The fact that these candidates are the best that we as a country can muster is pretty pathetic. I know we have really thoughtful and intelligent people in this country, but for whatever reason, they don't seem to be able (or want) to compete with the horribly inept batch of clowns that we inevitably get.
America is basically like a very badly run company (e.g. like HP). The mediocre rise to the top. Actually Carly seems exactly like the sort of president we deserve. She can speak well enough to disguise the fact that what she is saying is completely retarded. Compare this skillset to Ted Cruz, Rick Perry, and Trump, and it makes her look like a teacher in a room full of shitty kids.
The fact that the cards still have a magstrip and numbers is not important. What the chip gives you is extra information.
If the credit card company sees that a purchase was made using the chip, they can be reasonably sure that whoever made that purchase was in physical access to the card.
If the credit card company sees that a purchase was made just using the printed info or the info on the mag strip, they know that people could have simply copied this information to make the purchase. At some point they may even refuse to accept those kinds of payments.
It is also probable that it will be common for consumers to own smart card readers to allow for safe online transactions. Even on a compromised computer, purchases will only be able to be made when the card is in the reader. This is analogous to giving your card to a waiter at a restaurant. They will only be able to charge the card when they are in physical possession of it. This is different than traditional cards where waiters can copy the information and make purchases in the future using that information.
The addition of a pin makes it hard for waiters and infected computers to make purchases even with physical access to the chip.
It's not black and white. VW could go under, be forced to sell the company to new owners, who may or may not decide to keep the VW workers and name. In the end it's possible that all the same workers are still making good cars, but just with new owners and new management. It might even still be called VW.
VW makes fantastic cars. Punishing the company so deeply that we lose VW, and Audi, and Porsche to boot? To what end? Who is going to benefit, other than lawyers?
A lot of people profited from VW while it was cheating. It seems only fair that those profits be used to restore those who were defrauded. It seems the best outcome would be to cut the head off VW and give it a new one.
I don't think it's the lying piece of shit executives who make VW cars great.
I think there is an expectation that a new car pass emissions test without cheating, especially one that is advertised being cleaner than typical cars.
They are definitely guilty of something. It just might not be a criminal offense. Just like how speeding tickets are not criminal offenses. That doesn't mean they are not guilty of breaking any laws.
Here are two modes of thinking when trying to solve a problem:
Scenario A: Duty based approach:
1. Determine who is responsible/at fault/to blame
2. Make that person(s) responsible for bearing the burden to fix the problem.
3. Identify the best solution to the problem in which only those blameworthy people are burdened
This approach seeks to apply to burden of fixing a problem in a fair way (i.e. to the person who caused the problem)
Scenario B: Outcome based approach:
1. Identify the solution that leads to the best outcome regardless of who is to blame
This approach seeks to achieve the best outcome, even if burden's are placed on people who don't necessarily deserve them.
What I am advocating is scenario B. And I think I should note, that the solution arrived at in scenario B might be the same solution as that arrived at by Scenario A. For example the best solution to the problem of hedge fund managers stealing money is to find out who stole the money and make those people repay as much of the stolen money as possible. This hopefully would not only work towards righting a wrong, but also serve as a deterrent to bad behavior.
But in some situations you get a better outcome by placing the burden of fixing a problem on those better suited to fix it, rather than on the person who caused the problem. There is a value to making people face the consequences of their actions in terms of fostering good behavior, but this has a limit. A child who accidentally breaks a window and must work all summer to pay for a new window might learn a valuable lesson. A child who accidentally burns down a house is not going to learn much more by being forced to spend his/her whole life trying to pay back a $500,000 debt that's continually accruing.
If we make the fair punishment for being a bad parent be "your children will be bad parents" (i.e. because that's what they deserve for being bad parents), we create a society with a bunch of bad people. This isn't good for them, or the other people in society. If we instead treat these people with compassion and ignore the idea that they are the ones responsible for fixing their own problems and making sure their children are raised right, maybe we can break the cycle and simply have a higher percentage of good people in society.
Recently I was involved in an incident where an 80 year old man punched an 18 year old kid in the mouth nearly unprovoked, and escaped into a big crowd. The initial reaction that people had was we have to go catch that 80 year old man and make him pay for what he did. Eventually when people calmed down, I (think) I convinced them that what really needs to happen, is that this man's family needs to be made aware of what he's done, so he can get the proper help. He was clearly mentally unstable, and a danger to others and maybe also himself. Maybe there are some situations where a good ass kicking is what's needed to teach someone a lesson, but I don't think this is one of those cases.
I think ensuring that a child has as good of an upbringing as possible should take priority even if it means sacrificing the possibility that his/her parents pay for their actions (e.g. being bad parents).
Just like I think that making sure this 80 year old guy is not allowed to hurt himself and others should take priority over punching him in the face as retribution.
Until there is a way to feasibly copy the data on the chip, encryption doesn't really buy you anything. I think we should probably still do it, as it's probably not that expensive (we already know how to do it).
I'm just saying that this alone is pretty secure especially compared to magnetic strips.
The whole point of the chip is that you can't skim it (e.g. you can't simply read the information and make a fake card that outputs the same info).
Sure there is no law of physics that says you can't copy the chip in theory, compared to magnetic stripes which are designed to be read to even work, their is currently no easy way to copy a computer chip.
Comparing the security of a magnetic stripe to a smart chip is like comparing the security of a paper document folded in half to an encrypted digital file. Sure there is no guarantee that the encryption can't be broken at some point in the future, but it is almost incalculably more secure than hoping no one unfolds the document and reads it.
i think we are using the term blame differently. it seems you are using it in a way where blame is something bad, meaning someone or something failed.
I am definitely using the word blame in the sense which implies a failure of moral responsibility, which I believe is the most common sense of the word.
Im simply using the term blame to mean the root of the issue.
This is also a valid sense of the word blame, but I don't think bad parenting is (or even could be) the root cause of the problem. It is certainly *a* cause, but bad parenting is clearly a result of prior causes, and hence not a root cause.
We can blame a parent for not being there for a child, however it doesnt mean we dont understand that they are in reality doing the best they can for their children, they love their children
It's hard for me to read this sentence without inferring that the parent is morally responsible for the upbringing of their child, and despite loving their child and doing their best, their best is still just not good enough, and this bad situation is their fault.
if we use the word blame to educate, and not insult it works perfectly fine
It is also very hard for me to hear the word blame in a way that seems conducive to education. In fact it is often the opposite (e.g. "We are not blaming you for X, but here are some things you can do to prevent X from happening in the future").
And I would also point out that school is already a place where people are educated, but it is not always easy to educate people when they are not in a state conducive to receiving education.
Also, it is possible that no one is to blame. I think often problems have no blameworthy target, and trying to find one is simply a distraction to solving the problem.
Like trying to figure out who is to blame when a flood destroys a city. There could be a corrupt politician who profited at the expense of proper levies, or it could just be that it simply rained much more than anyone could have expected. At some point trying to find out who is responsible and holding that person accountable is just no longer beneficial.
I think it's fair to expect a relatively normal intelligence human adult to be able to exercise impulse control and understand the consequences of their actions.
Clearly we have lots of adults who do not meet these expectations, and I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that they are a product of their genetics and environment. The alternative is to say they don't meet these expectations because of some internal moral failing. Do they have a bad soul? Even if so, did they choose to have a bad soul?
So you can't really say "Yeah but when they were kids, x y z happened, so now the adults are blameless."
I can say that, and I am saying that.
I am not saying that as a way to deflect blame (e.g. to someone or something else). I am saying that the concept of blame is not the best way to frame this situation, in the same way that holding a trial for a shark that bit a surfer, and then finding that shark guilty of assault with a deadly weapon and sentencing the shark to prison doesn't make any sense.
For a long time, blame was our best tool to deter bad behavior, but the more we learn about how the brain works, I think the more we see the weaknesses of this approach.
So rather than blaming and punishing and blaming parents for raising their kids wrong (in the hopes that they will be deterred from doing so), I think we should be focused on breaking this cycle in a way that does not rely on damaged adults to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and simply become better people through sheer force of will.
Blame is not the same as cause. A shark can be the cause of a bitten surfer, but that doesn't mean the shark is blameworthy. You can ascertain causes without subscribing to an ethical system that relies on blame.
That's not to say that I don't think certain people are blameworthy. I just don't think bad parents are blame worthy especially when they are a direct result of their own bad parents. If bad parenting has any negative consequences, surely raising children who themselves will grow up to be bad parents is one of them.
Blaming bad parents for the how their children turn out is just blaming children for their own upbringing 30 years after the fact.
"very partially"? As opposed to "slightly partially"?. Heritable is a genetic term. A heritability of 0.5 would mean that if 2 smart people had a 4 kids, on average 2 would be smart because their parents were smart, 1 would be smart for other reasons, and 1 would be dumb.
People have this fetish for tests because they are under the delusion that they were created by people who know what and how to measure what they think is important for scoring people's ability of a certain skill or aptitude.
No, it's because they want an objective measurement, rather than subjective one.
Even a test that asks kids about rappers and ebonics is still objective, even if it is biased.
You may not like the tests or think they are testing the right things, but you still need tests. The alternative is to allow a system of favoritism.
Its not the child's fault he has shit parents, it's also not the schools fault. You are a product of your environment. They should start with parenting. More black people tend to come from broken homes. Blame the deadbeat dads and moms who skip out.
It's easy to stop the blame there. Those deadbeat dads and moms, were once children who came from broken homes who, though no fault of their own, had shitty parents.
I don't think assigning blame (even if it were done correctly) is going to fix anything.
Slashdot Mirror
The fact that these candidates are the best that we as a country can muster is pretty pathetic. I know we have really thoughtful and intelligent people in this country, but for whatever reason, they don't seem to be able (or want) to compete with the horribly inept batch of clowns that we inevitably get.
America is basically like a very badly run company (e.g. like HP). The mediocre rise to the top. Actually Carly seems exactly like the sort of president we deserve. She can speak well enough to disguise the fact that what she is saying is completely retarded. Compare this skillset to Ted Cruz, Rick Perry, and Trump, and it makes her look like a teacher in a room full of shitty kids.
If you bought an HP product, then Jobs was only the 2nd person to mug you after HP.
I think this comment is a weakly disguised hit piece on this article.
How about 2 years of high credit scores.
I have no idea...
The fact that the cards still have a magstrip and numbers is not important. What the chip gives you is extra information.
If the credit card company sees that a purchase was made using the chip, they can be reasonably sure that whoever made that purchase was in physical access to the card.
If the credit card company sees that a purchase was made just using the printed info or the info on the mag strip, they know that people could have simply copied this information to make the purchase. At some point they may even refuse to accept those kinds of payments.
It is also probable that it will be common for consumers to own smart card readers to allow for safe online transactions. Even on a compromised computer, purchases will only be able to be made when the card is in the reader. This is analogous to giving your card to a waiter at a restaurant. They will only be able to charge the card when they are in physical possession of it. This is different than traditional cards where waiters can copy the information and make purchases in the future using that information.
The addition of a pin makes it hard for waiters and infected computers to make purchases even with physical access to the chip.
Electric cars don't emit anything, and hybrid cars in electric mode don;t emit anything.
Is it really necessary to include in every test the phrase "Your test results are not invalid if you cheat on this test"? I would say this is implied.
They could just turn the engine off during emissions tests and get a zero emissions rating. Does that meet the letter of the law in your opinion?
He would prefer everyone biked everywhere, even if it meant millions of people starve to death due to lack of transportation infrastructure.
It's not black and white. VW could go under, be forced to sell the company to new owners, who may or may not decide to keep the VW workers and name. In the end it's possible that all the same workers are still making good cars, but just with new owners and new management. It might even still be called VW.
VW makes fantastic cars. Punishing the company so deeply that we lose VW, and Audi, and Porsche to boot? To what end? Who is going to benefit, other than lawyers?
A lot of people profited from VW while it was cheating. It seems only fair that those profits be used to restore those who were defrauded. It seems the best outcome would be to cut the head off VW and give it a new one.
I don't think it's the lying piece of shit executives who make VW cars great.
I think there is an expectation that a new car pass emissions test without cheating, especially one that is advertised being cleaner than typical cars.
Or it could be that there is source code that looks like: if (emmissionsTest.isDetected()) engineMode.set(PROFILE_CLEAN);
Good software developers usually have very descriptive source code.
They are definitely guilty of something. It just might not be a criminal offense. Just like how speeding tickets are not criminal offenses. That doesn't mean they are not guilty of breaking any laws.
You don't have to vote for a party. You are fee to vote for anyone you want in any election.
Here are two modes of thinking when trying to solve a problem:
Scenario A: Duty based approach:
1. Determine who is responsible/at fault/to blame
2. Make that person(s) responsible for bearing the burden to fix the problem.
3. Identify the best solution to the problem in which only those blameworthy people are burdened
This approach seeks to apply to burden of fixing a problem in a fair way (i.e. to the person who caused the problem)
Scenario B: Outcome based approach:
1. Identify the solution that leads to the best outcome regardless of who is to blame
This approach seeks to achieve the best outcome, even if burden's are placed on people who don't necessarily deserve them.
What I am advocating is scenario B. And I think I should note, that the solution arrived at in scenario B might be the same solution as that arrived at by Scenario A. For example the best solution to the problem of hedge fund managers stealing money is to find out who stole the money and make those people repay as much of the stolen money as possible. This hopefully would not only work towards righting a wrong, but also serve as a deterrent to bad behavior.
But in some situations you get a better outcome by placing the burden of fixing a problem on those better suited to fix it, rather than on the person who caused the problem. There is a value to making people face the consequences of their actions in terms of fostering good behavior, but this has a limit. A child who accidentally breaks a window and must work all summer to pay for a new window might learn a valuable lesson. A child who accidentally burns down a house is not going to learn much more by being forced to spend his/her whole life trying to pay back a $500,000 debt that's continually accruing.
If we make the fair punishment for being a bad parent be "your children will be bad parents" (i.e. because that's what they deserve for being bad parents), we create a society with a bunch of bad people. This isn't good for them, or the other people in society. If we instead treat these people with compassion and ignore the idea that they are the ones responsible for fixing their own problems and making sure their children are raised right, maybe we can break the cycle and simply have a higher percentage of good people in society.
Recently I was involved in an incident where an 80 year old man punched an 18 year old kid in the mouth nearly unprovoked, and escaped into a big crowd. The initial reaction that people had was we have to go catch that 80 year old man and make him pay for what he did. Eventually when people calmed down, I (think) I convinced them that what really needs to happen, is that this man's family needs to be made aware of what he's done, so he can get the proper help. He was clearly mentally unstable, and a danger to others and maybe also himself. Maybe there are some situations where a good ass kicking is what's needed to teach someone a lesson, but I don't think this is one of those cases.
I think ensuring that a child has as good of an upbringing as possible should take priority even if it means sacrificing the possibility that his/her parents pay for their actions (e.g. being bad parents).
Just like I think that making sure this 80 year old guy is not allowed to hurt himself and others should take priority over punching him in the face as retribution.
The US chips will be cracked in a matter of a months, maybe a more, and we gain almost nothing
1000 years is still 12000 months, so your claim is basically unfalsifiable
Until there is a way to feasibly copy the data on the chip, encryption doesn't really buy you anything. I think we should probably still do it, as it's probably not that expensive (we already know how to do it).
I'm just saying that this alone is pretty secure especially compared to magnetic strips.
The whole point of the chip is that you can't skim it (e.g. you can't simply read the information and make a fake card that outputs the same info).
Sure there is no law of physics that says you can't copy the chip in theory, compared to magnetic stripes which are designed to be read to even work, their is currently no easy way to copy a computer chip.
Comparing the security of a magnetic stripe to a smart chip is like comparing the security of a paper document folded in half to an encrypted digital file. Sure there is no guarantee that the encryption can't be broken at some point in the future, but it is almost incalculably more secure than hoping no one unfolds the document and reads it.
i think we are using the term blame differently. it seems you are using it in a way where blame is something bad, meaning someone or something failed.
I am definitely using the word blame in the sense which implies a failure of moral responsibility, which I believe is the most common sense of the word.
Im simply using the term blame to mean the root of the issue.
This is also a valid sense of the word blame, but I don't think bad parenting is (or even could be) the root cause of the problem. It is certainly *a* cause, but bad parenting is clearly a result of prior causes, and hence not a root cause.
We can blame a parent for not being there for a child, however it doesnt mean we dont understand that they are in reality doing the best they can for their children, they love their children
It's hard for me to read this sentence without inferring that the parent is morally responsible for the upbringing of their child, and despite loving their child and doing their best, their best is still just not good enough, and this bad situation is their fault.
if we use the word blame to educate, and not insult it works perfectly fine
It is also very hard for me to hear the word blame in a way that seems conducive to education. In fact it is often the opposite (e.g. "We are not blaming you for X, but here are some things you can do to prevent X from happening in the future").
And I would also point out that school is already a place where people are educated, but it is not always easy to educate people when they are not in a state conducive to receiving education.
Also, it is possible that no one is to blame. I think often problems have no blameworthy target, and trying to find one is simply a distraction to solving the problem.
Like trying to figure out who is to blame when a flood destroys a city. There could be a corrupt politician who profited at the expense of proper levies, or it could just be that it simply rained much more than anyone could have expected. At some point trying to find out who is responsible and holding that person accountable is just no longer beneficial.
I think it's fair to expect a relatively normal intelligence human adult to be able to exercise impulse control and understand the consequences of their actions.
Clearly we have lots of adults who do not meet these expectations, and I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that they are a product of their genetics and environment. The alternative is to say they don't meet these expectations because of some internal moral failing. Do they have a bad soul? Even if so, did they choose to have a bad soul?
So you can't really say "Yeah but when they were kids, x y z happened, so now the adults are blameless."
I can say that, and I am saying that.
I am not saying that as a way to deflect blame (e.g. to someone or something else). I am saying that the concept of blame is not the best way to frame this situation, in the same way that holding a trial for a shark that bit a surfer, and then finding that shark guilty of assault with a deadly weapon and sentencing the shark to prison doesn't make any sense.
For a long time, blame was our best tool to deter bad behavior, but the more we learn about how the brain works, I think the more we see the weaknesses of this approach.
So rather than blaming and punishing and blaming parents for raising their kids wrong (in the hopes that they will be deterred from doing so), I think we should be focused on breaking this cycle in a way that does not rely on damaged adults to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and simply become better people through sheer force of will.
Blame is not the same as cause. A shark can be the cause of a bitten surfer, but that doesn't mean the shark is blameworthy. You can ascertain causes without subscribing to an ethical system that relies on blame.
That's not to say that I don't think certain people are blameworthy. I just don't think bad parents are blame worthy especially when they are a direct result of their own bad parents. If bad parenting has any negative consequences, surely raising children who themselves will grow up to be bad parents is one of them.
Blaming bad parents for the how their children turn out is just blaming children for their own upbringing 30 years after the fact.
"very partially"? As opposed to "slightly partially"?. Heritable is a genetic term. A heritability of 0.5 would mean that if 2 smart people had a 4 kids, on average 2 would be smart because their parents were smart, 1 would be smart for other reasons, and 1 would be dumb.
People have this fetish for tests because they are under the delusion that they were created by people who know what and how to measure what they think is important for scoring people's ability of a certain skill or aptitude.
No, it's because they want an objective measurement, rather than subjective one.
Even a test that asks kids about rappers and ebonics is still objective, even if it is biased.
You may not like the tests or think they are testing the right things, but you still need tests. The alternative is to allow a system of favoritism.
Its not the child's fault he has shit parents, it's also not the schools fault. You are a product of your environment. They should start with parenting. More black people tend to come from broken homes. Blame the deadbeat dads and moms who skip out.
It's easy to stop the blame there. Those deadbeat dads and moms, were once children who came from broken homes who, though no fault of their own, had shitty parents.
I don't think assigning blame (even if it were done correctly) is going to fix anything.