There is a story where a Swedish government minister visited the US. He boasted about his country's 0% poverty rate and attributed it to his government's social policies. His American counterpart replied that poverty among Americans of Swedish descent is also 0%.
Not that free health care etc. are not a good idea, but I don't think they have much relation to the incarceration rate.
I don't understand the difficulty. If you have to study creationism as a "'falsifiable alternative", then study it, and falsify it. Oh, so the crackpots won't give you any more grants after producing a result they don't like? So what - you were going to turn down their grant money anyway.
Or you could just let murderers rot in jail, thus avoiding both trauma and the rather unfortunate idea that life is a privilege that is subject to revocation by the state at its will
What about the unfortunate idea that freedom is a privilege subject to revocation by the state at its will?
Capital punishment is an infringement on a right possessed by non-criminals, but so is imprisonment...
Instead, I'm going to rent one. For half an hour each morning and half an hour each evening. In between, the car will drive other people to their destinations. It will never (well, rarely) be parked on a street curb or in a garage just taking up space. It will function like a taxi, except MUCH cheaper since by far the largest expense in taxis is the driver's salary.
That's the future. Owning your own autonomous car will still be possible, but why would you do it when you can have the same convenience from a shared vehicle at a fraction of the cost?
Most of the Indians were killed by diseases unintentionally spread by Europeans. That's tragic, but not exactly genocide. If the Indians had happened to suffer from equally lethal diseases, there would have been a much higher death toll in the Old World.
And Spanish priests and bishops were among the strongest opponents of human rights abuses in the colonies, so it's a little strange to attribute those abuses to Christianity. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartolom%C3%A9_de_las_Casas
Blackmail is indeed a big unsolved problem. But the NSA isn't the only organization that can blackmail you. What if Google or Facebook decides to spread rumors about you? OK, I know, you're a card carrying geek so you run your own email server and don't use Facebook. But most people, including politicians, are not and likely never will be like that.
One of the major objections to intervening against Assad was that the state might collapse and chemical weapons would be seized by non-government groups including terrorists.
If this chemical weapon destruction is successful and complete (a big if), then it will be less complicated to intervene in Syria in the future.
then most patents are the result of individual efforts, rather than some overarching corporate vision. Some guy at Google has an idea, good or bad. Either he thinks it will actually help Google's business, or he thinks having a patent on his resume/job description will help his career, or he just like the feeling of having a patent. So he submits it to Google's patent/IP branch. There the lawyers decide if it's worth patenting. If they reject it, they run the risk of dealing with one unhappy patent submitter, possibly with high-up connections in the company, for all they know. So they lean towards approving the patent. Thus you occasionally end up with all sorts of patents being approved, including some that make you think "Why on earth would the company care about this?"
During the second world war when the Nazis used slave labour from concentration camps they fed the slave on potato peels and vegetable top waste from the soldiers mess kitchens. When the SS doctors suddenly realized that the slaves that were there to be worked to death were actually getting to be healthier than the soldiers the practice was stopped and the slaves were then put on a deliberate starvation diet.
When Israel threatened to dump their cache on the market, DeBeers practically bought the country.
Funny, the last three conspiracy theories I read online where about a cabal of Jews controlling the markets, not a cabal of monopolists controlling the Jews...
Exactly. An American citizen who is in favor of limited government, federalism, separation of powers etc. should also be against concentrating control of the internet in any one body's hands.
...but isn't man's disruption of the natural processes that keep the population in check a direct contributor to the world overpopulation problem?
No, On the contrary, population is increasing rapidly in Africa now, and is stable or dropping in all Western countries. Without exception, economic development has led to women's education which has led to near-replacement or below-replacement birthrates. Improving Africans' health will lead to a small temporary gain in population, and a much larger drop later on. The longer you wait for economic development, the larger the population and environmental impact will be later on.
Many of these people have lived generations in their current environment, so why does a first world country believe they have the right to disrupt nature in such a drastic way?
These people are not "nature". They are human beings like us, and they massively impact their environment. In many ways, they cause more of an impact than we do (they don't have much of an environmental movement, for example).
So a first world country solves the woodstove problem, thereby decreasing mortality rates. Are they prepared to then step in and deal with inadequate water supplies, increases in loss of arable lands, higher rates of infant mortality, and other side effects of overpopulation?
Like I said, solving the woodstove problem is one step in the road to a lower population. But even if that weren't the case, have you thought about the moral aspect of letting people die when it's in your power to save their lives?
But you'd have to prevent knowledge of the backdoor from leaking. Hundreds of engineers work on each CPU, each group produces and verifies a new CPU design every year or so, there is considerable employee turnover every few years, and nobody has ever reported such a thing. So I find it unlikely.
Disclaimer: I work as a hardware engineer for a major CPU manufacturer.
Slashdot Mirror
Now they just need to provide cheap bread...
There is a story where a Swedish government minister visited the US. He boasted about his country's 0% poverty rate and attributed it to his government's social policies. His American counterpart replied that poverty among Americans of Swedish descent is also 0%.
Not that free health care etc. are not a good idea, but I don't think they have much relation to the incarceration rate.
If he's earning less than about $100k/year, he won't have to pay or evade any US taxes. He will have to submit a tax return though.
http://taxes.about.com/od/taxhelp/a/ForeignIncome.htm
If so, then I'm NOT interested in this.
I don't understand the difficulty. If you have to study creationism as a "'falsifiable alternative", then study it, and falsify it. Oh, so the crackpots won't give you any more grants after producing a result they don't like? So what - you were going to turn down their grant money anyway.
Or you could just let murderers rot in jail, thus avoiding both trauma and the rather unfortunate idea that life is a privilege that is subject to revocation by the state at its will
What about the unfortunate idea that freedom is a privilege subject to revocation by the state at its will?
Capital punishment is an infringement on a right possessed by non-criminals, but so is imprisonment...
Instead, I'm going to rent one. For half an hour each morning and half an hour each evening. In between, the car will drive other people to their destinations. It will never (well, rarely) be parked on a street curb or in a garage just taking up space. It will function like a taxi, except MUCH cheaper since by far the largest expense in taxis is the driver's salary.
That's the future. Owning your own autonomous car will still be possible, but why would you do it when you can have the same convenience from a shared vehicle at a fraction of the cost?
Most of the Indians were killed by diseases unintentionally spread by Europeans. That's tragic, but not exactly genocide. If the Indians had happened to suffer from equally lethal diseases, there would have been a much higher death toll in the Old World.
And Spanish priests and bishops were among the strongest opponents of human rights abuses in the colonies, so it's a little strange to attribute those abuses to Christianity.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartolom%C3%A9_de_las_Casas
Yes, there is no excuse for not installing a free program - except that you may not have Admin rights on the machine or other IT issues.
That's why they invented portable apps.
I've seen code that was designed to use genetic algorithms. I've yet to see such code generate itself.
I take it you're still a virgin.
Anyone can buy a phone. So it's a public system with a relatively high entry cost.
Blackmail is indeed a big unsolved problem. But the NSA isn't the only organization that can blackmail you. What if Google or Facebook decides to spread rumors about you? OK, I know, you're a card carrying geek so you run your own email server and don't use Facebook. But most people, including politicians, are not and likely never will be like that.
xkcd 902
And yet, most of us consider killing a deer or quail for pleasure to be OK...
One of the major objections to intervening against Assad was that the state might collapse and chemical weapons would be seized by non-government groups including terrorists.
If this chemical weapon destruction is successful and complete (a big if), then it will be less complicated to intervene in Syria in the future.
then most patents are the result of individual efforts, rather than some overarching corporate vision. Some guy at Google has an idea, good or bad. Either he thinks it will actually help Google's business, or he thinks having a patent on his resume/job description will help his career, or he just like the feeling of having a patent. So he submits it to Google's patent/IP branch. There the lawyers decide if it's worth patenting. If they reject it, they run the risk of dealing with one unhappy patent submitter, possibly with high-up connections in the company, for all they know. So they lean towards approving the patent. Thus you occasionally end up with all sorts of patents being approved, including some that make you think "Why on earth would the company care about this?"
What about Belgium?
During the second world war when the Nazis used slave labour from concentration camps they fed the slave on potato peels and vegetable top waste from the soldiers mess kitchens. When the SS doctors suddenly realized that the slaves that were there to be worked to death were actually getting to be healthier than the soldiers the practice was stopped and the slaves were then put on a deliberate starvation diet.
Interesting but [citation needed]
When Israel threatened to dump their cache on the market, DeBeers practically bought the country.
Funny, the last three conspiracy theories I read online where about a cabal of Jews controlling the markets, not a cabal of monopolists controlling the Jews...
Exactly. An American citizen who is in favor of limited government, federalism, separation of powers etc. should also be against concentrating control of the internet in any one body's hands.
I used to be a high school social studies teacher. *EVERY* problem in the classroom is solvable with a properly trained and experienced teacher.
No true Scotsman^W^W properly trained teacher would be unable to solve a problem in the classroom.
...but isn't man's disruption of the natural processes that keep the population in check a direct contributor to the world overpopulation problem?
No, On the contrary, population is increasing rapidly in Africa now, and is stable or dropping in all Western countries. Without exception, economic development has led to women's education which has led to near-replacement or below-replacement birthrates. Improving Africans' health will lead to a small temporary gain in population, and a much larger drop later on. The longer you wait for economic development, the larger the population and environmental impact will be later on.
Many of these people have lived generations in their current environment, so why does a first world country believe they have the right to disrupt nature in such a drastic way?
These people are not "nature". They are human beings like us, and they massively impact their environment. In many ways, they cause more of an impact than we do (they don't have much of an environmental movement, for example).
So a first world country solves the woodstove problem, thereby decreasing mortality rates. Are they prepared to then step in and deal with inadequate water supplies, increases in loss of arable lands, higher rates of infant mortality, and other side effects of overpopulation?
Like I said, solving the woodstove problem is one step in the road to a lower population. But even if that weren't the case, have you thought about the moral aspect of letting people die when it's in your power to save their lives?
Presumably you thought highly of the mating game, and your wife, when you married her. What's changed?
They're called tusks.
But you'd have to prevent knowledge of the backdoor from leaking. Hundreds of engineers work on each CPU, each group produces and verifies a new CPU design every year or so, there is considerable employee turnover every few years, and nobody has ever reported such a thing. So I find it unlikely.
Disclaimer: I work as a hardware engineer for a major CPU manufacturer.