How dare you question The Theology of the Window?
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Did You VoteOrNot.org?
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· Score: 2, Funny
Shh!!! One mustn't question The Cooling Power Of The Window. Society is all based on The Cooling Power Of The Window! Sure, there's no evidence to support the idea that rolling down the window helps, and in fact there's lots of evidence to the contrary, but... would our founding fathers have suggested The Cooling Power Of The Window if it didn't work?
Be a good citizen and roll down your window. Sure, it doesn't do anything -- it may even make it hotter, but you don't want to disturb the status quo, do you?
It isn't just lobbying, money and corruption that prevents good politicians from winning, it's the very nature of democracy. Say you're an economic genius and know the perfect, foolproof way of turning the economy into a juggernaut. The problem is, the explanation of why it will work is complex and can't be condensed into a 30 second soundbite. Say a quick overview of your plan by a non-expert will sound like something that won't work, or will cost people their jobs. No matter how smart you are, and how right you are, people won't vote for you because they're not qualified enough to understand your plan.
And that's when things work perfectly. Lobbying, money, corruption and the media are simply parts of American democracy. You can scream all you want about them, but if the media is on the side of your opponent because their lobbyists bought him, nobody will hear your screams -- or, better yet -- they'll hear them, but you'll be edited to sound like an idiot, like what happened to Howard Dean.
At some point, you just have to accept that the system is broken beyond its ability to repair itself.
Have you heard of the research into "induced traffic"? Researchers say that often widening a road will not help traffic much. Essentially, "if you build it, they will come". Traffic and traffic flow are really complex issues. Researchers still don't know exactly why traffic jams happen, or how to prevent them.
So here's a controversial question: What makes you qualified to express an opinion on how the government should deal with gridlock?
That question is at the center of questions about whether democracy is a good idea or not. In an election the issue of gridlock will come up. Say there are two politicians. One listens to the public will and says he'll widen the highways. The other listens to the researchers and figures out that the solution to gridlock is more complicated, and that the best solution is to change the design of the onramps and place more signs, but that widening the highway will actually make things worse.
I'm convinced that the voters would vote for the politician offering the simple solution that seems right for them as untrained non-experts, and the gridlock problem won't be fixed.
You take a pretty controversial position, but don't defend it: "It's important to vote, even if you vote for yourself or Mickey Mouse". Why?
Obviously you feel that merely participating in the process is important, even if your participation is meaningless. How is it any different to cast a meaningless vote as opposed to not casting any vote?
The only thing I can think of is that you fee it is important to show that you believe in the process... but do you? If the process only produces candidates you can't bring yourself to vote for, is it really all that good? Can you honestly say that the process shouldn't be changed if it can't produce a candidate you can vote for?
Fascist, Anarchist or True American?
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Did You VoteOrNot.org?
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· Score: 3, Interesting
I think you need to widen your political outlook. The political spectrum isn't simply composed of Fascists, Anarchists and Good, Honest, True Americans.
Just because someone wants to tighten voting rules and regulations doesn't make them a fascist. At the same time, opposing those rules doesn't make someone an anarchist. An anarchist would be pretty offended that you would characterize them as someone who believes in voting for a government under a minimal set of rules. An anarchist doesn't believe that one person should ever have authority over another person -- an outlook that doesn't mesh very well with voting.
With no rules about who can vote, when they can vote, and how often they can vote, voting becomes completely meaningless. But that isn't the same thing as anarchy.
On the other hand, if you take voting restrictions to extremes you will end up with meaningless votes. No question there. However, there are a number of political systems which may or may not have restricted elections. The word that best suits a system where the government has control over its citizens' everyday lives is authoritarianism, or at the extreme totalitarianism.
Really this discussion is all about the right number of restrictions on votes in a democratic system. I guess the answer to that depends on what the desired outcome of the voting is.
In a totalitarian regime, the purpose of voting is to make the government seem legitimate. In an authoritarian one, it may be that, or it may be to make the people feel as if they have some say in how things go. The question is, what's the purpose of an election in a democratic republic. Is the purpose to express the will of the voters, and have them choose the person they want to represent them, or is it to have the public choose the person who is best qualified to represent them? Those two options may seem like they're the same thing, but they're not.
In the first case, if the people choose to elect a mass murdering psychopath, the system is working perfectly -- as long as their votes were accurately counted. If the goal is to choose a person who is qualified, then the choice of a psychopath would be a failure.
So the question is, what's the goal of the US democracy? Is it to choose qualified leaders who will help the country, or is it simply to allow the public to choose anybody they wish, whether that choice is self-destructive or not? If you believe that the country should be allowed to "shoot itself in the foot" if it wants to, then any restrictions on voting would be bad. On the other hand, if you think the goal is to choose leaders who will make the country a better place, then you should consider what restrictions would encourage the choice of good, responsible leaders.
People who believe that the act of voting is the important part should be ready to defend the right of the completely insane, or the severely mentally retarded to vote. People who believe that the important part is choosing a good leader should be willing to defend restrictions on who is allowed to vote.
Neither of these camps is "fascist" or "anarchist", they're just different varieties of democrat.
That they call them "homicide bombers" when they are unsuccessful and only kill themselves.
Everybody understands what a suicide bomber is. They strap a bomb to themselves and blow themselves up, and it's clear that their attempt is to kill or injure others.
On the other hand, "homicide bomber" is a more vague term. Is the Unabomber a homicide bomber? He sent mail bombs that were meant to kill or injure. It sure sounds like one to me. But it's very different in that he didn't kill himself in the process.
Fox is pushing a political agenda by choosing an uncommonly used term instead of the accepted one, and the fact that their new term is more vague is a sign that they are hot aiming for accuracy but for a certain bias.
If you truly believe that Fox is less biased than the average news source, you're seriously misinformed. Think about it, if everybody but you seems to be a liberal... couldn't it be that you're actually a conservative?
You're right on both counts. It is the ideal niche for OSS stuff. It's especially true because MMORPGs are all about building worlds, and that ongoing, continuous tweaking is exactly what OSS is all about.
As for servers, I wonder if a P2P model might work, where there is no 1 central server, instead there are supernodes which pop up and down as needed. If each "village" in the world only has a few dozen people online, a typical machine shouldn't have too much difficulty being a server for that.
Imagine that though, an MMORPG with no subscription fees, where there's no need to level up quickly, where you can take the tame to roleplay. That could be a great game.
Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.
It's not capitalism, and it's not that it's the worst there could be, it's just that it's the worst that has been tried so far. So don't give up, better alternatives to democracy do exist. Someday people will look back on democracy the same way they now look back on trepanning and COBOL.
I don't understand why Google is willing to provide their email service for free, but nobody has a "right" to use the service. I can use any software I want to check my email. Why? Because I run both the client and the server. If you don't run, or even pay for the service, you have whatever rights they decide they want to give you.
I used the web when images were fairly new. Then I used the web when animated gifs were new, and very shortly after that, as soon as I could, I found a way to disable them. I haven't seen an animated gif in years. Mozilla and most proxies make it easy to disable them, and there's a good reason for that. Animated images are awful. Let them die. I assure you that as soon as Mozilla supports APNGs, it will also have a means of disabling them, and many people will do that instantly.
I agree with the other poster. I would not buy THUG because of McDonalds ads. It didn't make the game more enjoyable, more interesting, or more realistic. It just stood out like a sore thumb. I hate McDonalds, and there's no way I'll pay for a game, and accept McDonalds ads in it as well.
The skateboard company ads annoy me too, but I'm willing to accept them since it's a skateboarding game, and these ads are really well integrated into the game.
The one thing that encourages me is that games, TV and such are increasingly falling under my control. Right now, an ad filter like privoxy can remove all the awful, annoying ads that would otherwise make using the web hell. At one point, I had tweaked Opera so that the ads it showed were the "ads" I had created, rather than real ones it tried to show me. If a game company publishes a game that tries to fetch ads remotely, I'm sure there will be a hack to get it to fetch something else instead.
Don't worry about the long quote. Unless Slashdot doesn't like it, I have no problem. I find it interesting too.
"If I understand correctly, to your mind, having guns = increased likelyhood of something going wrong." Yes, that's my opinion. "and that there really isn't any positive benefit for having a firearm" No, I just think that the bad outweighs the good.
I don't have a problem with target shooting for fun, and I think the biathalon is one of the most interesting of the winter sports. The concept is really cool -- do one of the sports with the highest demand on your heart, then try to snipe a target, something you want a slow, steady heart rate to do.
My objection is not to sport shooting or hunting. My problem is with guns as weapons to be used against other people.
In Canada, pistols are almost illegal, however target shooting exists. If you want to use a pistol for target shooting, you have to tell the police when you intend to go to the range, and keep the gun locked up in your trunk on your way there and back. It's somewhat draconian, but it seems to work. Another option would be for a place to have a "firearms license" like they have for liquor licenses. The guns have to be kept on the premises, but you could rent a locker or something.
But wouldn't that include criminal organizations that tend to commit the "intra-criminal crime", that might result in innocent casualties that you alluded to earlier?
Yes, but it would exclude the casual criminals, and it would allow police to conclude that if someone has a gun, they're a criminal. I think that would significantly reduce the number of innocent people getting killed.
As for Washington DC. I think the problem is that if it is only a small area or community that has a gun control law in place, it is ineffective. If all someone has to do is drive to another city, then they'll get a gun way too easily. Same with convicted felons. If it is easy for them to get a gun from someone who can legally get one, it's nearly impossible to stop. On the other hand, if it is a nation-wide rule, then guns can (at least in theory) be stopped at the border.
"Every law-abiding citizen has the right to self-defense". I agree, but nobody would argue that that right to self defense includes the right to carry around a nuclear weapon, or a hand grenade, or something else that is extremely destructive. In untrained hands, I think a gun is too destructive. If you follow the NRA "rules", on the page you link to, I think guns would be a lot safer... but I have trouble believing most people do follow them. I would bet most people keep their fingers on the trigger, even when they're not ready to shoot. I bet they keep the guns loaded, and I doubt they would remember to check behind the target in a stressful situation. Those rules are also just voluntary suggestions, and if someone breaks them, until they actually kill or maim someone, there's no consequences.
"Although you can buy an "AK-74" clone, or an "AR-15" clone, civilian versions are semi-automatic single-shot per pull rifles, no different from any other hunting or sporting rifle" Right, but my understanding is that there can be a fundamental design difference between a fully-automatic-capable weapon and a semi-automatic capable only weapon. Both pull the next round off the magazine, but only a fully-automatic capable weapon also sends the bolt back and then drives it forward again. If you take a weapon that was designed to be fully automatic, then modify it so that it's semi-automatic only, it's pretty easy to reverse that modification to make it fully automatic again. On the other hand, a weapon that was never meant to be fully automatic would require a lot of modifications to make if fully automatic. (I could be wrong about this though, I haven't studied semi-automatic weapons firing mechanisms in depth). If I'm correct, it should be easy to distinguish between rifl
I'm not saying I'd be happy to be a victim of crime if nobody is hurt, but I would much rather be a victim of a crime where nobody is hurt, than one where someone is hurt. I'd even be willing to accept higher crime rates if it was nonviolent crime that went up, and violent crime that went down.
If baseball bats and butcher knives are the only deadly weapons, then I'd also be much happier. How often is someone killed by a stray bullet? Now, how often is someone killed by a stray baseball-bat swing? A whole lot of crime is intra-criminal crime. Gang warfare, mafia hits, etc. When guns are involved, innocent people are often hurt. Without guns, it's mostly just the criminals who get hurt.
From your argument, it sounds like you believe that guns are the only thing keeping things from descending into anarchy. I just don't see it that way. I agree that if guns were completely illegal, serious criminals would still have them. For that reason, I don't think that police should be completely disarmed -- although I don't see why a traffic cop should be wearing a pistol. But if only criminals had guns, then merely possessing a gun would be enough to throw someone in jail. You wouldn't need to wait for them to misuse it.
As for your rewording of my statements. There's some truth to that. I don't think it should be as easy to get cars and to drive. Too many people die or kill with cars all the time. I think drivers should be retested often to make sure they don't lose their skills, and that driving offenses should carry much heavier fines. Cars are useful though, so I don't think they should be banned. It's not like the only purpose of a car is to run someone down, that's just something that occasionally happens. For that reason, the benefits of cars outweigh the risks. That doesn't hold true for guns.
As for scientific research, I don't think knowledge is destructive. I agree that the fruits of scientific research can be very destructive (atomic weapons, bio weapons, drugs, etc.) That's why there are things like the nuclear non-proliferation treaties, and the FDA. If you think that knowledge itself is dangerous, then I guess we have a major difference of opinion.
Like I said, I'm not religious, and don't think too highly of those who are. I shouldn't have mentioned the commandment thing because what I really meant to focus on was the Jesus reference.
There's a lot of stuff in the old testament that I think is more an "eye for an eye" type message. My understanding though is that Jesus' teachings were about nonviolence, loving your enemy, and turning the other cheek.
Now, maybe I'm wrong about Jesus' teachings. I've never read the bible, and don't intend to do so. But if I'm correct that he himself didn't advocate spilling blood for justice, it seems odd that someone comparing his views to those of Jesus would talk that way.
Right, so what I'm saying is that if you use that excuse, you should maybe be punished less for the DUI. At the same time, you should be punished more for drinking since you know that your family has alcoholic tendencies. You should also be punished for not going back to therapy if you know you have problems. You should be punished for getting behind the wheel of a car while in an emotional state. etc. In the end, the punishment should be the same -- maybe even more if you had all these reasons not to drink and drive, but you did it anyhow.
You shouldn't get off easier because you know the factors leading up to the incident. You should be punished more harshly because you knew you were less likely to be able to handle the situation and you let yourself get into it anyhow.
If a landslide happens and blocks a highway, then the land is pushed off the highway, and often a retaining barrier is put up to prevent it from happening again. It doesn't matter that the land didn't possess free will, and didn't decide to jump across the highway. If it were effective to "punish" the land for blocking the highway, and that would prevent landslides elsewhere, then that would also be done.
Even if humans don't have free will, it is clear that deterrence works, so laws are effective.
If the philosophy is that laws exist only as punishment for making bad decisions, then they don't really have meaning when there are no "decisions". On the other hand, if laws are simply inputs to the decision matrix, it makes sense to tip the decision matrix in a given way.
Picasso didn't just pick up a brush and start painting masterpieces. His father was an artist, and he trained and practiced for many years. That training and practicing is scientific, even if artists might not recognize it as such. They hypothesize that a certain technique might result in more interesting paintings, they do an experiment by painting something using that technique, and then make a conclusion based on the output.
It's true that when things are close to comparable levels of quality, that it is difficult or impossible to say that one is objectively better than the other. On the other hand, I think it's fair to say that the song "Silent Night" is objectively better than the sound of a baboon screeching.
If it's telling that 99% of the human race couldn't give a rat's ass about what experts think when it comes to art, why is it that when people think of art, they think of the Mona Lisa, the Scream, and other critically acclaimed art?
Along the same lines, if people don't value critics, why is it that they watch what the MTV critics think is good enough to air on their station, or what the reviews in magazines say about upcoming CDs? Not all critics have degrees in their subject, but most of them have experience in some way. Would you pay any attention to a magazine's music reviewer who was deaf? What about a reviewer who didn't know the difference between Country and Rap? Even if you, personally, don't buy music based on these critics, a lot of people do, and that's how music becomes "popular".
Popular music is partially the result of getting decent reviews by critics, but it's also partially the result of a powerful marketing machine. If a band produces a great song, but can't get the word out, then nobody will ever hear it. On the other hand, if a well known band produces a mediocre CD, then gets it into the hands of every reviewer in the country, pays to have it played on every station across the country, it will probably do pretty well.
The problem is, it's relatively easy to make popular music. The formula isn't too hard. On the other hand, it's hard to make a truly great song. Most of the time, making a truly great song means taking risks. Since music companies don't like taking risks, they will generally stick with the sure thing, and so the music they produce is rarely great, but also rarely awful.
If every artist had equal access to ears, then the songs that most people liked would really be the good ones, and "popular" music would be "good" music. With our current big-money-dominated music scene, popular music is just the best music from a selection of tunes that critics (in the form of marketing people at recording companies) think is good enough to sell well.
The problem with that voting record is the same as the Vietnam one. Prior to 2000, John Kerry had a spent a long time in the senate. He has a long voting record that you can look at, both for good or bad things. In that same time, George W. Bush had spent almost no time in public office, except for a stint as the (largely ceremonial) governor of Texas. If you want to judge him on his record, you're really limited to looking at the last 4 years -- and I don't think even his supporters would say that what he's done over that time period is typical for him. He's had to deal with some unusual, exceptional situations. So, you have to compare a man with a long record against a man without a record.
The same thing is true about the whole Vietnam mess. John Kerry received 3 purple hearts, a bronze star and a silver star. People can debate the validity of those medals for a long time, but they can't compare them to George W. Bush's medals because he doesn't have any. Is it worse to have done some heroic things, but then maybe exaggerated them a bit, or is it better to have done nothing at all?
Is it better to have a mixed record of some good and some bad, or is it better to have no record at all? That seems to be the main question here.
Whatever happens, I predict that the winner will be a former Yale student, and a member of the Skull and Bones society. In the end, isn't that what counts?
First of all, let me say I'm not at all religious. In fact, I think most religions and religious people are silly, but I think you're going a bit far here:
I am empathetic towards the oppressed, the poor, and those who do not get treated justly by their governments. I, like Christ Jesus, will agitate for a change in this situation until my dying day.
Great -- very Christian (as I understand things)
[B]ut when peaceful means fail and tyranny rears its ugly head, then blood must be spilled
That, on the other hand, is pretty much the opposite of Jesus' message. The hard part of his message wasn't the "love your brother" part, it was the "turn the other cheek" part. The commandment isn't "Thou shalt not kill -- unless there's injustice thou mustest rectify", it's just "Thou shalt not kill".
I don't know if this philosophy is effective. It's not how I live either. On the other hand, it's pretty hypocritical to talk about the necessity of spilling blood in one breath, and about Jesus in the next.
Interesting analysis, and although I don't know many conservatives, I can see that being the case. Do you think that conservatives are more likely to see things in black and white?
I ask about black and white because of things like gun control. If a conservative thinks in black and white, then your gun control argument makes sense. But if they see things in shades of grey, then it breaks apart. Someone might be "mostly good": they cheat a bit on their taxes, lie a bit when selling a used car, but they're mostly good people. If they had a gun, they would generally not use it for anything bad -- but in a tough situation, their bad side might take over.
I'm more liberal than conservative. When it comes to gun control, I'm really in favour of getting rid of guns. I side more with the environment than the nature side of things, but that's not the only reason. Even if someone is a very good person, and was raised in a loving family, etc. there's no accounting for judgement or emotion. Say a bank robber runs into a bank, waving a gun around. If nobody in the bank is armed, then the tellers can give him the money, he'll have no reason to shoot anybody, and that's the end of that. The police will probably be able to track him down later, but even if they don't, at least nobody died. On the other hand, say he robs a bank where a bunch of otherwise good, upstanding people have guns. There are just far too many scenarios where someone dies in this situation. Either the good guy can't pull his gun fast enough and gets shot (bad), or he gets it out and gets the drop on the robber (not good, but not particularly bad), or he gets it out and shoots the robber -- but not being properly trained -- his bullet continues through the robber and kills the bystander behind them as well (very bad). Then there's the situation where someone who is a good, honest, upstanding citizen gets cut off in traffic on a day when he just lost his job. His emotions run hot, and he shoots the guy who cut him off.
If gunshots weren't as lethal, or there were some way of ensuring that guns would only be used by properly trained people while they were calm, then I'd have no problems with people having them. But humans are fallible, and guns are just too potentially destructive to be put in the hands of such fallible people, even if the conservatives are right and they are "good" people.
From your argument, it also seems that conservatives would think that prison should be very harsh, because only bad people would end up going there and they should be punished. It also seems that they would think that there's no point in trying to rehabilitate criminals, since they're just "bad" by nature, and it would be a waste of money. Does that sound correct?
Oh, and as an aside, the nation I most associate with terrorism is Saudi Arabia, and they're very wealthy. There's an interesting theory I heard about terrorism and terrorists -- and I consider it to be a conservative theory, even though it sides more with nurture/environment than nature. It is that the nations that are the ones generating the most terrorists are the ones where people didn't have to "pull themselves up by their bootstraps". The US has a culture that was built on hard work and sacrifice (even though now you might be hard pressed to find that sometimes). Saudi Arabia went from a very primitive, nomadic society to a very rich country, simply because they're sitting over a huge oilfield. As a result, they never had to learn the values of hard work, etc. And, as a result of that, Saudi Arabia produces "bad people".
I accept that there's no such thing as free will, but the idea that it renders law and morality void is silly. If there's no free will, then decisions are made by mechanically weighing the result of the actions. If the human machine knows in advance that something is against the law and will result in punishment, then it is less likely to break that law.
Morality is similar to law, they just tend to be the less straightforward things that keep societies running smoothly. Take the commandment about not "coveting" your neighbor's wife. Objectively, it's hard to put your finger on anything that's wrong about that. Nobody is physically deprived of anything, nobody is physically hurt. What's the problem? The problem is simply human nature. There's less friction in society if people don't do that. What's good for society is good for its individual members (and for their children, and thus their genes), even if it goes against their short term interests. Things that are immoral are bad decisions for the human computer, so they're valid things to follow.
The only logical way of dealing with the concept of there being no free will is to act as if there is free will. If there isn't free will, then you're not actually making the decision. If there is free will, then you're making the only correct decision. The only wrong decision you can possibly make is to act like there isn't free will when there actually is.
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Shh!!! One mustn't question The Cooling Power Of The Window. Society is all based on The Cooling Power Of The Window! Sure, there's no evidence to support the idea that rolling down the window helps, and in fact there's lots of evidence to the contrary, but... would our founding fathers have suggested The Cooling Power Of The Window if it didn't work?
Be a good citizen and roll down your window. Sure, it doesn't do anything -- it may even make it hotter, but you don't want to disturb the status quo, do you?
But you'll fail.
It isn't just lobbying, money and corruption that prevents good politicians from winning, it's the very nature of democracy. Say you're an economic genius and know the perfect, foolproof way of turning the economy into a juggernaut. The problem is, the explanation of why it will work is complex and can't be condensed into a 30 second soundbite. Say a quick overview of your plan by a non-expert will sound like something that won't work, or will cost people their jobs. No matter how smart you are, and how right you are, people won't vote for you because they're not qualified enough to understand your plan.
And that's when things work perfectly. Lobbying, money, corruption and the media are simply parts of American democracy. You can scream all you want about them, but if the media is on the side of your opponent because their lobbyists bought him, nobody will hear your screams -- or, better yet -- they'll hear them, but you'll be edited to sound like an idiot, like what happened to Howard Dean.
At some point, you just have to accept that the system is broken beyond its ability to repair itself.
Have you heard of the research into "induced traffic"? Researchers say that often widening a road will not help traffic much. Essentially, "if you build it, they will come". Traffic and traffic flow are really complex issues. Researchers still don't know exactly why traffic jams happen, or how to prevent them.
So here's a controversial question: What makes you qualified to express an opinion on how the government should deal with gridlock?
That question is at the center of questions about whether democracy is a good idea or not. In an election the issue of gridlock will come up. Say there are two politicians. One listens to the public will and says he'll widen the highways. The other listens to the researchers and figures out that the solution to gridlock is more complicated, and that the best solution is to change the design of the onramps and place more signs, but that widening the highway will actually make things worse.
I'm convinced that the voters would vote for the politician offering the simple solution that seems right for them as untrained non-experts, and the gridlock problem won't be fixed.
You take a pretty controversial position, but don't defend it: "It's important to vote, even if you vote for yourself or Mickey Mouse". Why?
Obviously you feel that merely participating in the process is important, even if your participation is meaningless. How is it any different to cast a meaningless vote as opposed to not casting any vote?
The only thing I can think of is that you fee it is important to show that you believe in the process... but do you? If the process only produces candidates you can't bring yourself to vote for, is it really all that good? Can you honestly say that the process shouldn't be changed if it can't produce a candidate you can vote for?
I think you need to widen your political outlook. The political spectrum isn't simply composed of Fascists, Anarchists and Good, Honest, True Americans.
Just because someone wants to tighten voting rules and regulations doesn't make them a fascist. At the same time, opposing those rules doesn't make someone an anarchist. An anarchist would be pretty offended that you would characterize them as someone who believes in voting for a government under a minimal set of rules. An anarchist doesn't believe that one person should ever have authority over another person -- an outlook that doesn't mesh very well with voting.
With no rules about who can vote, when they can vote, and how often they can vote, voting becomes completely meaningless. But that isn't the same thing as anarchy.
On the other hand, if you take voting restrictions to extremes you will end up with meaningless votes. No question there. However, there are a number of political systems which may or may not have restricted elections. The word that best suits a system where the government has control over its citizens' everyday lives is authoritarianism, or at the extreme totalitarianism.
Really this discussion is all about the right number of restrictions on votes in a democratic system. I guess the answer to that depends on what the desired outcome of the voting is.
In a totalitarian regime, the purpose of voting is to make the government seem legitimate. In an authoritarian one, it may be that, or it may be to make the people feel as if they have some say in how things go. The question is, what's the purpose of an election in a democratic republic. Is the purpose to express the will of the voters, and have them choose the person they want to represent them, or is it to have the public choose the person who is best qualified to represent them? Those two options may seem like they're the same thing, but they're not.
In the first case, if the people choose to elect a mass murdering psychopath, the system is working perfectly -- as long as their votes were accurately counted. If the goal is to choose a person who is qualified, then the choice of a psychopath would be a failure.
So the question is, what's the goal of the US democracy? Is it to choose qualified leaders who will help the country, or is it simply to allow the public to choose anybody they wish, whether that choice is self-destructive or not? If you believe that the country should be allowed to "shoot itself in the foot" if it wants to, then any restrictions on voting would be bad. On the other hand, if you think the goal is to choose leaders who will make the country a better place, then you should consider what restrictions would encourage the choice of good, responsible leaders.
People who believe that the act of voting is the important part should be ready to defend the right of the completely insane, or the severely mentally retarded to vote. People who believe that the important part is choosing a good leader should be willing to defend restrictions on who is allowed to vote.
Neither of these camps is "fascist" or "anarchist", they're just different varieties of democrat.
That they call them "homicide bombers" when they are unsuccessful and only kill themselves.
Everybody understands what a suicide bomber is. They strap a bomb to themselves and blow themselves up, and it's clear that their attempt is to kill or injure others.
On the other hand, "homicide bomber" is a more vague term. Is the Unabomber a homicide bomber? He sent mail bombs that were meant to kill or injure. It sure sounds like one to me. But it's very different in that he didn't kill himself in the process.
Fox is pushing a political agenda by choosing an uncommonly used term instead of the accepted one, and the fact that their new term is more vague is a sign that they are hot aiming for accuracy but for a certain bias.
If you truly believe that Fox is less biased than the average news source, you're seriously misinformed. Think about it, if everybody but you seems to be a liberal... couldn't it be that you're actually a conservative?
You're right on both counts. It is the ideal niche for OSS stuff. It's especially true because MMORPGs are all about building worlds, and that ongoing, continuous tweaking is exactly what OSS is all about.
As for servers, I wonder if a P2P model might work, where there is no 1 central server, instead there are supernodes which pop up and down as needed. If each "village" in the world only has a few dozen people online, a typical machine shouldn't have too much difficulty being a server for that.
Imagine that though, an MMORPG with no subscription fees, where there's no need to level up quickly, where you can take the tame to roleplay. That could be a great game.
And in the end he won.
*grin*
It's not capitalism, and it's not that it's the worst there could be, it's just that it's the worst that has been tried so far. So don't give up, better alternatives to democracy do exist. Someday people will look back on democracy the same way they now look back on trepanning and COBOL.
Can't be this current one -- at least not while Dick Cheney is within earshot.
Um, did you even read the post??
I don't understand why Google is willing to provide their email service for free, but nobody has a "right" to use the service. I can use any software I want to check my email. Why? Because I run both the client and the server. If you don't run, or even pay for the service, you have whatever rights they decide they want to give you.
I used the web when images were fairly new. Then I used the web when animated gifs were new, and very shortly after that, as soon as I could, I found a way to disable them. I haven't seen an animated gif in years. Mozilla and most proxies make it easy to disable them, and there's a good reason for that. Animated images are awful. Let them die. I assure you that as soon as Mozilla supports APNGs, it will also have a means of disabling them, and many people will do that instantly.
I agree with the other poster. I would not buy THUG because of McDonalds ads. It didn't make the game more enjoyable, more interesting, or more realistic. It just stood out like a sore thumb. I hate McDonalds, and there's no way I'll pay for a game, and accept McDonalds ads in it as well.
The skateboard company ads annoy me too, but I'm willing to accept them since it's a skateboarding game, and these ads are really well integrated into the game.
The one thing that encourages me is that games, TV and such are increasingly falling under my control. Right now, an ad filter like privoxy can remove all the awful, annoying ads that would otherwise make using the web hell. At one point, I had tweaked Opera so that the ads it showed were the "ads" I had created, rather than real ones it tried to show me. If a game company publishes a game that tries to fetch ads remotely, I'm sure there will be a hack to get it to fetch something else instead.
Don't worry about the long quote. Unless Slashdot doesn't like it, I have no problem. I find it interesting too.
"If I understand correctly, to your mind, having guns = increased likelyhood of something going wrong." Yes, that's my opinion. "and that there really isn't any positive benefit for having a firearm" No, I just think that the bad outweighs the good.
I don't have a problem with target shooting for fun, and I think the biathalon is one of the most interesting of the winter sports. The concept is really cool -- do one of the sports with the highest demand on your heart, then try to snipe a target, something you want a slow, steady heart rate to do.
My objection is not to sport shooting or hunting. My problem is with guns as weapons to be used against other people.
In Canada, pistols are almost illegal, however target shooting exists. If you want to use a pistol for target shooting, you have to tell the police when you intend to go to the range, and keep the gun locked up in your trunk on your way there and back. It's somewhat draconian, but it seems to work. Another option would be for a place to have a "firearms license" like they have for liquor licenses. The guns have to be kept on the premises, but you could rent a locker or something.
Yes, but it would exclude the casual criminals, and it would allow police to conclude that if someone has a gun, they're a criminal. I think that would significantly reduce the number of innocent people getting killed.
As for Washington DC. I think the problem is that if it is only a small area or community that has a gun control law in place, it is ineffective. If all someone has to do is drive to another city, then they'll get a gun way too easily. Same with convicted felons. If it is easy for them to get a gun from someone who can legally get one, it's nearly impossible to stop. On the other hand, if it is a nation-wide rule, then guns can (at least in theory) be stopped at the border.
"Every law-abiding citizen has the right to self-defense". I agree, but nobody would argue that that right to self defense includes the right to carry around a nuclear weapon, or a hand grenade, or something else that is extremely destructive. In untrained hands, I think a gun is too destructive. If you follow the NRA "rules", on the page you link to, I think guns would be a lot safer... but I have trouble believing most people do follow them. I would bet most people keep their fingers on the trigger, even when they're not ready to shoot. I bet they keep the guns loaded, and I doubt they would remember to check behind the target in a stressful situation. Those rules are also just voluntary suggestions, and if someone breaks them, until they actually kill or maim someone, there's no consequences.
"Although you can buy an "AK-74" clone, or an "AR-15" clone, civilian versions are semi-automatic single-shot per pull rifles, no different from any other hunting or sporting rifle" Right, but my understanding is that there can be a fundamental design difference between a fully-automatic-capable weapon and a semi-automatic capable only weapon. Both pull the next round off the magazine, but only a fully-automatic capable weapon also sends the bolt back and then drives it forward again. If you take a weapon that was designed to be fully automatic, then modify it so that it's semi-automatic only, it's pretty easy to reverse that modification to make it fully automatic again. On the other hand, a weapon that was never meant to be fully automatic would require a lot of modifications to make if fully automatic. (I could be wrong about this though, I haven't studied semi-automatic weapons firing mechanisms in depth). If I'm correct, it should be easy to distinguish between rifl
I'm not saying I'd be happy to be a victim of crime if nobody is hurt, but I would much rather be a victim of a crime where nobody is hurt, than one where someone is hurt. I'd even be willing to accept higher crime rates if it was nonviolent crime that went up, and violent crime that went down.
If baseball bats and butcher knives are the only deadly weapons, then I'd also be much happier. How often is someone killed by a stray bullet? Now, how often is someone killed by a stray baseball-bat swing? A whole lot of crime is intra-criminal crime. Gang warfare, mafia hits, etc. When guns are involved, innocent people are often hurt. Without guns, it's mostly just the criminals who get hurt.
From your argument, it sounds like you believe that guns are the only thing keeping things from descending into anarchy. I just don't see it that way. I agree that if guns were completely illegal, serious criminals would still have them. For that reason, I don't think that police should be completely disarmed -- although I don't see why a traffic cop should be wearing a pistol. But if only criminals had guns, then merely possessing a gun would be enough to throw someone in jail. You wouldn't need to wait for them to misuse it.
As for your rewording of my statements. There's some truth to that. I don't think it should be as easy to get cars and to drive. Too many people die or kill with cars all the time. I think drivers should be retested often to make sure they don't lose their skills, and that driving offenses should carry much heavier fines. Cars are useful though, so I don't think they should be banned. It's not like the only purpose of a car is to run someone down, that's just something that occasionally happens. For that reason, the benefits of cars outweigh the risks. That doesn't hold true for guns.
As for scientific research, I don't think knowledge is destructive. I agree that the fruits of scientific research can be very destructive (atomic weapons, bio weapons, drugs, etc.) That's why there are things like the nuclear non-proliferation treaties, and the FDA. If you think that knowledge itself is dangerous, then I guess we have a major difference of opinion.
Ok, well unequal wealth distribution is always known to cause huge social problems. Osama bin Laden's family is rich, but they're not royal, right?
Like I said, I'm not religious, and don't think too highly of those who are. I shouldn't have mentioned the commandment thing because what I really meant to focus on was the Jesus reference.
There's a lot of stuff in the old testament that I think is more an "eye for an eye" type message. My understanding though is that Jesus' teachings were about nonviolence, loving your enemy, and turning the other cheek.
Now, maybe I'm wrong about Jesus' teachings. I've never read the bible, and don't intend to do so. But if I'm correct that he himself didn't advocate spilling blood for justice, it seems odd that someone comparing his views to those of Jesus would talk that way.
Right, so what I'm saying is that if you use that excuse, you should maybe be punished less for the DUI. At the same time, you should be punished more for drinking since you know that your family has alcoholic tendencies. You should also be punished for not going back to therapy if you know you have problems. You should be punished for getting behind the wheel of a car while in an emotional state. etc. In the end, the punishment should be the same -- maybe even more if you had all these reasons not to drink and drive, but you did it anyhow.
You shouldn't get off easier because you know the factors leading up to the incident. You should be punished more harshly because you knew you were less likely to be able to handle the situation and you let yourself get into it anyhow.
If a landslide happens and blocks a highway, then the land is pushed off the highway, and often a retaining barrier is put up to prevent it from happening again. It doesn't matter that the land didn't possess free will, and didn't decide to jump across the highway. If it were effective to "punish" the land for blocking the highway, and that would prevent landslides elsewhere, then that would also be done.
Even if humans don't have free will, it is clear that deterrence works, so laws are effective.
If the philosophy is that laws exist only as punishment for making bad decisions, then they don't really have meaning when there are no "decisions". On the other hand, if laws are simply inputs to the decision matrix, it makes sense to tip the decision matrix in a given way.
There is always something objective about art.
Picasso didn't just pick up a brush and start painting masterpieces. His father was an artist, and he trained and practiced for many years. That training and practicing is scientific, even if artists might not recognize it as such. They hypothesize that a certain technique might result in more interesting paintings, they do an experiment by painting something using that technique, and then make a conclusion based on the output.
It's true that when things are close to comparable levels of quality, that it is difficult or impossible to say that one is objectively better than the other. On the other hand, I think it's fair to say that the song "Silent Night" is objectively better than the sound of a baboon screeching.
If it's telling that 99% of the human race couldn't give a rat's ass about what experts think when it comes to art, why is it that when people think of art, they think of the Mona Lisa, the Scream, and other critically acclaimed art?
Along the same lines, if people don't value critics, why is it that they watch what the MTV critics think is good enough to air on their station, or what the reviews in magazines say about upcoming CDs? Not all critics have degrees in their subject, but most of them have experience in some way. Would you pay any attention to a magazine's music reviewer who was deaf? What about a reviewer who didn't know the difference between Country and Rap? Even if you, personally, don't buy music based on these critics, a lot of people do, and that's how music becomes "popular".
Popular music is partially the result of getting decent reviews by critics, but it's also partially the result of a powerful marketing machine. If a band produces a great song, but can't get the word out, then nobody will ever hear it. On the other hand, if a well known band produces a mediocre CD, then gets it into the hands of every reviewer in the country, pays to have it played on every station across the country, it will probably do pretty well.
The problem is, it's relatively easy to make popular music. The formula isn't too hard. On the other hand, it's hard to make a truly great song. Most of the time, making a truly great song means taking risks. Since music companies don't like taking risks, they will generally stick with the sure thing, and so the music they produce is rarely great, but also rarely awful.
If every artist had equal access to ears, then the songs that most people liked would really be the good ones, and "popular" music would be "good" music. With our current big-money-dominated music scene, popular music is just the best music from a selection of tunes that critics (in the form of marketing people at recording companies) think is good enough to sell well.
The problem with that voting record is the same as the Vietnam one. Prior to 2000, John Kerry had a spent a long time in the senate. He has a long voting record that you can look at, both for good or bad things. In that same time, George W. Bush had spent almost no time in public office, except for a stint as the (largely ceremonial) governor of Texas. If you want to judge him on his record, you're really limited to looking at the last 4 years -- and I don't think even his supporters would say that what he's done over that time period is typical for him. He's had to deal with some unusual, exceptional situations. So, you have to compare a man with a long record against a man without a record.
The same thing is true about the whole Vietnam mess. John Kerry received 3 purple hearts, a bronze star and a silver star. People can debate the validity of those medals for a long time, but they can't compare them to George W. Bush's medals because he doesn't have any. Is it worse to have done some heroic things, but then maybe exaggerated them a bit, or is it better to have done nothing at all?
Is it better to have a mixed record of some good and some bad, or is it better to have no record at all? That seems to be the main question here.
Whatever happens, I predict that the winner will be a former Yale student, and a member of the Skull and Bones society. In the end, isn't that what counts?
First of all, let me say I'm not at all religious. In fact, I think most religions and religious people are silly, but I think you're going a bit far here:
Great -- very Christian (as I understand things)
That, on the other hand, is pretty much the opposite of Jesus' message. The hard part of his message wasn't the "love your brother" part, it was the "turn the other cheek" part. The commandment isn't "Thou shalt not kill -- unless there's injustice thou mustest rectify", it's just "Thou shalt not kill".
I don't know if this philosophy is effective. It's not how I live either. On the other hand, it's pretty hypocritical to talk about the necessity of spilling blood in one breath, and about Jesus in the next.
Interesting analysis, and although I don't know many conservatives, I can see that being the case. Do you think that conservatives are more likely to see things in black and white?
I ask about black and white because of things like gun control. If a conservative thinks in black and white, then your gun control argument makes sense. But if they see things in shades of grey, then it breaks apart. Someone might be "mostly good": they cheat a bit on their taxes, lie a bit when selling a used car, but they're mostly good people. If they had a gun, they would generally not use it for anything bad -- but in a tough situation, their bad side might take over.
I'm more liberal than conservative. When it comes to gun control, I'm really in favour of getting rid of guns. I side more with the environment than the nature side of things, but that's not the only reason. Even if someone is a very good person, and was raised in a loving family, etc. there's no accounting for judgement or emotion. Say a bank robber runs into a bank, waving a gun around. If nobody in the bank is armed, then the tellers can give him the money, he'll have no reason to shoot anybody, and that's the end of that. The police will probably be able to track him down later, but even if they don't, at least nobody died. On the other hand, say he robs a bank where a bunch of otherwise good, upstanding people have guns. There are just far too many scenarios where someone dies in this situation. Either the good guy can't pull his gun fast enough and gets shot (bad), or he gets it out and gets the drop on the robber (not good, but not particularly bad), or he gets it out and shoots the robber -- but not being properly trained -- his bullet continues through the robber and kills the bystander behind them as well (very bad). Then there's the situation where someone who is a good, honest, upstanding citizen gets cut off in traffic on a day when he just lost his job. His emotions run hot, and he shoots the guy who cut him off.
If gunshots weren't as lethal, or there were some way of ensuring that guns would only be used by properly trained people while they were calm, then I'd have no problems with people having them. But humans are fallible, and guns are just too potentially destructive to be put in the hands of such fallible people, even if the conservatives are right and they are "good" people.
From your argument, it also seems that conservatives would think that prison should be very harsh, because only bad people would end up going there and they should be punished. It also seems that they would think that there's no point in trying to rehabilitate criminals, since they're just "bad" by nature, and it would be a waste of money. Does that sound correct?
Oh, and as an aside, the nation I most associate with terrorism is Saudi Arabia, and they're very wealthy. There's an interesting theory I heard about terrorism and terrorists -- and I consider it to be a conservative theory, even though it sides more with nurture/environment than nature. It is that the nations that are the ones generating the most terrorists are the ones where people didn't have to "pull themselves up by their bootstraps". The US has a culture that was built on hard work and sacrifice (even though now you might be hard pressed to find that sometimes). Saudi Arabia went from a very primitive, nomadic society to a very rich country, simply because they're sitting over a huge oilfield. As a result, they never had to learn the values of hard work, etc. And, as a result of that, Saudi Arabia produces "bad people".
I accept that there's no such thing as free will, but the idea that it renders law and morality void is silly. If there's no free will, then decisions are made by mechanically weighing the result of the actions. If the human machine knows in advance that something is against the law and will result in punishment, then it is less likely to break that law.
Morality is similar to law, they just tend to be the less straightforward things that keep societies running smoothly. Take the commandment about not "coveting" your neighbor's wife. Objectively, it's hard to put your finger on anything that's wrong about that. Nobody is physically deprived of anything, nobody is physically hurt. What's the problem? The problem is simply human nature. There's less friction in society if people don't do that. What's good for society is good for its individual members (and for their children, and thus their genes), even if it goes against their short term interests. Things that are immoral are bad decisions for the human computer, so they're valid things to follow.
The only logical way of dealing with the concept of there being no free will is to act as if there is free will. If there isn't free will, then you're not actually making the decision. If there is free will, then you're making the only correct decision. The only wrong decision you can possibly make is to act like there isn't free will when there actually is.