I'm pretty sure it's unfair to both, and worse for blacks. That is: black and poor is worse than black is worse than white and poor is worse than white in terms of how likely you are to be pursued, caught, tried, and convicted for a given crime.
Your right to vote is terminated. That is the best part of it. Thanks to our disproportionally unfair to black people justice system, we're able to legally disenfranchise them. What a relief that was for the racists, to find an out which everyone approves of!
In your analogy, this guy is selling dynamite. In large quantities, knowingly but 'under the table' to terrorists. (He doesn't know *wink wink* that they're going to commit an act of terrorism using his dynamite.)
Just to hit the right shade of gray on this issue.
Unfortunately, the price of drugs is grossly artificially inflated (artificial scarcity). Legalize it, and the basis for the tax (the amount of money to be taxed) falls through the floor. I'd guess that legalized drugs would be a market of only 1/100th that amount, at most. This is cheap chemistry people can do in their homes, or stuff people can grow in their yards, barring law enforcement. Not a big tax opportunity.
Surely whether you agree or not, you must believe that many of the people involved in drug enforcement are convinced that it is the right thing to do? That they believe they are saving lives? Do they deserve to die for that mistaken belief?
Do Islamic terrorists deserve to die for their mistaken belief that carrying out Jyhad is the correct thing to do? Do US soldiers deserve to die in Iraq for their mistaken belief that they are fighting for a good cause? Anytime you join up with some organization that may put your life on the line, you'd better do some deep thinking about your cause. I feel that most joiners don't --- they are brainwashed or swayed by demagogues. If you decide to play Russian Roulette, you deserve to die.
Whether or not people higher up in the drug trade are responsible for murders and other crimes, drugs do kill people directly (from overdose and other health artifacts).
Illegal drugs kill a miniscule fraction of the people killed by all drugs (including alcohol, nicotine, aspirin, etc.) If all drugs were legal, and manufactured under FDA restrictions, even fewer people would die. No one can legitimately justify the war on drugs by dragging out the drug casualties. Remember Prohibition? That worked out so well they repealed it. As I pointed out to the other responder, I think it is somewhat ridiculous to try to compare: Jihadist believer who kills people for his beliefs. to Anti drug beliver who snitches on drug dealers for his beliefs.
If you can't see a difference in the behaviors resulting from those beliefs, I think you have deep deep problems. If we were talking about an anti-drug crusader who cared so much about drugs that he was killing drug dealers vigilante style in the streets, I might credit that they would warrant the same social enforcement as a jihadist, but that's not what we're talking about (which is not to mention that they would be subject to such enforcement under the law).
As an aside, no, Islamic terrorists don't deserve to die for their mistaken beliefs. It is probably necessary to imprison them, but I don't see justification for execution.
Finally, your claim that fewer people would die under an all-drugs-legal regime is probably incorrect. More people would die from the long-term impacts of extended drug use, and from greater drug use due to legality. There are actual people who don't use drugs because they are illegal / fear of imprisonment. We both have equal statistical and historical justification for our claims. To claim that you can't legitimately justify the war on drugs due to fears about the consequences of those drugs to society is just ridiculous. It's a balancing act. We make lots of drugs legal, and make illegal the ones which we feel have the worst social consequences. Look at it historically: lots of stuff was legal, but some of it was causing problems so severe we banned them. We banned alcohol, but discovered the consequences there were worse than what we had before. We're loosening up on marijuana, because people see that the enforcement there is similarly worse than the drug use. But what about methamphetamine? There I expect enforcement to live forever: people taking meth are just too dangerous.
Your comment is off base. I'm actually asking about the specific mistaken belief, not mistaken belief in general. Do you really want to equate believing that drugs are a serious problem, worthy of trying to be stopped, with believing that Americans are all evil, worthy of being killed?
But to clear things up, what I really want to ask is whether the behavior caused by the belief really warrants killing:
Anti-drug believer engages in informing on drug sellers. Al-Qaeda anti-american believer engages in kidnapping, torture, and murder.
Do you feel like those are pretty comparable actions? They deserve equal punishment? (maybe you do, but if so I'll just stop arguing with you and tell you I think you're too far off the wall for me to reason with).
A final note: I personally don't believe that any action warrants execution, imprisonment is far more ethically justifiable.
Really, that principal applies anywhere. Always start out huge and get out quickly. For example, if you're going to sell software, make a complete replacement for windows and office and sell 40 million units your first year, then get out of the business before Microsoft has a chance to react.
Surely whether you agree or not, you must believe that many of the people involved in drug enforcement are convinced that it is the right thing to do? That they believe they are saving lives? Do they deserve to die for that mistaken belief?
Whether or not people higher up in the drug trade are responsible for murders and other crimes, drugs do kill people directly (from overdose and other health artifacts). Their belief is not entirely unfounded in reality.
Hmm, I must have gotten misdirected by google's patent searcher, it said that was a MS patent from the search page. Anyway, it would in no way be atypical of the difficulty of deciding if free software violated it.
You know crime rates were much higher in his day, right? And your likelyhood of dieing by violence in his day was something like 10x as large. We have it easy today.
In case you don't know it, virtually every cable operator in the US will give you the promotional rate again if you ask for it (ie threaten to switch to satellite). They'd rather have you pay $75 than $0.
Most companies require at a minimum a drug screening, and maybe a physical too. I'd say both of those would mandate the use of latex gloves. Most companies? I've worked at 6 now, and not one has required either a drug screen or physical. Maybe you meant financial companies?
What exactly does having someone's fingerprints gain you in financial security? So Sister embezzles $1m by wiring it to Switzerland... now what? What do those fingerprints get you?
Seems to me it's a great way to weed out good people in favor of people who can't get any other job. In addition to the help it provides in running a background check before hiring, after the person commits a big financial crime and flees to another country, they will have to live with the fear that when they get themselves caught driving recklessly in their ferrari they'll be fingerprinted by interpol and subsequently deported back to America for trial.
The problem with 'cold'/'tabletop' fusion for the oil/energy companies is that as soon as such electrical generation becomes convenient, we'll: a) stick it in our cars and stop buying gas (for the most part, they do not sell water, nor would it be nearly as easy for them to obtain a bottleneck on water distribution). b) stick it in our homes and stop buying electricity from the grid c) stick one in our business buildings and stop buying electricity from the grid
That pretty much covers 100% of the profitability of these very powerful companies. They will not let a,b,c come to pass if they can prevent it.
I think you mean 'Grammar Nazis are very affective at repelling women'. Unless you really don't think they're ugly.
Re:Things like this are easy to fix.
on
Google's Evil NDA
·
· Score: 1
Sure, it has worked for me. I've personally done it 5 times. The other side said they'd have to consider, once. And they accepted. All the other times, they just took my changes, without even looking, because it was something their legal department wanted my signature on, but they didn't personally care, so they figured they'd just say 'oh sorry' to the legals if it ever came up, which I assume it did not. Most employees and even legal departments are so overworked they are never going to notice this stuff going on.
If you don't stop them now then they'll work their way up to a board with a nail in it, then a screwdriver, then a big stick, and before you know it he's running around the school swinging a big, heavy backpack at people. No, from a board with a nail in it, you go to a bigger board with a bigger nail, an even bigger board with an even bigger nail, and ultimately a board with a nail in it so large you'll destroy us all!
Ned makes his wish to get rid of the aliens - suddenly, Moe is chasing the alien, brandishing a board with a nail in it. The aliens are defeated, and fly off to lick their wounds.
Kodos: Well Kang, it seems the earthlings won.
Kang: Did they? That board with a nail in it may have defeated us. But the humans won't stop there. They'll make bigger boards and bigger nails, and soon, they will make a board with a nail so big, it will destroy them all!
My point was really just to imagine an opponent with essentially unlimited resources trying to prove that your idea was developed at a specific time. Anything physical, presumably other than your mind, might be used as evidence against you.
There are basically a few ways you can approach this.
1) You are willing to quit and wait a year to develop any million dollar idea you have. You are willing to place a million dollar bet that any million dollar idea you come up with won't be replicated by someone else in a year's time. Make sure they can't prove you had the idea on their time. Don't commit anything to any physical media (not even pencil to paper, because they could carbon date it for a big enough idea). You are willing to perjure yourself in court. You can accept the contract.
2) You are willing to let them have your million dollar idea. You can accept the contract.
3) You are willing to alter the contract, and bet the job that they'll blink first, or maybe not even care. Alter the contract.
4) You are willing to try to negotiate it, and will bet the job that they'll be reasonable people. Negotiate the contract.
5) Decline the job. Be sure to tell them it was because of the contract.
I have gone for #3/#4 on 4 occassions now. I have won every time. My favorite strategy is to explain that I cannot agree to such a contract because of ongoing consulting work that I do for past employers, and that obviously I can't hand over anything of the past employer's to them, just as I could not for them with any future employer I might have. Therefore, I have to exclude any work done for another entity, under any other contract. I have such a contract with my wife for all of my non-work hours.
I found most of the comments in this article uninteresting, but yours fascinates me. What the heck are you reading? Read any of the classics with a villian. At one end of literary history, read anything by Homer, at the other, many folks here might be familiar with Tolkien. What do they have in common? Wild, glorious celebrations at the death of their opponents, particularly the evil ones. Heck, even Valenti's own world produced Star Wars. What do the gentle teddy bears do when the emperor (and his minions) is finally killed? They throw a wild party.
So out of curiosity, what the heck are you reading where everyone always pays respects to their opponent, particularly one they think is actually evil?
Slashdot Mirror
I'm pretty sure it's unfair to both, and worse for blacks. That is: black and poor is worse than black is worse than white and poor is worse than white in terms of how likely you are to be pursued, caught, tried, and convicted for a given crime.
O fPage6 .shtmla ljust/
http://www.hrw.org/reports/2000/usa/index.htm#Top
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2000/may2000/bias-m1
http://www.drugpolicy.org/communities/race/crimin
http://www.albany.edu/sourcebook/toc_5.html
I think the democratic party just grew about 900%. I guess it's a one-party system now.
Just to hit the right shade of gray on this issue.
http://www.drugwarfacts.org/prison.htm
It's not the vast majority, but neither is it a small fraction.
Unfortunately, the price of drugs is grossly artificially inflated (artificial scarcity). Legalize it, and the basis for the tax (the amount of money to be taxed) falls through the floor. I'd guess that legalized drugs would be a market of only 1/100th that amount, at most. This is cheap chemistry people can do in their homes, or stuff people can grow in their yards, barring law enforcement. Not a big tax opportunity.
Do Islamic terrorists deserve to die for their mistaken belief that carrying out Jyhad is the correct thing to do? Do US soldiers deserve to die in Iraq for their mistaken belief that they are fighting for a good cause? Anytime you join up with some organization that may put your life on the line, you'd better do some deep thinking about your cause. I feel that most joiners don't --- they are brainwashed or swayed by demagogues. If you decide to play Russian Roulette, you deserve to die.
Whether or not people higher up in the drug trade are responsible for murders and other crimes, drugs do kill people directly (from overdose and other health artifacts).
Illegal drugs kill a miniscule fraction of the people killed by all drugs (including alcohol, nicotine, aspirin, etc.) If all drugs were legal, and manufactured under FDA restrictions, even fewer people would die. No one can legitimately justify the war on drugs by dragging out the drug casualties. Remember Prohibition? That worked out so well they repealed it. As I pointed out to the other responder, I think it is somewhat ridiculous to try to compare:
Jihadist believer who kills people for his beliefs.
to
Anti drug beliver who snitches on drug dealers for his beliefs.
If you can't see a difference in the behaviors resulting from those beliefs, I think you have deep deep problems. If we were talking about an anti-drug crusader who cared so much about drugs that he was killing drug dealers vigilante style in the streets, I might credit that they would warrant the same social enforcement as a jihadist, but that's not what we're talking about (which is not to mention that they would be subject to such enforcement under the law).
As an aside, no, Islamic terrorists don't deserve to die for their mistaken beliefs. It is probably necessary to imprison them, but I don't see justification for execution.
Finally, your claim that fewer people would die under an all-drugs-legal regime is probably incorrect. More people would die from the long-term impacts of extended drug use, and from greater drug use due to legality. There are actual people who don't use drugs because they are illegal / fear of imprisonment. We both have equal statistical and historical justification for our claims. To claim that you can't legitimately justify the war on drugs due to fears about the consequences of those drugs to society is just ridiculous. It's a balancing act. We make lots of drugs legal, and make illegal the ones which we feel have the worst social consequences. Look at it historically: lots of stuff was legal, but some of it was causing problems so severe we banned them. We banned alcohol, but discovered the consequences there were worse than what we had before. We're loosening up on marijuana, because people see that the enforcement there is similarly worse than the drug use. But what about methamphetamine? There I expect enforcement to live forever: people taking meth are just too dangerous.
Your comment is off base. I'm actually asking about the specific mistaken belief, not mistaken belief in general.
Do you really want to equate believing that drugs are a serious problem, worthy of trying to be stopped, with believing that Americans are all evil, worthy of being killed?
But to clear things up, what I really want to ask is whether the behavior caused by the belief really warrants killing:
Anti-drug believer engages in informing on drug sellers.
Al-Qaeda anti-american believer engages in kidnapping, torture, and murder.
Do you feel like those are pretty comparable actions? They deserve equal punishment? (maybe you do, but if so I'll just stop arguing with you and tell you I think you're too far off the wall for me to reason with).
A final note: I personally don't believe that any action warrants execution, imprisonment is far more ethically justifiable.
Really, that principal applies anywhere. Always start out huge and get out quickly. For example, if you're going to sell software, make a complete replacement for windows and office and sell 40 million units your first year, then get out of the business before Microsoft has a chance to react.
Surely whether you agree or not, you must believe that many of the people involved in drug enforcement are convinced that it is the right thing to do? That they believe they are saving lives? Do they deserve to die for that mistaken belief?
Whether or not people higher up in the drug trade are responsible for murders and other crimes, drugs do kill people directly (from overdose and other health artifacts). Their belief is not entirely unfounded in reality.
Hmm, I must have gotten misdirected by google's patent searcher, it said that was a MS patent from the search page. Anyway, it would in no way be atypical of the difficulty of deciding if free software violated it.
They are public record. MS has over 5000 patents. Would you like to do the reading?0 6/03-065000PatentPR.mspx
m icrosoft
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2006/mar
Here's one:
http://www.google.com/patents?id=MlwmAAAAEBAJ&dq=
Does any open source software violate it?
You know crime rates were much higher in his day, right? And your likelyhood of dieing by violence in his day was something like 10x as large.
We have it easy today.
9/11 didn't happen to them. If only we'd had more cameras!
In case you don't know it, virtually every cable operator in the US will give you the promotional rate again if you ask for it (ie threaten to switch to satellite). They'd rather have you pay $75 than $0.
Seems to me it's a great way to weed out good people in favor of people who can't get any other job. In addition to the help it provides in running a background check before hiring, after the person commits a big financial crime and flees to another country, they will have to live with the fear that when they get themselves caught driving recklessly in their ferrari they'll be fingerprinted by interpol and subsequently deported back to America for trial.
The problem with 'cold'/'tabletop' fusion for the oil/energy companies is that as soon as such electrical generation becomes convenient, we'll:
a) stick it in our cars and stop buying gas (for the most part, they do not sell water, nor would it be nearly as easy for them to obtain a bottleneck on water distribution).
b) stick it in our homes and stop buying electricity from the grid
c) stick one in our business buildings and stop buying electricity from the grid
That pretty much covers 100% of the profitability of these very powerful companies. They will not let a,b,c come to pass if they can prevent it.
I think you mean 'Grammar Nazis are very affective at repelling women'. Unless you really don't think they're ugly.
Sure, it has worked for me. I've personally done it 5 times. The other side said they'd have to consider, once. And they accepted. All the other times, they just took my changes, without even looking, because it was something their legal department wanted my signature on, but they didn't personally care, so they figured they'd just say 'oh sorry' to the legals if it ever came up, which I assume it did not. Most employees and even legal departments are so overworked they are never going to notice this stuff going on.
Only Licensed and bonded outlaws.Hey! If we outlaw hammers, only outlaws will be able to put shelves up!
Kodos: Well Kang, it seems the earthlings won.
Kang: Did they? That board with a nail in it may have defeated us. But the humans won't stop there. They'll make bigger boards and bigger nails, and soon, they will make a board with a nail so big, it will destroy them all!
My point was really just to imagine an opponent with essentially unlimited resources trying to prove that your idea was developed at a specific time. Anything physical, presumably other than your mind, might be used as evidence against you.
There are basically a few ways you can approach this.
1) You are willing to quit and wait a year to develop any million dollar idea you have. You are willing to place a million dollar bet that any million dollar idea you come up with won't be replicated by someone else in a year's time. Make sure they can't prove you had the idea on their time. Don't commit anything to any physical media (not even pencil to paper, because they could carbon date it for a big enough idea). You are willing to perjure yourself in court. You can accept the contract.
2) You are willing to let them have your million dollar idea. You can accept the contract.
3) You are willing to alter the contract, and bet the job that they'll blink first, or maybe not even care. Alter the contract.
4) You are willing to try to negotiate it, and will bet the job that they'll be reasonable people. Negotiate the contract.
5) Decline the job. Be sure to tell them it was because of the contract.
I have gone for #3/#4 on 4 occassions now. I have won every time. My favorite strategy is to explain that I cannot agree to such a contract because of ongoing consulting work that I do for past employers, and that obviously I can't hand over anything of the past employer's to them, just as I could not for them with any future employer I might have. Therefore, I have to exclude any work done for another entity, under any other contract. I have such a contract with my wife for all of my non-work hours.
I found most of the comments in this article uninteresting, but yours fascinates me. What the heck are you reading?
Read any of the classics with a villian. At one end of literary history, read anything by Homer, at the other, many folks here might be familiar with Tolkien. What do they have in common? Wild, glorious celebrations at the death of their opponents, particularly the evil ones.
Heck, even Valenti's own world produced Star Wars. What do the gentle teddy bears do when the emperor (and his minions) is finally killed? They throw a wild party.
So out of curiosity, what the heck are you reading where everyone always pays respects to their opponent, particularly one they think is actually evil?