---It's funny how scientists can study life,earth,universe,etc. and then come to a grand conclusions that God doesn't exist, changes in species are due to random errors in reproduction, and therefore Darwin is right and everyone else is wrong.---
Which scientists? Where do they present these supposed arguements? The conclusions of evolution explain the diversity of and development of life on earth. This isn't "funny" or "ironic" it's interesting. As to God, that's something one either believes or doesn't. But far from thinking that evolution disproves the existence of God, the vast majority of evolutionary scientists believe in God.
---I know I'll be thrown as flamebait or a Troll, but that's what I get for 'thinking different'.---
Every bit of your post, from the slander to the tired arguements, even down to the VERY convienient martyr complex complaint "oh, woe is I, no one will listen to my wisdom" is wholly unoriginal to you. You aren't thinking: you are regurgitating.
---And how come everything is just so perfect in this world for us: we have air to breath, water to drink, food to eat, sunlight to perform bring the bread home, darkness to sleep.---
As Douglas Adams noted, a puddle in a hole, were it intelligent, could claim the same thing: look at it's environment! The hole it lives in is _perfectly_ contoured to hold it (the puddle). It MUST be specially designed just for the life of this special, special puddle.
To summarize, there never was any life size replica, farmer, or any such nonsense. That story is entirely invented (and implausible to begin with: pig's teeth and primate teeth are so similar that experts often have a hard time telling them apart: and everyone at the time already knew this)
What there was was a single drawing that appeared in a popular magazine, that itself never claimed to be any sort of "reconstruction from a tooth" but rather just a fanciful illustration. Here's the text that came with the sketch: "Mr. Forestier has made a remarkable sketch to convey some idea of the possibilities suggested by this discovery. As we know nothing of the creature's form, his reconstruction is merely the expression of an artist's brilliant imaginative genius. But if, as the peculiarities of the tooth suggest, Hesperopithecus was a primitive forerunner of Pithecanthropus, he may have been a creature such as Mr. Forestier has depicted." (Smith 1922, emphasis added)
And that was about the MOST laudable thing ever said about the picture: again, not even in a scientific publication, but rather in a popular article. The scientific community never took it seriously that the teeth even came from an ape, much less a human ancestor.
---What a joke, yet all the evolutionary theory based on this and the above debacles is still around. Why?---
There is no why: you're a liar. The "Nebraska man," for instance, was never a widely accepted idea, not even as the tooth of an ape. That creationists continue to run around claiming that it was some sort of central lynchpin in evolutionary theory (an entirely laughable claim to anyone that bothers to read any sort of history of the subject, or the publications at the time) demonstrates only how desperate creationists are to discredit legitimate science: which, incidentally, works best BY discrediting things (like the Nebraska Man was discredited, by evolutionary scientists, not heroic creationists), not by building up frauds.
Whether or not this is a joke or not, we need a moderation that roughly sums up this: "these exact arguements, and the common rebuttals of them, have been posted on slashdot a million times before, and the discussions that inevitably come from them are both predictable and pointless."
I mean seriously, "Dr." Putting aside ENTIRELY the issue of who's right in this case, you are either extremely ignorant of the wealth of debate on these subjects, or are just being grossly dishonest in simply glossing over it all in order to win cheap converts that you hope wont read or think any further. If you have any experience with creationist/evolution debates, you would know that all of these arguements have very good rebutals. Regardless of your opinion of these rebutals, the least you could do is address THEM, adding something new and intelligent to the actual living debate, instead of posting the same dumb starting challenges that almost everyone, even most creationists, agree are dishonest and misleading, and at the very least have hashed through a million times before. Or you could link to the hundreds of sites on the web that respond to things like the rotation question, or the question on entropy, and then criticize THEM.
Instead, all you've done here is copy and paste (out of a recent reading of some tract, if not litterally via computer) some of the most well known creationist arguements. You are not surprising anyone with them. They are not new, damning charges against the theory of evolution: most of them were exposed a CENTURY ago, and well refuted even back then. All anyone does by posting them yet again is make modern creationism look stupid. Anyone who can state that evolution violates the second law is completely clueless about the second law (do endothermic chemical reactions violate the second law, going from simple atoms to complex molecules)? There are creationists out there who are at least willing to be honest and reasonable about their critiques: I suggest you join their ranks instead of preaching Hovind.
Ooo oooo! Can I have the chance to yet again realize that a reversed burden of proof can explain away anything! All you would have to do is suggest that it is possible to reconcile some interpretation of any passage with observable fact. Against that sort of backwards burden of proof, anyone could defend the accuracy of just about anything.
---This definition of evolution pushes it outside the realm of natural science so it is fundamentally different from what theory of evolution actually claims.---
Well, not exactly. It certainly adds things that no scientific theory mandates. But that doesn't necessarily take anything away or undermine the theory itself: it simply adds elements that are otherwise extraneous and unnecessary.
The Schwarzenegger movie "Eraser" is hardly the first place in which the idea of railguns appeared, nor is it even the first place that famous "corkscrew" effect has been associated with. You might as well accuse "Eraser" of basically stealing Piccalo's signature move from DBZ (in the US, known as "Special Beam Cannon"): it's exactly the same idea.
Eh? How so? The army of meter readers were likely replaced with an $800 PC, $100K in consulting fees, and $25/meter. A possible lifetime of employment eliminated for what was 6 months salary. No jobs were created, a large number were simply lost -- forever.
If what you were saying made sense, then it would follow that the path to universal wealth would be to hire people to do useless tasks. In the real world, replacing workers with cheaper technology saves SOMEONE money which then has to be spent SOMEHWERE. So sure, those jobs are lost forever: but good riddance to them.
They will NOT represent the same level of demand, "turned elsewhere".
We aren't talking about demand from them: we are talking about everyone who previously had to pay extra to support them.They will consume less, as they have less money with which to generate demand.
Who is "they"? SOMEONE saves money, and it has to be spent.
Their standard of living WILL fall, if for no other reason than they will now suffer a period of unemplyment that may well represent 1-3% of their earnings lifetime.
Sure, and that's one reason we need to provide social security nets and job retraining programs. But the fact that someone is used to doing a (now) useless and too expensive job is no reason keep them at it.
No, not if by "employed" you mean something more akin to a grant of subsistance living.
You really seem to haev a problem keeping track of who we are talking about. In this case, it is people who never had jobs before in the first place.
The rich are getting richer, and the poor are getting poorer. Government data has demonstrated that for a couple of decades now.
No, what it has demonstrated is that the rich have gotten richer while the wages of the poor have stagnated.
I'm sorry, but that's flatly insane as an attempt at a cite: what does Gate's net worth have to do with the annual volume of the Grocery industry.
---C level compensation has risen disproportionally 2, yes 2, orders of magnitude over the last 10-15 years. Has your salary gone up by a factor of 100 in the '90s?---
No, but then, that's irrelevant to productivity gains.
---Well, actually most of the money is going into to pockets of fat cats.---
Cite? For illustration's sake, you have a serious problem here: when something like food becomes cheaper, that's money back into the pockets of even the poor: and there are ALOT more poor "eaters" than rich eaters.
Worse, even if it did all go to fatcats, it would still be hard to argue that _everyone_ was worse off. For the jobs created to be more low-paying than before, there would have to be MORE jobs created than were destroyed (because it's the same level of demand turned elsewhere). If this allows people who were previously unemployed to become employed, isn't that a good thing? And if we're already at near full employment, wages will have to rise. So the story is a lot more complex than you are giving it credit for.
I disagree. I think the plausible reason for so much debt is overinvestment in unproven avenues: too much optimism.
And lower prices (seen by us as an "inability to raise prices) are the expected _direct result_ of productivity increases.
To really justify your views here, you are going to have to explain where all the extra wealth goes that comes from higher productivity. It can't possibly all go to a few fatcats: cheaper goods mean that the buyers of those goods can spend their money on something else: which would increase the demand in a different (or even the same) sector of the economy by as much as productivity lessened the need for workers. The money has to go _somewhere_, and before you declare economic disaster, you have to account for where.
---Probably not. But in our existing system of economics, the system must find some way "they" can aquire basic needs or the system will ultimately fail for everyone but the most wealthy.---
The system already has a way. Namely, if things ultimately cost less to produce (like movies), then people will have more money left to spend on other things. Those other things will create jobs. The short run pain of dislocation needs to be dealt with, but in the long run, cheaper production is a good thing.
Richard Dawkins has an excellent chapter in his book "Rainbow" where he describes a concept called a PETWHAC. This roughly translates into: Population of Events That Would Have Appeared Coincidental. He notes that for any seemingly impossible coincidence, oftentimes it can be dispelled simply by figuring out what events would be included in the PETWHAC: and usually you get a very high number. We have so many opportunities for amazing coincidences every day that it's almost mathematically inevitable that some will happen to us once and awhile. Coupled with the number of people out there, it's no wonder that seemingly amazing and inexplicable coincidences are reported all over the place: they are quite likely.
No one in the intelligence community thought those were serious offers, and they were right. Of course Clinton, and everyone else, wanted him. The idea that they did not is patently ridiculous. Only Ann Coulter could believe otherwise.
--Sorry, but supply-side economics, which you call trickle-down *IS* capitalism, and it works every time it is tried.---
Hopefuly you are just confused as to what "supply-side economics" is. But what most people mean by "supply-side economics" is not just hte idea of small government, but the idea that we should ONLY pay attention to the supply side of the economy, and also crazy things like the idea that tax cuts will "pay for themselves" in normal circumstances. Supply side economics is NOT the same thing as simply cutting taxes: it is an economic theory. And as an economic theory, it was and has always been a laughingstock: not even free market economists take it seriously. It was an idea pushed by think-tanks and journalists, not credible free-market economists. And it was put into action precisely once: during the beggining of the Reagan administration. And it was such an unmitigated disaster that his administration abandoned it within a year. Supply-side economics is not, in the least, "capitalism." Nor do Republicans support it: it was BUSH after all, that called it "voodoo economics," and Dole that pointed out how idiotic it was. But if you would care to learn more about economics, I think it would enrich your life considerably.
Also, Carter was not responsible for "stagflation" anymore than Bush is responsible for the current recession. Politicians cannot control this sort of huge macroeconomic event in the short term.
Bush's decision to raise taxes may have broken his promise: but it was a brave and gutsy move. He did it knowing that it may well have ended his political career: and yet he did it because it was the right thing to do (and it was, actually: it paved the way for the boom over the next decade). It's one clear example of a politican making a choice despite the way the wind blows.
To be fair, the people seem to rate his performance just fine. Maybe the people are duped: but you can't accuse him of not listening to the will of the people when the people support him.
My favorite Bush shenanigan remains how he let the NYTimes into the Oval office for a unique photo-op: him praying with his Cabinet. The punchline is that this photo was timed so that it would appear on the front page just before he released his comprimise stem-cell decision, which pissed off many pro-life supporters that he had previously promised a no-compromise approach. In other words, it was a cynical attempt to use grandiose demonstrations of peity as a sheild against religious criticism: "look, I know you aren't happy, but look, I really am a Christian." Is there anything worse than using religion as a tool for political damage control?
Actually, that's not what was found: it was found that Gore's campaign screwed up. They went after only certain counties for recounts that they hoped would lean Democratic. It turned out that if they had pursued every county from the beggining, they would have won.
And regardless of what happened, the fact remains that more people in Florida went into the ballot box intending to vote for Gore than they did Bush. That may have nothing to do with the process of who should have become president: but it's a sad statement about the way we hold elections.
--Pres. Bush is a good and honorable person who makes his decisions based on what's morally and ethically correct, not by putting his finger to the wind; unlike our last president.---
I think you've been reading too many ass-kisisng Newsweek articles. I certianly make no claim to have any basis for comparison on who is worse, but Bush and his administration have been boldly dishonest in many key instances, and heavily in thrall to all sorts of political interests. The idea that Bush is an amazingly upstanding person who makes decisions based on his strong moral character is a _political script_, not a reality that you have any basis on which to verify. He owes his career to hundreds of different people, all of whom expect (and get) payback when they demand it: just like almost any President in recent history. The idea that he is significantly different from "our last President" is doe-eyed nonsense. His administration spends tons of money on polling, just like Clinton: except instead of polling Americans to find out what they want, he polls to find what catchphrases sell his pre-decided agenda best. Tell me: which is more democratic?
---If Pres. Bush was so ready to go to bat for Enron then why would he refuse help prop Enron before the whole scadal broke?---
Because, as was already said: that would have been political suicide. But before the scandals made such service impossible, Bush was quite willing to toady to the interests of Enron: for instance in refusing to act on the accusations (now proven true) of price fixing and market manipulation in California, which made firms like Enron billions, but he could have put a stop to immediately.
---Clinton initiated a climate where lying was not seen as a horrible thing.---
This is nonsensical rhetoric. The people in Washington and Wall Street are not a bunch of children who are simply slaves to a "climate" created by one sex scandal. The idea that Clinton was especially prone to lying, moreso than any other in his trade, is nothing more than a partisan script. Why people seem to think that lying about ones sex life is even in the least comparable to lying about matters of national policy (which both Clinton, Bush, and many before them are certainly all guilty of) is truly beyond me.
---Republicans tend to believe in a more free market than Democrats,---
I have yet to see much evidence of this. All the arch-conservative free market economists I know are just as pissed off, if not moreso, at the Republicans than they are at the Democracts. Massive pork, paid for with tax dollars, is not free market: and yet the supposedly free market Republican party brings home hundreds of millions of dollars more to its constituents in the form of pork than do the Democrats. If you look at federal spending, you notice that virtually everwhere tax dollars are flowing out of Democractic districts and into Republican districts. Perhaps this means that the Democrats are lousy providers: but it certainly doesn't give Republicans the right to crow about being free market warriors.
Again:
Enforcing monopolies is not free market. Putting loopholes in tax law is not pro-free market. Restricting information about the products and services people buy is not pro-free market (indeed, having more and more complete information is a textbook BOON to markets, not a hinderance). Blocking efforts to create markets in public resources is not pro-free market (it's essentially no different than more government subsidies to the corporations that use them). High tarrifs and subsidies are not pro-free market.
---If you go to the plant where the water is treated, you should be able to walk out with as much water as you want.---
Why? This is a recipe for there being no water: i.e. the resource being overused. The whole point of having prices is to control the use of the resource in the way that best accords with how much it costs to produce it.
Via the big bang and evolution? You have to have some belief system.
Neither of those things are "belief systems" in the same sense that a religion is a "belief system." I certainly think those explanations are useful for explaining SOME things about the past, but no one seriosuly thinks they explain _everything_. But they are useful inasmuch as they are supported by evidence, not inasmuch as anyone "believes" them.
Believing that religion is BS is still a belief.
I don't believe that religion is BS. But I also don't see any reason to think that the religious claims I've heard so far are true. I'm not convinced.
This is your worldview (again, for lack of a better term).
Sorry, but my lack of your beliefs is not a worldview (anymore than your lack of, say, eKali beliefs is a affirmative part of YOUR worldview, especially seeing as you've never even heard of those beliefs). My actual affirmative beliefs are my worldview. My beliefs include those things which are germane to my life, and I have no conclusive beliefs about metaphysical matters.
This is the pacifist mentality I was talking about.
The you're going to have to think up a better term: I don't think "pacifist" means what you seem to think it does.
Sure, none of us _know_ what happend n years ago when the earth formed, but there is a lot of evidence and a lot of theories to at least study.
Indeed. But this isn't a quest for belief: its a quest for inferntial knowledge. I don't "believe" that I exist (I can't prove it by any means), but once that axiom is granted, and several more besides, I can conclude that, for instance, the earth probably formed out of the debris solar system cooling.
I'm saying that in writings such as Tolkiens, one can see how his worldview has influenced his writing. The same can be said for political views, etc. Any personal convictions (religious, political, scientific, etc.) can influence an authors writings, that's all I'm saying.
Sure, but looking at it that way is only going to trip you up, because you'll end up going, like you just did, saying "oh, well, he's a Christian, therefore his worldview works into it in such a such a way." But you can't assume that. Not everything every Christian does is "Christian" even unintentionally, and you can't just go jumping to conclusions about what is, especially when "Chrisitian" beliefs are so diverse, and work into fiction in so many different ways. Do you think Christians brush their teeth in a significantly different way than other people, in a distinctly "Christian" manner?
The simple definition of a Christian is one who believes in Christ. It has little to do with "the church" or other theological viewpoints.
I agree, in fact, that is WHY I took issue to your statement, because this discussion WAS about theological viewpoints and the way they work into fiction, and thus simply noting that two people were "Christian" is not particlar helpful for identifying how their differing beliefs on Christianity, allegory, and fiction work into their fiction. The "simple" definition is precisely that: far too simple to really tell us much of use about specific Christians, who may have very different ideas about Christ and the relation of Christ to ones life.
Although Tolkien may have differed with Lewis theologically, I believe they could both be accurately labeld as Christians.
You've again entirely missed my point. I agree they are both Christians. But in a disucssion of how their particular Christianity worked into their fiction, simply noting that they were Christians is extremely misleading, because it treats Christian thought as monolithic in regards to how they work their beliefs (which themselves are very diverse in nature) into their fiction.
Eh? What is a "pascifistic mentality" and how was I expressing one?
Your worldview (for lack of a better term) is composed of your beliefs.
Indeed, but despite BEING an atheist, "atheism" is not one of my "beliefs."
Atheism is a belief that there is no higher being, and that what we see is what we get.
No, atheism describes ones lack of theism. The lack of a belief is not a belief. Many Buddhists are atheists: but they have many religious beliefs besides, and they certainly do not hold the opinion that there is no god. It's just that believing in one is not part of their religion.
We all have beliefs of why we are here, how we got here, etc.
Not all of us do, no (to the extent you mean _ultimate_ origins, and not just that my parents had sex, and their parents, and so on)
In many cases it doesn't take long to figure out where an author stands on such issues, regardless of his religion or lack thereof.
Usually only when religion is being discussed, which is simply not the case for the vast majority of views and books people read in school today. Is a manual on toothbrushing, by virtue of the fact that it doesn't give praise to god (or even mention god), promoting the belief that there is no god? A book on math? A Robert Frost poem? I would likewise suggest that your desire to "find out where they stand" is a misguided approach that's only going to lead you into making a whole bunch of hasty generalizations and false dilemnas.
I'm not sure what this means. They either are Christians, or they aren't. Sure, they both differ in theological opinion, and they both express their beliefs differently, but this has nothing to do with whether or not they are Christians.
Please remember the context of what we were discussing. The issue at hand was the views of Tolkien and Lewis. That they had different theological ideas AND more importantly different ideas on how their works could and could not be seen as "religiously inspired" is very important to the point you were making, and instead of noting them, they were just called "Christians" as if that serves to place them in the same camp on these issues.
---However, while it is not a lead-pipe "QED" solution of the matter (which all the people poking holes in his logic insist it should be to even be considered worth pondering), it is a valid model for considering the possibility of Christ's divinity.---
Lewis presents it as a deductive arguement. In doing so, he is being very misleading. And this is what I meant when I said that his apologism is poor (which is the claim we were orignially discussing). At question is not whether, via some after the fact rethinking of the arguement, it coulld be made to work, but rather Lewis own treatment, which is far more than a vindication: but is in fact part of his arguements FOR particular claims.
As to the arguement, I don't think it could possibly be convincing unless one A) assumes its conclusion so as all instances of strange behaviors can be explained away via theology (which is what Lewis does elsewhere in his work) B) temporarily accepts an understanding of human psychology couched in false dilemna that almost no one would in any other situation.
Slashdot Mirror
---It's funny how scientists can study life,earth,universe,etc. and then come to a grand conclusions that God doesn't exist, changes in species are due to random errors in reproduction, and therefore Darwin is right and everyone else is wrong.---
Which scientists? Where do they present these supposed arguements? The conclusions of evolution explain the diversity of and development of life on earth. This isn't "funny" or "ironic" it's interesting. As to God, that's something one either believes or doesn't. But far from thinking that evolution disproves the existence of God, the vast majority of evolutionary scientists believe in God.
---I know I'll be thrown as flamebait or a Troll, but that's what I get for 'thinking different'.---
Every bit of your post, from the slander to the tired arguements, even down to the VERY convienient martyr complex complaint "oh, woe is I, no one will listen to my wisdom" is wholly unoriginal to you. You aren't thinking: you are regurgitating.
---And how come everything is just so perfect in this world for us: we have air to breath, water to drink, food to eat, sunlight to perform bring the bread home, darkness to sleep.---
As Douglas Adams noted, a puddle in a hole, were it intelligent, could claim the same thing: look at it's environment! The hole it lives in is _perfectly_ contoured to hold it (the puddle). It MUST be specially designed just for the life of this special, special puddle.
Just to point out how dishonest this story is... check out the real story here.
To summarize, there never was any life size replica, farmer, or any such nonsense. That story is entirely invented (and implausible to begin with: pig's teeth and primate teeth are so similar that experts often have a hard time telling them apart: and everyone at the time already knew this)
What there was was a single drawing that appeared in a popular magazine, that itself never claimed to be any sort of "reconstruction from a tooth" but rather just a fanciful illustration. Here's the text that came with the sketch: "Mr. Forestier has made a remarkable sketch to convey some idea of the possibilities suggested by this discovery. As we know nothing of the creature's form, his reconstruction is merely the expression of an artist's brilliant imaginative genius. But if, as the peculiarities of the tooth suggest, Hesperopithecus was a primitive forerunner of Pithecanthropus, he may have been a creature such as Mr. Forestier has depicted." (Smith 1922, emphasis added)
And that was about the MOST laudable thing ever said about the picture: again, not even in a scientific publication, but rather in a popular article. The scientific community never took it seriously that the teeth even came from an ape, much less a human ancestor.
---What a joke, yet all the evolutionary theory based on this and the above debacles is still around. Why?---
There is no why: you're a liar. The "Nebraska man," for instance, was never a widely accepted idea, not even as the tooth of an ape. That creationists continue to run around claiming that it was some sort of central lynchpin in evolutionary theory (an entirely laughable claim to anyone that bothers to read any sort of history of the subject, or the publications at the time) demonstrates only how desperate creationists are to discredit legitimate science: which, incidentally, works best BY discrediting things (like the Nebraska Man was discredited, by evolutionary scientists, not heroic creationists), not by building up frauds.
Whether or not this is a joke or not, we need a moderation that roughly sums up this: "these exact arguements, and the common rebuttals of them, have been posted on slashdot a million times before, and the discussions that inevitably come from them are both predictable and pointless."
I mean seriously, "Dr." Putting aside ENTIRELY the issue of who's right in this case, you are either extremely ignorant of the wealth of debate on these subjects, or are just being grossly dishonest in simply glossing over it all in order to win cheap converts that you hope wont read or think any further.
If you have any experience with creationist/evolution debates, you would know that all of these arguements have very good rebutals. Regardless of your opinion of these rebutals, the least you could do is address THEM, adding something new and intelligent to the actual living debate, instead of posting the same dumb starting challenges that almost everyone, even most creationists, agree are dishonest and misleading, and at the very least have hashed through a million times before. Or you could link to the hundreds of sites on the web that respond to things like the rotation question, or the question on entropy, and then criticize THEM.
Instead, all you've done here is copy and paste (out of a recent reading of some tract, if not litterally via computer) some of the most well known creationist arguements. You are not surprising anyone with them. They are not new, damning charges against the theory of evolution: most of them were exposed a CENTURY ago, and well refuted even back then. All anyone does by posting them yet again is make modern creationism look stupid. Anyone who can state that evolution violates the second law is completely clueless about the second law (do endothermic chemical reactions violate the second law, going from simple atoms to complex molecules)? There are creationists out there who are at least willing to be honest and reasonable about their critiques: I suggest you join their ranks instead of preaching Hovind.
Ooo oooo! Can I have the chance to yet again realize that a reversed burden of proof can explain away anything! All you would have to do is suggest that it is possible to reconcile some interpretation of any passage with observable fact. Against that sort of backwards burden of proof, anyone could defend the accuracy of just about anything.
---This definition of evolution pushes it outside the realm of natural science so it is fundamentally different from what theory of evolution actually claims.---
Well, not exactly. It certainly adds things that no scientific theory mandates. But that doesn't necessarily take anything away or undermine the theory itself: it simply adds elements that are otherwise extraneous and unnecessary.
The Schwarzenegger movie "Eraser" is hardly the first place in which the idea of railguns appeared, nor is it even the first place that famous "corkscrew" effect has been associated with. You might as well accuse "Eraser" of basically stealing Piccalo's signature move from DBZ (in the US, known as "Special Beam Cannon"): it's exactly the same idea.
Eh? How so? The army of meter readers were likely replaced with an $800 PC, $100K in consulting fees, and $25/meter. A possible lifetime of employment eliminated for what was 6 months salary. No jobs were created, a large number were simply lost -- forever.
If what you were saying made sense, then it would follow that the path to universal wealth would be to hire people to do useless tasks. In the real world, replacing workers with cheaper technology saves SOMEONE money which then has to be spent SOMEHWERE. So sure, those jobs are lost forever: but good riddance to them.
They will NOT represent the same level of demand, "turned elsewhere".
We aren't talking about demand from them: we are talking about everyone who previously had to pay extra to support them.They will consume less, as they have less money with which to generate demand.
Who is "they"? SOMEONE saves money, and it has to be spent.
Their standard of living WILL fall, if for no other reason than they will now suffer a period of unemplyment that may well represent 1-3% of their earnings lifetime.
Sure, and that's one reason we need to provide social security nets and job retraining programs. But the fact that someone is used to doing a (now) useless and too expensive job is no reason keep them at it.
No, not if by "employed" you mean something more akin to a grant of subsistance living.
You really seem to haev a problem keeping track of who we are talking about. In this case, it is people who never had jobs before in the first place.
The rich are getting richer, and the poor are getting poorer. Government data has demonstrated that for a couple of decades now.
No, what it has demonstrated is that the rich have gotten richer while the wages of the poor have stagnated.
I'm sorry, but that's flatly insane as an attempt at a cite: what does Gate's net worth have to do with the annual volume of the Grocery industry.
---C level compensation has risen disproportionally 2, yes 2, orders of magnitude over the last 10-15 years. Has your salary gone up by a factor of 100 in the '90s?---
No, but then, that's irrelevant to productivity gains.
---Well, actually most of the money is going into to pockets of fat cats.---
Cite? For illustration's sake, you have a serious problem here: when something like food becomes cheaper, that's money back into the pockets of even the poor: and there are ALOT more poor "eaters" than rich eaters.
Worse, even if it did all go to fatcats, it would still be hard to argue that _everyone_ was worse off. For the jobs created to be more low-paying than before, there would have to be MORE jobs created than were destroyed (because it's the same level of demand turned elsewhere). If this allows people who were previously unemployed to become employed, isn't that a good thing? And if we're already at near full employment, wages will have to rise. So the story is a lot more complex than you are giving it credit for.
I disagree. I think the plausible reason for so much debt is overinvestment in unproven avenues: too much optimism.
And lower prices (seen by us as an "inability to raise prices) are the expected _direct result_ of productivity increases.
To really justify your views here, you are going to have to explain where all the extra wealth goes that comes from higher productivity. It can't possibly all go to a few fatcats: cheaper goods mean that the buyers of those goods can spend their money on something else: which would increase the demand in a different (or even the same) sector of the economy by as much as productivity lessened the need for workers. The money has to go _somewhere_, and before you declare economic disaster, you have to account for where.
---Probably not. But in our existing system of economics, the system must find some way "they" can aquire basic needs or the system will ultimately fail for everyone but the most wealthy.---
The system already has a way. Namely, if things ultimately cost less to produce (like movies), then people will have more money left to spend on other things. Those other things will create jobs. The short run pain of dislocation needs to be dealt with, but in the long run, cheaper production is a good thing.
Richard Dawkins has an excellent chapter in his book "Rainbow" where he describes a concept called a PETWHAC. This roughly translates into: Population of Events That Would Have Appeared Coincidental. He notes that for any seemingly impossible coincidence, oftentimes it can be dispelled simply by figuring out what events would be included in the PETWHAC: and usually you get a very high number. We have so many opportunities for amazing coincidences every day that it's almost mathematically inevitable that some will happen to us once and awhile. Coupled with the number of people out there, it's no wonder that seemingly amazing and inexplicable coincidences are reported all over the place: they are quite likely.
No one in the intelligence community thought those were serious offers, and they were right. Of course Clinton, and everyone else, wanted him. The idea that they did not is patently ridiculous. Only Ann Coulter could believe otherwise.
--Sorry, but supply-side economics, which you call trickle-down *IS* capitalism, and it works every time it is tried.---
Hopefuly you are just confused as to what "supply-side economics" is. But what most people mean by "supply-side economics" is not just hte idea of small government, but the idea that we should ONLY pay attention to the supply side of the economy, and also crazy things like the idea that tax cuts will "pay for themselves" in normal circumstances. Supply side economics is NOT the same thing as simply cutting taxes: it is an economic theory. And as an economic theory, it was and has always been a laughingstock: not even free market economists take it seriously. It was an idea pushed by think-tanks and journalists, not credible free-market economists. And it was put into action precisely once: during the beggining of the Reagan administration. And it was such an unmitigated disaster that his administration abandoned it within a year. Supply-side economics is not, in the least, "capitalism." Nor do Republicans support it: it was BUSH after all, that called it "voodoo economics," and Dole that pointed out how idiotic it was. But if you would care to learn more about economics, I think it would enrich your life considerably.
Also, Carter was not responsible for "stagflation" anymore than Bush is responsible for the current recession. Politicians cannot control this sort of huge macroeconomic event in the short term.
Bush's decision to raise taxes may have broken his promise: but it was a brave and gutsy move. He did it knowing that it may well have ended his political career: and yet he did it because it was the right thing to do (and it was, actually: it paved the way for the boom over the next decade). It's one clear example of a politican making a choice despite the way the wind blows.
To be fair, the people seem to rate his performance just fine. Maybe the people are duped: but you can't accuse him of not listening to the will of the people when the people support him.
My favorite Bush shenanigan remains how he let the NYTimes into the Oval office for a unique photo-op: him praying with his Cabinet. The punchline is that this photo was timed so that it would appear on the front page just before he released his comprimise stem-cell decision, which pissed off many pro-life supporters that he had previously promised a no-compromise approach. In other words, it was a cynical attempt to use grandiose demonstrations of peity as a sheild against religious criticism: "look, I know you aren't happy, but look, I really am a Christian." Is there anything worse than using religion as a tool for political damage control?
Actually, that's not what was found: it was found that Gore's campaign screwed up. They went after only certain counties for recounts that they hoped would lean Democratic. It turned out that if they had pursued every county from the beggining, they would have won.
And regardless of what happened, the fact remains that more people in Florida went into the ballot box intending to vote for Gore than they did Bush. That may have nothing to do with the process of who should have become president: but it's a sad statement about the way we hold elections.
--Pres. Bush is a good and honorable person who makes his decisions based on what's morally and ethically correct, not by putting his finger to the wind; unlike our last president.---
I think you've been reading too many ass-kisisng Newsweek articles. I certianly make no claim to have any basis for comparison on who is worse, but Bush and his administration have been boldly dishonest in many key instances, and heavily in thrall to all sorts of political interests. The idea that Bush is an amazingly upstanding person who makes decisions based on his strong moral character is a _political script_, not a reality that you have any basis on which to verify. He owes his career to hundreds of different people, all of whom expect (and get) payback when they demand it: just like almost any President in recent history. The idea that he is significantly different from "our last President" is doe-eyed nonsense. His administration spends tons of money on polling, just like Clinton: except instead of polling Americans to find out what they want, he polls to find what catchphrases sell his pre-decided agenda best. Tell me: which is more democratic?
---If Pres. Bush was so ready to go to bat for Enron then why would he refuse help prop Enron before the whole scadal broke?---
Because, as was already said: that would have been political suicide. But before the scandals made such service impossible, Bush was quite willing to toady to the interests of Enron: for instance in refusing to act on the accusations (now proven true) of price fixing and market manipulation in California, which made firms like Enron billions, but he could have put a stop to immediately.
---Clinton initiated a climate where lying was not seen as a horrible thing.---
This is nonsensical rhetoric. The people in Washington and Wall Street are not a bunch of children who are simply slaves to a "climate" created by one sex scandal. The idea that Clinton was especially prone to lying, moreso than any other in his trade, is nothing more than a partisan script. Why people seem to think that lying about ones sex life is even in the least comparable to lying about matters of national policy (which both Clinton, Bush, and many before them are certainly all guilty of) is truly beyond me.
---Republicans tend to believe in a more free market than Democrats,---
I have yet to see much evidence of this. All the arch-conservative free market economists I know are just as pissed off, if not moreso, at the Republicans than they are at the Democracts. Massive pork, paid for with tax dollars, is not free market: and yet the supposedly free market Republican party brings home hundreds of millions of dollars more to its constituents in the form of pork than do the Democrats. If you look at federal spending, you notice that virtually everwhere tax dollars are flowing out of Democractic districts and into Republican districts. Perhaps this means that the Democrats are lousy providers: but it certainly doesn't give Republicans the right to crow about being free market warriors.
Again: Enforcing monopolies is not free market. Putting loopholes in tax law is not pro-free market. Restricting information about the products and services people buy is not pro-free market (indeed, having more and more complete information is a textbook BOON to markets, not a hinderance). Blocking efforts to create markets in public resources is not pro-free market (it's essentially no different than more government subsidies to the corporations that use them). High tarrifs and subsidies are not pro-free market.
---If you go to the plant where the water is treated, you should be able to walk out with as much water as you want.---
Why? This is a recipe for there being no water: i.e. the resource being overused. The whole point of having prices is to control the use of the resource in the way that best accords with how much it costs to produce it.
So how the hell are we here on earth?
I dunno. Gravity?
Via the big bang and evolution? You have to have some belief system.
Neither of those things are "belief systems" in the same sense that a religion is a "belief system." I certainly think those explanations are useful for explaining SOME things about the past, but no one seriosuly thinks they explain _everything_. But they are useful inasmuch as they are supported by evidence, not inasmuch as anyone "believes" them.
Believing that religion is BS is still a belief.
I don't believe that religion is BS. But I also don't see any reason to think that the religious claims I've heard so far are true. I'm not convinced.
This is your worldview (again, for lack of a better term).
Sorry, but my lack of your beliefs is not a worldview (anymore than your lack of, say, eKali beliefs is a affirmative part of YOUR worldview, especially seeing as you've never even heard of those beliefs). My actual affirmative beliefs are my worldview. My beliefs include those things which are germane to my life, and I have no conclusive beliefs about metaphysical matters.
This is the pacifist mentality I was talking about.
The you're going to have to think up a better term: I don't think "pacifist" means what you seem to think it does.
Sure, none of us _know_ what happend n years ago when the earth formed, but there is a lot of evidence and a lot of theories to at least study.
Indeed. But this isn't a quest for belief: its a quest for inferntial knowledge. I don't "believe" that I exist (I can't prove it by any means), but once that axiom is granted, and several more besides, I can conclude that, for instance, the earth probably formed out of the debris solar system cooling.
I'm saying that in writings such as Tolkiens, one can see how his worldview has influenced his writing. The same can be said for political views, etc. Any personal convictions (religious, political, scientific, etc.) can influence an authors writings, that's all I'm saying.
Sure, but looking at it that way is only going to trip you up, because you'll end up going, like you just did, saying "oh, well, he's a Christian, therefore his worldview works into it in such a such a way." But you can't assume that. Not everything every Christian does is "Christian" even unintentionally, and you can't just go jumping to conclusions about what is, especially when "Chrisitian" beliefs are so diverse, and work into fiction in so many different ways. Do you think Christians brush their teeth in a significantly different way than other people, in a distinctly "Christian" manner?
The simple definition of a Christian is one who believes in Christ. It has little to do with "the church" or other theological viewpoints.
I agree, in fact, that is WHY I took issue to your statement, because this discussion WAS about theological viewpoints and the way they work into fiction, and thus simply noting that two people were "Christian" is not particlar helpful for identifying how their differing beliefs on Christianity, allegory, and fiction work into their fiction. The "simple" definition is precisely that: far too simple to really tell us much of use about specific Christians, who may have very different ideas about Christ and the relation of Christ to ones life.
Although Tolkien may have differed with Lewis theologically, I believe they could both be accurately labeld as Christians.
You've again entirely missed my point. I agree they are both Christians. But in a disucssion of how their particular Christianity worked into their fiction, simply noting that they were Christians is extremely misleading, because it treats Christian thought as monolithic in regards to how they work their beliefs (which themselves are very diverse in nature) into their fiction.
This pascifistic mantality doesn't quite work.
Eh? What is a "pascifistic mentality" and how was I expressing one?
Your worldview (for lack of a better term) is composed of your beliefs.
Indeed, but despite BEING an atheist, "atheism" is not one of my "beliefs."
Atheism is a belief that there is no higher being, and that what we see is what we get.
No, atheism describes ones lack of theism. The lack of a belief is not a belief. Many Buddhists are atheists: but they have many religious beliefs besides, and they certainly do not hold the opinion that there is no god. It's just that believing in one is not part of their religion.
We all have beliefs of why we are here, how we got here, etc.
Not all of us do, no (to the extent you mean _ultimate_ origins, and not just that my parents had sex, and their parents, and so on)
In many cases it doesn't take long to figure out where an author stands on such issues, regardless of his religion or lack thereof.
Usually only when religion is being discussed, which is simply not the case for the vast majority of views and books people read in school today. Is a manual on toothbrushing, by virtue of the fact that it doesn't give praise to god (or even mention god), promoting the belief that there is no god? A book on math? A Robert Frost poem? I would likewise suggest that your desire to "find out where they stand" is a misguided approach that's only going to lead you into making a whole bunch of hasty generalizations and false dilemnas.
I'm not sure what this means. They either are Christians, or they aren't. Sure, they both differ in theological opinion, and they both express their beliefs differently, but this has nothing to do with whether or not they are Christians.
Please remember the context of what we were discussing. The issue at hand was the views of Tolkien and Lewis. That they had different theological ideas AND more importantly different ideas on how their works could and could not be seen as "religiously inspired" is very important to the point you were making, and instead of noting them, they were just called "Christians" as if that serves to place them in the same camp on these issues.
---However, while it is not a lead-pipe "QED" solution of the matter (which all the people poking holes in his logic insist it should be to even be considered worth pondering), it is a valid model for considering the possibility of Christ's divinity.---
Lewis presents it as a deductive arguement. In doing so, he is being very misleading. And this is what I meant when I said that his apologism is poor (which is the claim we were orignially discussing). At question is not whether, via some after the fact rethinking of the arguement, it coulld be made to work, but rather Lewis own treatment, which is far more than a vindication: but is in fact part of his arguements FOR particular claims.
As to the arguement, I don't think it could possibly be convincing unless one A) assumes its conclusion so as all instances of strange behaviors can be explained away via theology (which is what Lewis does elsewhere in his work) B) temporarily accepts an understanding of human psychology couched in false dilemna that almost no one would in any other situation.