As I said, just because we cannot imagine how it could have happened doesn't mean that it couldn't have. Who is to say that in the universe you posit, an entirely different means of producing heavy elements couldn't have happened (or were even necessary for life)? I would consider the 'collapsed in upon itself' case to be trivial.
How can you say that messing with one of the universal constants wouldn't affect them all, or even just some subset of them? Like messing with the speed of light might change the orbitals of electrons and the table of the elements. Who can offer intelligent guesses about what might be possible in such places?
>If any physical constants were different by one part in ten to the umpteenth power, no life of any form could have existed at any time or place in the universe.
And how do you know that? While it's true that life *as it currently exists* might not be able to survive under a different set of physical laws, who is to say that it couldn't in any given (non-trivial) universe?
>And if you defend RMSs right to use the law to protect his own right as a copyright holder, then you have to defend Metallica's same right
Not really. If copyright didn't exist at all, there would be no need for the GPL. Sure, someone could try to repackage your work and sell it as their own, but you could just copy their changes and use them anyway.
>You can use GPL libraries in your proprietary code and sell your closed code, provided your distributed binary is not a derivative work of those libraries.
What's the point of having gpl libraries in your code if you're not using them? AFAIK, linking to them does create a derivitave work, just as adding a few verses to a song would.
Copyright in its current form is broken. The system was originally meant as a way to enrich the public by giving authors a short-term monopoly on the distribution of their creations, after which they would fall into the public domain. The original intent is gone; copyright now exists only as a means to enrich the copyright holders and their grandchildren.
Until the laws are returned to something reasonable (like the original 28 years with no automatic extensions), I will continue to freely flaunt these laws without a touch of guilt. If they are going to abuse the system, I'm going to ignore it.
I haven't heard anyone say that copyright infringement is lawful. Whether copyright should exist in its current form (or any form at all) is certainly up for debate.
>Fine but quit whining that stupid hysterical laws like Kyoto keep getting shot down.
Kyoto wasn't shot down. Every country with any leadership whatsoever ratified it. I'm sure it's pure coincidence that a president who is completely in bed with the oil industry would shoot down a treaty that calls for reduced greenhouse gas emissions.
>The idea that man is causing global warming is laughable.
>I agree that the idea that puny man is causing global *anything* is indeed laughable.
Of course billions and billions of tons of additional CO2 (added by man) couldn't be having an effect on our global average temperature. If you're incapable of looking at the actual evidence for global warming, it is you who has some agenda.
>What I own and what I drive aren't any of your business.
Yes they are when they have a detrimental effect on my life and the life of my children. Should you be able to dump your raw sewage into the stream beside your house and not expect to have to pay for the cleanup? Of course not. Why is it any different with the air?
>The massive body of evidence to which you refer by implication is not real.
Go to your library. Go to the periodicals section. Look up some topics like 'evolutionary biology' or 'molecular biology' and witness for yourself how unreal all that evidence is (just from one month).
>Just recently, geological isochrons - a keystone of long-ages dating systems - were called into serious question by evolutionists.
No, they weren't. You've been sucking on too much creationist teat.
> So why do they, themselves, feel the need to label people that way?
Because they can analyze the numbers that tell them that people like the person you are specifying are X times more likely to be in an accident/get robbed/whatever.
Why would you have a problem with knowing the truth about groups of people? After all, we are both the product of our environment and our genetics.
Please explain what is to stop micro evolution from becoming macro evolution given enough time. I want hard facts about genetics that would keep one species from changing into another.
>Sadly, scientists view the Grand Canyon and erroneously claim that millions of years of irrigation led to its creation. Why couldn't it have been a world-wide flood?
Would a fast-moving deluge form these? This picture was taken upstream of the grand canyon. Can you even think of a realistic scenario where these extremely twisty canyons could form under flood conditions?
>Maybe if you did some research instead of believing the BS preached by evolutionists.
I've done far, far more research on the matter than you have. I know this because if you had done as much research as you claim, you would have to be plain stupid not to know that it really happened. There is no better theory to fit the facts.
>If you were sincere in finding the truth, you would learn why there is not any, and never will be any, evidence to support evolution.
To say that there never will be any evidence to support evolution (neglecting the completely ignorant statement that there currently is no such evidence) is not a statement about reality, but is only a statement about your lack of ability to accept reality when it conflicts with your religion. I *could* accept that god created all life if some future evidence pointed undeniably in that direction.
>It is not accepted by people who actually examine the evidence.
>The least contentious objection I can raise here is that evolution is a theory about the origin of species and not a theory about the mutation in existing creatures.
That is completely incorrect. Evolution says nothing about how life began, only what has happened to it since then.
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As I said, just because we cannot imagine how it could have happened doesn't mean that it couldn't have. Who is to say that in the universe you posit, an entirely different means of producing heavy elements couldn't have happened (or were even necessary for life)? I would consider the 'collapsed in upon itself' case to be trivial.
How can you say that messing with one of the universal constants wouldn't affect them all, or even just some subset of them? Like messing with the speed of light might change the orbitals of electrons and the table of the elements. Who can offer intelligent guesses about what might be possible in such places?
>If any physical constants were different by one part in ten to the umpteenth power, no life of any form could have existed at any time or place in the universe.
And how do you know that? While it's true that life *as it currently exists* might not be able to survive under a different set of physical laws, who is to say that it couldn't in any given (non-trivial) universe?
>And if you defend RMSs right to use the law to protect his own right as a copyright holder, then you have to defend Metallica's same right
Not really. If copyright didn't exist at all, there would be no need for the GPL. Sure, someone could try to repackage your work and sell it as their own, but you could just copy their changes and use them anyway.
>You can use GPL libraries in your proprietary code and sell your closed code, provided your distributed binary is not a derivative work of those libraries.
What's the point of having gpl libraries in your code if you're not using them? AFAIK, linking to them does create a derivitave work, just as adding a few verses to a song would.
Copyright in its current form is broken. The system was originally meant as a way to enrich the public by giving authors a short-term monopoly on the distribution of their creations, after which they would fall into the public domain. The original intent is gone; copyright now exists only as a means to enrich the copyright holders and their grandchildren.
Until the laws are returned to something reasonable (like the original 28 years with no automatic extensions), I will continue to freely flaunt these laws without a touch of guilt. If they are going to abuse the system, I'm going to ignore it.
>*sigh* Since when did taking someone elses work without their permission and not paying them for it become acceptable?
When the ability for anyone to do so in the comfort of their own home with zero chance of getting caught became public knowledge.
Besides, nothing is taken if nothing is gone.
Or you could just have thrown it into your dvd-rom drive and used mencoder to make a very nice copy. I do it all the time.
Umm, there is nothing even slightly illegal about having an open wireless access point. If there were, half of the city I live in would be in jail.
So verizon/time-warner/adelphia/speakeasy should be held accountable for all traffic of their networks too? How would I be liable if they aren't?
I haven't heard anyone say that copyright infringement is lawful. Whether copyright should exist in its current form (or any form at all) is certainly up for debate.
>Wrong. A service was taken.
What service would that be?
Creating the movie? They made it just fine. Whether or not I pay them, it's already made.
The service of distributing it? Don't need them for that either.
The service of showing it? My TV works just fine.
So what is this 'serice'?
>You can play semantic games all you want to. What you are doing is still a form of theft.
No, it's not semantics to point out that nothing at all was actually taken from anyone.
The semantic games are being played by those who want to conflate copying information with the taking of real objects.
>When you take something and it is not yours, it is theft.
And I'll use even smaller words:
Nothing was taken.
>The fact that the owner still has something...
Means that nothing is gone.
>Fine but quit whining that stupid hysterical laws like Kyoto keep getting shot down.
Kyoto wasn't shot down. Every country with any leadership whatsoever ratified it. I'm sure it's pure coincidence that a president who is completely in bed with the oil industry would shoot down a treaty that calls for reduced greenhouse gas emissions.
>The idea that man is causing global warming is laughable.
Only by those who refuse to pull their heads out of their asses.
>As is the pathetic insistence that it is real in spite of whatever logic and REAL science is applied to your histrionics.
Pull your head out of there and have a look around sometime.
>I agree that the idea that puny man is causing global *anything* is indeed laughable.
Of course billions and billions of tons of additional CO2 (added by man) couldn't be having an effect on our global average temperature. If you're incapable of looking at the actual evidence for global warming, it is you who has some agenda.
>What I own and what I drive aren't any of your business.
Yes they are when they have a detrimental effect on my life and the life of my children. Should you be able to dump your raw sewage into the stream beside your house and not expect to have to pay for the cleanup? Of course not. Why is it any different with the air?
>Seriously man. Try renting a Caddy and going to a night club. You WILL get more attention from women than you're used to.
Right. Because every club I've ever been to lets you drive your car around on the dance floor to show off for the women.
SUV's are for men with tiny dicks and stupid women.
>The massive body of evidence to which you refer by implication is not real.
Go to your library. Go to the periodicals section. Look up some topics like 'evolutionary biology' or 'molecular biology' and witness for yourself how unreal all that evidence is (just from one month).
>Just recently, geological isochrons - a keystone of long-ages dating systems - were called into serious question by evolutionists.
No, they weren't. You've been sucking on too much creationist teat.
Statistics don't apply to individuals.
> So why do they, themselves, feel the need to label people that way?
Because they can analyze the numbers that tell them that people like the person you are specifying are X times more likely to be in an accident/get robbed/whatever.
Why would you have a problem with knowing the truth about groups of people? After all, we are both the product of our environment and our genetics.
Please explain what is to stop micro evolution from becoming macro evolution given enough time. I want hard facts about genetics that would keep one species from changing into another.
>Sadly, scientists view the Grand Canyon and erroneously claim that millions of years of irrigation led to its creation. Why couldn't it have been a world-wide flood?
Would a fast-moving deluge form these? This picture was taken upstream of the grand canyon. Can you even think of a realistic scenario where these extremely twisty canyons could form under flood conditions?
> The belief that there is no god is obviously a belief of a religious nature.
Yes, but having no religious beliefs at all is not, and a great many 'atheists' fit this description.
I do not say that god does not exist, only that I have seen no reason to believe that he does.
>Maybe if you did some research instead of believing the BS preached by evolutionists.
I've done far, far more research on the matter than you have. I know this because if you had done as much research as you claim, you would have to be plain stupid not to know that it really happened. There is no better theory to fit the facts.
>If you were sincere in finding the truth, you would learn why there is not any, and never will be any, evidence to support evolution.
To say that there never will be any evidence to support evolution (neglecting the completely ignorant statement that there currently is no such evidence) is not a statement about reality, but is only a statement about your lack of ability to accept reality when it conflicts with your religion. I *could* accept that god created all life if some future evidence pointed undeniably in that direction.
>It is not accepted by people who actually examine the evidence.
People like you?
>The least contentious objection I can raise here is that evolution is a theory about the origin of species and not a theory about the mutation in existing creatures.
That is completely incorrect. Evolution says nothing about how life began, only what has happened to it since then.