In agreement with Graymalkin, the fact that you would verbally threaten the life of your English teacher within hearing range because you were miffed about your paper assignment means, to me, THAT YOU ARE THE PROBLEM.
You claim to be responsible enough to know how to use a gun, but your mastery of guns gives you absolutely no insight about how to negotiate with humans except to threaten their lives. What you actually intend to do is beside the point. Threatening the lives of people demonstrates your inability to behave responsibly. And, yes, speech is here part of your behavior.
In case you didn't know, it is illegal to threaten bodily harm to someone. The moment you began threatening to shoot your teacher should have been the moment that your guns were confiscated. What's even more chilling is that you actually have the knowledge and capability to make good on your threats. It is immaterial whether or not you would or would not. The logic here can be summed up as mutually exclusive contradictory statements: 1) I will kill my teacher, 2) I will not kill my teacher.
I hope I won't end up reading about you in the papers.
The problem, though, is not those who are recidivist criminals.
The problem is that current laws don't seem effective in keeping the guns out of the hand of children, children who might (and I mean might) be stymied by stricter laws.
The hardcore will always have access to guns, but is it so wise to allow toddlers easy access to high-power weapons? I'm not saying current laws put guns in the hands of infants, but I am saying this is perhaps one thing among many that should be reconsidered. I certainly would include an evaluation of our mores about the representation of violence (imagined and actual), the role of parenting, the authority of the state, the effect of hazing, etc.
msq
Re:Ultra-condensed review of "Collateral Damage".
on
Collateral Damage
·
· Score: 1
I apologize for reposting this material (from below and with minor changes). I realized after-the-fact that this is the post I was responding to. (Actually, I'm respondiNg to both posts.)
After reading Ebert's review, I agree that Ebert's analysis is a bit more thoughtful than Katz's. Ebert attends to the historical context in which Collateral Damage was produced and faults those critics who judge that movie using post-9/11 cinematic morals. To be fair to Katz, he's not trained as a movie critic (he's someone who cares) and his review seems to be an emotional reaction to what some of us find incredibly repugnant, especially after the destruction of the World Trade Center.
What I find interesting, though, is this knot of temporal displacement
Despite that Collateral Damage was released after the fact of 9/11, some (e.g. Rev. Brian Jordan mentioned in Ebert's review) interpret the movie as an insult to our present sensibilities in light of knowledge we only now possess. This is paradoxical thinking, but by no means does it invalidate the response.
Movies like Collateral Damage, Patriot Games, The Siege, Pearl Harbor, and Die Hard are Hollywood fantasies precisely because no one really believed at the time of their production that the U.S. would fall victim so spectacular a defeat on its own soil. We U.S. citizens, and the rest of the world with us, had almost come to believe we were invicible. All we needed to protect us were the comic-book heroes Hollywood showed to us on the silver screen
9/11 has given the lie to those Hollywood heroes
Emotionally and politcally reactionary responses like Katz's don't disturb me one bit. At least he has feelings and he's amenable to argument. What does disturb me are the slack-ass self-proclaimed nerds and geeks who have nothing better to say than that "with [their] expectations already lowered, the movie didn't really turn out to be that bad."
When obviously intelligent people proclaim their absolute political apathy as a virtue because it allows them to continue without thinking, they have relinquished an opportunity to use their intelligence responsibly.
Such people are fat with self-satisfaction, and very likely enjoying another Hollywood blockbuster is the last thing they should do.
After reading Ebert's review, I agree that Ebert's analysis is a bit more thoughtful than Katz's. Ebert attends to the historical context in which Collateral Damage was produced and faults those critics who judge that movie using post-9/11 cinematic morals. To be fair to Katz, he's not trained as a movie critic (he's someone who cares) and his review seems to be an emotional reaction to what some of us find incredibly repugnant, especially after the destruction of the World Trade Center.
What I find interesting, though, is this knot of temporal displacement
Despite that Collateral Damage was released after the fact of 9/11, some (e.g. Rev. Brian Jordan mentioned in Ebert's review) interpret the movie as an insult to our present sensibilities in light of knowledge we only now possess. This is paradoxical thinking, but by no means does it invalidate the response.
Movies like Collateral Damage, Patriot Games, The Siege, Pearl Harbor, and Die Hard are Hollywood fantasies precisely because no one really believed at the time of their production that the U.S. would fall victim so spetacular a defeat on its own soil. We U.S. citizens, and the rest of the world with us, had almost come to believe we were invicible. All we needed to protect us were the comic-book heroes Hollywood showed to us on the silver screen
9/11 has given the lie to those Hollywood heroes
Emotionally and politcally reactionary responses like Katz's don't disturbe me one bit. At least he has feelings and he's amenable to argument. What does disturb me are the slack-ass self-proclaimed nerds and geeks who have nothing better to say than that they "enjoyed this movie because [their] expectations were low."
When obviously intelligent people proclaim their absolute political apathy as a virtue because it allows them to continue without thinking about politics, they have relinquished an opportunity to use their intelligence responsibly.
Such people are fat with self-satisfaction, and very likely enjoying another Hollywood blockbuster is the last thing they should do.
Computers Suck at Math
on
Arguing A.I.
·
· Score: 1
Math/mathematics is an activity requiring the elaboration and application of abstract concepts to predict or describe other abstract systems. One need only think of Fermat's Last Theorem or Liebniz's Theory of Calculus.
Computers are good at arithmetic, not math. They are great at solving equations, but that's it for now.
Of course, this is no mean feat and, yes, computers are much better at solving equations than humans. But computers, at present, cannot do any math.
Slashdot Mirror
In agreement with Graymalkin, the fact that you would verbally threaten the life of your English teacher within hearing range because you were miffed about your paper assignment means, to me, THAT YOU ARE THE PROBLEM.
You claim to be responsible enough to know how to use a gun, but your mastery of guns gives you absolutely no insight about how to negotiate with humans except to threaten their lives. What you actually intend to do is beside the point. Threatening the lives of people demonstrates your inability to behave responsibly. And, yes, speech is here part of your behavior.
In case you didn't know, it is illegal to threaten bodily harm to someone. The moment you began threatening to shoot your teacher should have been the moment that your guns were confiscated. What's even more chilling is that you actually have the knowledge and capability to make good on your threats. It is immaterial whether or not you would or would not. The logic here can be summed up as mutually exclusive contradictory statements: 1) I will kill my teacher, 2) I will not kill my teacher.
I hope I won't end up reading about you in the papers.
Slashdot are you listening?
msqThe problem, though, is not those who are recidivist criminals.
The problem is that current laws don't seem effective in keeping the guns out of the hand of children, children who might (and I mean might) be stymied by stricter laws.
The hardcore will always have access to guns, but is it so wise to allow toddlers easy access to high-power weapons? I'm not saying current laws put guns in the hands of infants, but I am saying this is perhaps one thing among many that should be reconsidered. I certainly would include an evaluation of our mores about the representation of violence (imagined and actual), the role of parenting, the authority of the state, the effect of hazing, etc.
msqI apologize for reposting this material (from below and with minor changes). I realized after-the-fact that this is the post I was responding to. (Actually, I'm respondiNg to both posts.)
After reading Ebert's review, I agree that Ebert's analysis is a bit more thoughtful than Katz's. Ebert attends to the historical context in which Collateral Damage was produced and faults those critics who judge that movie using post-9/11 cinematic morals. To be fair to Katz, he's not trained as a movie critic (he's someone who cares) and his review seems to be an emotional reaction to what some of us find incredibly repugnant, especially after the destruction of the World Trade Center.
What I find interesting, though, is this knot of temporal displacement
Despite that Collateral Damage was released after the fact of 9/11, some (e.g. Rev. Brian Jordan mentioned in Ebert's review) interpret the movie as an insult to our present sensibilities in light of knowledge we only now possess. This is paradoxical thinking, but by no means does it invalidate the response.
Movies like Collateral Damage, Patriot Games, The Siege, Pearl Harbor, and Die Hard are Hollywood fantasies precisely because no one really believed at the time of their production that the U.S. would fall victim so spectacular a defeat on its own soil. We U.S. citizens, and the rest of the world with us, had almost come to believe we were invicible. All we needed to protect us were the comic-book heroes Hollywood showed to us on the silver screen
9/11 has given the lie to those Hollywood heroes
Emotionally and politcally reactionary responses like Katz's don't disturb me one bit. At least he has feelings and he's amenable to argument. What does disturb me are the slack-ass self-proclaimed nerds and geeks who have nothing better to say than that "with [their] expectations already lowered, the movie didn't really turn out to be that bad."
When obviously intelligent people proclaim their absolute political apathy as a virtue because it allows them to continue without thinking, they have relinquished an opportunity to use their intelligence responsibly.
Such people are fat with self-satisfaction, and very likely enjoying another Hollywood blockbuster is the last thing they should do.
After reading Ebert's review, I agree that Ebert's analysis is a bit more thoughtful than Katz's. Ebert attends to the historical context in which Collateral Damage was produced and faults those critics who judge that movie using post-9/11 cinematic morals. To be fair to Katz, he's not trained as a movie critic (he's someone who cares) and his review seems to be an emotional reaction to what some of us find incredibly repugnant, especially after the destruction of the World Trade Center.
What I find interesting, though, is this knot of temporal displacement
Despite that Collateral Damage was released after the fact of 9/11, some (e.g. Rev. Brian Jordan mentioned in Ebert's review) interpret the movie as an insult to our present sensibilities in light of knowledge we only now possess. This is paradoxical thinking, but by no means does it invalidate the response.
Movies like Collateral Damage, Patriot Games, The Siege, Pearl Harbor, and Die Hard are Hollywood fantasies precisely because no one really believed at the time of their production that the U.S. would fall victim so spetacular a defeat on its own soil. We U.S. citizens, and the rest of the world with us, had almost come to believe we were invicible. All we needed to protect us were the comic-book heroes Hollywood showed to us on the silver screen
9/11 has given the lie to those Hollywood heroes
Emotionally and politcally reactionary responses like Katz's don't disturbe me one bit. At least he has feelings and he's amenable to argument. What does disturb me are the slack-ass self-proclaimed nerds and geeks who have nothing better to say than that they "enjoyed this movie because [their] expectations were low."
When obviously intelligent people proclaim their absolute political apathy as a virtue because it allows them to continue without thinking about politics, they have relinquished an opportunity to use their intelligence responsibly.
Such people are fat with self-satisfaction, and very likely enjoying another Hollywood blockbuster is the last thing they should do.
Math/mathematics is an activity requiring the elaboration and application of abstract concepts to predict or describe other abstract systems. One need only think of Fermat's Last Theorem or Liebniz's Theory of Calculus.
Computers are good at arithmetic, not math. They are great at solving equations, but that's it for now.
Of course, this is no mean feat and, yes, computers are much better at solving equations than humans. But computers, at present, cannot do any math.