If I built the car toward the idea of selling it to recoup the money spent and make a profit, and then had the market removed after I spent the money to build it, then I've sunk money into a product I can no longer sell, that I wouldn't have made in the first place if there was no market to sell it. The concept that I'm stuck with unsellable inventory (which represents a cost to me) doesn't seem to occur to you.
To extend this to a movie, if I make a movie and then release it on DVD with the idea that the sales of DVDs will help recoup the cost of the movie and earn profit, and then illegal copies cut into the number of DVDs I can sell, then I might not have sunk the cost of making the film in the first place. Having already spent the money, having the sales market saturated with illegal copies can make me lose money, in that I might have made the film more cheaply (or not at all) if I'd not had as big a market to sell to.
> We have an entire system that essentially won't discuss the concept of a God or creator within education. So they are taught....so they will believe.
This is because religious training is supposed to occur outside of the classroom. There's no rule that forbids teaching kids religion, just rules forbidding teachers from doing it. If you're concerned that your kids aren't getting religious training in school, send them to a religious school, or take them to a place of worship, or (God forbid!) teach them yourself.
> All atheists are arrogant fools who have no right of claim to the title 'scientist'. Agnostics, or those who simply say "I don't know one way or the other" are much more honest and truer scientists.
Sorry, but by your logic any scientist who isn't solidly agnostic is an arrogant fool, and somehow I find it unlikely you'd attach that moniker to a scientist who professed to believe your particular religion. Atheists are like any other class of faithful; they've accepted their particular world view and profess it. Calling it arrogance requires that you say the same of anyone with faith, including those like yourself who profess ID as "more likely" when there's no definitive proof either way.
This is oversimplistic. Saying that a potential sale isn't a thing doesn't mean that it has no value. A share of stock isn't a thing, but it's still got worth. Companies sell sales leads all the time with no guarantee that they'll pan out, and people and companies buy them all the time, so someone considers potential sales to have value.
> Theft is taking something away from someone else without permission, depriving them of the use of it. They no longer have it.
The argument they make it that you've stolen a potential sale from them. Your statement does not invalidate the use of the word "theft" in this regard.
> Copyright violation is copying a protected work without permission. The original owner is not deprived of the use of said work, therefor, it is not theft.
Quite right. The force of law, however, is prepended on the idea that someone who infringes copyright like this is taking sales revenue. Whether that's right or not is a different case.
> If I had some magical device that allowed me to clone any physical object, and I used it to make a duplicate of your car for myself, have I stolen your car?
If you duplicated my car and gave it to someone I was trying to sell my car to, would they be as likely to buy my car? Now consider that "I" could be Ford Motor Company, and you came on to my factory lot and took copies of my cars. Are you implying that because I still have a bunch of cars, and there are a lot of possible car buyers that now don't need a car, that I haven't lost anything?
> How about if people wantonly stole - yes, that's what it is, stealing - the products you or your employer made? Sure, your CEO would be out a Ferrari (or, more likely, Prius), but you would be out of a job. The same thing with the set designers, camera crew, studio IT people, etc... If the productions do not make enough money off either theatrical or home release, then studios scale back or shut down and people lose jobs.
The ethical arguments surrounding this issue stem from the definitions of the terms involved. There's a great deal of disagreement about your use of the word "stole", so saying "yes, that's what it is, stealing" doesn't make it so for those to whom "stealing" and "copyright infringement" do not equate. Also, your phrase "If the productions do not make enough money..." are up for grabs to those who think that studio executives skim intolerable amounts of cash off the profit margin, thereby making a movie that would turn a profit into a "losing proposition" because it doesn't earn enough to satisfy the executives.
Remember that your arguments base on assumptions that are not universal in this discussion, so you must address them or you might as well tell them that they mustn't pirate movies because the invisible pink unicorn disapproves.
> I don't see any parrallel there to NK at all. Well except for all the evil dictator thing, and the killing of the people, and the production of WMDs, and the violation of UN and US treaties. Yea, we should just leave poor Kim alone, he's got soo much on his plate right now.
Not to put your back to the wall here, but substituting "China" for "NK" in the above does not make it false.
> Most people do not participate in government, either.
Incorrect. While the majority of the populace does not vote, the vast majority of the populace recognizes that the winners of the election get to hold the job. By the same token, the majority of society recognizes that vigilantism is not a normal or generally acceptable state of affairs, and therefore vigilantes cannot consider themselves representatives of the public at large.
> Indeed they are. However, government agents garner support from a greater number of people by prosecuting that "crime" than they piss off.
Fitting your particular complaints about government officials into this discussion does nothing to address the original discussion, so please try to stay on topic. The argument you made is that vigilantes represent "the people", and your usage implied that "the people" constituted a majority of the population. I refuted, saying that it's just as inaccurate as implying that child molesters constitute a majority of the population, but your definition allows this.
> That is one of the problems with statute law. By creating "crimes" out of acts that harm no one, such as drug use, speeding and prostitution,
Firstly, your argument requires that you first demonstrate that these crimes harm no one to those who believe they do. For myself, I don't believe that speeding is harmless, because of the externalities involved. I'm more with you on the other two, but that's not relevant to the fact that I disagree with your statement as a whole, and therefore you must justify the statement to proceed.
> If the punishment for speeding were as severe as murder, a larger number of people who didn't like the law would revolt against those who enforce it. Just like the juries who refused to convict rum-runners during alcohol prohibition, or operators of the underground railway prior to the War of Northern Aggression.
You see what I mean by staying on topic? Don't soapbox about some personal point that's entirely irrelevant to the discussion at hand (whether vigilantes represent a generally accepted practice or not). You may wish to tie back the concept of disrespect for the law into vigilantism, but that's a stretch considering your examples are of civil disobedience, not vigilantism.
> You might be interested in an interesting little factoid: San Francisco is one of the most famous examples of "vigilante" action in the US. So what happened? In the year after the formation of the Vigilance Committees, there were fewer murders in San Francisco than there was in the month prior, including the actions of the Committees.
Someone disagrees with your analysis about the good that came from this idea. I'm inclined to agree more with his side than yours considering that most of the violations of the committees were not murderous in nature but were just as egregious.
> So please do decry the abuses of justice where ever they occur. Just don't limit yourself to only what the government schools told you was bad.
Thanks for the tip, but it's been more than twenty years since government schools were my source for information about vigilantism, so I'll have to thank you not to pretend I'm a brainwashed fool because I don't agree with you. Go pick your bone with the government elsewhere, and come back when you're ready to present more than a refuted example from a hundred years ago and a lot of offtopic banter.
> So yeah, the cryogenics community would love getting more He3. It's really rare here on Earth, but it would be really cool to have more of this stuff.
> This is obvious once you know that the moon orbits around the Sun and not the Earth (or rather the Sun exerts a much larger force on the Moon than the Earth does).
These two statements don't mesh. That is:
...the moon orbits around the Sun and not the Earth
...does not equal...
...the Sun exerts a much larger force on the Moon than the Earth does
The reason is that the first can be false and the second still true. The first statement is false because the Moon can orbit the Earth and the Sun simultaneously, which in fact it does.
> The cost of adding humans to the trip is extreme, while the only real benefit is a reduction in communications latency - hardly worth the benefit.
This is simply not correct. There's one thing that a human astronaut adds to the project that can't be covered by any mechanical device. That's adaptability. If a rover digs in or turns over, it's done. If a Mars buggy gets stuck, a human operator can pull out a winch line and free it, or tip it back on to its wheels. A human can compensate for equipment malfunction that can stop a machine in its tracks. If a high gain antenna sticks on deployment, a human can manually free and deploy it. If the solar panels get dirty, a human can get out a whisk broom and clear them. If something is discovered that wasn't expected, a human can adapt an instrument on the fly to do further testing. A human operator can drive a buggy places where no remote lander could possibly go safely, and could even take a remote-controlled lander along because running it from a mile away is possible where running it from Earth is impossible due to the latency in communications.
In short, a human team would provide NI (natural Intelligence) that would far exceed anything mechanized, and they could therefore be much more effective in gathering information (which landers can do) and analysing it (which landers can't do). It's not just a benefit in latency, it's a pair of hands on the spot attached to a brain far beyond anything we can build. It's the ability to handle the unexpected.
There are a few considerations about the "dark side of the Moon" that make it valuable for a telescope even without always being shielded from the Sun. First, with no atmosphere a telescope can observe things in the daytime near the horizons with very little distortion, so it's not like having the sun up would prevent the telescope seeing anything like it does on Earth. Second, "dark" refers to more than just visible light. Radio telescopes would be shielded by the Moon itself from Earth-based EM radiation, thereby giving a more clear signal from extrasolar spots. When the dark side is visibly dark, it's even better for radioscope operations.
> I'm assuming (hoping) the crime is typical. I thought a typical offender works alone, is male, and is single (though I admit I'm not up on my perv-profiling, that could be wrong). If there was a group, it would be pretty risky to assume someone isn't going forget sunscreen and come back to the room, so I think the must be alone.
Sorry, but your assumption is wrong. The vast majority of sex offenders know their victims, and a majority of offenders are related to or connected to their victims in some way. Also, most offenders are male. But there's no correlation to "single", and in fact, since many offenders are related to their victims, I'd expect it to be a lesser percentage than the general populace since most single guys don't have kids around them.
Next, "risky" describes a lot of the sort of abuse that encompasses picture-taking, and your assumption that risk would preclude such things, or that the offender couldn't or wouldn't take precautions against it (simply putting the chain on the door would prevent a revealing walk-in, for example) are incorrect. There's nothing in those pictures that conclusively precludes the offender and victim being at WDW with others. Further, take a look at the scenes in question. None of them requires any real setup time. The shot on the bed could easily have been "get your bathing suit on to go to the pool" folowed by a quick "lay down on the bed for a minute" at the right time. Unless someone else in the group appears in the ten seconds it takes to set that shot up and take it, her nudity wouldn't be cause for suspicion. The elevator shot or the fountain could be telling her not to wear underwear under a dress followed by a quick flash when nobody's around. Again, nothing suspicious except during the brief moment of the actual taking of the picture.
In short, if this crime is "typical" of such crimes, given the location it's likely her abuser was a relative, and they were likely staying at WDW in a family group, not just parent-and-child.
> But these are dangerous and sick people, and a painful death, provided we're 100% sure of their guilt, is far too good for them.
The problem is in the highlighted section. In many cases of child sex abuse, the convicted person is convicted on preponderance of the evidence, but not with perfect knowledge they did it, and some are later exonerated. This makes your "zero recidivism rate" argument incorrect, and the reason is simple. Once someone is executed for a crime, the authorities stop looking for the perpetrator. In the cases where you execute the wrong person, you've not only killed an innocent person, but you've also allowed the real perpetrator to walk free, with no fear they'll ever be caught, to do it again.
I have always said that I'd allow the death penalty, with one proviso: if the executed person is later exonerated, everyone in the path, including the jury and the judge, should be executed to compensate. Then you'd never, ever give out the death penalty unless you were 100% sure.
So, don't be so fast to assume the the death penalty prevents recidivism. It would if it was perfectly applied, but that's not always the case.
> 4 of the six of the pictures that were posted on the linked website were in public places. Only two were from the inside of a hotel room. Those pics were undoubtedly the more "normal" pictures, i.e., just the girl by herself in public.
Why do you think this would preclude pornographic content? Sure, they're in public places, but there are plenty of web sites that have pictures of (grown) women exposing themselves in restaurants and parks and such. It's not such a stretch that dear old Dad could tell his kid not to wear any underwear and flash him for photo ops when the moment presented itself. Heck, one of the pictures is in an elevator, where it's not unusual to be alone with one or two others.
They are not. Because most people don't participate in vigilante justice, nor do they find it an acceptable norm, vigilantes are a fringe element. By your definition of the people, the pedophiles you're discussing are also "the people".
> Are most people "highly trained, highly motivated, and very rich"? No. Then being so is 'more than normal', ie: super-normal. I didn't say "supernatural."
The word you must remember to use when discussing Batman is "fictional". Try to keep that one firmly in mind.
> Vigilante justice?How about family justice.If I had...
Welcome to the land of missed-the-point. He's not talking about the sort of vigilante justice that you describe, where there's clear evidence of a crime and you know who did it. That's why he mentioned due process and then used the example of the White House. He's saying that most vigilante justice doesn't wait to find out if the person punished is actually the perpetrator before acting, and thus doesn't qualify as justice. Think about your example for a moment, considering the development that you find out after you killed the perpetrator that you were wrong and you killed the wrong person. Suddenly it's not justice any more, is it? This is why people taking the law into their own hands is generally a bad idea. Most people don't go to the lengths that the police do to solve a crime, because they think they don't need to, and this leads to retribution misplaced on to innocent bystanders.
I agree that it's a great use of police ingenuity, and that it makes for a very good lead to the case, but you've got several misconceptions that would cloud your analysis. Why do you assume that the man and girl in question registered as father and daughter, or that they were the only two registrants? Why do you assume the perpetrator is single or divorced? Perhaps the pictures were taken when mom and the siblings were elsewhere, or even (in the case of very young, infant, or co-abused siblings) when they weren't. A man who signed in with his wife, along with a nine-year-old daughter and infant son, could be the perpetrator.
So, a good lead, but not so good as you make it out.
You've got two sides of the same argument in this. This...
Or get out of Iraq altogether, which would be a nightmare, and would actually result in far more death and destruction that they purport to want to prevent?
...and this...
..."yeah, and look how great the quality of life is there now" comments are ignorantly and stupidly shortsighted, and completely fly in the face of the idea that people should be allowed to determine their OWN fate, even if it means generations of hardship.
...contradict each other. If you think that the Russian people should be left to their own devices because it's their fate to decide, then what's your resasoning for continuing to "guide" Iraq instead of just leaving them to decide their own fate?
The reasoning in reality is twofold. First, Russia is simply too big for us to take over, so we'd never be able to do it without backlash. Second, "guiding" Iraq is profitable to us, where "guiding" Russia wouldn't be.
I have never been of the opinion that the U.S. is to blame for the Middle Eastern mess, or solely to blame for the current Middle Eastern mess, but the simple fact is that the situation in Iraq is largely due to errors in policy. We thumbed our collective nose at the rest of the world in moving into Iraq, only to find that it's come back to get us in not being able to garner assistance now that we could use it. You say that because of its importance...
...no matter how diplomatically snubbed they feel, THIS IS A LOT FUCKING MORE IMPORTANT THAN THAT, and they have admitted as much. So, pray tell, why the fuck are they still doing nothing, almost two years later?
...as though they should recognize the importance and suck it up, and help. My response is, why don't we suck it up, admit that it's more important than our own national pride, and publicly and overtly apologise for thumbing our collective nose at the rest of the world? I dare you to try doing it. When you figure out why the rank and file in the U.S. will refuse to admit they've erred, you'll begin to grasp why Europe hasn't joined in. Welcome to politics, indeed.
You shouldn't. Any rational argument about this should be had in a public forum. An informed populace is important no matter which side of the discussion you take.
> I was arguing specifically that I was a) brainless, b) reciting propaganda, c) presenting no opinions, d) ideal cannon fodder, and e) if everybody just stayed out of each other's business, things would be okay. That last is the one that gives rise to the 'cowardice' charge, since things are only 'okay' for oneself - not, necessarily, for them.
All points agreed here.
> That said, I find 'reasonability' in the face of evil to be a...less than optimal...means of deterrence, from ethical, moral, and historical perspectives all.
I think you're confusing reasonability and pacifism here. There are a number of scenarios in which the use of force is completely reasonable. While I don't want to address the point of whether the use of force is reasonable in your cases here (that comes further down), I suggest to you that the concept of reasonability does not preclude fighting. In your particular example, in the face of a suicide bomber, a perfectly reasonable action is to kill him.
> It's not "not signing up" that I have a problem with (plenty of good reasons - family, children, inability, other important work) - it's not grasping that a sane, rational individual would find it something worth doing that I have a problem with. Perhaps this is extremist of me, but I do think everybody should be capable of understanding what I expressed, and not recourse to ad hominim.
The problem comes, as often it does, from the method you used to present it. When I read your response to the OP, I had to reread it closely before a came away with a message other than "you're a coward if you don't fight for others the way I do." In proof of that particular point, I'll step ahead in your response to me:
And you haven't shown in your response that you _are_ cowardly, since being cowardly, in my earlier expression, was contingent on finding nothing greater than oneself to fight for.
Now while we can agree on this point, this isn't how it was presented originally. Your actual first statement was:
Sometimes, there are things of value that are more important than one's own skin. This is one of those. Those from whom nothing is more important than their own skin are called 'cowards'.
This reads very differently, because virtually everybody equates "one's own skin" with personal safety, not the more nebulous concept of "greater than oneself." Even I who agrees with your second presentation wholeheartedly took offense at your first phrasing, and it severely colors your argument. Sure I saw past it with a little work, but can you rely on your entire audience to be willing to get past it?
> For instance, I would disagree that the Patriot Act hallmarks the end of civil rights in America, for instance.
I'm not willing to posit that either. However, I am willing to posit that it's a step in the wrong direction, and the more noise I make about that sort of thing as it happens, the less likely it is that such things become so commonplace that the end of civil rights becomes possible. There's a reason why civil rights needed to be coded into the Constitution, and the best way to defend these rights is not to allow abrogation to begin with. As has been said unto cliche, if we have to give up our freedom to defend our freedom from "them", then we've already lost. The USA PATRIOT act is the first step down that road, and while we're in agreement that this doesn't mean we're doomed to walk that path, it's now that we must stop walking it, because turning back gets harder that farther we go.
> I disagree that the government should give a rat's ass about 'personal dignity' - life, liberty and the persuit of happiness has nothing to
I was brought to your chain while meta-moderating, but I feel I must respond to your posits directed elsewhere, so excuse my breaking in late.
> If not, then perhaps you do not think that they rise to the level of being worthy of some random American putting himself in the fight against. If it's that: would you fight if it was your sister who was being infibulated, raped, killed, or their rights denied? If it was your child who died in Beslan? If your friend had been killed in 9/11, or by a suicide bomber, or by an indiscriminate Israeli? Or if it was your value as a non-Muslim being less than half of what a Muslim's are? Or if you were enslaved? Obviously, you would.
I tend to grit my teeth when presented with such arguments. Saying that I'd change my target of effect if I was in different circumstances simply dodges the point. The point is that there are many fights to fight, and the fact that I'd fight your particular fight if I was directly involved doesn't mean that your fight is the only fight worth fighting. More below, hopefully with fewer occurances of the word "fight".
> Then, why is it so hard to fathom that my sense of responsibility, that derives from my own priveleges and luck for being born in the right place at the right time and from my own connection to greater humanity, extends to those people who cannot defend their own rights? Extends to women and children I've never met and will never know?
It's not really your sense of responsibility extending to these parties that led the OP to the "brainwashing" conclusion. It's the implication that this responsibility is somehow more important than resonsibility to fellow Americans, and the idea that the best way to defend these people is by joining the National Guard and physically interposing oneself into the struggle that get you labelled "gung ho". It's the hallmark of the extremist to think that the best solution for him is the best solution for everyone, and your presentation implies that anyone who isn't willing to sign up for guard duty is failing to do so because he's afraid for his own safety. In fact, your last paragraph pretty much states it openly.
> Perhaps my use of a 'slogan' phrases like the Jefferson quote means that I'm incapable of forming my own opinions as a whole - I'm merely swayed by demogogues of ye olde quaint tymes. Despite the other, non-slogan reasons in the post, I simply don't think that's the case: among other things, I'm a 32 year old blue-state born American, well-travelled internationally, well-educated in history, theology and psychology, professionally employed software guy making a six-figure salary, who has rejected marxism, deconstruction, and po-mo moral relativism. Who, exactly, are you to question my intellectual or moral philsophy and choices?
It's not sloganeering that got you that analysis, it's the presentation, as I stated above, that anyone who doesn't follow you to the recruiting station isn't fighting the good fight, and it's because they're afraid. As to who exactly I am, I'm your equal. Did you forget for a moment that this is the ideal you're fighting for? "All men are created equal" applies to both of us, which gives me just as much right to call you brainwashed as it gives you to call me cowardly.
> As for cannon fodder - hardly that, I think - but on the front lines is, definitely, where I would choose to be. And, standing the line between you, your sister, any of the majority of good people of the world and a 'suicide bomber', terrorist, or Islamofascist is where I would want to place myself. If I can save a life (or kill a terrorist, same diff), then I will have made a difference, and being on that line will have been worth it, for me.
That's good for you. Actions do speak louder than words, and doing what you think is right is laudable.
> Sometimes, there are things of value that are more important than one's own skin. This is one of those. Those from whom nothing
>...wouldn't the dark matter then heat up until it was glowing as brightly as the original light source?
If it heated up at all, it'd be changing the visible light into invisible infrared light, which would still allow for a dark spot in the sky, since humans don't see into the infrared spectrum. So, in a word, no.
> I keep my laptop in its nice dell bag, opposite my gun.
...which will go with the computer when some miscreant pinches the bag. But hey, at least you'll get your laptop back when a gun crime is traced back to you. And what do you do in airports, besides getting strip searched and arrested for carrying a gun, that is?
> The best idea I've seen is that every kill you make increases the Exp players get for killing you, and you're clearly marked as having high exp. It will give the bigger players reason to hunt down griefers.
This is exploitable. I make two accounts, and use the second account to PvP kill my main, over and over. I'll never "steal" my own loot, and the experience value "bounty" for my secondary will climb and climb. Then, I have my main or some selected beneficiary kill my secondary for huge experience gains. Since most PvP kills don't cost experience to the loser, I can use this tactic to ramp up my main or my friends very quickly with no risk, since if I'm killing them they're never going to lose their gear, so they can just stand and let me whack them for profit. If my grief-bot never leaves some very out-of-the way place, I can do this without worrying about other toons stepping in on my experience loop.
You can assuage your fears to a great extent by the not-often-used practice of actually reading the linked web site. They've already ruled out nuclear devices in any use, and their intent is not to smash an asteroid at all, but just alter its trajectory.
Slashdot Mirror
> That's not being lost as a result of the copy.
If I built the car toward the idea of selling it to recoup the money spent and make a profit, and then had the market removed after I spent the money to build it, then I've sunk money into a product I can no longer sell, that I wouldn't have made in the first place if there was no market to sell it. The concept that I'm stuck with unsellable inventory (which represents a cost to me) doesn't seem to occur to you.
To extend this to a movie, if I make a movie and then release it on DVD with the idea that the sales of DVDs will help recoup the cost of the movie and earn profit, and then illegal copies cut into the number of DVDs I can sell, then I might not have sunk the cost of making the film in the first place. Having already spent the money, having the sales market saturated with illegal copies can make me lose money, in that I might have made the film more cheaply (or not at all) if I'd not had as big a market to sell to.
Virg
> We have an entire system that essentially won't discuss the concept of a God or creator within education. So they are taught....so they will believe.
This is because religious training is supposed to occur outside of the classroom. There's no rule that forbids teaching kids religion, just rules forbidding teachers from doing it. If you're concerned that your kids aren't getting religious training in school, send them to a religious school, or take them to a place of worship, or (God forbid!) teach them yourself.
> All atheists are arrogant fools who have no right of claim to the title 'scientist'. Agnostics, or those who simply say "I don't know one way or the other" are much more honest and truer scientists.
Sorry, but by your logic any scientist who isn't solidly agnostic is an arrogant fool, and somehow I find it unlikely you'd attach that moniker to a scientist who professed to believe your particular religion. Atheists are like any other class of faithful; they've accepted their particular world view and profess it. Calling it arrogance requires that you say the same of anyone with faith, including those like yourself who profess ID as "more likely" when there's no definitive proof either way.
Virg
> I'm sorry, what? Movies don't make money? Are you an idiot? Movies are making HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS!
Not to debate the profit margins on sales of DVDs, but he's not an idiot. There are many movies made each year that lose piles of money.
Carry on.
Virg
> Nothing == NO THING
This is oversimplistic. Saying that a potential sale isn't a thing doesn't mean that it has no value. A share of stock isn't a thing, but it's still got worth. Companies sell sales leads all the time with no guarantee that they'll pan out, and people and companies buy them all the time, so someone considers potential sales to have value.
> Theft is taking something away from someone else without permission, depriving them of the use of it. They no longer have it.
The argument they make it that you've stolen a potential sale from them. Your statement does not invalidate the use of the word "theft" in this regard.
> Copyright violation is copying a protected work without permission. The original owner is not deprived of the use of said work, therefor, it is not theft.
Quite right. The force of law, however, is prepended on the idea that someone who infringes copyright like this is taking sales revenue. Whether that's right or not is a different case.
> If I had some magical device that allowed me to clone any physical object, and I used it to make a duplicate of your car for myself, have I stolen your car?
If you duplicated my car and gave it to someone I was trying to sell my car to, would they be as likely to buy my car? Now consider that "I" could be Ford Motor Company, and you came on to my factory lot and took copies of my cars. Are you implying that because I still have a bunch of cars, and there are a lot of possible car buyers that now don't need a car, that I haven't lost anything?
Virg
> How about if people wantonly stole - yes, that's what it is, stealing - the products you or your employer made? Sure, your CEO would be out a Ferrari (or, more likely, Prius), but you would be out of a job. The same thing with the set designers, camera crew, studio IT people, etc... If the productions do not make enough money off either theatrical or home release, then studios scale back or shut down and people lose jobs.
The ethical arguments surrounding this issue stem from the definitions of the terms involved. There's a great deal of disagreement about your use of the word "stole", so saying "yes, that's what it is, stealing" doesn't make it so for those to whom "stealing" and "copyright infringement" do not equate. Also, your phrase "If the productions do not make enough money..." are up for grabs to those who think that studio executives skim intolerable amounts of cash off the profit margin, thereby making a movie that would turn a profit into a "losing proposition" because it doesn't earn enough to satisfy the executives.
Remember that your arguments base on assumptions that are not universal in this discussion, so you must address them or you might as well tell them that they mustn't pirate movies because the invisible pink unicorn disapproves.
Virg
> I don't see any parrallel there to NK at all. Well except for all the evil dictator thing, and the killing of the people, and the production of WMDs, and the violation of UN and US treaties. Yea, we should just leave poor Kim alone, he's got soo much on his plate right now.
Not to put your back to the wall here, but substituting "China" for "NK" in the above does not make it false.
Carry on.
Virg
> Most people do not participate in government, either.
Incorrect. While the majority of the populace does not vote, the vast majority of the populace recognizes that the winners of the election get to hold the job. By the same token, the majority of society recognizes that vigilantism is not a normal or generally acceptable state of affairs, and therefore vigilantes cannot consider themselves representatives of the public at large.
> Indeed they are. However, government agents garner support from a greater number of people by prosecuting that "crime" than they piss off.
Fitting your particular complaints about government officials into this discussion does nothing to address the original discussion, so please try to stay on topic. The argument you made is that vigilantes represent "the people", and your usage implied that "the people" constituted a majority of the population. I refuted, saying that it's just as inaccurate as implying that child molesters constitute a majority of the population, but your definition allows this.
> That is one of the problems with statute law. By creating "crimes" out of acts that harm no one, such as drug use, speeding and prostitution,
Firstly, your argument requires that you first demonstrate that these crimes harm no one to those who believe they do. For myself, I don't believe that speeding is harmless, because of the externalities involved. I'm more with you on the other two, but that's not relevant to the fact that I disagree with your statement as a whole, and therefore you must justify the statement to proceed.
> If the punishment for speeding were as severe as murder, a larger number of people who didn't like the law would revolt against those who enforce it. Just like the juries who refused to convict rum-runners during alcohol prohibition, or operators of the underground railway prior to the War of Northern Aggression.
You see what I mean by staying on topic? Don't soapbox about some personal point that's entirely irrelevant to the discussion at hand (whether vigilantes represent a generally accepted practice or not). You may wish to tie back the concept of disrespect for the law into vigilantism, but that's a stretch considering your examples are of civil disobedience, not vigilantism.
> You might be interested in an interesting little factoid: San Francisco is one of the most famous examples of "vigilante" action in the US. So what happened? In the year after the formation of the Vigilance Committees, there were fewer murders in San Francisco than there was in the month prior, including the actions of the Committees.
Someone disagrees with your analysis about the good that came from this idea. I'm inclined to agree more with his side than yours considering that most of the violations of the committees were not murderous in nature but were just as egregious.
> So please do decry the abuses of justice where ever they occur. Just don't limit yourself to only what the government schools told you was bad.
Thanks for the tip, but it's been more than twenty years since government schools were my source for information about vigilantism, so I'll have to thank you not to pretend I'm a brainwashed fool because I don't agree with you. Go pick your bone with the government elsewhere, and come back when you're ready to present more than a refuted example from a hundred years ago and a lot of offtopic banter.
Virg
> I don't really understand what you're asking, but I gave a semi tongue-in-cheek response...
I guess if you don't get the joke, you didn't make the joke on purpose. Y'know, "it would be really cool", cryogenics community...
Never mind.
Virg
> So yeah, the cryogenics community would love getting more He3. It's really rare here on Earth, but it would be really cool to have more of this stuff.
Please, please tell me you did this on purpose.
Virg
> This is obvious once you know that the moon orbits around the Sun and not the Earth (or rather the Sun exerts a much larger force on the Moon than the Earth does).
...the moon orbits around the Sun and not the Earth
...does not equal...
...the Sun exerts a much larger force on the Moon than the Earth does
These two statements don't mesh. That is:
The reason is that the first can be false and the second still true. The first statement is false because the Moon can orbit the Earth and the Sun simultaneously, which in fact it does.
Virg
> The cost of adding humans to the trip is extreme, while the only real benefit is a reduction in communications latency - hardly worth the benefit.
This is simply not correct. There's one thing that a human astronaut adds to the project that can't be covered by any mechanical device. That's adaptability. If a rover digs in or turns over, it's done. If a Mars buggy gets stuck, a human operator can pull out a winch line and free it, or tip it back on to its wheels. A human can compensate for equipment malfunction that can stop a machine in its tracks. If a high gain antenna sticks on deployment, a human can manually free and deploy it. If the solar panels get dirty, a human can get out a whisk broom and clear them. If something is discovered that wasn't expected, a human can adapt an instrument on the fly to do further testing. A human operator can drive a buggy places where no remote lander could possibly go safely, and could even take a remote-controlled lander along because running it from a mile away is possible where running it from Earth is impossible due to the latency in communications.
In short, a human team would provide NI (natural Intelligence) that would far exceed anything mechanized, and they could therefore be much more effective in gathering information (which landers can do) and analysing it (which landers can't do). It's not just a benefit in latency, it's a pair of hands on the spot attached to a brain far beyond anything we can build. It's the ability to handle the unexpected.
Virg
There are a few considerations about the "dark side of the Moon" that make it valuable for a telescope even without always being shielded from the Sun. First, with no atmosphere a telescope can observe things in the daytime near the horizons with very little distortion, so it's not like having the sun up would prevent the telescope seeing anything like it does on Earth. Second, "dark" refers to more than just visible light. Radio telescopes would be shielded by the Moon itself from Earth-based EM radiation, thereby giving a more clear signal from extrasolar spots. When the dark side is visibly dark, it's even better for radioscope operations.
Virg
> I'm assuming (hoping) the crime is typical. I thought a typical offender works alone, is male, and is single (though I admit I'm not up on my perv-profiling, that could be wrong). If there was a group, it would be pretty risky to assume someone isn't going forget sunscreen and come back to the room, so I think the must be alone.
Sorry, but your assumption is wrong. The vast majority of sex offenders know their victims, and a majority of offenders are related to or connected to their victims in some way. Also, most offenders are male. But there's no correlation to "single", and in fact, since many offenders are related to their victims, I'd expect it to be a lesser percentage than the general populace since most single guys don't have kids around them.
Next, "risky" describes a lot of the sort of abuse that encompasses picture-taking, and your assumption that risk would preclude such things, or that the offender couldn't or wouldn't take precautions against it (simply putting the chain on the door would prevent a revealing walk-in, for example) are incorrect. There's nothing in those pictures that conclusively precludes the offender and victim being at WDW with others. Further, take a look at the scenes in question. None of them requires any real setup time. The shot on the bed could easily have been "get your bathing suit on to go to the pool" folowed by a quick "lay down on the bed for a minute" at the right time. Unless someone else in the group appears in the ten seconds it takes to set that shot up and take it, her nudity wouldn't be cause for suspicion. The elevator shot or the fountain could be telling her not to wear underwear under a dress followed by a quick flash when nobody's around. Again, nothing suspicious except during the brief moment of the actual taking of the picture.
In short, if this crime is "typical" of such crimes, given the location it's likely her abuser was a relative, and they were likely staying at WDW in a family group, not just parent-and-child.
Virg
> But these are dangerous and sick people, and a painful death, provided we're 100% sure of their guilt, is far too good for them.
The problem is in the highlighted section. In many cases of child sex abuse, the convicted person is convicted on preponderance of the evidence, but not with perfect knowledge they did it, and some are later exonerated. This makes your "zero recidivism rate" argument incorrect, and the reason is simple. Once someone is executed for a crime, the authorities stop looking for the perpetrator. In the cases where you execute the wrong person, you've not only killed an innocent person, but you've also allowed the real perpetrator to walk free, with no fear they'll ever be caught, to do it again.
I have always said that I'd allow the death penalty, with one proviso: if the executed person is later exonerated, everyone in the path, including the jury and the judge, should be executed to compensate. Then you'd never, ever give out the death penalty unless you were 100% sure.
So, don't be so fast to assume the the death penalty prevents recidivism. It would if it was perfectly applied, but that's not always the case.
Virg
> 4 of the six of the pictures that were posted on the linked website were in public places. Only two were from the inside of a hotel room. Those pics were undoubtedly the more "normal" pictures, i.e., just the girl by herself in public.
Why do you think this would preclude pornographic content? Sure, they're in public places, but there are plenty of web sites that have pictures of (grown) women exposing themselves in restaurants and parks and such. It's not such a stretch that dear old Dad could tell his kid not to wear any underwear and flash him for photo ops when the moment presented itself. Heck, one of the pictures is in an elevator, where it's not unusual to be alone with one or two others.
Virg
> Vigilantes are "the people".
They are not. Because most people don't participate in vigilante justice, nor do they find it an acceptable norm, vigilantes are a fringe element. By your definition of the people, the pedophiles you're discussing are also "the people".
> Are most people "highly trained, highly motivated, and very rich"? No. Then being so is 'more than normal', ie: super-normal. I didn't say "supernatural."
The word you must remember to use when discussing Batman is "fictional". Try to keep that one firmly in mind.
Virg
> Vigilante justice?How about family justice.If I had...
Welcome to the land of missed-the-point. He's not talking about the sort of vigilante justice that you describe, where there's clear evidence of a crime and you know who did it. That's why he mentioned due process and then used the example of the White House. He's saying that most vigilante justice doesn't wait to find out if the person punished is actually the perpetrator before acting, and thus doesn't qualify as justice. Think about your example for a moment, considering the development that you find out after you killed the perpetrator that you were wrong and you killed the wrong person. Suddenly it's not justice any more, is it? This is why people taking the law into their own hands is generally a bad idea. Most people don't go to the lengths that the police do to solve a crime, because they think they don't need to, and this leads to retribution misplaced on to innocent bystanders.
Virg
I agree that it's a great use of police ingenuity, and that it makes for a very good lead to the case, but you've got several misconceptions that would cloud your analysis. Why do you assume that the man and girl in question registered as father and daughter, or that they were the only two registrants? Why do you assume the perpetrator is single or divorced? Perhaps the pictures were taken when mom and the siblings were elsewhere, or even (in the case of very young, infant, or co-abused siblings) when they weren't. A man who signed in with his wife, along with a nine-year-old daughter and infant son, could be the perpetrator.
So, a good lead, but not so good as you make it out.
Virg
The reasoning in reality is twofold. First, Russia is simply too big for us to take over, so we'd never be able to do it without backlash. Second, "guiding" Iraq is profitable to us, where "guiding" Russia wouldn't be.
I have never been of the opinion that the U.S. is to blame for the Middle Eastern mess, or solely to blame for the current Middle Eastern mess, but the simple fact is that the situation in Iraq is largely due to errors in policy. We thumbed our collective nose at the rest of the world in moving into Iraq, only to find that it's come back to get us in not being able to garner assistance now that we could use it. You say that because of its importance......as though they should recognize the importance and suck it up, and help. My response is, why don't we suck it up, admit that it's more important than our own national pride, and publicly and overtly apologise for thumbing our collective nose at the rest of the world? I dare you to try doing it. When you figure out why the rank and file in the U.S. will refuse to admit they've erred, you'll begin to grasp why Europe hasn't joined in. Welcome to politics, indeed.
Virg
You shouldn't. Any rational argument about this should be had in a public forum. An informed populace is important no matter which side of the discussion you take.
> I was arguing specifically that I was a) brainless, b) reciting propaganda, c) presenting no opinions, d) ideal cannon fodder, and e) if everybody just stayed out of each other's business, things would be okay. That last is the one that gives rise to the 'cowardice' charge, since things are only 'okay' for oneself - not, necessarily, for them.
All points agreed here.
> That said, I find 'reasonability' in the face of evil to be a...less than optimal...means of deterrence, from ethical, moral, and historical perspectives all.
I think you're confusing reasonability and pacifism here. There are a number of scenarios in which the use of force is completely reasonable. While I don't want to address the point of whether the use of force is reasonable in your cases here (that comes further down), I suggest to you that the concept of reasonability does not preclude fighting. In your particular example, in the face of a suicide bomber, a perfectly reasonable action is to kill him.
> It's not "not signing up" that I have a problem with (plenty of good reasons - family, children, inability, other important work) - it's not grasping that a sane, rational individual would find it something worth doing that I have a problem with. Perhaps this is extremist of me, but I do think everybody should be capable of understanding what I expressed, and not recourse to ad hominim.
The problem comes, as often it does, from the method you used to present it. When I read your response to the OP, I had to reread it closely before a came away with a message other than "you're a coward if you don't fight for others the way I do." In proof of that particular point, I'll step ahead in your response to me:
Now while we can agree on this point, this isn't how it was presented originally. Your actual first statement was:
This reads very differently, because virtually everybody equates "one's own skin" with personal safety, not the more nebulous concept of "greater than oneself." Even I who agrees with your second presentation wholeheartedly took offense at your first phrasing, and it severely colors your argument. Sure I saw past it with a little work, but can you rely on your entire audience to be willing to get past it?
> For instance, I would disagree that the Patriot Act hallmarks the end of civil rights in America, for instance.
I'm not willing to posit that either. However, I am willing to posit that it's a step in the wrong direction, and the more noise I make about that sort of thing as it happens, the less likely it is that such things become so commonplace that the end of civil rights becomes possible. There's a reason why civil rights needed to be coded into the Constitution, and the best way to defend these rights is not to allow abrogation to begin with. As has been said unto cliche, if we have to give up our freedom to defend our freedom from "them", then we've already lost. The USA PATRIOT act is the first step down that road, and while we're in agreement that this doesn't mean we're doomed to walk that path, it's now that we must stop walking it, because turning back gets harder that farther we go.
> I disagree that the government should give a rat's ass about 'personal dignity' - life, liberty and the persuit of happiness has nothing to
I was brought to your chain while meta-moderating, but I feel I must respond to your posits directed elsewhere, so excuse my breaking in late.
> If not, then perhaps you do not think that they rise to the level of being worthy of some random American putting himself in the fight against. If it's that: would you fight if it was your sister who was being infibulated, raped, killed, or their rights denied? If it was your child who died in Beslan? If your friend had been killed in 9/11, or by a suicide bomber, or by an indiscriminate Israeli? Or if it was your value as a non-Muslim being less than half of what a Muslim's are? Or if you were enslaved? Obviously, you would.
I tend to grit my teeth when presented with such arguments. Saying that I'd change my target of effect if I was in different circumstances simply dodges the point. The point is that there are many fights to fight, and the fact that I'd fight your particular fight if I was directly involved doesn't mean that your fight is the only fight worth fighting. More below, hopefully with fewer occurances of the word "fight".
> Then, why is it so hard to fathom that my sense of responsibility, that derives from my own priveleges and luck for being born in the right place at the right time and from my own connection to greater humanity, extends to those people who cannot defend their own rights? Extends to women and children I've never met and will never know?
It's not really your sense of responsibility extending to these parties that led the OP to the "brainwashing" conclusion. It's the implication that this responsibility is somehow more important than resonsibility to fellow Americans, and the idea that the best way to defend these people is by joining the National Guard and physically interposing oneself into the struggle that get you labelled "gung ho". It's the hallmark of the extremist to think that the best solution for him is the best solution for everyone, and your presentation implies that anyone who isn't willing to sign up for guard duty is failing to do so because he's afraid for his own safety. In fact, your last paragraph pretty much states it openly.
> Perhaps my use of a 'slogan' phrases like the Jefferson quote means that I'm incapable of forming my own opinions as a whole - I'm merely swayed by demogogues of ye olde quaint tymes. Despite the other, non-slogan reasons in the post, I simply don't think that's the case: among other things, I'm a 32 year old blue-state born American, well-travelled internationally, well-educated in history, theology and psychology, professionally employed software guy making a six-figure salary, who has rejected marxism, deconstruction, and po-mo moral relativism. Who, exactly, are you to question my intellectual or moral philsophy and choices?
It's not sloganeering that got you that analysis, it's the presentation, as I stated above, that anyone who doesn't follow you to the recruiting station isn't fighting the good fight, and it's because they're afraid. As to who exactly I am, I'm your equal. Did you forget for a moment that this is the ideal you're fighting for? "All men are created equal" applies to both of us, which gives me just as much right to call you brainwashed as it gives you to call me cowardly.
> As for cannon fodder - hardly that, I think - but on the front lines is, definitely, where I would choose to be. And, standing the line between you, your sister, any of the majority of good people of the world and a 'suicide bomber', terrorist, or Islamofascist is where I would want to place myself. If I can save a life (or kill a terrorist, same diff), then I will have made a difference, and being on that line will have been worth it, for me.
That's good for you. Actions do speak louder than words, and doing what you think is right is laudable.
> Sometimes, there are things of value that are more important than one's own skin. This is one of those. Those from whom nothing
> ...wouldn't the dark matter then heat up until it was glowing as brightly as the original light source?
If it heated up at all, it'd be changing the visible light into invisible infrared light, which would still allow for a dark spot in the sky, since humans don't see into the infrared spectrum. So, in a word, no.
Virg
> I keep my laptop in its nice dell bag, opposite my gun.
...which will go with the computer when some miscreant pinches the bag. But hey, at least you'll get your laptop back when a gun crime is traced back to you. And what do you do in airports, besides getting strip searched and arrested for carrying a gun, that is?
Virg
> The best idea I've seen is that every kill you make increases the Exp players get for killing you, and you're clearly marked as having high exp. It will give the bigger players reason to hunt down griefers.
This is exploitable. I make two accounts, and use the second account to PvP kill my main, over and over. I'll never "steal" my own loot, and the experience value "bounty" for my secondary will climb and climb. Then, I have my main or some selected beneficiary kill my secondary for huge experience gains. Since most PvP kills don't cost experience to the loser, I can use this tactic to ramp up my main or my friends very quickly with no risk, since if I'm killing them they're never going to lose their gear, so they can just stand and let me whack them for profit. If my grief-bot never leaves some very out-of-the way place, I can do this without worrying about other toons stepping in on my experience loop.
Virg
You can assuage your fears to a great extent by the not-often-used practice of actually reading the linked web site. They've already ruled out nuclear devices in any use, and their intent is not to smash an asteroid at all, but just alter its trajectory.
Virg