They tell you what you want to hear and then act in their own best interests. They're far better at playing us off against one another as identifiable groups of constituents than we are at playing them off against one another.
Seriously, the only way to deal with them is to ruthlessly vote out any of them that don't work against their own self interests. Look for politicians that: institute term limits, reduce their own pay, curtail the powers of government, hold themselves to higher ethical standards, eliminate monopolistic practices in the market, maximize transparency of their decision making processes, etc.
When they're doing these kinds of things, they're proving that they joined government to help the citizens of the nation and not themselves. The moment they turn away from these things, you know that they're going to the dark side and working against the citizenry.
If you strongly identify with the Democrats decrying Republicans or the Republicans decrying the Democrats, could you please just re-examine why you're allowing either of the two dominant political parties control you like a mindless sheep. These guys are pretty much all liars and using you. Until Americans think for themselves and hold office holders of all parties responsible for their actions, all the rest of this is cheering at a football game and useless for solving real problems.
If the US had subsidized rail infrastructure as much as they subsidized roadways, we'd probably have good passenger rail from more suburbs to urban centers, as well as between cities. Unfortunately, we don't, because the US didn't subsidize that way.
Such limited thinking. If the US had not funded ANYTHING, maybe the more economical mode of transportation would have been what consumers would have driven forward. Maybe the Government wouldn't have killed all the railways by competing against them.
Well how do you think they were able to be so economically successful as to be able to pay off any debt in the first place? They were happy to have our wind in their sails when things were moving along. Now that we're in a dead calm, they want to point fingers. Human nature, I guess... but inaccurate.
Everyone seems to think that if only their king/party would get elected then everything would be much better. The problem isn't with the people being elected, necessarily, it's with the power that we allow them to have.
Corporate American Culture is just meeting a demand that makes them money. Duh.
The problem is that the government is the stupidest most corrupt consumer on the planet and shouldn't be given two nickels to rub together. It will never ever spend money wisely. The only solution is to take money away from the government.
Don't you people realize that the government can't be trusted with all the power and money that they're given? The only half-decent solution is to drastically reduce their power. Take their money away. Only vote for politicians that commit to lower taxes and reduce the size of government (and vote out anyone that doesn't keep those commitments).
As stupid and sinister as W and his gang were, this new bunch is even more dangerous. They don't have any opposition in congress and the press is doing an even worse job playing devil's advocate than they did in the lead-up to the Iraq War. This administration is a runaway freight train of irresponsible children in the candy store and we are all going to lose our teeth from the sugar overdose.
but doesn't really discuss/acknowledge the role of non-paying customers
Puhlease. Their role is to fuck up his shit. Oh, do they show their friends the title, thus garnering sales? Or do they show their friends the title and say, "here download the cracked version from this link".
Play your cracked games that some small developer barely eeks out a living on, download your free music from some schmuck who eats ramen because he doesn't have rockstar money, and copy indie movies whose publisher went out of business despite the quality of their films... but don't even get a glimmer in your eye that you're doing the world some sort of good by doing so. Have the sense of decency to just quietly stay in your hole and feel a little bad about ripping someone off.
From that and other things, you seemed to imply that the SciFi part was irrelevant. I disagree. You can't even begin to tell the most interesting stories without being able to bend the rules of reality.
Speculative Fiction is basically composed of SciFi and Fantasy, commonly known as "SF". SciFi and Fantasy are basically the same thing, to parapharse Arthur C. Clarke -- and I think that they have intrinsic value separate from "good characters".
See, you make my point for me. You're forcing the speculative reality themes into reality grounded story lines that are all too limited to do the job properly.
In line with my "dimension" comment, you're forcing a 3d view into a 2d image. Sure, you can fake 3d aspects somewhat with certain techniques; but it's nothing like a real 3d image. Something just isn't there because the world's definition is our own inflexible one.
Nazi eugenics were about death and destruction of those who were "imperfect". Gattaca was about our individual ability to take hold of our direct offsprings' genetic programming and how those individual decisions would manifest and be dealt with in society. You just can't have that individual experimentation element without the scifi freedom to "what if?". Sure, you can use some of the same words - but you can't achieve the same circumstances that set up the honest discussion.
The Terminator was about an ultimate conflict with our own creation as played out in yet a different but related reality bridged through time travel. The original movie's theme dealt almost not at all with the "hubris of mankind". You can't truly explore those reality bending concepts without an AI wielding super robots and time travel. Sure, you can try to half-ass that part of the theme, but why cripple the story telling?
I could go on, but it's worth noting that you referred to "a Christmas Carol" and the Tower of Babel, which are both alternative reality speculative fiction. Whether it's ghosts, burning bushes, dragons or light sabers, it's all non-existent alternative reality stuff that requires some suspension of disbelief in the environment in order to let those "good characters" explore new themes. Reality is just too limiting to do the job properly.
It's a matter of priorities and complexity, I guess. A speculative future or alternate reality can evoke thoughts and discussions completely beyond the ones evoked by even the best characters bound by our own reality.
Think Gattaca, The Terminator, The Matrix, Blade Runner, Alien, 2001, Back to the Future...
You just can't explore the themes that these movies cover without that guided suspension of disbelief that scifi considers a pre-requisite.
Good characters are just one dimension of what makes a good scifi movie. To me, having a movie without scifi is like having an orchestra without a wind or a string section. Sure, they can create some great/interesting music, but it's music without the richness that all of the other instruments bring to bear.
But I don't know which is worse -- people who say "New Orleeeens", or people who fake being a local to say "Nyawlins" but then blow it two seconds later by asking where to get some "crayfish".:)
Yes, and then we get the ultimate and most-abused source of power and force in our society to also tell us what "equal access" means as they give us the opinions that we all should have.
I see what you're saying... I see what Brain-Fu is saying. You're talking about facts and data, Brain-Fu is talking about perspective and philosophy. Both approaches have their merit, no need to attack him for his/hers.
If we are not careful, maybe the future nonhuman intelligences might consider us no different from other animals and find us not interesting enough to keep around.
Being careful has nothing to do with it. If we can't forge social contracts with such beings then we can't. How we treat animals and embryos now will likely have nothing to do with the philosophies and conventions that they maintain.
It has multiple effects, one of which I mentioned. I looked it up online, so I know it must be true.
Re:This too was foreseen
on
Designer Babies
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Eugenics got a bad rap because of the fascist nature of the Nazis. From Wikipedia: The word eugenics derives from the Greek word eu (good or well) and the suffix -genÄ"s (born), and was coined by Sir Francis Galton in 1883, who defined it as "the study of all agencies under human control which can improve or impair the racial quality of future generations"
Taking control of our own genetic future is the only way we'll evolve the human race without also needing the severe stress of massive population reducing mechanisms like war, disease, asteroid, etc.
Besides benignly selecting for better traits in our own embryo sets, I'm hoping that we can eventually genetically change ourselves in place with retro-viruses or something similar.
Just like birth control pills are murder, right? Using birth control pills is partially effective because it prevents fertilized eggs from sticking to the lining of the uterus.
Depends upon how smart they are. If they're smart enough to move about in society and take care of themselves, then I guess that you have to let them go.
Don't assume the bad guy movie scenario if you don't have to.
Slashdot Mirror
No matter how horribly broken the game is that they sell you, they don't take refunds.
They tell you what you want to hear and then act in their own best interests. They're far better at playing us off against one another as identifiable groups of constituents than we are at playing them off against one another.
Seriously, the only way to deal with them is to ruthlessly vote out any of them that don't work against their own self interests. Look for politicians that: institute term limits, reduce their own pay, curtail the powers of government, hold themselves to higher ethical standards, eliminate monopolistic practices in the market, maximize transparency of their decision making processes, etc.
When they're doing these kinds of things, they're proving that they joined government to help the citizens of the nation and not themselves. The moment they turn away from these things, you know that they're going to the dark side and working against the citizenry.
If you strongly identify with the Democrats decrying Republicans or the Republicans decrying the Democrats, could you please just re-examine why you're allowing either of the two dominant political parties control you like a mindless sheep. These guys are pretty much all liars and using you. Until Americans think for themselves and hold office holders of all parties responsible for their actions, all the rest of this is cheering at a football game and useless for solving real problems.
If the US had subsidized rail infrastructure as much as they subsidized roadways, we'd probably have good passenger rail from more suburbs to urban centers, as well as between cities. Unfortunately, we don't, because the US didn't subsidize that way.
Such limited thinking. If the US had not funded ANYTHING, maybe the more economical mode of transportation would have been what consumers would have driven forward. Maybe the Government wouldn't have killed all the railways by competing against them.
Government should rarely be the answer.
Well how do you think they were able to be so economically successful as to be able to pay off any debt in the first place? They were happy to have our wind in their sails when things were moving along. Now that we're in a dead calm, they want to point fingers. Human nature, I guess... but inaccurate.
Yes, very flame-baity. Very true, too.
Everyone seems to think that if only their king/party would get elected then everything would be much better. The problem isn't with the people being elected, necessarily, it's with the power that we allow them to have.
Sad joke indeed.
Corporate American Culture is just meeting a demand that makes them money. Duh.
The problem is that the government is the stupidest most corrupt consumer on the planet and shouldn't be given two nickels to rub together. It will never ever spend money wisely. The only solution is to take money away from the government.
Don't you people realize that the government can't be trusted with all the power and money that they're given? The only half-decent solution is to drastically reduce their power. Take their money away. Only vote for politicians that commit to lower taxes and reduce the size of government (and vote out anyone that doesn't keep those commitments).
As stupid and sinister as W and his gang were, this new bunch is even more dangerous. They don't have any opposition in congress and the press is doing an even worse job playing devil's advocate than they did in the lead-up to the Iraq War. This administration is a runaway freight train of irresponsible children in the candy store and we are all going to lose our teeth from the sugar overdose.
Yes we can! (go bankrupt)
Coming to Slashdot, of all places, begging for help while swinging your "not yours, I want to patent it" bat around is just pathetic.
takes a snipe at pirates
Defensive much?
but doesn't really discuss/acknowledge the role of non-paying customers
Puhlease. Their role is to fuck up his shit. Oh, do they show their friends the title, thus garnering sales? Or do they show their friends the title and say, "here download the cracked version from this link".
Play your cracked games that some small developer barely eeks out a living on, download your free music from some schmuck who eats ramen because he doesn't have rockstar money, and copy indie movies whose publisher went out of business despite the quality of their films... but don't even get a glimmer in your eye that you're doing the world some sort of good by doing so. Have the sense of decency to just quietly stay in your hole and feel a little bad about ripping someone off.
You said:
but I don't understand genre fanship
From that and other things, you seemed to imply that the SciFi part was irrelevant. I disagree. You can't even begin to tell the most interesting stories without being able to bend the rules of reality.
Speculative Fiction is basically composed of SciFi and Fantasy, commonly known as "SF". SciFi and Fantasy are basically the same thing, to parapharse Arthur C. Clarke -- and I think that they have intrinsic value separate from "good characters".
See, you make my point for me. You're forcing the speculative reality themes into reality grounded story lines that are all too limited to do the job properly.
In line with my "dimension" comment, you're forcing a 3d view into a 2d image. Sure, you can fake 3d aspects somewhat with certain techniques; but it's nothing like a real 3d image. Something just isn't there because the world's definition is our own inflexible one.
Nazi eugenics were about death and destruction of those who were "imperfect". Gattaca was about our individual ability to take hold of our direct offsprings' genetic programming and how those individual decisions would manifest and be dealt with in society. You just can't have that individual experimentation element without the scifi freedom to "what if?". Sure, you can use some of the same words - but you can't achieve the same circumstances that set up the honest discussion.
The Terminator was about an ultimate conflict with our own creation as played out in yet a different but related reality bridged through time travel. The original movie's theme dealt almost not at all with the "hubris of mankind". You can't truly explore those reality bending concepts without an AI wielding super robots and time travel. Sure, you can try to half-ass that part of the theme, but why cripple the story telling?
I could go on, but it's worth noting that you referred to "a Christmas Carol" and the Tower of Babel, which are both alternative reality speculative fiction. Whether it's ghosts, burning bushes, dragons or light sabers, it's all non-existent alternative reality stuff that requires some suspension of disbelief in the environment in order to let those "good characters" explore new themes. Reality is just too limiting to do the job properly.
It's a matter of priorities and complexity, I guess. A speculative future or alternate reality can evoke thoughts and discussions completely beyond the ones evoked by even the best characters bound by our own reality.
Think Gattaca, The Terminator, The Matrix, Blade Runner, Alien, 2001, Back to the Future...
You just can't explore the themes that these movies cover without that guided suspension of disbelief that scifi considers a pre-requisite.
Good characters are just one dimension of what makes a good scifi movie. To me, having a movie without scifi is like having an orchestra without a wind or a string section. Sure, they can create some great/interesting music, but it's music without the richness that all of the other instruments bring to bear.
But I don't know which is worse -- people who say "New Orleeeens", or people who fake being a local to say "Nyawlins" but then blow it two seconds later by asking where to get some "crayfish". :)
SF is nothing special in that regard.
Don't tell that to Steve Perry.
Having lived there, I can tell you that the Bay Area is actually pretty anal about how SF is referred to.
In a representative democracy, the only people to blame for this crap is the voters.
I think you're equivocating on the use of "religion". Religion requires "faith". Trust in evidence and theories built on them is not faith.
It's more appropriate to say that "Science is his passion."
Yes, and then we get the ultimate and most-abused source of power and force in our society to also tell us what "equal access" means as they give us the opinions that we all should have.
Thanks for all that hot sticky fairness.
I see what you're saying... I see what Brain-Fu is saying. You're talking about facts and data, Brain-Fu is talking about perspective and philosophy. Both approaches have their merit, no need to attack him for his/hers.
If we are not careful, maybe the future nonhuman intelligences might consider us no different from other animals and find us not interesting enough to keep around.
Being careful has nothing to do with it. If we can't forge social contracts with such beings then we can't. How we treat animals and embryos now will likely have nothing to do with the philosophies and conventions that they maintain.
It has multiple effects, one of which I mentioned. I looked it up online, so I know it must be true.
Eugenics got a bad rap because of the fascist nature of the Nazis. From Wikipedia: The word eugenics derives from the Greek word eu (good or well) and the suffix -genÄ"s (born), and was coined by Sir Francis Galton in 1883, who defined it as "the study of all agencies under human control which can improve or impair the racial quality of future generations"
Taking control of our own genetic future is the only way we'll evolve the human race without also needing the severe stress of massive population reducing mechanisms like war, disease, asteroid, etc.
Besides benignly selecting for better traits in our own embryo sets, I'm hoping that we can eventually genetically change ourselves in place with retro-viruses or something similar.
Just like birth control pills are murder, right? Using birth control pills is partially effective because it prevents fertilized eggs from sticking to the lining of the uterus.
Yes, base your opinions on one writer/director's movie. That sounds like a plan.
i.e. we do not as yet know why they disappeared.
Once we clone one, we can just teach him how to talk and ask him what happened.
Depends upon how smart they are. If they're smart enough to move about in society and take care of themselves, then I guess that you have to let them go.
Don't assume the bad guy movie scenario if you don't have to.