hundreds of years, and plenty of white Americans still hate black people just because they're black... so why wouldn't people hate cyborgs just because they're... well... cyborgs?
Because they don't.
Most of the "black american" hatred is due to slavery, civil rights, labor disputes, and an old cultural image of Africans as "those savages from the other side of the Mediteranean." It's essentially cultural baggage that's not-quite excised.
Cyborgs, if they ever become a subculture at all, will be judged as a "new thing." More like bikers or pilots than blacks.
The best solution is for everybody to agree quite clearly, that unfettered free trade is a fucking stupid idea, and that NOBODY should be forced to submit themselves to free trade agreements in the way that many 3rd world countries have been forced to before they were allowed vital foreign aid.
Oh, for Christ's sake.
The 3rd world countries are being paid to implement free trade. If they can make more money out of "un-free" trade, they can go right ahead and do that for all I care.
But if they're taking my government's money, then they shouldn't whine when my goverment sets conditions. They can just say "no", suck it up, and let us get back to paying off our debt, you know...
But it also doesn't deny the right of citizens to marry someone of their own gender.
Which, of course, leaves us back in common understanding--and at no time in the history of our civilization, present time excepted, have citizens been able to marry their own gender. (Depending on how you cut "our civilization", you wind up with either no abberate marriages or a tolerance for unmarried homosexuality.)
And (according to the law) if something isn't expressly forbidden, then it's allowed.
Not quite. There are, after all, legal statutes that prohibit gay marriages now--if there weren't, VT wouldn't need to have their "Civil Unions."
(This is a good place for me to point out that I think that homosexuals, polygamists, and polyamorists should be able to -- and encouraged to -- solidfy their romantic relationships with the same legal mechanisms that bind traditional heterosexuals, like myself. We're just not at this point, and thinking that we are someplace we're not is never productive.)
Baning gay marriage is roughly equivalent to banning civilian ownership of tanks
Because gay marriages have the same destrutive capability as howitzer wrapped 10 tons of armor-plated steel?
Jebus, that's gotta be the most stupid comparisons I've ever heard.
It's a legal distinction (and my name's not Jebus!)
A law baning tanks or howitzers (they're different things!) is, constitutionally speaking, roughly equivalent to baning gay marriages. Or banning drugs. Or setting a national speed limit on the interstate. Or the laws supporting state secrets or the UCMJ.
To spell it out--the bans are valid, be they spelled out or not, regardless of a minority reading of the constitution. If we want the bans lifted, we need to address them as a thing that the various legislatures can address--not something that we already have a right to.
It's inferred to by the Declaration of Independence (Life, Liberty, the Pursuit of Happiness).
A lot of things can be infered from that document; it's historic and important, but it's not law.
Mixing the Right to Privacy with the Right to Profit isn't really a good thing...
And I didn't do that. The 10th amendment is the "other rights" amendment.
the constutional right to profit is right there in the bill of rights with the right to privacy...
Sort of.
While both can be infered from the 10th amendment, the "right to profit" would only protect you from the government (no 100% sales tax), not compel the government to help you. (You don't get soap-boxes or guns from the government until you join it.)
Plus, the right to privacy can be infered from the right to be free of unlawful search and siezure--it's essentially a due process thing.
Isn't this exactly like the candle manufacturers suing the electric utilities, claiming electricity will cause massive job loss? On the other hand, what are all those losers whose only skill is having a big mouth and being able to follow a script going to do for a living now? ...go into politics ...first-level tech support ...re-dub foreign shows with bad voices ...act
This would effectively be the first constitutional amendment since the 18th(prohibition), ratified in 1919, that is specifically intended to revoke the rights of citizens instead of granting new ones.
Nope.
The current interpretation of the US Constitution doesn't give citizens the right to marry someone of their own gender--or more than one other person. Baning gay marriage is roughly equivalent to banning civilian ownership of tanks--there just isn't a lot of instances of either in the nation today.
Plus, Frist didn't say that he's promoting the amendment--he said that he would support it.