I think anything you try to do to my computer via the internet should be legal. It is my responsibility to ensure that the software on my computer is secure.
I think breaking into my house and tampering with my computer should be illegal.
I realize this is not the way the law works now, but this is how I think it *should* work.
I didn't logic was science. I was asking how you made the jump. I accept that logical arguments can be made from known truths. What I am asking you is why you have decided to believe in logic. If you have decided that there is a good logical argument to believe in logic, then it is you who has resorted to a circular argument.
If I use your chemistry example, where you say mixing 2 chemicals also yields the same result. You say there is a good reason to believe this at the molecular level. What leads you to believe that the molecules will always behave in the same way for all eternity? It is a fundamental axiom of science that the universe is governed by laws and that these laws never change. You can't, by definition, prove that this is true, especially not with science. It is an axiom. You are supposed to just believe it.
If you believe the scientific method is a good way to test the truth of various claims about the universe, how do you test the scientific method itself as a valid method of determining truth? Is there an experiment you can do to prove the scientific method itself is correct? Is this experiment valid if you use the scientific method to do this test?
I will state that I wholeheartedly follow science. I am an atheist. But I do recognize that science and logic fall into the same problem that religion does. Christianity bestows divinity on the Bible and uses the Bible as proof of the divine. God is always provably true within the rules dictated by the religion.
For example: God is real because every blade of grass is a miracle and only God is capable of miracles.
To me this sounds like nonsense. But thats because I have already adopted a scientific world view. If I had adopted the world view that everything is a miracle and only God can perform miracles, then the claims of science to explain things with natural laws rather than a divine creator would seem ridiculous (and do to many religious people).
Believers of science, logic, and mathematics take axioms of those disciplines on faith. Christians take the Bible on faith. What's the difference? The only difference I can see is the results that can be produced by the practitioners of these disciplines. I don't see a fundamental differences of the claims themselves.
If Christians upon praying could do magic like shooting laser beams and bring back people from the dead, this would increase the credibility of their claims. But so far I consider their claims to be basically worthless. The claims of science are very convincing.
If you think past the teachings of Jesus described in the Bible. The rules of the universe. The ones that necessitated that the death of the purest human on earth needed to be killed in order for God to have a new relationship with man, is abhorrent. It is one thing if that was just the way things were. But they aren't. The Christian God decided they had to be the way. The Christian God decided that people who did not accept Jesus had to go to hell for eternity. This is his design. This God's moral standards do not even measure up to the moral standards of modern western civilization. I don't see any evidence of divinity in these ideas. To me this smells of bronze age thinking.
I can look up and investigate all the researchers, all their papers, as well as have a peer reviewed document to look at in the first place, reviewed by experts in the field. No faith required. The depth of conspiracy needed to have every single person in the pathway is as close to impossible as can be. But I would not assign it as 100 percent impossible. I have not the faitfh to do that.
So you made a jump form "every single person would have to be involved" to "therefore it is close to impossible". What did you use to make that jump? Was it Science? Can you use science to prove science? Logic? Even logic itself says that logic can;t be used to prove the correctness of logic. Logical axioms, by definition, have no evidence. They must be taken for granted. What is belief in something without evidence, but faith?
Honest question: how would you know if you were losing lots of talented developers? Not many people are going to speak up to let you know that your behavior is toxic. They'll just leave and take their skills elsewhere.
You can never know for sure in any scenario. Considering the success of the linux kernel, they don't have a shortage of talented developers. Maybe they would have much more without Linus et al, but I doubt it.
Slavery works. Human experimentation works. Spying on every citizen in the country works. Morality matters. Being rude to people on a mailing list really isn't a big deal, morality-wise, but let's not go saying that the ends always justify the means.
The ends absolutely justify the means. If you don't think this is true, then that means that you think there are no negative consequences to things like slavery, human experimentation, and spying.
What works depends on your goals. For example, if your goal is to live in a society with minimal suffering and maximal freedom, then slavery doesn't really work to well.
The "t" in "that's" should be capitalized and there should be no space before the exclamation point. You're whole family should die for your grammar Nazi fail!
First of all I said "The *Bible* teaches hate". I don't know why you chose to misinterpret what I said. The fact is that Christians could have simply omitted the old testament from their holy book. They chose to keep, and are therefore subject to criticisms of the old testament.
The "ancient Jewish scriptures" didn't simply acknowledge that hate existed. They are included in your Bible as the word of God, and command hate. If you don't think the old testament should be included in the Bible, maybe you should create your own sect of Christianity as many others have done.
Even if you did this, it wouldn't mean that Christianity was only love. It would only mean that your version of Christianity was only love. Everyone else's version would still be a mix of hate and love, until you converted them to your version.
Second of all, the new testament also has some pretty terrible stuff in it. On the whole it looks quite progressive compared to the old testament, but compared with modern sensibilities it is barbaric.
Thirdly it is all irrelevant anyway because it's not real. Religion evolves. The leaders will continue to have "divine revelations" of new scripture or new interpretations of scripture in order to continuously drag this antiquated mythology into the present, ever diluting and politically correcting it's message.
How much can you change Christianity and still have it count as Christianity? They've already gotten rid of genocide, slavery, mysogeny, through new interpretations. Maybe we can get rid of miracles and Jesus and God.
The new message can be this:
Sure Jesus was just a man. That's why his teachings were full of flaws that contradict our current knowledge and sense of morality. We modern Christians are able to fix these flaws in a way that we think Jesus (if he lived today) might approve. We still believe in the golden rule and being compassionate, but we've grown out of the idea of supernatural deities as childish and primitive.
Violence, whether it be physical intimidation, verbal threats or verbal abuse is not acceptable. Keep it professional on the mailing lists.
Not acceptable? By who's standards?
It's seems acceptable by the law in most countries that matter for the development of the linux kernel.
It seems acceptable by the main dude (Linus)
It seems acceptable by the developers, as they could have forked and started their own project with a more acceptable mailing list policy.
Who is it not acceptable to? and why can't those people make their own fork or simply not participate in the mailing list? (besides Sarah Sharp) If we were losing lots of talented developers because they just couldn't bear the mailing list, that would be a different story.
There is no absolute morality of the way things should be. There is what works. If you have a way to make something work better, no one is stopping you.
No, it isn't faith. It speaks to credibility. My lack of access to a particle accellerator, but accepting the results has nothing to do with faith. The work is there and documented, and I can access it.
How do you know that the documents are true? The virgin birth of Christ was documented as well.
You have faith that the scientific community is not one giant conspiracy. If everyone at CERN conspired to fabricate results, you have faith that one of them would blow the whistle and expose the fraud.
I have been looking for some kind of objective standard by which it makes sense to believe science over Christianity. I don't think there is one. I think it is ok to just believe scientific findings because they produce more convincing magic. They have convincing pictures of people walking on the moon and I have been on airplanes flying. I own a computer and a laser pointer. Thus far, I have never seen or talked to Jesus or any other religious icon. All we have for religion is stories in an old book and a string of "miracles" that have either been proven to be fake, or are otherwise just unconvincing (e.g. shroud of turin, etc).
Science has lots of confirmed miracles and religion has zero.
If you ask another person, he may have a different opinion of the situation.
The problem is that Christianity is quite contradictory. It teaches both love and hate. You could just as easily say "The Bible teaches hate, so if anyone tries teaching love, it's the opposite of Christianity". The fact that you choose to ignore the hateful parts of Christianity says more about about you than Christianity. There is enough of varying aspects of Christianity to give plenty of justification to both the hateful and loving Christians.
The same is true for most religions
What do you expect from a man made phenomenon? Why wouldn't it be full of contradictions and both good and evil? It just seems so unremarkable if 2 billion people didn't claim to believe it.
Actually I've studied numerous election systems from around the world. I have read lots of books on social choice theory (also sometimes called collective will), and I am currently working on my own election system that should be finished in a bout a year.
In my opinion, the problem with election financing is not that there is too much money spent on advertising. The problem is that the voters are actually swayed by this kind of advertising. If you take an electorate that would have been swayed by the biggest spender, and you limit spending, they will not all of a sudden start doing research and become informed. They will simply be swayable by a different candidate for still the wrong reasons.
Even if you give equal public funding to the top 4 parties. That just means that these 4 parties have a much bigger advantage over anyone else. In the United States we have 1 party called the republicrats, and if this system of public funding were instituted, they would get 100% of the public funding. They could maintain their stranglehold on US politics without spending as much money.
The real solution is to get an electorate that cares enough about the outcome of the election, that bad candidates don't stand a chance, and big money can't influence them to vote in a way that is harmful to society. If you don't think this is possible, then we are already doomed.
Of course I do - but I also am sure to give something of what I have to those who have much less. It doesn't change my life significantly but it does change theirs. It doesn't really take a lot to make a big difference in the life of a family in a third world country (I travel a lot).
Which is exactly what I was saying
we can just do something better than nothing and something less than everything, and try to enjoy ourselves before we die
Sure it's easy to help 1 family in africa. I donate to Doctors without borders. I help lots of african families. I don't help them achieve the same quality of life that I have. I don't help so many african families that I can't maintain my life of extreme comfort relative to them. I only help pay for some families to get treated for some easily treated diseases.
I am saying we should not take the attitude that we are responsible for alleviating suffering until all suffering is eliminated. We should not stop enjoying life by spending resources on ourselves until everyone with less than us is brought up to our quality of life. Because if we did that we would be as miserable as the people in the 3rd world we are trying to help. Why is that bad? Because I am selfish. Some people would say this attitude is evil, and that it is the selfish attitude of the haves to rationalize taking a bigger piece of the pie than the have nots.
Yes public funding of elections is really good if you want to keep the 2 party system status quo that has served us so well. I don't suppose many candidates outside republicans or democrats gets millions of dollars for their campaigns.
Over half of scientists believe in God. You're saying the 2/3rds of thye world's population and over half of its scientists are stupid?
yes
You're saying that 2/3rds of the world's population can't be wrong?
*That's* stupid.
By this logic, I could just divide the world into different religions. 2/3rds of the world is not chrsitians. Since 2/3's of the worlds population can;t be wrong, it means Christianity is wrong. 5/6th of the world is not muslim, so that means Islam is wrong.
Is it wrong to support someone who has a net negative effect, or is it wrong to support someone who does anything bad?
What other qualities might cause someone supporting them to be evil?
not supporting gay marriage? not supporting drug prohibition? supporting drug prohibition? Supporting the wars? Supporting Edward Snowden? Not supporting Edward Snowden? Believeing that 80% of the people on earth are going to hell? Believing that bible is wrong about who goes to hell?
How do you even know what the net effect of someone's actions are? This is one of the main problems with pure utilitarianism.
I don't see how it is evil to raise money for the campaign of a politician that helps you. I see how it *can* be evil, if the thing he/she is helping you to do is evil, or if the politician is evil.
I don't think being a climate change denier makes a person evil. It probably makes them stupid. But in all honesty, how many politicians are *not* stupid? What percentage of politicians believe in God? This makes 99+% of politicians in America stupid, or at liars pretending to be stupid, or both.
In a perfect world I would say that we should consider any kind of campaign contributions from anyone to be evil, but what's the alternative?
Force people to donate to all campaigns (i.e. public funding)?
Only allow donations from certain people (e.g. non evil people without agendas)?
If we are going to step outside the world we live in when we start labeling people evil, I am going to say that anyone who doesn't donate 100% of their profits to charity is evil, and therefore 99.9999% of Americans are evil, including google. Every dinner out, or new phone is a wasted opportunity to save a child or children in Africa. Every item of luxury that you enjoy is at the expense of someone else's necessities going unfulfilled.
We can either go through life constantly plagued with guilt even if we do our best, because it's never good enough, or we can just do something better than nothing and something less than everything, and try to enjoy ourselves before we die, and simply refuse to accept 100% complete responsibility for every bad thing that happens to someone else.
The only issue would be if one of them stops R&D and the other is able to make a new chip that has like twice the performance per watt. If that happens, then even if the older chip is free, the electricity savings of the new chip can make it a better long term investment even if it costs $200.
It is all over Slashdot. Every time the subject of immunization comes up. They don't specifically call out the chicken pox vaccine. The call for punishing people for not getting any of the recommended vaccines. That would include the chicken pox vaccine.
Yes, so why are you specifically calling out the chicken pox vaccine? That's like saying we shouldn't follow fire saftey regulations and pointing out one regulation that is not necessary. It doesn't prove that they are all unnecessary.
You are rationalizing again. You say that home cooked meals CAN be safer, and in practice eating out is less healthy. You are not using the same criteria to judge both activities.
Actually I am judging them by the same criteria. I am saying that they are both safe as their death rates are negligible. I pointed out that home cooked meals *can* be safer just like how outing out *can* be healthier. If we treat the best case scenario both are healthy. If we treat the worst case scenario they are both unhealthy. They are the same.
There is not a safer way to not get a vaccine in the same way that there is a safer way to cook meals at home or a healthier way to eat out.
Not getting vaccines in general (i.e. none of them, (not just chicken pox)) is a serious public safety issue. Vaccines are a big reason we no longer have high childhood mortality rates.
Should chicken pox be included as a necessary vaccine? I don't know. I am not an expert on the costs and benefits of this particular vaccine.
People cite the low prevalence of diseases as a good reason to stop using vaccines. They seem to fail to realize that the low prevalence of diseases is largely due to vaccines.
you will see a point where chips get to a stable price, and don't change from there on.
Yes but given the fact that the price of computer chips is almost entirely the price of R&D to design the chips and the initial investment of building a fab, that stable price will be almost 0.
The material costs of a CPU are almost zero. The skilled human labor is used to design new chips and upgrade fabs for the new designs. If the designs stay the same, the fabs can stay the same. The only skilled human labor will be to repair the machines when they break. The only unskilled labor will be to put the finished products into the trucks.
The only reason this didn't already happen is because it was cheaper to spend a lot of money on a more efficient cpu in order to save money on electricity costs. Once we hit a wall (even if it is temporary), we will see prices drop dramatically as "the best we can do (for now)" requires almost no additional human effort.
Then once some new innovation comes out as the result of some crazy R&D, like home quantum computers or 3D chips/memory, or graphene flux capacitors, then the price will jump back up to recoup R&D costs and pay for futurue improvements.
You are the first person I have ever heard mention the idea of forcing people to get the chicken pox vaccine. I don't doubt that others have said it, but I don't feel like this is "common".
I have heard a lot about the vaccine debate in the context of parents refusing to inoculate their kids because of fear of a link with autism, but this is not specific to chicken pox, and I believe there is an argument to be made that refusing certain vaccines is creating an unnecessary public safety risk for both the child in question and other children as well as adults.
I think it's absurd to consider "home cooking" high risk. Eating out isn't necessarily less healthy, but it is in practice. You say it's possible to eat out in a healthy manner. This is true. But it is also true that you can eat a home cooked meal in a much safer way as well. (e.g. handling of raw meat, observing expiriation dates, following fire safety rules, etc). The fact that home cooked meals are a bit more risky than they should be is also just incidental rather than necessary.
I really don't understand what point you are trying to make with this example... If the death rates for both are negligible, it doesn't matter if one is 3 times the other.
Second of all, why would you single out the chicken pox vaccine? Chicken pox in children is relatively low risk to begin with, so we wouldn't tolerate even a modest death rate. The alternative to home cooked meals is eating out everyday. Even if the death rate from home cooked meals is 3 times that of chicken pox vaccine, it is not economical or healthy to eat out everyday. If everyone ate out for every meal, we'd probably have way more people dying of diabetes.
For diseases with a much worse consequences, like polio, measles, smallpox, whooping cough, it makes sense to tolerate a higher death rate.
One of the nice things about private insurance in a competitive market without regulations is that they will charge a price very corresponding very close to what the actual risk is. The problem with private insurance is that they do a little TOO good of a job (i.e. refusing to cover people with per-existing conditions).
It turns out that most people don;t really want a totally privatized health insurance system (e.g. one that would charge $4million per year for a little girl with leukimia). This is because we actually want our healthcare system to also work like a charity in cases where people are sick through no (or little) fault of their own, especially children. We just want some of the properties of privatization when it comes to charging people more for poor decisions that are known to increase the cost of healthcare as a measure to both cover costs and incentivize good choices.
The reason we want people to get vaccines is not only for their own health, but because a vaccinated population is a good defense against epidemics. As soon as a significant number of people opt out, it becomes more dangerous for the whole society. This is like keeping a bunch of dry brush in your backyard. It will not only raise the risk of your house burning down, but also your neighbor's house. So if we were to charge someone higher prices for keeping dry brush, we must calculate the increased risk to everybody's house not just the person in question.
Slashdot Mirror
I think anything you try to do to my computer via the internet should be legal. It is my responsibility to ensure that the software on my computer is secure.
I think breaking into my house and tampering with my computer should be illegal.
I realize this is not the way the law works now, but this is how I think it *should* work.
I didn't logic was science. I was asking how you made the jump. I accept that logical arguments can be made from known truths. What I am asking you is why you have decided to believe in logic. If you have decided that there is a good logical argument to believe in logic, then it is you who has resorted to a circular argument.
If I use your chemistry example, where you say mixing 2 chemicals also yields the same result. You say there is a good reason to believe this at the molecular level. What leads you to believe that the molecules will always behave in the same way for all eternity? It is a fundamental axiom of science that the universe is governed by laws and that these laws never change. You can't, by definition, prove that this is true, especially not with science. It is an axiom. You are supposed to just believe it.
If you believe the scientific method is a good way to test the truth of various claims about the universe, how do you test the scientific method itself as a valid method of determining truth? Is there an experiment you can do to prove the scientific method itself is correct? Is this experiment valid if you use the scientific method to do this test?
I will state that I wholeheartedly follow science. I am an atheist. But I do recognize that science and logic fall into the same problem that religion does. Christianity bestows divinity on the Bible and uses the Bible as proof of the divine. God is always provably true within the rules dictated by the religion.
For example: God is real because every blade of grass is a miracle and only God is capable of miracles.
To me this sounds like nonsense. But thats because I have already adopted a scientific world view. If I had adopted the world view that everything is a miracle and only God can perform miracles, then the claims of science to explain things with natural laws rather than a divine creator would seem ridiculous (and do to many religious people).
Believers of science, logic, and mathematics take axioms of those disciplines on faith. Christians take the Bible on faith. What's the difference? The only difference I can see is the results that can be produced by the practitioners of these disciplines. I don't see a fundamental differences of the claims themselves.
If Christians upon praying could do magic like shooting laser beams and bring back people from the dead, this would increase the credibility of their claims. But so far I consider their claims to be basically worthless. The claims of science are very convincing.
If you think past the teachings of Jesus described in the Bible. The rules of the universe. The ones that necessitated that the death of the purest human on earth needed to be killed in order for God to have a new relationship with man, is abhorrent. It is one thing if that was just the way things were. But they aren't. The Christian God decided they had to be the way. The Christian God decided that people who did not accept Jesus had to go to hell for eternity. This is his design. This God's moral standards do not even measure up to the moral standards of modern western civilization. I don't see any evidence of divinity in these ideas. To me this smells of bronze age thinking.
I can look up and investigate all the researchers, all their papers, as well as have a peer reviewed document to look at in the first place, reviewed by experts in the field. No faith required. The depth of conspiracy needed to have every single person in the pathway is as close to impossible as can be. But I would not assign it as 100 percent impossible. I have not the faitfh to do that.
So you made a jump form "every single person would have to be involved" to "therefore it is close to impossible". What did you use to make that jump? Was it Science? Can you use science to prove science? Logic? Even logic itself says that logic can;t be used to prove the correctness of logic. Logical axioms, by definition, have no evidence. They must be taken for granted. What is belief in something without evidence, but faith?
Honest question: how would you know if you were losing lots of talented developers? Not many people are going to speak up to let you know that your behavior is toxic. They'll just leave and take their skills elsewhere.
You can never know for sure in any scenario. Considering the success of the linux kernel, they don't have a shortage of talented developers. Maybe they would have much more without Linus et al, but I doubt it.
Slavery works. Human experimentation works. Spying on every citizen in the country works. Morality matters. Being rude to people on a mailing list really isn't a big deal, morality-wise, but let's not go saying that the ends always justify the means.
The ends absolutely justify the means. If you don't think this is true, then that means that you think there are no negative consequences to things like slavery, human experimentation, and spying.
What works depends on your goals. For example, if your goal is to live in a society with minimal suffering and maximal freedom, then slavery doesn't really work to well.
The "t" in "that's" should be capitalized and there should be no space before the exclamation point. You're whole family should die for your grammar Nazi fail!
First of all I said "The *Bible* teaches hate". I don't know why you chose to misinterpret what I said. The fact is that Christians could have simply omitted the old testament from their holy book. They chose to keep, and are therefore subject to criticisms of the old testament.
The "ancient Jewish scriptures" didn't simply acknowledge that hate existed. They are included in your Bible as the word of God, and command hate. If you don't think the old testament should be included in the Bible, maybe you should create your own sect of Christianity as many others have done.
Even if you did this, it wouldn't mean that Christianity was only love. It would only mean that your version of Christianity was only love. Everyone else's version would still be a mix of hate and love, until you converted them to your version.
Second of all, the new testament also has some pretty terrible stuff in it. On the whole it looks quite progressive compared to the old testament, but compared with modern sensibilities it is barbaric.
Thirdly it is all irrelevant anyway because it's not real. Religion evolves. The leaders will continue to have "divine revelations" of new scripture or new interpretations of scripture in order to continuously drag this antiquated mythology into the present, ever diluting and politically correcting it's message.
How much can you change Christianity and still have it count as Christianity? They've already gotten rid of genocide, slavery, mysogeny, through new interpretations. Maybe we can get rid of miracles and Jesus and God.
The new message can be this:
Sure Jesus was just a man. That's why his teachings were full of flaws that contradict our current knowledge and sense of morality. We modern Christians are able to fix these flaws in a way that we think Jesus (if he lived today) might approve. We still believe in the golden rule and being compassionate, but we've grown out of the idea of supernatural deities as childish and primitive.
Violence, whether it be physical intimidation, verbal threats or verbal abuse is not acceptable. Keep it professional on the mailing lists.
Not acceptable? By who's standards?
It's seems acceptable by the law in most countries that matter for the development of the linux kernel.
It seems acceptable by the main dude (Linus)
It seems acceptable by the developers, as they could have forked and started their own project with a more acceptable mailing list policy.
Who is it not acceptable to? and why can't those people make their own fork or simply not participate in the mailing list? (besides Sarah Sharp) If we were losing lots of talented developers because they just couldn't bear the mailing list, that would be a different story.
There is no absolute morality of the way things should be. There is what works. If you have a way to make something work better, no one is stopping you.
No, it isn't faith. It speaks to credibility. My lack of access to a particle accellerator, but accepting the results has nothing to do with faith. The work is there and documented, and I can access it.
How do you know that the documents are true? The virgin birth of Christ was documented as well.
You have faith that the scientific community is not one giant conspiracy. If everyone at CERN conspired to fabricate results, you have faith that one of them would blow the whistle and expose the fraud.
I have been looking for some kind of objective standard by which it makes sense to believe science over Christianity. I don't think there is one. I think it is ok to just believe scientific findings because they produce more convincing magic. They have convincing pictures of people walking on the moon and I have been on airplanes flying. I own a computer and a laser pointer. Thus far, I have never seen or talked to Jesus or any other religious icon. All we have for religion is stories in an old book and a string of "miracles" that have either been proven to be fake, or are otherwise just unconvincing (e.g. shroud of turin, etc).
Science has lots of confirmed miracles and religion has zero.
If you ask another person, he may have a different opinion of the situation.
It's all subjective.
The problem is that Christianity is quite contradictory. It teaches both love and hate. You could just as easily say "The Bible teaches hate, so if anyone tries teaching love, it's the opposite of Christianity". The fact that you choose to ignore the hateful parts of Christianity says more about about you than Christianity. There is enough of varying aspects of Christianity to give plenty of justification to both the hateful and loving Christians.
The same is true for most religions
What do you expect from a man made phenomenon? Why wouldn't it be full of contradictions and both good and evil? It just seems so unremarkable if 2 billion people didn't claim to believe it.
Actually I've studied numerous election systems from around the world. I have read lots of books on social choice theory (also sometimes called collective will), and I am currently working on my own election system that should be finished in a bout a year.
In my opinion, the problem with election financing is not that there is too much money spent on advertising. The problem is that the voters are actually swayed by this kind of advertising. If you take an electorate that would have been swayed by the biggest spender, and you limit spending, they will not all of a sudden start doing research and become informed. They will simply be swayable by a different candidate for still the wrong reasons.
Even if you give equal public funding to the top 4 parties. That just means that these 4 parties have a much bigger advantage over anyone else. In the United States we have 1 party called the republicrats, and if this system of public funding were instituted, they would get 100% of the public funding. They could maintain their stranglehold on US politics without spending as much money.
The real solution is to get an electorate that cares enough about the outcome of the election, that bad candidates don't stand a chance, and big money can't influence them to vote in a way that is harmful to society. If you don't think this is possible, then we are already doomed.
Of course I do - but I also am sure to give something of what I have to those who have much less. It doesn't change my life significantly but it does change theirs. It doesn't really take a lot to make a big difference in the life of a family in a third world country (I travel a lot).
Which is exactly what I was saying
we can just do something better than nothing and something less than everything, and try to enjoy ourselves before we die
Sure it's easy to help 1 family in africa. I donate to Doctors without borders. I help lots of african families. I don't help them achieve the same quality of life that I have. I don't help so many african families that I can't maintain my life of extreme comfort relative to them. I only help pay for some families to get treated for some easily treated diseases.
I am saying we should not take the attitude that we are responsible for alleviating suffering until all suffering is eliminated. We should not stop enjoying life by spending resources on ourselves until everyone with less than us is brought up to our quality of life. Because if we did that we would be as miserable as the people in the 3rd world we are trying to help. Why is that bad? Because I am selfish. Some people would say this attitude is evil, and that it is the selfish attitude of the haves to rationalize taking a bigger piece of the pie than the have nots.
morality is subjective
Yes public funding of elections is really good if you want to keep the 2 party system status quo that has served us so well. I don't suppose many candidates outside republicans or democrats gets millions of dollars for their campaigns.
Would you want this nutcase as president?
No, but, I didn't want any of the previous nutcases we've had either. What's the difference?
I don't believe in hell but I do believe in doing to help people improve their lot in life.
So you never act in your own interests?
Over half of scientists believe in God. You're saying the 2/3rds of thye world's population and over half of its scientists are stupid?
yes
You're saying that 2/3rds of the world's population can't be wrong?
*That's* stupid.
By this logic, I could just divide the world into different religions. 2/3rds of the world is not chrsitians. Since 2/3's of the worlds population can;t be wrong, it means Christianity is wrong. 5/6th of the world is not muslim, so that means Islam is wrong.
What are the results of his beliefs and actions?
Is it wrong to support someone who has a net negative effect, or is it wrong to support someone who does anything bad?
What other qualities might cause someone supporting them to be evil?
not supporting gay marriage? not supporting drug prohibition? supporting drug prohibition? Supporting the wars? Supporting Edward Snowden? Not supporting Edward Snowden? Believeing that 80% of the people on earth are going to hell? Believing that bible is wrong about who goes to hell?
How do you even know what the net effect of someone's actions are? This is one of the main problems with pure utilitarianism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilitarianism#Predicting_consequences
I don't see how it is evil to raise money for the campaign of a politician that helps you. I see how it *can* be evil, if the thing he/she is helping you to do is evil, or if the politician is evil.
I don't think being a climate change denier makes a person evil. It probably makes them stupid. But in all honesty, how many politicians are *not* stupid? What percentage of politicians believe in God? This makes 99+% of politicians in America stupid, or at liars pretending to be stupid, or both.
In a perfect world I would say that we should consider any kind of campaign contributions from anyone to be evil, but what's the alternative?
Force people to donate to all campaigns (i.e. public funding)?
Only allow donations from certain people (e.g. non evil people without agendas)?
If we are going to step outside the world we live in when we start labeling people evil, I am going to say that anyone who doesn't donate 100% of their profits to charity is evil, and therefore 99.9999% of Americans are evil, including google. Every dinner out, or new phone is a wasted opportunity to save a child or children in Africa. Every item of luxury that you enjoy is at the expense of someone else's necessities going unfulfilled.
We can either go through life constantly plagued with guilt even if we do our best, because it's never good enough, or we can just do something better than nothing and something less than everything, and try to enjoy ourselves before we die, and simply refuse to accept 100% complete responsibility for every bad thing that happens to someone else.
I kinda sucks, but I would rather enjoy my life.
The only issue would be if one of them stops R&D and the other is able to make a new chip that has like twice the performance per watt. If that happens, then even if the older chip is free, the electricity savings of the new chip can make it a better long term investment even if it costs $200.
It is all over Slashdot. Every time the subject of immunization comes up. They don't specifically call out the chicken pox vaccine. The call for punishing people for not getting any of the recommended vaccines. That would include the chicken pox vaccine.
Yes, so why are you specifically calling out the chicken pox vaccine? That's like saying we shouldn't follow fire saftey regulations and pointing out one regulation that is not necessary. It doesn't prove that they are all unnecessary.
You are rationalizing again. You say that home cooked meals CAN be safer, and in practice eating out is less healthy. You are not using the same criteria to judge both activities.
Actually I am judging them by the same criteria. I am saying that they are both safe as their death rates are negligible. I pointed out that home cooked meals *can* be safer just like how outing out *can* be healthier. If we treat the best case scenario both are healthy. If we treat the worst case scenario they are both unhealthy. They are the same.
There is not a safer way to not get a vaccine in the same way that there is a safer way to cook meals at home or a healthier way to eat out.
Not getting vaccines in general (i.e. none of them, (not just chicken pox)) is a serious public safety issue. Vaccines are a big reason we no longer have high childhood mortality rates.
Should chicken pox be included as a necessary vaccine? I don't know. I am not an expert on the costs and benefits of this particular vaccine.
People cite the low prevalence of diseases as a good reason to stop using vaccines. They seem to fail to realize that the low prevalence of diseases is largely due to vaccines.
you will see a point where chips get to a stable price, and don't change from there on.
Yes but given the fact that the price of computer chips is almost entirely the price of R&D to design the chips and the initial investment of building a fab, that stable price will be almost 0.
The material costs of a CPU are almost zero. The skilled human labor is used to design new chips and upgrade fabs for the new designs. If the designs stay the same, the fabs can stay the same. The only skilled human labor will be to repair the machines when they break. The only unskilled labor will be to put the finished products into the trucks.
The only reason this didn't already happen is because it was cheaper to spend a lot of money on a more efficient cpu in order to save money on electricity costs. Once we hit a wall (even if it is temporary), we will see prices drop dramatically as "the best we can do (for now)" requires almost no additional human effort.
Then once some new innovation comes out as the result of some crazy R&D, like home quantum computers or 3D chips/memory, or graphene flux capacitors, then the price will jump back up to recoup R&D costs and pay for futurue improvements.
You are the first person I have ever heard mention the idea of forcing people to get the chicken pox vaccine. I don't doubt that others have said it, but I don't feel like this is "common".
I have heard a lot about the vaccine debate in the context of parents refusing to inoculate their kids because of fear of a link with autism, but this is not specific to chicken pox, and I believe there is an argument to be made that refusing certain vaccines is creating an unnecessary public safety risk for both the child in question and other children as well as adults.
I think it's absurd to consider "home cooking" high risk. Eating out isn't necessarily less healthy, but it is in practice. You say it's possible to eat out in a healthy manner. This is true. But it is also true that you can eat a home cooked meal in a much safer way as well. (e.g. handling of raw meat, observing expiriation dates, following fire safety rules, etc). The fact that home cooked meals are a bit more risky than they should be is also just incidental rather than necessary.
I really don't understand what point you are trying to make with this example... If the death rates for both are negligible, it doesn't matter if one is 3 times the other.
Second of all, why would you single out the chicken pox vaccine? Chicken pox in children is relatively low risk to begin with, so we wouldn't tolerate even a modest death rate. The alternative to home cooked meals is eating out everyday. Even if the death rate from home cooked meals is 3 times that of chicken pox vaccine, it is not economical or healthy to eat out everyday. If everyone ate out for every meal, we'd probably have way more people dying of diabetes.
For diseases with a much worse consequences, like polio, measles, smallpox, whooping cough, it makes sense to tolerate a higher death rate.
One of the nice things about private insurance in a competitive market without regulations is that they will charge a price very corresponding very close to what the actual risk is. The problem with private insurance is that they do a little TOO good of a job (i.e. refusing to cover people with per-existing conditions).
It turns out that most people don;t really want a totally privatized health insurance system (e.g. one that would charge $4million per year for a little girl with leukimia). This is because we actually want our healthcare system to also work like a charity in cases where people are sick through no (or little) fault of their own, especially children. We just want some of the properties of privatization when it comes to charging people more for poor decisions that are known to increase the cost of healthcare as a measure to both cover costs and incentivize good choices.
The reason we want people to get vaccines is not only for their own health, but because a vaccinated population is a good defense against epidemics. As soon as a significant number of people opt out, it becomes more dangerous for the whole society. This is like keeping a bunch of dry brush in your backyard. It will not only raise the risk of your house burning down, but also your neighbor's house. So if we were to charge someone higher prices for keeping dry brush, we must calculate the increased risk to everybody's house not just the person in question.
Do I really need to cite the claim that doing things right the first time is cheaper than doing it wrong a bunch of times?
The artist formerly known as prince will not be affected, however "The artist formerly known as prince" will definitely be affected.