and your bit of genius neglects basic sustainability.
Sure, we can exploit our lucky windfall of easily releasable energy until it runs out or becomes a lot less easy to release.
But sooner or later, we run out. A sustainable form of energy is needed; maybe not tomorrow, but it is needed.
The only source of energy on earth is the sun. That's a pretty good place to start.
Beyond that, energy already stored in matter might be enough to buy us more time, but to be long term we'll probably need to figure out how to release the energy in the atoms of something really easy to get and prevalent on earth. Say, common dirt. or seawater, which covers most of our planet.
I don't know, a few hundred million years of evolutionary evidence seems to indicate that naturally occurring mutations in food stock plants don't normally cause rapid and sudden health problems.
I guess if the government agencies want to wait for that sort of a track record on intentionally modified GMOs, I'd be pretty comfortable with it too.
I'm not at all equating the two. All I'm saying is, "because it's the law" is not an arguement for why people should do anything, unless you're advising them to avoid possible negative consequences. It has nothing to do with context; your specific arguement there was wrong.
Assuming you are making a moral appeal, as I think you were, you need something more applicable. Perhaps something like "because if you don't you're stealing from me", would be more appropriate, or "it's not ok to take the benefit of this state without paying for it". You said those kinds of things as well, what you meant there was clear, and I'm not trying to say otherwise at all. I'm just pointing out a bit of language that was troubling to me in its morality/legality mixup, that's all.
Personally, I find such moral arguements about taxes difficult to make, but then my government kills a lot of people I'm not really ok with them killing. So I can't morally justify getting mad at someone for not supporting my government with their tax money. Personally, I'm not sure that I'm morally justified in paying my taxes to get the benefits I get at that price... it smacks of buying my silence, in a way, while tens of thousands are killed in my name. But you may feel differently, and your government may behave differently.
anyway; just to make sure it's clear, I was not equating child abuse with tax evasion. Just being a bit of a language nazi, because I tend to think that people forget core values when they use bad arguments for too long, and I've met too many people who are "system defenders" who actually DO equate morality with legality. I tend to challenge that assumption if I think it may be lurking.
If it's not, well then, pay those taxes like crazy my man;)
The hallmark of being a free person is the ability to make choices. Such as, whether to follow or break a law.
While breaking a law has consequences, perhaps, it is not a moral question.
If the law says I have to hit children if they get within arm's reach, you're right that I should fight the law. But, I could also not follow it. And, if I am a moral person, I should not follow it.
Likewise, there are many, many laws on the books which are questionable in their moral basis. As a moral person, I would be quite remiss indeed if I let a bunch of politicians tell me what is right and what is wrong. All they can tell me is what is legal and what is illegal, which is not even passingly related to what is right and wrong. Justice is, IMHO, far more important than legality. Legality can make holocausts ok. Justice never can.
This says nothing about your particular situation, but your statement that you "can't choose which laws you follow and which you don't" is not only wrong, it is dangerous. People may choose not to follow laws for selfish reasons or just reasons, and if they do not follow a law there are civil consequences, but do not ever confuse a moral judgement with a legal one.
I know I'm missing your point, that Islam is the root of all evil and nothing the west has done has anything to do with any of it. It's not hard to miss that point, since there is no substance to it at all, unless you are completely ignorant to reality.
The real point, is that you are a retard for thinking that. Hopefully, someday, you'll realize that. That there is value in TRYING to overcome your bias, rather than surrendering to it.
You aren't just part of the problem, you're a perfect example of the entire problem. Instantly dehumanizing people different than you BEYOND any reason is exactly what allows suicide bombers to blow up civilians... and for our military to do the same (blow up civilians) and shrug it off as "collateral damage". We think it's acceptable as a part of fighting "the problem". And so do they.
You can attack what truly is wrong without being an idiot and claiming that Islam never did anything useful for the world, when they did exactly as useful a thing as every other civilization-advancing empire in history; collected knowledge together and made it fruitful, while killing a whole lot of people that didn't really want to be part of the new collective. And like every other advanced empire in history, they collapsed... If that's the fault of Islam, I'd like to see how it contributed to Rome, Egypt, Greece, England, France, the Dutch, Spain, Russia, and all the asian dynasties? If it didn't make them all collapse, then the issue probably wasn't unique to Islam. And even a bigot could see that, if said bigot had half a brain and the mental fortitude to face reality when it is more complicated than "they are all bad, and we are all good".
So Please, go fuck yourself. I'm quite clear on why you and other simple minded people like you are in fact the entire problem, not just part of it. Because people JUST LIKE YOU exist on both sides of every problem in history, stamping their feet in moral outrage at those other people doing those horrible things and using that to justify the "good guys" doing their horrible things.
Maybe I sound a little more ferverent than I mean to, if so, I apologize. I didn't think using the term "ass" would be such a big deal.
I just saw you attacking an assumption rather than the substance of a post, and I regard that as a dangerous behaviour trait, because it allows for misunderstanding very, very quickly. You made some points as well, but that doesn't change the assumption built into your last statements, and your characterization of the poster's stance, which is what I object to. Your characterization may very well have been accurate, I don't know the OP. But that's not the point. The point is it's hubris to assume, as well as pointless, when you could instead clarify.
The fact that I regard that kind of debate behaviour as boorish, and that it causes me to address people who use it in insulting terms, isn't really being "backed into a corner", since i have nothing to lose with being wrong here. Just trying to point out a behaviour choice that, while perhaps popular, isn't effective if finding truth is your goal. Maybe that's not your goal... Obviously, using insulting terms isn't very effective if achieving understanding is your goal as it is here with me, and so I was wrong to do it... I apologize for that. I think the one example of your behaviour was ass-ish, but that doesn't make you an ass.
But I think Ostentatious, a synonym for pretentious, is quite accurate. You "intended to attract notice and impress others" with a statement that was not firmly attached to the comment you replied to... it was flash, not substance.
Your point is crazy, and ignores history, it has nothing to do with "moral equivalence".
Go ahead; find a single "golden age" of any civilization that didn't arise because of rapid expansion through conquest, prior to the modern age where rapid developement of travel technology allowed for massive change to how trade and ideas spread. If you can't find one, and you won't, negating the achievements of an Islamic empire without also negating the achievements of other civilizations that did the same thing is quite simply hypocrisy, something even christian values denounce. Hyprocisy usually covers a character defect such as unreasoning racism, unwillingness to admit wrongdoing, or other such unreasoning and basically evil standpoints.
Whether humans are biased or not is not the point. Shrugging your shoulders and acting like a cock simply shows you have no strength of character and no desire to build any. Since many Fundamentalist Muslims have very similar attitudes to you and others like you, it's no wonder we all have to fight. Thanks!
Being a person who would in fact post such a thing, I do think it's POSSIBLE and reasonable that the OP MIGHT have simply been making sure that reality is addressed, as it is quite easy to forget that WE pay for things that are "free".
Since it's possible and reasonable, and there is NO indication that the OP was crying about taxes unless you attribute a bunch of things that weren't said, playing the sarastic "wounded bird" response back is pretentious. You are assuming you know the poster, and you are behaving like your knowledge is absolute enough to insult the person from the get go.
That's not only pretentious, but rude, and not very conducive to civilized discussion. If that's not important to you, so be it, but don't act like you're taking the moral high ground when you're being an ass.
An ass I agree with, on this issue, but still an ass.
masquerading racism as history is a little disengenuous.
All invention involves borrowing or stealing from other people. There has to be a giant's shoulders somewhere to stand on...
Rome didn't exactly stagger the world with engineering prowess by hanging out in Italy drinking wine either. They conquered a mess of people and stole all the knowledge they could, got the best and the brightest they could find to build stuff, and advanced the body of knowledge of mankind immesurably as a result.
America has done the same thing, by attracting intelligent immigrants, that didn't start off as American either. Doesn't stop us from taking credit for einstein though. We certainly benefited firstly and mostly from his work.
So if Islamic empires do it, suddenly it doesn't count, because they were Islamic?
NO one without extensive training could sort it out. Any normal person would need professional assistance to understand it. Somewhere, you have to trust those used to legalese, unless you are very gifted, or spend a lot of time reading legal documents, AND a background in bookkeeping at least, accounting preferred. And most of the contracts are signed by someone "in the biz" going out to be the "face" of the company, why get a lawyer, this guy is cool, he gets us, he likes us, he wants to help us get big so he can make money too, everyone wins, where do I sign??
It's simply not realistic, or fair, to pin the blame on the musician. Yes, they sign a contract, yes it's legal, yes they are adults, AND they are being totally conned by someone in a position of power.
IF the musician were capable of handling all those details, most of them would be making a lot more money sitting on the other side of that negotiating table (or in another industry).
I don't think it's too much to ask that people not exploit other people ridiculously, and when they do, holding THEM accountable, and not just shrugging your shoulders and saying "well, they signed it...". That's realistic if you have lawyers working with each other. It's realistic if you have a simple contract.
It is NOT realistic when side A is a pile of young musicians and side B is a horde of high priced and experienced lawyers, setting up contracts that are basically legal versions of loansharking agreements wrapped in dozens of pages of bullshit, exit clauses, latin, you name it. This is simply bullshit.
I am a small business owner myself without extensive business knowledge and yes, I understand that how to handle finances is integral to any business endeavor... I wish I had more from the beginning instead of having to figure it out as I went along. However, I do not use my position of superior knowledge in my field to abuse my clients, and I have a very dim view of those who do. Also, I do technical work. Columns of numbers and math are second nature to me. To a musician, this is not generally true.
In a CIVILIZED culture, naivete does not get you killed. It will deal you setbacks, though, you're right. We can't protect everyone all the time.
But I do think we CAN fight predatory business practices, and I think this qualifies. The deck is stacked heavily in this game. At least... it was, for a long time.
It's kind of like mortgages... if you've ever gotten one, you know that it is NOT POSSIBLE to have read and understood everything in the mountain of paperwork you have to sign. By the time you're done, EVEN IF YOU'RE A REAL ESTATE AGENT, you could have signed away breeding rights for your children.. who'd know? Or EULA's... we all click them all the time because no way would we have time to read them all. This is why they are shakily enforceable at best; it's simply not reasonable to expect we're all going to read them all and understand them all and "agree" from any legally responsible footing to abide by the "contract". That doesn't always stop the courts of course, but really, there is room for 'yeah I signed it, and I was completely unqualified to give consent to what was asked of me, AND THE PERSON ASKING FOR MY SIGNATURE KNEW IT".
Personally, I think contract complexity needs to be curtailed.. how, of course, is always the devil.
You raised a point but you also ran forward a lot further than was justified with your burdened man slam. The GP was not lamenting taxes, he raised a point of fact, that citizens, not someone else, pay for the museum's operation.
If your points are correct and not just rampant conjecture, that's great (evidence is nice). Then you could have a very long debate about who gets the benefit of tourism, whether it's equal and fair, or what have you. Personally, I think art is important and should be accessible and I'm willing to pay for that so I'm not inclined to really argue it. But that doesn't mean I have to make sweeping assumptions about people raising other points or act like a pretentious asshole towards them either.
They are not "idiots". They are "musicians", which is to say, they probably didn't get an MBA while they were learning how to make music. Perhaps all the people with MBAs they are working with could have an ounce of integrity and abide by the contracts at least?
Perhaps they could even have an ounce of concience and not rip someone off just because they can?
Obviously not. But if you really think it's realistic that a bunch of pot smoking 19 year old aspiring musicians could EVER go toe to toe in contract negotiation with a horde of MAFIAA lawyers and a few dozen pages of small print, no matter how serious they were and how many classes they took up to that point, and call them "idiots" for wanting to play music instead of engaging in high finance, and use that to insinuate that perhaps ripping them off is somehow JUSTIFIED, well, fuck you, quite simply.
The evil here is the EVIL, not the idiocy.
Now if you plan to write "record contraction negotiation for dummies", maybe you'd have a leg to stand on. But the knowledge musicians need to negotiate with the big boys is quite simply not available to most people who are spending their time writing music.
That just proves the point really. That was very easy to read even though it was totally "incorrect". If I assume you were using the "wrong" words out of ignorance, then perhaps typing like that is a poor way to make an impression. But if I am not tied to that idea and I consider the substance of your communication, I have no care for whether you say hear or here, as long as it doesn't impede my understanding.
The "best" word is simply one that is not misunderstandable by the audience. If you have an audience with aspergers, then you need to be more precise than with people who have mastered context. Unless they have what I call "elective aspergers", and insist that people not adhering to arbitrary linguistic rules are somehow less intelligent than those who do.
Ask women how it makes them feel to be ogled. Really; do it. Then tell them they are "insane", or somehow inferior people for how it makes them feel, if they say anything other than "I don't care".
Really. Have some conviction if you're going to take this stance. Don't hide behind a computer screen on a message board; put this conviction to a real test. If you have any difficulty doing it at all, then you might consider that intuitively, you might grasp that interpersonal relationships have value of some sort, and treating people around you with basic respect, even if YOU disagree with their stance, is worthwhile.
If you don't have any difficulty doing that, you're a sociopath (primary trait, total lack of empathy for other human beings) who should seek counseling immediately.
Believe it or not, in the real world, where you have to deal with people, their feelings are often more important than statistical probability, especially when the severity of possible consequence enters the picture.
Whether ogling is ACTUALLY an indicator of impending rape is absolutely irrelevant.
Staring at people is no indication of anything violent either. But if you just stare at people, they will feel threatened. Rational or not, it is quite *reasonable*. Because while staring itself might not be violent, it does indicate a level of intense scrutiney that could be a precursor to an attack. They could ask you not to stare. You could rationally say, "but this is an annoyance, not being able to stare, that has no benefit". And while you'd be technically right, you'd also be an asshole, because it doesn't hurt you in the least not to make the person uncomfortable. So you're comfortable being an asshole, congratulations, your mental victory over a large segment of the population is sure to enshrine you and your intellect forever. I hope it keeps you company too.
But, you do perfectly illustrate why women are absolutely correct when they indicate that men in general, and especially nerds, have no idea how to act around human beings. The forest for the trees here is basic respect for other people, which you seem to lack completely, which is unfortunate not just for anyone who has to interact with you, but for you too.
Just one more try for something approximating a reasonable response (don't confuse "calmly stated" with "reasonable");
-if you stood a decent chance of either having already had, having yourself, or having known many people like you who had been abused or victimized... and then a whole class of people just kept staring at you in sexual manners... you don't concede at all that it could be a reasonable thing for someone to be uncomfortable with?
More specifically:
-If you were in a crowd of gay men larger than you, most of whom you don't know, and they stared at you all the time, you wouldn't feel at all uncomfortable? Not even if you knew a bunch of people who had been molested or raped by gay men? That just would mean you were insane?
You can play devil's advocate if you like, but even if you were a gay man, I think you'd find that uncomfortable.
Regardless, not shitting on a large number of people for having some fear in their lives might be a worthwhile stance to work on, just for your own future.
I never implied women have it "worse" than people in war zones. That's your connotation. Just because a male behaviour pattern can be seen as threatening doesn't get anywhere near a "war zone", and I never said it was. You tried to imply that, which is ludicruous, I agree.
The 1 in 33 simply says the number of men who have been victimized. I saw nothing that indicated the age. I speculate, with I think an ounce of common sense, that most of it occurs in childhood. Likewise, I do not know the proportion of women who were abused as children vs raped as adults. I DO know that people victimized as children have a hard time later on, so it doesn't affect the woman side of things; the fact still remains that for women, it's much more common to fear men, and they had to fear MORE men than any man does. For men, I suppose if men are checking you out everywhere you go, you too would be threatened if you were not gay and willing. But that doesn't happen at work, because only about 10% of people are gay, and of those ten percent, they all know about how acceptable it is to ogle male workmates.... not very. They would be much more likely to be abused for it then the person being ogled.
So if you are in a situation where you have crowds of men ogling each other, I bet you would also find some discomfort. Unless you work in a gay bar or a highway rest stop, I doubt that's a real issue for you.
Most men can overpower most women. I'm an "average guy".. average height, average weight.. and I've got 5" on the female average, and a good 50lbs. You do the math.
If you are now calling women in the workplace who might be threatened by a roomful of ogling guys equivalent to people in insane asylums, you are still not "discussing" this. You are being an idiot, defending an indefensible point. You should have a care for a person you work with, if you can display that without undue hardship. Learning not to stare at women may not be easy, but it's not exactly undue hardship either. On the flip side of the coin, asking them not to be threatened by staring men asks them to be unreasonable, since they stand a real chance (1 in 6 is hardly uncommon) of actually being victimized.
Wow, you're trying pretty hard to bury your head. If the highly biased source is misquoting the gov statistics you claim they are, go ahead and show it. But regardless, a 5.5x differential is quite significant. You're right "weak men", known as children, might live in fear, except they are children, who generally don't, until AFTER they are shown that they should. Certainly the men I know that were molested as children aren't stronger for it, but I doubt they so it coming either.
I haven't seen any statistics on adult male on adult male rape, but I can only imagine it is vanishingly small outside of prison. Probably because if you like guys, you might find that other guys will have sex with you... they are guys, after all. The level of desparation and rejection that drives people to rape can't be terribly common there.
Regardless, if you are REALLY going to throw out comparisons to war zones, then you have no interest in not being an asshole to those around you, so fine, you get on with your bad self. Don't be surprised when people act like you're an asshole if that's your attitude, like women who work with you, for an example that might spur an article such as the one that started this conversation. Me, I don't think it's acceptable to make people approximate "living in a war zone" in order to justify my own behaviour. That level of callousness shows some pretty high level of disfunction. Maybe you need a hug. Maybe from a woman! Ah, the irony.
Regardless of what they "should" do, women are ACTUALLY concerned about these things. More often then you apparently think. You can choose to recognize that, or ignore it. There are consequences to either decision.
You can dig deeper if you like, but the summary on that page is 1 in 6 women are victims of sexual assault, compared to 1 in 33 men. Half of the rapes/sexual assaults against women are by "friend/acquaintence", which includes co-workers.
That means most women know multiple women who have been victimized by men; maybe not raped in parking garages, but enough to establish that men are definitely a source of potential threat. I don't question that at all, as I know that most of the women I have met, if they have not actually been victimized themselves at some point, have come close enough to realize they need to be careful, and if they have been lucky enough for that not to be true, they certainly have lots of friends who have been victimized. I would frankly be stunned if I ever met a women who didn't know someone who had either been raped or molested, by a man. So far, to the best of my knowledge I haven't (though naturally I have not asked every casual acquaintence I have, my closer friends are at 100%).
Most sexual assualts on men are BY men (99% of all rape is by men, in fact). So I'm not exactly sure how it's equally reasonable for a man to live in the same kind of fear a women should, especially considering that most men are capable of overpowering most women, but the same is not true of men vs other men. For a man to fear rape by a women borders on the ridiculous; that's like a 1 in 3300 chance, and I bet if you research that figure you'll find the vast majority of female on male sexual assault occurs when the female is adult and the male is not. I have several male friends who have been molested as children (by men, mostly, but hey, this is all anecdotal anyway right?) but I've never met a man who was forcibly raped by a woman. I've had male friends who were taken advantage of while drunk, but they weren't exactly emotionally scarred by it.
But go ahead and establish your very reasonable stance. Women definitely should not worry that men acting like they are not sexually satisfied pose any kind of risk to them whatsoever. Those silly ladies, someone should tell them they have nothing to worry about, huh?
You need to realize this is not an intellectual exercise for most people. This is a reality. It may not be pretty, but there it is. Perhaps you might want to consider, if you are a man, how your actions can be construed by people who have some reason to fear you. Unless you just don't care about your impact on others, of course, which is often the case, and is part of the problem IMHO.
I engineer for a living, but thanks for the tip. I know what I do, and I know numerous women who could easily handle it should they decide they wanted to.
I disagree that women are not as good as men at math/science and technology.
Up until college, all courses I took at the AP and honors level, including math, were dominated by women. Plenty of men too, but women were the top of nearly everything. They had plenty of ability; they understood it all, and made it work just fine, right up through calculus 1, chemistry, etc.
Many even thought they were going to be engineers.
Funny thing through... they got to college and CHANGED THEIR MAJORS in a hurry. Why? Well I'm not sure, except that it wasn't poor grades. But out of 30 of us in an AP calc course, I'm only aware of one female that went on to become an engineer while most of the boys from that class that I have heard from are engineers, science guys or other highly technical fellows.
There are lots of women AND men you "don't like to think"; I run into that more with men than women, in fact, though men are generally more subtle about that message because being "stupid" is more of a stigma for men than for women, because it's a weakness, and we are NOT to be weak. Women are more into their emotions than guys, that's true. But they are very CAPABLE of doing math and science. They CHOOSE not to. Nothing wrong with that, as long as when one does choose to do math/programming or science, their lack of penis is not held against them. That's the crux of the issue; choice. If they want to be stay at home moms, fine. If they want to be mathematicians, fine. That's up to them.
It does seem that the primary distinction between men and women is simply that women are, by and large, not willing to sacrifice everything else for career or accomplishment. I have met plenty of women who are extremely competant at the technical work they do, and perform at high level. But they want to go home at a reasonable hour to enjoy their life, not hand it over to their employer.
Acting like they simply can't do the work is a sadly misguided idea. Talk to any guy that is likewise not working to a high level in a technical field and I wager you'll see very similar responses to what you are attributing to women in a similar field about what they want out of the work they do. We just happen to be in a culture that places value on male OCD tendencies to "achieve". Which is good AND bad.
sure, but the "mindset of fear" is one that is rational and reasonable. Not if it's so extreme the woman can't go into public, but they are correct to be concerned. It only takes one weirdo in the crowd to follow her back to her car one night, or home, or whatever.
Seriously... if you tried even a little, I bet you'd turn up a female friend or two, or ten, or more than have been abused, or raped, or stalked at some point in their lives. It's a reality they have to deal with.
You're right that it's normal on our end as men to stare.. we're visual creatures, we're sexual creatures, blah blah blah. Hell, I stare at women all the time, nearly involuntarily, I'm not preaching from some soapbox here. It's hard not to stare. Especially since we have not been trained to really be aware of it!
I think we should train women to call us on it. It would only take a few cases of "Hey, bucko, my face is up here" to make men a little more aware of what they are doing when they are interacting even with friends and professional associates. Short of that, I don't think it's too much to ask that along with not raping everyone we see and stealing whatever we want, that we also try not to behave in a threatening manner to our day to day associates. That takes awareness and practice.
But I don't think it's "ok" that we just shrug it off. It's understandable why we are the way we are, but it's not acceptable, IMHO. And I do love to look at pretty ladies. But there are times and places for that, and they are called "bars";)
Slashdot Mirror
and your bit of genius neglects basic sustainability.
Sure, we can exploit our lucky windfall of easily releasable energy until it runs out or becomes a lot less easy to release.
But sooner or later, we run out. A sustainable form of energy is needed; maybe not tomorrow, but it is needed.
The only source of energy on earth is the sun. That's a pretty good place to start.
Beyond that, energy already stored in matter might be enough to buy us more time, but to be long term we'll probably need to figure out how to release the energy in the atoms of something really easy to get and prevalent on earth. Say, common dirt. or seawater, which covers most of our planet.
I don't know, a few hundred million years of evolutionary evidence seems to indicate that naturally occurring mutations in food stock plants don't normally cause rapid and sudden health problems.
I guess if the government agencies want to wait for that sort of a track record on intentionally modified GMOs, I'd be pretty comfortable with it too.
lol... I accidentally replied to my own post instead of yours. In case you rely on email notification, I replied ;)
I'm not at all equating the two. All I'm saying is, "because it's the law" is not an arguement for why people should do anything, unless you're advising them to avoid possible negative consequences. It has nothing to do with context; your specific arguement there was wrong.
;)
Assuming you are making a moral appeal, as I think you were, you need something more applicable. Perhaps something like "because if you don't you're stealing from me", would be more appropriate, or "it's not ok to take the benefit of this state without paying for it". You said those kinds of things as well, what you meant there was clear, and I'm not trying to say otherwise at all. I'm just pointing out a bit of language that was troubling to me in its morality/legality mixup, that's all.
Personally, I find such moral arguements about taxes difficult to make, but then my government kills a lot of people I'm not really ok with them killing. So I can't morally justify getting mad at someone for not supporting my government with their tax money. Personally, I'm not sure that I'm morally justified in paying my taxes to get the benefits I get at that price... it smacks of buying my silence, in a way, while tens of thousands are killed in my name. But you may feel differently, and your government may behave differently.
anyway; just to make sure it's clear, I was not equating child abuse with tax evasion. Just being a bit of a language nazi, because I tend to think that people forget core values when they use bad arguments for too long, and I've met too many people who are "system defenders" who actually DO equate morality with legality. I tend to challenge that assumption if I think it may be lurking.
If it's not, well then, pay those taxes like crazy my man
That's not true at all.
The hallmark of being a free person is the ability to make choices. Such as, whether to follow or break a law.
While breaking a law has consequences, perhaps, it is not a moral question.
If the law says I have to hit children if they get within arm's reach, you're right that I should fight the law. But, I could also not follow it. And, if I am a moral person, I should not follow it.
Likewise, there are many, many laws on the books which are questionable in their moral basis. As a moral person, I would be quite remiss indeed if I let a bunch of politicians tell me what is right and what is wrong. All they can tell me is what is legal and what is illegal, which is not even passingly related to what is right and wrong. Justice is, IMHO, far more important than legality. Legality can make holocausts ok. Justice never can.
This says nothing about your particular situation, but your statement that you "can't choose which laws you follow and which you don't" is not only wrong, it is dangerous. People may choose not to follow laws for selfish reasons or just reasons, and if they do not follow a law there are civil consequences, but do not ever confuse a moral judgement with a legal one.
I know I'm missing your point, that Islam is the root of all evil and nothing the west has done has anything to do with any of it. It's not hard to miss that point, since there is no substance to it at all, unless you are completely ignorant to reality.
The real point, is that you are a retard for thinking that. Hopefully, someday, you'll realize that. That there is value in TRYING to overcome your bias, rather than surrendering to it.
You aren't just part of the problem, you're a perfect example of the entire problem. Instantly dehumanizing people different than you BEYOND any reason is exactly what allows suicide bombers to blow up civilians... and for our military to do the same (blow up civilians) and shrug it off as "collateral damage". We think it's acceptable as a part of fighting "the problem". And so do they.
You can attack what truly is wrong without being an idiot and claiming that Islam never did anything useful for the world, when they did exactly as useful a thing as every other civilization-advancing empire in history; collected knowledge together and made it fruitful, while killing a whole lot of people that didn't really want to be part of the new collective. And like every other advanced empire in history, they collapsed... If that's the fault of Islam, I'd like to see how it contributed to Rome, Egypt, Greece, England, France, the Dutch, Spain, Russia, and all the asian dynasties? If it didn't make them all collapse, then the issue probably wasn't unique to Islam. And even a bigot could see that, if said bigot had half a brain and the mental fortitude to face reality when it is more complicated than "they are all bad, and we are all good".
So Please, go fuck yourself. I'm quite clear on why you and other simple minded people like you are in fact the entire problem, not just part of it. Because people JUST LIKE YOU exist on both sides of every problem in history, stamping their feet in moral outrage at those other people doing those horrible things and using that to justify the "good guys" doing their horrible things.
Maybe I sound a little more ferverent than I mean to, if so, I apologize. I didn't think using the term "ass" would be such a big deal.
I just saw you attacking an assumption rather than the substance of a post, and I regard that as a dangerous behaviour trait, because it allows for misunderstanding very, very quickly. You made some points as well, but that doesn't change the assumption built into your last statements, and your characterization of the poster's stance, which is what I object to. Your characterization may very well have been accurate, I don't know the OP. But that's not the point. The point is it's hubris to assume, as well as pointless, when you could instead clarify.
The fact that I regard that kind of debate behaviour as boorish, and that it causes me to address people who use it in insulting terms, isn't really being "backed into a corner", since i have nothing to lose with being wrong here. Just trying to point out a behaviour choice that, while perhaps popular, isn't effective if finding truth is your goal. Maybe that's not your goal... Obviously, using insulting terms isn't very effective if achieving understanding is your goal as it is here with me, and so I was wrong to do it... I apologize for that. I think the one example of your behaviour was ass-ish, but that doesn't make you an ass.
But I think Ostentatious, a synonym for pretentious, is quite accurate. You "intended to attract notice and impress others" with a statement that was not firmly attached to the comment you replied to... it was flash, not substance.
anyway, take care and be well.
Your point is crazy, and ignores history, it has nothing to do with "moral equivalence".
Go ahead; find a single "golden age" of any civilization that didn't arise because of rapid expansion through conquest, prior to the modern age where rapid developement of travel technology allowed for massive change to how trade and ideas spread. If you can't find one, and you won't, negating the achievements of an Islamic empire without also negating the achievements of other civilizations that did the same thing is quite simply hypocrisy, something even christian values denounce. Hyprocisy usually covers a character defect such as unreasoning racism, unwillingness to admit wrongdoing, or other such unreasoning and basically evil standpoints.
Whether humans are biased or not is not the point. Shrugging your shoulders and acting like a cock simply shows you have no strength of character and no desire to build any. Since many Fundamentalist Muslims have very similar attitudes to you and others like you, it's no wonder we all have to fight. Thanks!
Being a person who would in fact post such a thing, I do think it's POSSIBLE and reasonable that the OP MIGHT have simply been making sure that reality is addressed, as it is quite easy to forget that WE pay for things that are "free".
Since it's possible and reasonable, and there is NO indication that the OP was crying about taxes unless you attribute a bunch of things that weren't said, playing the sarastic "wounded bird" response back is pretentious. You are assuming you know the poster, and you are behaving like your knowledge is absolute enough to insult the person from the get go.
That's not only pretentious, but rude, and not very conducive to civilized discussion. If that's not important to you, so be it, but don't act like you're taking the moral high ground when you're being an ass.
An ass I agree with, on this issue, but still an ass.
If the Islamists didn't conquer those people and mash all their ideas together, you put forth that the same thing would have happened?
That's ridiculous. "Golden Ages" of history are ALL almagations of smaller areas having their ideas stolen. ALL of them.
Nothing different here, except your obviously anti-Islamic bias.
masquerading racism as history is a little disengenuous.
All invention involves borrowing or stealing from other people. There has to be a giant's shoulders somewhere to stand on...
Rome didn't exactly stagger the world with engineering prowess by hanging out in Italy drinking wine either. They conquered a mess of people and stole all the knowledge they could, got the best and the brightest they could find to build stuff, and advanced the body of knowledge of mankind immesurably as a result.
America has done the same thing, by attracting intelligent immigrants, that didn't start off as American either. Doesn't stop us from taking credit for einstein though. We certainly benefited firstly and mostly from his work.
So if Islamic empires do it, suddenly it doesn't count, because they were Islamic?
I understand what you are saying.
Have you ever seen a recording contract?
NO one without extensive training could sort it out. Any normal person would need professional assistance to understand it. Somewhere, you have to trust those used to legalese, unless you are very gifted, or spend a lot of time reading legal documents, AND a background in bookkeeping at least, accounting preferred. And most of the contracts are signed by someone "in the biz" going out to be the "face" of the company, why get a lawyer, this guy is cool, he gets us, he likes us, he wants to help us get big so he can make money too, everyone wins, where do I sign??
It's simply not realistic, or fair, to pin the blame on the musician. Yes, they sign a contract, yes it's legal, yes they are adults, AND they are being totally conned by someone in a position of power.
IF the musician were capable of handling all those details, most of them would be making a lot more money sitting on the other side of that negotiating table (or in another industry).
I don't think it's too much to ask that people not exploit other people ridiculously, and when they do, holding THEM accountable, and not just shrugging your shoulders and saying "well, they signed it...". That's realistic if you have lawyers working with each other. It's realistic if you have a simple contract.
It is NOT realistic when side A is a pile of young musicians and side B is a horde of high priced and experienced lawyers, setting up contracts that are basically legal versions of loansharking agreements wrapped in dozens of pages of bullshit, exit clauses, latin, you name it. This is simply bullshit.
I am a small business owner myself without extensive business knowledge and yes, I understand that how to handle finances is integral to any business endeavor... I wish I had more from the beginning instead of having to figure it out as I went along. However, I do not use my position of superior knowledge in my field to abuse my clients, and I have a very dim view of those who do. Also, I do technical work. Columns of numbers and math are second nature to me. To a musician, this is not generally true.
In a CIVILIZED culture, naivete does not get you killed. It will deal you setbacks, though, you're right. We can't protect everyone all the time.
But I do think we CAN fight predatory business practices, and I think this qualifies. The deck is stacked heavily in this game. At least... it was, for a long time.
It's kind of like mortgages... if you've ever gotten one, you know that it is NOT POSSIBLE to have read and understood everything in the mountain of paperwork you have to sign. By the time you're done, EVEN IF YOU'RE A REAL ESTATE AGENT, you could have signed away breeding rights for your children.. who'd know? Or EULA's... we all click them all the time because no way would we have time to read them all. This is why they are shakily enforceable at best; it's simply not reasonable to expect we're all going to read them all and understand them all and "agree" from any legally responsible footing to abide by the "contract". That doesn't always stop the courts of course, but really, there is room for 'yeah I signed it, and I was completely unqualified to give consent to what was asked of me, AND THE PERSON ASKING FOR MY SIGNATURE KNEW IT".
Personally, I think contract complexity needs to be curtailed.. how, of course, is always the devil.
You raised a point but you also ran forward a lot further than was justified with your burdened man slam. The GP was not lamenting taxes, he raised a point of fact, that citizens, not someone else, pay for the museum's operation.
If your points are correct and not just rampant conjecture, that's great (evidence is nice). Then you could have a very long debate about who gets the benefit of tourism, whether it's equal and fair, or what have you. Personally, I think art is important and should be accessible and I'm willing to pay for that so I'm not inclined to really argue it. But that doesn't mean I have to make sweeping assumptions about people raising other points or act like a pretentious asshole towards them either.
which was my point.
They are not "idiots". They are "musicians", which is to say, they probably didn't get an MBA while they were learning how to make music. Perhaps all the people with MBAs they are working with could have an ounce of integrity and abide by the contracts at least?
Perhaps they could even have an ounce of concience and not rip someone off just because they can?
Obviously not. But if you really think it's realistic that a bunch of pot smoking 19 year old aspiring musicians could EVER go toe to toe in contract negotiation with a horde of MAFIAA lawyers and a few dozen pages of small print, no matter how serious they were and how many classes they took up to that point, and call them "idiots" for wanting to play music instead of engaging in high finance, and use that to insinuate that perhaps ripping them off is somehow JUSTIFIED, well, fuck you, quite simply.
The evil here is the EVIL, not the idiocy.
Now if you plan to write "record contraction negotiation for dummies", maybe you'd have a leg to stand on. But the knowledge musicians need to negotiate with the big boys is quite simply not available to most people who are spending their time writing music.
while I agree it may be justified, the GP is correct that it's not "free".
That just proves the point really. That was very easy to read even though it was totally "incorrect". If I assume you were using the "wrong" words out of ignorance, then perhaps typing like that is a poor way to make an impression. But if I am not tied to that idea and I consider the substance of your communication, I have no care for whether you say hear or here, as long as it doesn't impede my understanding.
The "best" word is simply one that is not misunderstandable by the audience. If you have an audience with aspergers, then you need to be more precise than with people who have mastered context. Unless they have what I call "elective aspergers", and insist that people not adhering to arbitrary linguistic rules are somehow less intelligent than those who do.
Ask women how it makes them feel to be ogled. Really; do it. Then tell them they are "insane", or somehow inferior people for how it makes them feel, if they say anything other than "I don't care".
Really. Have some conviction if you're going to take this stance. Don't hide behind a computer screen on a message board; put this conviction to a real test. If you have any difficulty doing it at all, then you might consider that intuitively, you might grasp that interpersonal relationships have value of some sort, and treating people around you with basic respect, even if YOU disagree with their stance, is worthwhile.
If you don't have any difficulty doing that, you're a sociopath (primary trait, total lack of empathy for other human beings) who should seek counseling immediately.
Believe it or not, in the real world, where you have to deal with people, their feelings are often more important than statistical probability, especially when the severity of possible consequence enters the picture.
Whether ogling is ACTUALLY an indicator of impending rape is absolutely irrelevant.
Staring at people is no indication of anything violent either. But if you just stare at people, they will feel threatened. Rational or not, it is quite *reasonable*. Because while staring itself might not be violent, it does indicate a level of intense scrutiney that could be a precursor to an attack. They could ask you not to stare. You could rationally say, "but this is an annoyance, not being able to stare, that has no benefit". And while you'd be technically right, you'd also be an asshole, because it doesn't hurt you in the least not to make the person uncomfortable. So you're comfortable being an asshole, congratulations, your mental victory over a large segment of the population is sure to enshrine you and your intellect forever. I hope it keeps you company too.
But, you do perfectly illustrate why women are absolutely correct when they indicate that men in general, and especially nerds, have no idea how to act around human beings. The forest for the trees here is basic respect for other people, which you seem to lack completely, which is unfortunate not just for anyone who has to interact with you, but for you too.
Just one more try for something approximating a reasonable response (don't confuse "calmly stated" with "reasonable");
-if you stood a decent chance of either having already had, having yourself, or having known many people like you who had been abused or victimized... and then a whole class of people just kept staring at you in sexual manners... you don't concede at all that it could be a reasonable thing for someone to be uncomfortable with?
More specifically:
-If you were in a crowd of gay men larger than you, most of whom you don't know, and they stared at you all the time, you wouldn't feel at all uncomfortable? Not even if you knew a bunch of people who had been molested or raped by gay men? That just would mean you were insane?
You can play devil's advocate if you like, but even if you were a gay man, I think you'd find that uncomfortable.
Regardless, not shitting on a large number of people for having some fear in their lives might be a worthwhile stance to work on, just for your own future.
I never implied women have it "worse" than people in war zones. That's your connotation. Just because a male behaviour pattern can be seen as threatening doesn't get anywhere near a "war zone", and I never said it was. You tried to imply that, which is ludicruous, I agree.
The 1 in 33 simply says the number of men who have been victimized. I saw nothing that indicated the age. I speculate, with I think an ounce of common sense, that most of it occurs in childhood. Likewise, I do not know the proportion of women who were abused as children vs raped as adults. I DO know that people victimized as children have a hard time later on, so it doesn't affect the woman side of things; the fact still remains that for women, it's much more common to fear men, and they had to fear MORE men than any man does. For men, I suppose if men are checking you out everywhere you go, you too would be threatened if you were not gay and willing. But that doesn't happen at work, because only about 10% of people are gay, and of those ten percent, they all know about how acceptable it is to ogle male workmates.... not very. They would be much more likely to be abused for it then the person being ogled.
So if you are in a situation where you have crowds of men ogling each other, I bet you would also find some discomfort. Unless you work in a gay bar or a highway rest stop, I doubt that's a real issue for you.
Most men can overpower most women. I'm an "average guy".. average height, average weight.. and I've got 5" on the female average, and a good 50lbs. You do the math.
If you are now calling women in the workplace who might be threatened by a roomful of ogling guys equivalent to people in insane asylums, you are still not "discussing" this. You are being an idiot, defending an indefensible point. You should have a care for a person you work with, if you can display that without undue hardship. Learning not to stare at women may not be easy, but it's not exactly undue hardship either. On the flip side of the coin, asking them not to be threatened by staring men asks them to be unreasonable, since they stand a real chance (1 in 6 is hardly uncommon) of actually being victimized.
Wow, you're trying pretty hard to bury your head. If the highly biased source is misquoting the gov statistics you claim they are, go ahead and show it. But regardless, a 5.5x differential is quite significant. You're right "weak men", known as children, might live in fear, except they are children, who generally don't, until AFTER they are shown that they should. Certainly the men I know that were molested as children aren't stronger for it, but I doubt they so it coming either.
I haven't seen any statistics on adult male on adult male rape, but I can only imagine it is vanishingly small outside of prison. Probably because if you like guys, you might find that other guys will have sex with you... they are guys, after all. The level of desparation and rejection that drives people to rape can't be terribly common there.
Regardless, if you are REALLY going to throw out comparisons to war zones, then you have no interest in not being an asshole to those around you, so fine, you get on with your bad self. Don't be surprised when people act like you're an asshole if that's your attitude, like women who work with you, for an example that might spur an article such as the one that started this conversation. Me, I don't think it's acceptable to make people approximate "living in a war zone" in order to justify my own behaviour. That level of callousness shows some pretty high level of disfunction. Maybe you need a hug. Maybe from a woman! Ah, the irony.
Regardless of what they "should" do, women are ACTUALLY concerned about these things. More often then you apparently think. You can choose to recognize that, or ignore it. There are consequences to either decision.
right, and those blackies couldn't be anything either, right, cause they couldn't even read.
Tiny?
Have you ever looked at any rape statistics out there?
Here: http://www.rainn.org/statistics/
You can dig deeper if you like, but the summary on that page is 1 in 6 women are victims of sexual assault, compared to 1 in 33 men. Half of the rapes/sexual assaults against women are by "friend/acquaintence", which includes co-workers.
That means most women know multiple women who have been victimized by men; maybe not raped in parking garages, but enough to establish that men are definitely a source of potential threat. I don't question that at all, as I know that most of the women I have met, if they have not actually been victimized themselves at some point, have come close enough to realize they need to be careful, and if they have been lucky enough for that not to be true, they certainly have lots of friends who have been victimized. I would frankly be stunned if I ever met a women who didn't know someone who had either been raped or molested, by a man. So far, to the best of my knowledge I haven't (though naturally I have not asked every casual acquaintence I have, my closer friends are at 100%).
Most sexual assualts on men are BY men (99% of all rape is by men, in fact). So I'm not exactly sure how it's equally reasonable for a man to live in the same kind of fear a women should, especially considering that most men are capable of overpowering most women, but the same is not true of men vs other men. For a man to fear rape by a women borders on the ridiculous; that's like a 1 in 3300 chance, and I bet if you research that figure you'll find the vast majority of female on male sexual assault occurs when the female is adult and the male is not. I have several male friends who have been molested as children (by men, mostly, but hey, this is all anecdotal anyway right?) but I've never met a man who was forcibly raped by a woman. I've had male friends who were taken advantage of while drunk, but they weren't exactly emotionally scarred by it.
But go ahead and establish your very reasonable stance. Women definitely should not worry that men acting like they are not sexually satisfied pose any kind of risk to them whatsoever. Those silly ladies, someone should tell them they have nothing to worry about, huh?
You need to realize this is not an intellectual exercise for most people. This is a reality. It may not be pretty, but there it is. Perhaps you might want to consider, if you are a man, how your actions can be construed by people who have some reason to fear you. Unless you just don't care about your impact on others, of course, which is often the case, and is part of the problem IMHO.
I engineer for a living, but thanks for the tip. I know what I do, and I know numerous women who could easily handle it should they decide they wanted to.
I disagree that women are not as good as men at math/science and technology.
Up until college, all courses I took at the AP and honors level, including math, were dominated by women. Plenty of men too, but women were the top of nearly everything. They had plenty of ability; they understood it all, and made it work just fine, right up through calculus 1, chemistry, etc.
Many even thought they were going to be engineers.
Funny thing through... they got to college and CHANGED THEIR MAJORS in a hurry. Why? Well I'm not sure, except that it wasn't poor grades. But out of 30 of us in an AP calc course, I'm only aware of one female that went on to become an engineer while most of the boys from that class that I have heard from are engineers, science guys or other highly technical fellows.
There are lots of women AND men you "don't like to think"; I run into that more with men than women, in fact, though men are generally more subtle about that message because being "stupid" is more of a stigma for men than for women, because it's a weakness, and we are NOT to be weak. Women are more into their emotions than guys, that's true. But they are very CAPABLE of doing math and science. They CHOOSE not to. Nothing wrong with that, as long as when one does choose to do math/programming or science, their lack of penis is not held against them. That's the crux of the issue; choice. If they want to be stay at home moms, fine. If they want to be mathematicians, fine. That's up to them.
It does seem that the primary distinction between men and women is simply that women are, by and large, not willing to sacrifice everything else for career or accomplishment. I have met plenty of women who are extremely competant at the technical work they do, and perform at high level. But they want to go home at a reasonable hour to enjoy their life, not hand it over to their employer.
Acting like they simply can't do the work is a sadly misguided idea. Talk to any guy that is likewise not working to a high level in a technical field and I wager you'll see very similar responses to what you are attributing to women in a similar field about what they want out of the work they do. We just happen to be in a culture that places value on male OCD tendencies to "achieve". Which is good AND bad.
sure, but the "mindset of fear" is one that is rational and reasonable. Not if it's so extreme the woman can't go into public, but they are correct to be concerned. It only takes one weirdo in the crowd to follow her back to her car one night, or home, or whatever.
;)
Seriously... if you tried even a little, I bet you'd turn up a female friend or two, or ten, or more than have been abused, or raped, or stalked at some point in their lives. It's a reality they have to deal with.
You're right that it's normal on our end as men to stare.. we're visual creatures, we're sexual creatures, blah blah blah. Hell, I stare at women all the time, nearly involuntarily, I'm not preaching from some soapbox here. It's hard not to stare. Especially since we have not been trained to really be aware of it!
I think we should train women to call us on it. It would only take a few cases of "Hey, bucko, my face is up here" to make men a little more aware of what they are doing when they are interacting even with friends and professional associates. Short of that, I don't think it's too much to ask that along with not raping everyone we see and stealing whatever we want, that we also try not to behave in a threatening manner to our day to day associates. That takes awareness and practice.
But I don't think it's "ok" that we just shrug it off. It's understandable why we are the way we are, but it's not acceptable, IMHO. And I do love to look at pretty ladies. But there are times and places for that, and they are called "bars"