In most other countries, from what I have read and seen in quite a bit of travel, it is assumed that you will at some point in your life get sick and die.
...
In the US things are a bit different. It is assumed that when you get sick that you can be cured. Period.
You are comparing 'eventually dying' with 'getting sick'. I call strawman.
According to my friends working in "Big Pharma," basically the prices they sell overseas, including Canada are "profitable" on a per-unit basis, because drug duplication costs are close to zero but the research is high.
I respectfully suggest you go over to the SEC site and download and read the yearly statements of the Big Pharma companies. You'd be surprised how they actually spend their money, as opposed to what they tell the public via their PR firms. And yes, the low-level drones in such companies do belong to the public, they get fed the same bullshit.
In fact, I have Pfizer's 10-K in front of me now, and they are in the midst of a reorganisation cutting staff in their PGRD division and closing down entire R&D centers (and in the meantime expressing concern that attrition is so high in the R&D group. I wonder why that is?)
And to close down the much-ballyhooed cost of getting approval: according to the 10-K, that takes 800 million dollars, and may take 10-15 years, so that cost can be amortised. Meanwhile, an approved patented medicine (a 20-year monopoly, remember?), may bring in 2 billion annually.
You are being lied to. The facts are out there, look them up.
The only things that should be classified are things like nuke launch codes, agent identities, troop movements/orders... Stuff that would directly put people in harms way
Nice strawmen you are trying to set up. Too bad they are in direct contradiction of what grandparent wrote. I quoted it again with emphasis just to point that out. Your hypothetical case of an agent in Iran is nicely covered by above rules.
Summary: you can't read. You have proven yourself to be a functional illiterate. Be proud of it.
You're mistaking "market" and "mass-market", and forgetting that businesses catering to niche markets are plentiful.
Essentially you are saying that privacy is only for the elite. What is the use in that? If privacy is to be useful, it is to be open to everyone. Otherwise it turns into yet another class distinction.
I'm not a habitual speeder (even though motorcyclists do have a bad reputation in that), but a high top speed is a safety feature, because it usually means that there is a large headroom of power in the places where you really need it, for sudden bursts of acceleration like overtaking on a single-carriageway road or merging.
Also, when someone 'forgets' to yield in an intersection, you now have two ways out: either brake to yield, or hit the gas to get the hell out of the intersection.
As a motorcyclist, I live with tailgaters all the time, and using my extra acceleration to run a yellow instead of being rear-ended has saved me plenty of times, even if it does mean temporarily doing 80kmh in a 50 zone.
So yes, engine power (and the attendant high top speed) is not wholly unjustified.
Another factor is emissions. Eighties models usually run leaner, closer to the stochiometric mix, but that produces more NOx, a major cause of smog and acid rain. With the advent of the catalytic converter, engines run richer, leaving unburnt hydrocarbons for the converter to convert NOx to N2, CO2 and water. That, however, consumes significantly more fuel./p
Mart
Same place as where you can see what historical documents are relevant and which are merely propaganda. By analysing the relationship with the source material and other sources. You seem to be stuck in the same delusion as the fundies, that whatever translation you're citing is the source material.
Is missing the point what you do for living? You actually believe that this is the way they choose what they regard as meaningful?
In the churches I grew up with, where a Theology degree is a prerequisite for ordination as a minister, this is exactly how texts are handled. Which is why Paul's letters are no longer the authority they used to be for our Calvinist forebears. Before lecturing others on missing the point, you'd better do something about the beam in your own eye.
Again, your particular deluded view on how Christianity works is almost exclusively American. Until you've taken a few classes in Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic and can show me an informed analysis of the provenance of a text, I prefer the insights of the reverends I grew up with over the words of a random, obviously uninformed, idiot on the Internet.
But were they really worse off? What surprises me when looking at the U.S. numbers is that the median household income has risen only 30% since the 1960s, yet the participation of women in the workforce has risen to 60%. (source whitehouse.gov and dol.gov)
In other words, the view that the middle class is more and more forced into two-job households to struggle to keep up their lifestyle is very much supported by the numbers. The SUV in the driveway may make them feel richer, but in real terms, the American middle class is being pushed down the economic ladder.
The question then becomes: cui bono? Who benefits from this false impression of wealth? And conversely, who suffers? The numbers for the SUV are pretty damning: due to the simple construction and the exemption from certain standards, production costs are low, and profit margins are high. Yet the simple construction is inefficient and wasteful of resources in actual use. In the end, the SUV is more than damage to the environment. It is the modern equivalent of bread and circuses, funneling money from the middle classes to the automotive and energy executives while keeping said middle classes preoccupied with keeping up with the Joneses, and leaving the mess to future generations and the rest of the planet to clean up.
The only reason the U.S. is not making a bigger stink out of the Airbus subsidies is because it is subsidizing civilian construction as well. Usually via the slightly indirect route of fat defense contracts, but if it walks like a duck...
Now, did you have anything to contribute, aside from snide anti-Europeanism?
Where I can see why some parts are wrong interpretations and some are correct?
Same place as where you can see what historical documents are relevant and which are merely propaganda. By analysing the relationship with the source material and other sources. You seem to be stuck in the same delusion as the fundies, that whatever translation you're citing is the source material. And you then present a false dichotomy: accept the full text or none of it.
In short, you're at worst an idiot, or at best ignorant.
You have not read a single word of what I wrote, have you? As soon as you saw the word 'rational' in what you believed to be a defense of faith, you went into attack mode, didn't you?
Your post makes it obvious where you stand: with the uninformed parrots.
Your sense of the ridiculous is caused by a delusional sort of belief that is apparently rather common in the U.S.
If you take a basic postulate of Christianity, that only God is perfect, and humans are imperfect, and you are then confronted with scientific evidence that your scriptures are written and compiled by humans then you can do two things:
The nutjob way: postulate that these people were divinely inspired and their utterings thus infallible.
The rational way: accept that humanity's knowledge of God is imperfectly transmitted.
I see no reason why a rational Christian should abide by a primitive 'sola scriptura' when it is obvious that even scripture is God's word as relayed by intermediaries. I mean, it is not as if there are not warnings against that in that very scripture itself, starting with God's admonition to Job as to where he gets his authority to speak on behalf of God.
Only in America is a rational way of looking at scripture seen as either heretical or hypocritical, by fundamentalists of both sorts. Otherwise, judging the relevance of certain parts of scripture is as unscientific as making a distinction between primary, secondary and tertiary sources.
The only thing that makes any sense is the rather obvious observation that in interpreting the scriptural texts the primary source (i.e. God) is by definition an untestable one. If you have a problem with that and want to build your atheism on that observation, more power to you, I won't disagree. But in discussions such as this, that kind of rational analysis is sorely missing. All I see is people blindly parroting talking points from uninformed sources.
Leninism and its successor Stalinism is dead and buried. The mixed-model revisionists that promote Social Democracy based on Marx' ideas on the distribution of wealth and power have managed to create a quite decent society (notwithstanding Liberatarian Socialist critiques that they have not fundamentally attacked the power structure).
On the other hand, the fundamentalist bloody-minded idiots in the U.S. still exist and garner ever more influence, thanks to politicians up to the President pandering to them.
What little or no challenge? Have missed the bloody Pope himself coming out and saying that the Roman Catholic Church, merely the largest single Christian denomination worldwide, has no problem at all with Darwinistic Evolution?
The nutballs are an almost exclusively American group. Deal with it in America, and stop blaming others for your problems.
All this would be nice if you disregard some 400+ years of theology since John Calvin. This sounds like the fundamentalist sort of Calvinism that we got rid of by exporting its proponents to the colonies. Oh wait...
Here's a hint: modern Protestant Christianity has a lot of trouble accepting the authority of Paul's letters. Both because the original texts may indicate more than one author, and because some of his preaching is a little hard to reconcile with the Gospels and sometimes even the Old Testament. This movement started by first revising the meaning of the letters to be specific to the communities they were sent to, and not globally applicable, but lately Paul has been losing a lot more authority. And rightly so, you can't have it both ways: Paul proclaiming no man is without sin, yet accepting his letters as unchallengable divinely inspired doctrine.
Of course, if you base your exegesis on an outdated translation like the KJV, then you deserve all the ridicule you get.
Given the level of debate I see on the topics of religion in the United States, it's dead heat who's dumber, the fundamentalist Atheists or the fundamentalist Christians.
I suggest you go, nay run, to the nearest bookseller, and buy yourself a copy of the collected essays and journalism by George Orwell.
Especially the first volume makes it abundantly clear that by 1934 Fascism was only respectable to those that wanted to turn a blind eye to its many failings. Failings which George Orwell abundantly documents in his writings from the late nineteen-twenties onward.
Minor nitpick, these names are not chosen as Ubuntu defaults, but using descriptive names in menus is a part of the Gnome Human Interface Guidelines. And since Ubuntu defaults to Gnome, they apply the HIG automatically.
So you admit that some of his work had relevance? That considerably weakens your original statement. Thank you for admitting that.
And as for Marx underestimating the benefits of capitalism? You have not read much Marx, have you? He thought it was the penultimate stage in social progress. He was lyrical on the benefits of capitalism. His main thesis was just that those benefits were not distributed in an equitable manner.
You are fully within your rights to criticise Marx, there is a lot wrong with his work, but when your criticism show a shallow understanding of his work, expect criticism in return.
Slashdot Mirror
...
You are comparing 'eventually dying' with 'getting sick'. I call strawman.
I respectfully suggest you go over to the SEC site and download and read the yearly statements of the Big Pharma companies. You'd be surprised how they actually spend their money, as opposed to what they tell the public via their PR firms. And yes, the low-level drones in such companies do belong to the public, they get fed the same bullshit.
In fact, I have Pfizer's 10-K in front of me now, and they are in the midst of a reorganisation cutting staff in their PGRD division and closing down entire R&D centers (and in the meantime expressing concern that attrition is so high in the R&D group. I wonder why that is?)
And to close down the much-ballyhooed cost of getting approval: according to the 10-K, that takes 800 million dollars, and may take 10-15 years, so that cost can be amortised. Meanwhile, an approved patented medicine (a 20-year monopoly, remember?), may bring in 2 billion annually.
You are being lied to. The facts are out there, look them up.
MartNice strawmen you are trying to set up. Too bad they are in direct contradiction of what grandparent wrote. I quoted it again with emphasis just to point that out. Your hypothetical case of an agent in Iran is nicely covered by above rules.
Summary: you can't read. You have proven yourself to be a functional illiterate. Be proud of it.
Idiot.
MartWell, no, he wouldn't, seeing as that he specifically mentioned things that would put people in harm's way as an exception.
Then again, seeing as that you can't read, that makes your insult rather ironic, don't you think? I remember something about splinters and beams.
MartEssentially you are saying that privacy is only for the elite. What is the use in that? If privacy is to be useful, it is to be open to everyone. Otherwise it turns into yet another class distinction.
MartI'm not a habitual speeder (even though motorcyclists do have a bad reputation in that), but a high top speed is a safety feature, because it usually means that there is a large headroom of power in the places where you really need it, for sudden bursts of acceleration like overtaking on a single-carriageway road or merging.
Also, when someone 'forgets' to yield in an intersection, you now have two ways out: either brake to yield, or hit the gas to get the hell out of the intersection.
As a motorcyclist, I live with tailgaters all the time, and using my extra acceleration to run a yellow instead of being rear-ended has saved me plenty of times, even if it does mean temporarily doing 80kmh in a 50 zone.
So yes, engine power (and the attendant high top speed) is not wholly unjustified.
MartAnother factor is emissions. Eighties models usually run leaner, closer to the stochiometric mix, but that produces more NOx, a major cause of smog and acid rain. With the advent of the catalytic converter, engines run richer, leaving unburnt hydrocarbons for the converter to convert NOx to N2, CO2 and water. That, however, consumes significantly more fuel./p Mart
He's asking questions.
You're calling him names.
Guess that settles who is the scientist and who is the zealot.
I'd call you an idiot if that weren't an insult to idiots around the world.
MartNo, I am suggesting that because Paul is human, his writings are not unchallengable. Learn to fucking read.
MartNice bit of selective quoting you have there. Shame if something were to happen to your worldview, right?
MartIn the churches I grew up with, where a Theology degree is a prerequisite for ordination as a minister, this is exactly how texts are handled. Which is why Paul's letters are no longer the authority they used to be for our Calvinist forebears. Before lecturing others on missing the point, you'd better do something about the beam in your own eye.
Again, your particular deluded view on how Christianity works is almost exclusively American. Until you've taken a few classes in Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic and can show me an informed analysis of the provenance of a text, I prefer the insights of the reverends I grew up with over the words of a random, obviously uninformed, idiot on the Internet.
MartBut were they really worse off? What surprises me when looking at the U.S. numbers is that the median household income has risen only 30% since the 1960s, yet the participation of women in the workforce has risen to 60%. (source whitehouse.gov and dol.gov)
In other words, the view that the middle class is more and more forced into two-job households to struggle to keep up their lifestyle is very much supported by the numbers. The SUV in the driveway may make them feel richer, but in real terms, the American middle class is being pushed down the economic ladder.
The question then becomes: cui bono? Who benefits from this false impression of wealth? And conversely, who suffers? The numbers for the SUV are pretty damning: due to the simple construction and the exemption from certain standards, production costs are low, and profit margins are high. Yet the simple construction is inefficient and wasteful of resources in actual use. In the end, the SUV is more than damage to the environment. It is the modern equivalent of bread and circuses, funneling money from the middle classes to the automotive and energy executives while keeping said middle classes preoccupied with keeping up with the Joneses, and leaving the mess to future generations and the rest of the planet to clean up.
MartWell, yes.
The only reason the U.S. is not making a bigger stink out of the Airbus subsidies is because it is subsidizing civilian construction as well. Usually via the slightly indirect route of fat defense contracts, but if it walks like a duck...
Now, did you have anything to contribute, aside from snide anti-Europeanism?
MartSame place as where you can see what historical documents are relevant and which are merely propaganda. By analysing the relationship with the source material and other sources. You seem to be stuck in the same delusion as the fundies, that whatever translation you're citing is the source material. And you then present a false dichotomy: accept the full text or none of it.
In short, you're at worst an idiot, or at best ignorant.
MartYou have not read a single word of what I wrote, have you? As soon as you saw the word 'rational' in what you believed to be a defense of faith, you went into attack mode, didn't you?
Your post makes it obvious where you stand: with the uninformed parrots.
Here's a cracker, Polly.
MartYour sense of the ridiculous is caused by a delusional sort of belief that is apparently rather common in the U.S.
If you take a basic postulate of Christianity, that only God is perfect, and humans are imperfect, and you are then confronted with scientific evidence that your scriptures are written and compiled by humans then you can do two things:
I see no reason why a rational Christian should abide by a primitive 'sola scriptura' when it is obvious that even scripture is God's word as relayed by intermediaries. I mean, it is not as if there are not warnings against that in that very scripture itself, starting with God's admonition to Job as to where he gets his authority to speak on behalf of God.
Only in America is a rational way of looking at scripture seen as either heretical or hypocritical, by fundamentalists of both sorts. Otherwise, judging the relevance of certain parts of scripture is as unscientific as making a distinction between primary, secondary and tertiary sources.
The only thing that makes any sense is the rather obvious observation that in interpreting the scriptural texts the primary source (i.e. God) is by definition an untestable one. If you have a problem with that and want to build your atheism on that observation, more power to you, I won't disagree. But in discussions such as this, that kind of rational analysis is sorely missing. All I see is people blindly parroting talking points from uninformed sources.
MartPretty well actually.
Leninism and its successor Stalinism is dead and buried. The mixed-model revisionists that promote Social Democracy based on Marx' ideas on the distribution of wealth and power have managed to create a quite decent society (notwithstanding Liberatarian Socialist critiques that they have not fundamentally attacked the power structure).
On the other hand, the fundamentalist bloody-minded idiots in the U.S. still exist and garner ever more influence, thanks to politicians up to the President pandering to them.
Got any more stupid questions?
MartWhat little or no challenge? Have missed the bloody Pope himself coming out and saying that the Roman Catholic Church, merely the largest single Christian denomination worldwide, has no problem at all with Darwinistic Evolution?
The nutballs are an almost exclusively American group. Deal with it in America, and stop blaming others for your problems.
MartAll this would be nice if you disregard some 400+ years of theology since John Calvin. This sounds like the fundamentalist sort of Calvinism that we got rid of by exporting its proponents to the colonies. Oh wait...
Here's a hint: modern Protestant Christianity has a lot of trouble accepting the authority of Paul's letters. Both because the original texts may indicate more than one author, and because some of his preaching is a little hard to reconcile with the Gospels and sometimes even the Old Testament. This movement started by first revising the meaning of the letters to be specific to the communities they were sent to, and not globally applicable, but lately Paul has been losing a lot more authority. And rightly so, you can't have it both ways: Paul proclaiming no man is without sin, yet accepting his letters as unchallengable divinely inspired doctrine.
MartOf course, if you base your exegesis on an outdated translation like the KJV, then you deserve all the ridicule you get.
Given the level of debate I see on the topics of religion in the United States, it's dead heat who's dumber, the fundamentalist Atheists or the fundamentalist Christians.
MartI suggest you go, nay run, to the nearest bookseller, and buy yourself a copy of the collected essays and journalism by George Orwell.
Especially the first volume makes it abundantly clear that by 1934 Fascism was only respectable to those that wanted to turn a blind eye to its many failings. Failings which George Orwell abundantly documents in his writings from the late nineteen-twenties onward.
MartWhen was the last time you used a Linux distribution? Dependency resolution has been solved for years.
Don't be so hasty to show off your ignorance in public, lest people ridicule you for it.
MartMinor nitpick, these names are not chosen as Ubuntu defaults, but using descriptive names in menus is a part of the Gnome Human Interface Guidelines. And since Ubuntu defaults to Gnome, they apply the HIG automatically.
MartYes, the survey is flawed. One word: selection bias.
Now, the second question: cui bono?.
Add those up, and you get a completely worthless survey.
MartSo you admit that some of his work had relevance? That considerably weakens your original statement. Thank you for admitting that.
And as for Marx underestimating the benefits of capitalism? You have not read much Marx, have you? He thought it was the penultimate stage in social progress. He was lyrical on the benefits of capitalism. His main thesis was just that those benefits were not distributed in an equitable manner.
You are fully within your rights to criticise Marx, there is a lot wrong with his work, but when your criticism show a shallow understanding of his work, expect criticism in return.
Mart