OK, I guess I'm the opposite. Unless someone specifically states something as fact, I assume it's an opinion. People just state opinions much more frequently than fact (in my opinion).
Can't I say that something is wrong, on the basis of a strong emotion that nearly everyone I have ever known or whose work I have read seems to share, without proclaiming that there is a privileged reference frame?
Do you believe that unendangered, nonsentient animals should also not be hunted?
Also, it's really too bad that we don't have statistics on the common attitudes thing.
You said that you would always favor someone you know personally over someone you don't, but also that laws exist to prevent that favoritism from impacting society at large (in some extraordinarily unlikely situation where it can do that). It seemed like equality in laws is contingent on someone unlike you having penned them. I don't disagree that there could be reasons for making egalitarian laws anyway, which you say you have.
My mother, for example, would probably save her dog over some random person that she doesn't know
I wont second guess your claims about your own mother, but an overwhelming majority of people, especially women, would save an endangered infant over a pet, no matter how beloved. There are many situations in which a decision favoring the life of an animal over a person's would also be criminally negligent. The law actually does hold a person's life to be more valuable than an animal's, and the motivation for doing so seems a mixture of species-ism and the empathy of sentience for sentience.
That's the whole point of this discussion: it is wrong to kill whales for food, because scientific work has determined many species of cetaceans are indeed sentient. There can be no doubt that this position rests on the (seemingly) common experience of the empathy of sentience for sentience. On this view, with the backing of international law and the domestic laws of most democratic nations, the obstacles to completely eliminating the hunting of sentient species are due more to the refusal of people to accept science (by believing whales are sentient), than to the belief that murdering other forms of sentience is A-OK.
The (probably specious) claims you make about yourself are reminiscent of "situational sociopathy," ascribed for example to mob bosses who love their families but kill and torture others. There is fortunately a very low prevalence in the human population.
The recourse to "laws" and "logic" is an interesting one to make, considering that by your own statements you would establish nepotist laws. And, of course, there were no laws (or enforcement agencies) and at best very limited logic, when humanity evolved a strong predisposition to altruism.
I refused to carry my textbooks and made the teachers loan one of the classroom copies (which I understand we were lucky to have) while in school.
I tried using electronic copies of my D&D rulebooks, but the problem is I can look things up ~10x faster with the physical copy. Actually, my school was just 2 blocks from my house, so I had to carry the D&D books much farther, to friends' houses or a cafe.
Depends on which one I liked more. If it was my pet mouse versus a baby that I did not know, I would probably pick the mouse.
I find that difficult to believe.
Where else could it possibly be made?
Say you are crossing the street, and a car swerves around the corner, threatening to hit you. Do you dive out of the way because it's your opinion or because of ingrained flight-or-fight responses beyond conscious control? Surely not everything you do is the product of conscious consideration leading to a formed opinion.
I guess, but I doubt that even animal rights extremists would be able to choose to save the mouse over the baby (human or gorilla), when Dr. Evil is dangling them both over the cliff edge.
Would you? Or is the choice made somewhere else than the part that has opinions?
For example, the bar is lower for medical research performed on rats and mice than dogs, chimpanzees and gorillas. Most people feel more sympathy towards animals that can be taught to communicate via sign language (such as gorillas) or other means than rodents that barely remember mazes./p?
According the the traditional D&D alignment system, being "lawful" has nothing to do with following laws. A lawful character adheres to a fixed set of principles while a chaotic character does not. Robin Hood, Martin Luther King, Jr., Gandhi would all be "lawful good."
I'm aware Robin Hood may be a bad example since technically he was just trying to uphold the kingship of the de jure king rather than the de facto king.
It seems typical of most universities' press releases. They have PR divisions which troll the research faculty for new developments they can turn into whiz-bang popularized "articles."
I think that it's sort of the paradigm for how things are done at most large institutions: the researchers can't be bothered or don't have time to write popular accounts, do extraneous paperwork or file patents, so others are made to do it for them. The result is extraordinary claims in the press releases at best, and serious clerical mistakes or invalid patents at worst.
Stop consuming their media and start creating your own original media. No use of music, video or images that YOU didn't create. In the face of that SOA and PIPA are toothless.
Except that UMG and the rest of big content will use their newly found, unchecked power to suppress that original media.
They've already been using extant enforcement capability to destroy access to other people's work (to say nothing of the public domain) where possible. SOPA / PIPA will make "where possible" become "everywhere, all the time."
I was next to a Google self-driving Prius on I-280S in San Francisco yesterday.
It was carrying three extremely stereotypical Google employees: 20-something white guy with pony tail and pocket protector, 20-something clean cut east asian engineer in REI jacket and plastic glasses and 20-something south asian engineer in polo shirt (all male).
The one behind the wheel was just barely holding it, presumably to second-guess the car if necessary. It was driving pretty well though I noticed it shares some annoying habits of human drivers, such as placing the driver in the center of the lane (should be to the left!) and briefly flashing the brakes. On the whole it was drove quite conservatively, though I think it did pass the limit once or twice.
Pre Iraq, the Muslim world was united, Muslims would never attach Muslims, and attacking a Mosque was unthinkable. Now they are at each others throats and bombing each other's Mosques.
Muslims have always been the majority of casualties in terror attacks by Islamic fundamentalists.
Here is a state department report on the demographics of terror.
Thanks for the clarification. It makes sense I guess (given the purpose of the "design patent").
Too bad it doesn't make good sense. I'd say tech designs turn over almost as fast as fashion designs.
Next, the Court considers whether Samsung’s products, in the eyes of an ordinary observer, would likely be deemed substantially the same as Apple’s iPhone.
To this end, the Court finds that an ordinary observer would, in fact, find the Samsung Galaxy S 4G to be substantially the same as the iPhone.
But I thought the criterion was obviousness to one skilled in the art?
Actually, bacteria ARE resistant to alcohol. It depends non-monotonically on concentration; pure alcohol can sort of cauterize the cell membrane, allowing the organism to survive. Solutions with water are much more deadly, but even optimal mixtures (I think ~75 - 90%) can take as long as ~15 minutes to sterilize completely (though most normal bacteria die in seconds). That said, it seems like strong alcohol solutions would be very effective in removing bacteria from surfaces, an effect which most studies don't separate from actually killing them.
If microorganisms couldn't build at least some resistance to alcohol, we wouldn't have alcohol...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disinfectant#Alcohols
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OK, I guess I'm the opposite. Unless someone specifically states something as fact, I assume it's an opinion. People just state opinions much more frequently than fact (in my opinion).
What animals warrant such consideration from you?
Can't I say that something is wrong, on the basis of a strong emotion that nearly everyone I have ever known or whose work I have read seems to share, without proclaiming that there is a privileged reference frame?
Do you believe that unendangered, nonsentient animals should also not be hunted?
Also, it's really too bad that we don't have statistics on the common attitudes thing.
You said that you would always favor someone you know personally over someone you don't, but also that laws exist to prevent that favoritism from impacting society at large (in some extraordinarily unlikely situation where it can do that). It seemed like equality in laws is contingent on someone unlike you having penned them. I don't disagree that there could be reasons for making egalitarian laws anyway, which you say you have.
My mother, for example, would probably save her dog over some random person that she doesn't know
I wont second guess your claims about your own mother, but an overwhelming majority of people, especially women, would save an endangered infant over a pet, no matter how beloved. There are many situations in which a decision favoring the life of an animal over a person's would also be criminally negligent. The law actually does hold a person's life to be more valuable than an animal's, and the motivation for doing so seems a mixture of species-ism and the empathy of sentience for sentience.
That's the whole point of this discussion: it is wrong to kill whales for food, because scientific work has determined many species of cetaceans are indeed sentient. There can be no doubt that this position rests on the (seemingly) common experience of the empathy of sentience for sentience. On this view, with the backing of international law and the domestic laws of most democratic nations, the obstacles to completely eliminating the hunting of sentient species are due more to the refusal of people to accept science (by believing whales are sentient), than to the belief that murdering other forms of sentience is A-OK .
The (probably specious) claims you make about yourself are reminiscent of "situational sociopathy," ascribed for example to mob bosses who love their families but kill and torture others. There is fortunately a very low prevalence in the human population.
The recourse to "laws" and "logic" is an interesting one to make, considering that by your own statements you would establish nepotist laws. And, of course, there were no laws (or enforcement agencies) and at best very limited logic, when humanity evolved a strong predisposition to altruism.
I refused to carry my textbooks and made the teachers loan one of the classroom copies (which I understand we were lucky to have) while in school.
I tried using electronic copies of my D&D rulebooks, but the problem is I can look things up ~10x faster with the physical copy. Actually, my school was just 2 blocks from my house, so I had to carry the D&D books much farther, to friends' houses or a cafe.
cause less back pain
I think many people develop chronic back pain as children in this way.
Depends on which one I liked more. If it was my pet mouse versus a baby that I did not know, I would probably pick the mouse.
I find that difficult to believe.
Where else could it possibly be made?
Say you are crossing the street, and a car swerves around the corner, threatening to hit you. Do you dive out of the way because it's your opinion or because of ingrained flight-or-fight responses beyond conscious control? Surely not everything you do is the product of conscious consideration leading to a formed opinion.
I guess, but I doubt that even animal rights extremists would be able to choose to save the mouse over the baby (human or gorilla), when Dr. Evil is dangling them both over the cliff edge.
Would you? Or is the choice made somewhere else than the part that has opinions?
Less intelligent animals don't matter, then?
Not as much, anyway.
For example, the bar is lower for medical research performed on rats and mice than dogs, chimpanzees and gorillas. Most people feel more sympathy towards animals that can be taught to communicate via sign language (such as gorillas) or other means than rodents that barely remember mazes./p?
Or, the sarcastic phrase became a common idiom.
According the the traditional D&D alignment system, being "lawful" has nothing to do with following laws. A lawful character adheres to a fixed set of principles while a chaotic character does not. Robin Hood, Martin Luther King, Jr., Gandhi would all be "lawful good."
I'm aware Robin Hood may be a bad example since technically he was just trying to uphold the kingship of the de jure king rather than the de facto king.
It seems typical of most universities' press releases. They have PR divisions which troll the research faculty for new developments they can turn into whiz-bang popularized "articles."
I think that it's sort of the paradigm for how things are done at most large institutions: the researchers can't be bothered or don't have time to write popular accounts, do extraneous paperwork or file patents, so others are made to do it for them. The result is extraordinary claims in the press releases at best, and serious clerical mistakes or invalid patents at worst.
Stop consuming their media and start creating your own original media. No use of music, video or images that YOU didn't create.
In the face of that SOA and PIPA are toothless.
Except that UMG and the rest of big content will use their newly found, unchecked power to suppress that original media.
They've already been using extant enforcement capability to destroy access to other people's work (to say nothing of the public domain) where possible. SOPA / PIPA will make "where possible" become "everywhere, all the time."
So, the car should be centered in the lane, with the driver to the left somewhat (US cars / roads), right?
I mean, seemingly randomly. E.g. the algorithms could be deciding to tweak the speed slightly when it isn't strictly necessary.
I was next to a Google self-driving Prius on I-280S in San Francisco yesterday.
It was carrying three extremely stereotypical Google employees: 20-something white guy with pony tail and pocket protector, 20-something clean cut east asian engineer in REI jacket and plastic glasses and 20-something south asian engineer in polo shirt (all male).
The one behind the wheel was just barely holding it, presumably to second-guess the car if necessary. It was driving pretty well though I noticed it shares some annoying habits of human drivers, such as placing the driver in the center of the lane (should be to the left!) and briefly flashing the brakes. On the whole it was drove quite conservatively, though I think it did pass the limit once or twice.
Let's not forget Burma now...
Pre Iraq, the Muslim world was united, Muslims would never attach Muslims, and attacking a Mosque was unthinkable. Now they are at each others throats and bombing each other's Mosques.
Muslims have always been the majority of casualties in terror attacks by Islamic fundamentalists.
Here is a state department report on the demographics of terror.
See also this, this and this.
P.S. Please don't confuse my comments for an endorsement of our current, very broken patent system.
Wouldn't dream of it. I appreciate the explanations.
Your demographics are correct, but the Australian data does show a significant effect. Or Australians are just getting nicer.
Thanks for the clarification. It makes sense I guess (given the purpose of the "design patent").
Too bad it doesn't make good sense. I'd say tech designs turn over almost as fast as fashion designs.
Next, the Court considers whether Samsung’s products, in the eyes of an ordinary observer, would likely be deemed substantially the same as Apple’s iPhone.
To this end, the Court finds that an ordinary observer would, in fact, find the Samsung Galaxy S 4G to be substantially the same as the iPhone.
But I thought the criterion was obviousness to one skilled in the art?
Do you typically hand over personal possessions to anyone who asks?
Muggings at knife, gun (or fist) point are violent crimes.
Actually, bacteria ARE resistant to alcohol. It depends non-monotonically on concentration; pure alcohol can sort of cauterize the cell membrane, allowing the organism to survive. Solutions with water are much more deadly, but even optimal mixtures (I think ~75 - 90%) can take as long as ~15 minutes to sterilize completely (though most normal bacteria die in seconds). That said, it seems like strong alcohol solutions would be very effective in removing bacteria from surfaces, an effect which most studies don't separate from actually killing them. If microorganisms couldn't build at least some resistance to alcohol, we wouldn't have alcohol... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disinfectant#Alcohols
Real men use ferrite cores that can be power cycled and retain state. Of course, they just pull the plug.