You nailed it. Note your use of the word "magical." Science can prove the nautral, not the supernatural. Magic is, by definition, supernatural.
So of course it can't disprove it. If you belive in the Unicorn and there's no experiment that can prove or disprove its existance then it is a matter of faith, not fact.
The existance or non existance of the unicorn is irrelevant. But we can all agree that it oughtn't be treated as a fact and added to high school text books everywhere.
Experiment to prove/disprove the existance of evolution:
Step 1: Get a bunch of e Coli bacteria from a biological supply store. Step 2: Culture said e coli on a variety of media (sheeps blood, sugar, etc). Say... 20 cultures per media. Step 3: Take half of each media culture group and set it aside. These will be your control group. Step 4: Introduce small doses of antibiodics to the test (non-control) group, with doses incresing weekly. Dose each test-group culture once per week at the same time. Step 5: After 15 weeks have gone by you should now be dosing your test colonies with a pretty substantial antibiotic dosage. In week 16 dose both the test colonies and the control colonies with the week 15 dosage of antibiotics.
Outcome 1: Both the test and control colonies die out at equal rates - if this outcome occurs we will fail to uphold the evolutionary hypothesis.
Outcome 2: The test colonies die out at a much reduced rate from the control colonies. If this outcome occurs we will uphold the evolutionary hypothesis.
Hint: Having done this experiment myself, guess which one happens?
As for the big bang and the creation of the universe, science does not now not has it every claimed to adequately explain the very early universe. Things that happened before the big bang or what caused the big bang are not something that scientists are prepared to make reasonable conjectures about.
We can extrapolate backwards from what we do know and suppose that the universe was created in a socking great explosion. What caused that... well... hard to say. For now, that's the realm of philosophers and theologins.
If you really want to learn about this I recomend some of Steven Hawking's scholorly work... not his popular stuff, though that's a fun read. Be warned though, the math is more than a little intense.
That said, evolution is a science. You can test it. You can attemp to prove it wrong. Because of this it belongs in a SCIENCE class room.
Intelegent Design and Creationism aren't sciences. You can't test them or prove them wrong because you're dealing with a "creator" that is omnipitant. As such, no test can be concocted that could ever prove the "theory" false.
Thus Intelegent Design and Creationism are NOT sciences are thus do NOT belong in a science class room.
If parents want to teach their kids about these ideas then they can do so outside of the public schools. I'll teach my children that the creation of the Universe is poorly understood if anything and that, ultimately, every event has a cause. At some point we come back to the fist event and God is the only logical cause of that event.
But I realize that what I'm saying then is a question of faith, not science, and that no science can ever justify my faith. As such, I would not want that belife tought in the schools because not everyone belives what I do. I no more want them forcing their belifes on me and my family then they want mine on them and theirs.
Ok, fine. Lay out for me some experiment I can do in which one of the possible outcomes disproves the existance of God or the theory of ID.
If you want it to be accecpted as a scientific theory it needs to have a falsifiable test that we can run.
The problem is, when we point to evidence that creationists or IDers disagree with, they say "God put it there to test our faith" or "It's the work of the Devil."
Those are supernatural phenomina. You can't disprove them because they aren't falsifiable.
I'd be all for that too, but you'd never get an iPod [aka luxury] tax tossed through congress to pay for something populist like health care.
That said, I just don't get this. Lets say there's a tax on MP3 players. That's fine, there's a tax on cigeretts too. But the taxes on cigeretts go to support publicly funded health care systems like Medicade which are designed to assist people who are dieing of things like lung cancer.
See how that works? Buy cigeretts, pay a tax, help fund your care when you have lung cancer. Have health insurance (through the government after your funds are exhosted) when you are dieing.
But when I pay taxes for an MP3 player (hypotheticly speaking) what do I get? Nothing. The money goes to the music people and I'm left out in the cold.
So let me rephrase your quip.
-shrug- I'd accecpt an iPod tax if I was given blanket copyright immunity for the device.
At least 20 Million people are still enslaved today [source] Communism (or some varient there of) is alive in five countries [source] It seems that we're doing most of the raping and killing in Iraq [source] [source]
Liberals, as it turns out, have been for US and UN intervention to end slavery world wide. They've been for withholding MFN status from China until the communist regime there did something about its human rights record. And the left has been 100% behind preventing AMERICANS from raping and murdering Iraqis.
The right, in contrast, has lept into the arms of communist China for the sake of making a few quick bucks. It's turned the other way as millions are enslaved around the world, some on our own shores. And the neo-cons refuse to hold accountable those that knew about the Abu Ghraib attrosities and yet did nothing.
As to your first question, let me ply my left wing university education. As plato once said, given the ability to elect their own leaders, the people will inevitably choose fools and naives.
Wow, thousands of years later and the guy's still got it pegged.
Try a room in southern Mexico. Room temperature is generaly about 70 F. 70 + 50 = 120F. Now, I wouldn't want to hang out in a 120F room, but it's not like people don't.
Would "human tolerable temperatures" be a better phrase to use? Yes. Will life go on? Yes.
To be fair, you Clinton haters weren't exactly married to the concept of reason back in the 1990s. I've seen the right wing bomb throwers (many more of whom, I should point out, have actualy thrown bombs) accuse Clinton (both Bill and Hillary) of everything from murder to real estate fraud.
The left has gotten pretty rialed up about Bush and has, pretty consistantly, demonstrated that he is, in their world view, irredeamable. That said, the kind of over the top conspiritaorial craziness so associated with the Clinton haters hasn't infected the anti Bush croud... at least not yet.
More over, Bush has gone a long way towards engendering that hatred. He's a strongly polarizing figure, one that feels no need to attempt to solicit compromise on issues. While many on the right see that as an admirable quality (they nailed Clinton on it, calling him a waffler and Kerry on it, calling him a flip flopper) the essense of the democratic system is compromise. Without it we're either a despotism or paralized.
Slashdot has become bitter because, demographicly speaking, it is frequented by the more educated portion of our society. Education is one of the single greatest predictors of political affiliation (the affiliation of the parents being the only better predictor IIRC). The better educated you are the more likely you are to side with the left.
So of course Slashdot's bitter. A (publicly) dim witted, ultra concervitive, uncompromising ideologue is in the White House.
Posting from a public terminal -- don't have spell check capability. Can't spell worth a shirt. Sorry in advance.
It's a common misconception that technology -=should=- make us more virtuous. I'd disagree. Technology is virtue neutral.
Technology, afterall, can be only as virtuous as its creators. It can only impact the virtuosity (am I making that word up?) of an individual so far as that individual allows it to.
I, for example, enjoy video games, computers, video entertainment etc just as much as the high schoolers my wife used to teach. Somehow, they came across to me as having an enormous sense of entitlement.... but we both enjoy the same things.
Generation Now exhibits more of a sense of entitlement because we're encouraging it. Everyone can succeed. Everyone should go to college. You can be whatever you resolve to be (ok, that's Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, but the point stands)
Personaly I think the entitlement bit comes out of a few convergent ideas. First, the growing willingness of the medical profession to cater to the generalized insanity of parents. In the eyes of a mother or father, a child is inevitably infallible. If little johnny fails all his math tests, it can't be because he's bad at math... it must be something else. So we drug little johnny up, giving him inhuman powers of concentration at God knows what long term expense. We tell little johnny that he may have a learning disability and that we need to give him accomodations - so he's allowed to take as much time as he needs on the test. We give him specialy prepared notes, specialy prepared study guides....
All of this because he's doing poorly on his math tests. Now this might be because he really does have a problem or it might be because he's just a lazy slacker and/or bad at math. Not all learning issues are disabilities.... unless you count slackerdom as a disability.
Take this trend and combine it with the spiraling trend of materialistic competition so common in the middle classes. With mom and dad both working long hours little johnny has little parental influence (I'm not saying that this is mom's job, just observing that there's a diminished parental roll in children's lives as compared to the 1950s).
Of course, mom and dad can't afford to live in a midtown manhattan penthouse... at least... it's unlikely... so they get a house in the 'burbs. It's a 1.5 hour commute each way... maybe longer, but that way they can afford a large house and keep up with the jonses. Of course, that takes another three hours out of the time that mom and dad could be spending with johnny, so they buy him various toys and hand him off to a dozzen different after school programs hoping to keep him out of trouble. Then, when he's upset about something - because they haven't developed any real parenting skills, mom and dad end up buying little johnny more crap to shut him up.
Yea... shocker that our kids are turning out to be self absorbed materialistic entitlement crazed assholes.
I wouldn't blame this on technology though... I'd blame it on a very unrealistic view of the American Dream.
Not everyone gets to be filthy stinking rich. Not everyone gets to go to college. Not everyone needs to drive a BMW. Not everyone needs to have kids.
Having children is a sacrifice. It's a concious decision that an individual or couple makes and one that has far reaching consequences. If you decide to have kids but want to keep up the same kind of lifestyle you had before you had children you're going to raise the kind of children that the rest of the world hates.
What was Gen X? The "me" generation? And we're supprised that their kids are turning out to be jerks?
It's not just that, but that there's a polarization on the 105 and 121 LNBs. Also, the Point Dish screen won't pull up a signal on 105 unless it's had a check switch run with signal on 105... catch 22.
I have no doubt that W. would do that. Afterall, he's screwing those people over with his tax policies.
But telling the billionaire CEOs of the major networks that their Neilson ratings are going to plumet overnight, particularly for shows pitched to a lower income demographic (can anyone say FOX?)? No... that will NEVER happen.
If I were them I wouldn't be exploiting the lack of labor laws. You can only expect people to be so productive in something as fundamentaly brain draining as CS if you run them into the ground.
The lawlessness I'd exploit would be COPYRIGHT. Seriously.... the MPAA and the RIAA have been successfull in shutting down or going after distribution networks, never the root uploaders or the downloaders.
Set up a blatently illegal server system well off shore, enjoy the benefits of satellite based internet access. Sell movies and music an pennies on the dollar at high quality....
I hate to say it, but the sibling post is right. After your explanation it's clear what you're trying to do, but isn't the point of a sig not to -=need=- explanation?
Well we've invested billions (trillions?) of dollars in an ABM system that doesn't work, totaly eradicated the goodwill we earned ourselves by saving damn near all of Europe back in the 1940s, and left most of the world wishing there were still a totalitarian nuclear superpower for us to spit at so we'd leave the rest of the planet alone.
But hey! We've got these neet kenetic interceptors! They can't hit a missile, but I bet they can hit a satellite!
Way to take things out of context. Franklin would slap you if he haden't been dead for the better part of the last two centuries.
Using this quitessential Franklin quote to pretend that anarchy is the best possible state demonstrates nothing more than a profound misunderstanding of history.
Franklin ultimately gave his name and his reputation to a document that would create a new form of democratic goverment with must broader and more sweeping powers than the one that existed before it. Remember, a weak confederacy with little to no ability to tax existed before the Consitution. Franklin helped abolish that government, creating one far more powerfull.
I'm curious, what roles do you belive it appropriate for a government to fill? Of those roles, which can be accomplished in a world without a developed national infrastructure?
Why? If I don't drive a car should I not still have to pay taxes that maintain the roads?
If I don't have kids, shouldn't I still pay taxes to support the schools?
If I don't drink tapwater, shouldn't I still have to pay for water treatment facilities?
These are services that, even if you don't personaly use them, make your community a better place to live. You benefit from them indirectly.
Roads provide the infrastructure to deliver goods to the stores you shop in. They make your city a place buisnesses will set up shop and provide you with jobs.
Schools educate people. This lowers crime rates, increases the median wage in your area, and contributes to overall economic prosperity.
Water supplies make a city's higher density possible. Even if your house can run on a spring in the back yard, your benefit by having the water system in place. Resturants, industrial firms, to say nothing of hospitals and office buildings require running water to function. Their function makes your life easier and better. Moreover, running water decreases disease rates, making your community safer.
Why is internet access any different? It encourages trade, encourages education, brings people closer together, and creates an incentive for high paying tech jobs in your area. These jobs in turn lower crime rates, raise average sallaries (unless you live in Beverly Hills) and promotes civic growth.
Even if you don't need muni-wifi, you benefit from it being there. Given that, why shouldn't you pay for it?
Slashdot Mirror
You nailed it. Note your use of the word "magical." Science can prove the nautral, not the supernatural. Magic is, by definition, supernatural.
So of course it can't disprove it. If you belive in the Unicorn and there's no experiment that can prove or disprove its existance then it is a matter of faith, not fact.
The existance or non existance of the unicorn is irrelevant. But we can all agree that it oughtn't be treated as a fact and added to high school text books everywhere.
Experiment to prove/disprove the existance of evolution:
Step 1: Get a bunch of e Coli bacteria from a biological supply store.
Step 2: Culture said e coli on a variety of media (sheeps blood, sugar, etc). Say... 20 cultures per media.
Step 3: Take half of each media culture group and set it aside. These will be your control group.
Step 4: Introduce small doses of antibiodics to the test (non-control) group, with doses incresing weekly. Dose each test-group culture once per week at the same time.
Step 5: After 15 weeks have gone by you should now be dosing your test colonies with a pretty substantial antibiotic dosage. In week 16 dose both the test colonies and the control colonies with the week 15 dosage of antibiotics.
Outcome 1: Both the test and control colonies die out at equal rates - if this outcome occurs we will fail to uphold the evolutionary hypothesis.
Outcome 2: The test colonies die out at a much reduced rate from the control colonies. If this outcome occurs we will uphold the evolutionary hypothesis.
Hint: Having done this experiment myself, guess which one happens?
As for the big bang and the creation of the universe, science does not now not has it every claimed to adequately explain the very early universe. Things that happened before the big bang or what caused the big bang are not something that scientists are prepared to make reasonable conjectures about.
We can extrapolate backwards from what we do know and suppose that the universe was created in a socking great explosion. What caused that... well... hard to say. For now, that's the realm of philosophers and theologins.
If you really want to learn about this I recomend some of Steven Hawking's scholorly work... not his popular stuff, though that's a fun read. Be warned though, the math is more than a little intense.
I'm a Christian - raised Catholic in fact.
That said, evolution is a science. You can test it. You can attemp to prove it wrong. Because of this it belongs in a SCIENCE class room.
Intelegent Design and Creationism aren't sciences. You can't test them or prove them wrong because you're dealing with a "creator" that is omnipitant. As such, no test can be concocted that could ever prove the "theory" false.
Thus Intelegent Design and Creationism are NOT sciences are thus do NOT belong in a science class room.
If parents want to teach their kids about these ideas then they can do so outside of the public schools. I'll teach my children that the creation of the Universe is poorly understood if anything and that, ultimately, every event has a cause. At some point we come back to the fist event and God is the only logical cause of that event.
But I realize that what I'm saying then is a question of faith, not science, and that no science can ever justify my faith. As such, I would not want that belife tought in the schools because not everyone belives what I do. I no more want them forcing their belifes on me and my family then they want mine on them and theirs.
Fair enough?
Ok, fine. Lay out for me some experiment I can do in which one of the possible outcomes disproves the existance of God or the theory of ID.
If you want it to be accecpted as a scientific theory it needs to have a falsifiable test that we can run.
The problem is, when we point to evidence that creationists or IDers disagree with, they say "God put it there to test our faith" or "It's the work of the Devil."
Those are supernatural phenomina. You can't disprove them because they aren't falsifiable.
Dunno, but step 3 is likly "profit."
I'd be all for that too, but you'd never get an iPod [aka luxury] tax tossed through congress to pay for something populist like health care.
That said, I just don't get this. Lets say there's a tax on MP3 players. That's fine, there's a tax on cigeretts too. But the taxes on cigeretts go to support publicly funded health care systems like Medicade which are designed to assist people who are dieing of things like lung cancer.
See how that works? Buy cigeretts, pay a tax, help fund your care when you have lung cancer. Have health insurance (through the government after your funds are exhosted) when you are dieing.
But when I pay taxes for an MP3 player (hypotheticly speaking) what do I get? Nothing. The money goes to the music people and I'm left out in the cold.
So let me rephrase your quip.
-shrug- I'd accecpt an iPod tax if I was given blanket copyright immunity for the device.
At least 20 Million people are still enslaved today [source]
Communism (or some varient there of) is alive in five countries [source]
It seems that we're doing most of the raping and killing in Iraq [source] [source]
Liberals, as it turns out, have been for US and UN intervention to end slavery world wide. They've been for withholding MFN status from China until the communist regime there did something about its human rights record. And the left has been 100% behind preventing AMERICANS from raping and murdering Iraqis.
The right, in contrast, has lept into the arms of communist China for the sake of making a few quick bucks. It's turned the other way as millions are enslaved around the world, some on our own shores. And the neo-cons refuse to hold accountable those that knew about the Abu Ghraib attrosities and yet did nothing.
As to your first question, let me ply my left wing university education. As plato once said, given the ability to elect their own leaders, the people will inevitably choose fools and naives.
Wow, thousands of years later and the guy's still got it pegged.
Try a room in southern Mexico. Room temperature is generaly about 70 F. 70 + 50 = 120F. Now, I wouldn't want to hang out in a 120F room, but it's not like people don't.
Would "human tolerable temperatures" be a better phrase to use? Yes. Will life go on? Yes.
To be fair, you Clinton haters weren't exactly married to the concept of reason back in the 1990s. I've seen the right wing bomb throwers (many more of whom, I should point out, have actualy thrown bombs) accuse Clinton (both Bill and Hillary) of everything from murder to real estate fraud.
The left has gotten pretty rialed up about Bush and has, pretty consistantly, demonstrated that he is, in their world view, irredeamable. That said, the kind of over the top conspiritaorial craziness so associated with the Clinton haters hasn't infected the anti Bush croud... at least not yet.
More over, Bush has gone a long way towards engendering that hatred. He's a strongly polarizing figure, one that feels no need to attempt to solicit compromise on issues. While many on the right see that as an admirable quality (they nailed Clinton on it, calling him a waffler and Kerry on it, calling him a flip flopper) the essense of the democratic system is compromise. Without it we're either a despotism or paralized.
Slashdot has become bitter because, demographicly speaking, it is frequented by the more educated portion of our society. Education is one of the single greatest predictors of political affiliation (the affiliation of the parents being the only better predictor IIRC). The better educated you are the more likely you are to side with the left.
So of course Slashdot's bitter. A (publicly) dim witted, ultra concervitive, uncompromising ideologue is in the White House.
Posting from a public terminal -- don't have spell check capability. Can't spell worth a shirt. Sorry in advance.
It's a common misconception that technology -=should=- make us more virtuous. I'd disagree. Technology is virtue neutral.
Technology, afterall, can be only as virtuous as its creators. It can only impact the virtuosity (am I making that word up?) of an individual so far as that individual allows it to.
I, for example, enjoy video games, computers, video entertainment etc just as much as the high schoolers my wife used to teach. Somehow, they came across to me as having an enormous sense of entitlement.... but we both enjoy the same things.
Generation Now exhibits more of a sense of entitlement because we're encouraging it. Everyone can succeed. Everyone should go to college. You can be whatever you resolve to be (ok, that's Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, but the point stands)
Personaly I think the entitlement bit comes out of a few convergent ideas. First, the growing willingness of the medical profession to cater to the generalized insanity of parents. In the eyes of a mother or father, a child is inevitably infallible. If little johnny fails all his math tests, it can't be because he's bad at math... it must be something else. So we drug little johnny up, giving him inhuman powers of concentration at God knows what long term expense. We tell little johnny that he may have a learning disability and that we need to give him accomodations - so he's allowed to take as much time as he needs on the test. We give him specialy prepared notes, specialy prepared study guides....
All of this because he's doing poorly on his math tests. Now this might be because he really does have a problem or it might be because he's just a lazy slacker and/or bad at math. Not all learning issues are disabilities.... unless you count slackerdom as a disability.
Take this trend and combine it with the spiraling trend of materialistic competition so common in the middle classes. With mom and dad both working long hours little johnny has little parental influence (I'm not saying that this is mom's job, just observing that there's a diminished parental roll in children's lives as compared to the 1950s).
Of course, mom and dad can't afford to live in a midtown manhattan penthouse... at least... it's unlikely... so they get a house in the 'burbs. It's a 1.5 hour commute each way... maybe longer, but that way they can afford a large house and keep up with the jonses. Of course, that takes another three hours out of the time that mom and dad could be spending with johnny, so they buy him various toys and hand him off to a dozzen different after school programs hoping to keep him out of trouble. Then, when he's upset about something - because they haven't developed any real parenting skills, mom and dad end up buying little johnny more crap to shut him up.
Yea... shocker that our kids are turning out to be self absorbed materialistic entitlement crazed assholes.
I wouldn't blame this on technology though... I'd blame it on a very unrealistic view of the American Dream.
Not everyone gets to be filthy stinking rich.
Not everyone gets to go to college.
Not everyone needs to drive a BMW.
Not everyone needs to have kids.
Having children is a sacrifice. It's a concious decision that an individual or couple makes and one that has far reaching consequences. If you decide to have kids but want to keep up the same kind of lifestyle you had before you had children you're going to raise the kind of children that the rest of the world hates.
What was Gen X? The "me" generation? And we're supprised that their kids are turning out to be jerks?
It's not just that, but that there's a polarization on the 105 and 121 LNBs. Also, the Point Dish screen won't pull up a signal on 105 unless it's had a check switch run with signal on 105... catch 22.
That's why you need the signal device thingie.
I used to work for Dish.... if memory serves the SuperDish was about 3 feet wide at its widest point and somewhat football shaped.
The real problem with them (and DirecTV is going to have this problem as well) is that they're a royal pain in the ass to point.
Realisticly, the consumer won't be able to realign his system anymore.
Well, no... this whole idea predates W as far as I recall. Aren't these Clinton era policies?
I have no doubt that W. would do that. Afterall, he's screwing those people over with his tax policies.
But telling the billionaire CEOs of the major networks that their Neilson ratings are going to plumet overnight, particularly for shows pitched to a lower income demographic (can anyone say FOX?)? No... that will NEVER happen.
If I were them I wouldn't be exploiting the lack of labor laws. You can only expect people to be so productive in something as fundamentaly brain draining as CS if you run them into the ground.
The lawlessness I'd exploit would be COPYRIGHT. Seriously.... the MPAA and the RIAA have been successfull in shutting down or going after distribution networks, never the root uploaders or the downloaders.
Set up a blatently illegal server system well off shore, enjoy the benefits of satellite based internet access. Sell movies and music an pennies on the dollar at high quality....
.
.
.
oh yea....
3. Profit!
And people in the 16th century didn't sit around all day thinking about how lame horses were.
I'm not saying Google is the Automobile to Yahoo's horse, but your argument is flawed.
I hate to say it, but the sibling post is right. After your explanation it's clear what you're trying to do, but isn't the point of a sig not to -=need=- explanation?
I have this strong urge to mod this post "Troll" just to be a smart ass.
Oh well, I commented on it instead. Guess someone else will have to do it.
That's because it's three letters and tacked on to the end of a file. Everyone "knows" that the extension is a format.
The only way around that would be to name the files Image001.NotAFuckingFormatRAW
No.... my history degree served me well there too.
But if I recall correctly, things didn't go so well in France before the Yanks showed up.
(Hey, it's not like we've officialy pissed off the government of the UK).
Well we've invested billions (trillions?) of dollars in an ABM system that doesn't work, totaly eradicated the goodwill we earned ourselves by saving damn near all of Europe back in the 1940s, and left most of the world wishing there were still a totalitarian nuclear superpower for us to spit at so we'd leave the rest of the planet alone.
But hey! We've got these neet kenetic interceptors! They can't hit a missile, but I bet they can hit a satellite!
Municipal wifi is the dumbest thing I've ever heard of!
Ok... clean drinking water.
How do you provide clean drinking water to 280 Million people without a developed road system?
You're talking about pretty large and complex systems that have to be built and maintained. I bet public education might help with that.
Way to take things out of context. Franklin would slap you if he haden't been dead for the better part of the last two centuries.
Using this quitessential Franklin quote to pretend that anarchy is the best possible state demonstrates nothing more than a profound misunderstanding of history.
Franklin ultimately gave his name and his reputation to a document that would create a new form of democratic goverment with must broader and more sweeping powers than the one that existed before it. Remember, a weak confederacy with little to no ability to tax existed before the Consitution. Franklin helped abolish that government, creating one far more powerfull.
I'm curious, what roles do you belive it appropriate for a government to fill? Of those roles, which can be accomplished in a world without a developed national infrastructure?
Why? If I don't drive a car should I not still have to pay taxes that maintain the roads?
If I don't have kids, shouldn't I still pay taxes to support the schools?
If I don't drink tapwater, shouldn't I still have to pay for water treatment facilities?
These are services that, even if you don't personaly use them, make your community a better place to live. You benefit from them indirectly.
Roads provide the infrastructure to deliver goods to the stores you shop in. They make your city a place buisnesses will set up shop and provide you with jobs.
Schools educate people. This lowers crime rates, increases the median wage in your area, and contributes to overall economic prosperity.
Water supplies make a city's higher density possible. Even if your house can run on a spring in the back yard, your benefit by having the water system in place. Resturants, industrial firms, to say nothing of hospitals and office buildings require running water to function. Their function makes your life easier and better. Moreover, running water decreases disease rates, making your community safer.
Why is internet access any different? It encourages trade, encourages education, brings people closer together, and creates an incentive for high paying tech jobs in your area. These jobs in turn lower crime rates, raise average sallaries (unless you live in Beverly Hills) and promotes civic growth.
Even if you don't need muni-wifi, you benefit from it being there. Given that, why shouldn't you pay for it?