NASA over its entire history has been almost a complete waste. They have done precisely one cool thing in their entire history: landing humans on the moon. Everything else has been stupid.
"Look! We built a telescope!" Yeah that's cool but I don't care, we already had telescopes. "Look! We built a re-usable spaceship!" But then you didn't go anywhere with it. "Hey, we have this permanent space station!" Who cares? Is that another world? No. "We landed robots on some places!" Call me back when they are humans. "But we've done so much useful science!" I'm in favor of the government funding science but we already have the NSF.
Humans on other worlds, or pack up and go home. Thus, they should pack up and go home. They should have packed up and gone home after the Apollo program. And when we started riding with the Russians into space? Can any American think of a bigger humiliation than that?
NASA has been a failure for longer than I've been alive (1979). They don't even have plans to put humans on other worlds. Reagan should have defunded it. Bush should have defunded it. Clinton should have defunded it. The War Criminal should have defunded it. Obama should defund it.
Go home, NASA. Shutter the offices. Your scientists can go work for the NSF and America can save the embarrassment of your constant underperformance.
If you refuse to manufacture a thing that you control with patents (or copyright or any intellectual property), then your IP claims become invalid. No exceptions.
Oh, what? You want to keep manufacturing that drug after all? Okay, great.
" A good cab driver knows the turf. S/he gets you to your destination safely and efficiently... and doesn't rip you off or make you feel creeped out."
These skills were extremely important until we invented GPS-based in-car map systems. Now a computer will tell you the most efficient route.
Recently a cab took me way out of the way going to the airport. I balked and the cabbie snapped at me. I paid his fare with no tip. Maybe next time I'll try a different service.
If the card machine is broken then they can't accept payment. Yahtzee. Give them a business card and ask them to swing by after they fix their machine.
I'm not aware of any laws against putting drugs into your body. Can you cite any? I'm pretty sure all drug laws are possession laws, not consumption laws. Strictly speaking, possession is a superset of consumption: you must possess the drug before you can consume it; and you still possess it even after you consume it, while it is in your body.
In any case, pedantry aside, the simile doens't hold because one is the government telling you that you can't do something, the other is the government telling you that you must do something. Compare this to the controversial "individual mandate" in Obamacare. The Supreme Court ruled that the government could not mandate that you buy health insurance; but that they could tax you if you refuse to do so.
That is consistent with how I think about actions: the government can't force you to vaccinate, but they can deny you access to schools and roads and public squares if you refuse to do so. I suppose they could even tax you.
This is my position. The good of public health does not, in my opinion, outweigh the legal principle of bodily autonomy. You can't force one person to use their body for the betterment of other people (cf. abortion).
Thus, I don't think we should forcibly inject vaccines into people.
But I DO think we should require vaccination for all sorts of common public goods, and schools is probably the very first item on that list.
Asshat cavepeople can go live in holes away from society if they insist that that is their notion of freedom, but they can't bring it into schools.
We know that vaccines are save for 9,999 out of 10,000 people, and we know they are dangerous for the other tiny fraction. We did the math and concluded that saving 9999 was more important, but we didn't forget about the other 1. We set up a big lumbering system with a lot of money to compensate those people.
Seat belts sometimes cause a person to die.
Sometimes people choke while eating healthy food.
Some car crashes result from people paying less attention on safer roads.
Some people bonk their heads on safety railings.
Police officers sometimes shoot innocent bystanders.
And yet all of these things make the world nicer to live in. Oh, to live in a world where good choices never had bad outcomes; we can dream.
What you say is wrong and I know because I've had my two-year-old on the normal vaccine schedule. Children receive up to three shots at a visit, plus a mouth squirt. There might be about 14 vaccines TOTAL across two years of time, not "14 shots at 2 years old".
So not only are your facts wrong, your interpretation is absurd. 30 vaccines isn't a lot, it's a tiny bit. Every child -- every human -- experiences exposure to tens of thousands of microbes per minute, every minute, through their entire lives. An infinitesimal fraction of those are dangerous, so we've taken about 30 of those bazillions and made special medicines for them. You should be very happy that we already have the technology to alleviate the exposure to those 30 microbes.
Autism usually sucks. I hope your family member turns out okay.
"home schooling still has some educational requirements and standards, which many homeschool proponents are explicitly trying to avoid"
Is there any other reason parents homeschool their kids? That's the only one I've ever heard: "I want my children to be ignorant of the things you will teach them in school". Typically they don't even shy away from that reason.
Right. We'll give you a fairly decent education supported by taxpayers, or you can go get your own education. So what's the problem?
If I hire a private security guard to watch over my mansion, should I get my police-supporting taxes back? If I would rather just have open borders, should I get my Border-Patrol-supporting taxes back? No. Taxes pay for public goods, and if you want to buy a similar private good then you can but that doesn't affect your taxation.
I don't know. The professor is "gone"; he was fired.
I've pondered the best corollary and I think this is it:
Would we ask his former students to forget the knowledge he taught them? No? Then why would we ask his future students to never learn the knowledge he will teach them?
The notion of a "best free market outcome" is a complete joke.
The "best free market outcome" isn't so much a joke, it's just a terrible outcome. The best free-market outcome is far worse than the worst regulated-market outcome.
It would be fine if I could trust the ad networks to not serve up malware
I disagree. It still wouldn't be fine.
How much does one ad impression net for a website? Something like 1/50th of a cent? Okay, tell you what, I'll pay you 1/25th of a cent to see the page, okay? You've now doubled your income. Problem solved.
"forcing me to watch an ad and type "I LOVE MCDONALDS" before showing me content"
No way has that happened? on what site? I would never engage in that. The page would already be closed before the ad started.
Ten years ago I signed up for Monster.com when seeking a new job. I immediately quit the site but then forgot why. Four years ago I was seeking a new job again so I went and signed up for Monster again and remembered why I'd dropped it in the first place: they got my email address (okay) then my name (okay) then some other info (okay) then put up a full-page ad (annoying, but... okay). After that ad there was ANOTHER full-page ad. That was not okay, and I was ready to quit the site, but I gave it one my chance and clicked again and got... ANOTHER third full page ad.
I emailed them to let them know that their apparently unending series of full-page ads had chased me away. I don't know how many there would be -- three? ten? a thousand? endless? -- but one was too many and three was comically out-of-touch. Now I remember why Monster will never be my place to find a job.
I would suggest that any commercial venture take a page from history and engage in this form of revenue generation colloquially known as selling your damn product.
I'd tired of people trying to ruin my life with advertising by claiming that selling your damn product is somehow magically impossible. It's not impossible. If you want money, then trade your product for money. I'm not willing to ruin my life with advertising just so some website jockey can have a dime.
Exactly. If the mafia and advertisers are fighting each other then that is like the USSR fighting against the Taliban.
All I have to do is sit back, enjoy the show, and not fucking invade Afghanistan fifteen years later. Uh... well I don't know, the simile sort of breaks down at that point but I think it's all good advice.
Fuck advertisers. Anything bad for them is good for the world. Also fuck criminals. Anything bad for them is good for the world.
I don't support sending robots to other worlds using tons and tons of tax dollars. NASA was and should be about putting humans on other worlds. That part of the mission has been dropped and without it I don't support NASA.
Shut it down. Send everyone home. Shutter the agency if they cannot put human beings onto rocks in space.
If we want to fund science, then wonderful, transfer NASAs budget to the NSF or whatever.
The justification is to undermine a system which makes the world worse, thus making the world better. Personally I see "making the world better" as the best possible justification for an action. How do you see it?
Slashdot Mirror
NASA over its entire history has been almost a complete waste. They have done precisely one cool thing in their entire history: landing humans on the moon. Everything else has been stupid.
"Look! We built a telescope!" Yeah that's cool but I don't care, we already had telescopes.
"Look! We built a re-usable spaceship!" But then you didn't go anywhere with it.
"Hey, we have this permanent space station!" Who cares? Is that another world? No.
"We landed robots on some places!" Call me back when they are humans.
"But we've done so much useful science!" I'm in favor of the government funding science but we already have the NSF.
Humans on other worlds, or pack up and go home. Thus, they should pack up and go home. They should have packed up and gone home after the Apollo program. And when we started riding with the Russians into space? Can any American think of a bigger humiliation than that?
NASA has been a failure for longer than I've been alive (1979). They don't even have plans to put humans on other worlds. Reagan should have defunded it. Bush should have defunded it. Clinton should have defunded it. The War Criminal should have defunded it. Obama should defund it.
Go home, NASA. Shutter the offices. Your scientists can go work for the NSF and America can save the embarrassment of your constant underperformance.
This problem is simple to fix, no lawsuit needed.
If you refuse to manufacture a thing that you control with patents (or copyright or any intellectual property), then your IP claims become invalid. No exceptions.
Oh, what? You want to keep manufacturing that drug after all? Okay, great.
" A good cab driver knows the turf. S/he gets you to your destination safely and efficiently... and doesn't rip you off or make you feel creeped out."
These skills were extremely important until we invented GPS-based in-car map systems. Now a computer will tell you the most efficient route.
Recently a cab took me way out of the way going to the airport. I balked and the cabbie snapped at me. I paid his fare with no tip. Maybe next time I'll try a different service.
...said the anonymous person with words on internet.
If the card machine is broken then they can't accept payment. Yahtzee. Give them a business card and ask them to swing by after they fix their machine.
I'm not aware of any laws against putting drugs into your body. Can you cite any? I'm pretty sure all drug laws are possession laws, not consumption laws. Strictly speaking, possession is a superset of consumption: you must possess the drug before you can consume it; and you still possess it even after you consume it, while it is in your body.
In any case, pedantry aside, the simile doens't hold because one is the government telling you that you can't do something, the other is the government telling you that you must do something. Compare this to the controversial "individual mandate" in Obamacare. The Supreme Court ruled that the government could not mandate that you buy health insurance; but that they could tax you if you refuse to do so.
That is consistent with how I think about actions: the government can't force you to vaccinate, but they can deny you access to schools and roads and public squares if you refuse to do so. I suppose they could even tax you.
This is my position. The good of public health does not, in my opinion, outweigh the legal principle of bodily autonomy. You can't force one person to use their body for the betterment of other people (cf. abortion).
Thus, I don't think we should forcibly inject vaccines into people.
But I DO think we should require vaccination for all sorts of common public goods, and schools is probably the very first item on that list.
Asshat cavepeople can go live in holes away from society if they insist that that is their notion of freedom, but they can't bring it into schools.
We know that vaccines are save for 9,999 out of 10,000 people, and we know they are dangerous for the other tiny fraction. We did the math and concluded that saving 9999 was more important, but we didn't forget about the other 1. We set up a big lumbering system with a lot of money to compensate those people.
Seat belts sometimes cause a person to die.
Sometimes people choke while eating healthy food.
Some car crashes result from people paying less attention on safer roads.
Some people bonk their heads on safety railings.
Police officers sometimes shoot innocent bystanders.
And yet all of these things make the world nicer to live in. Oh, to live in a world where good choices never had bad outcomes; we can dream.
What you say is wrong and I know because I've had my two-year-old on the normal vaccine schedule. Children receive up to three shots at a visit, plus a mouth squirt. There might be about 14 vaccines TOTAL across two years of time, not "14 shots at 2 years old".
So not only are your facts wrong, your interpretation is absurd. 30 vaccines isn't a lot, it's a tiny bit. Every child -- every human -- experiences exposure to tens of thousands of microbes per minute, every minute, through their entire lives. An infinitesimal fraction of those are dangerous, so we've taken about 30 of those bazillions and made special medicines for them. You should be very happy that we already have the technology to alleviate the exposure to those 30 microbes.
Autism usually sucks. I hope your family member turns out okay.
"home schooling still has some educational requirements and standards, which many homeschool proponents are explicitly trying to avoid"
Is there any other reason parents homeschool their kids? That's the only one I've ever heard: "I want my children to be ignorant of the things you will teach them in school". Typically they don't even shy away from that reason.
Right. We'll give you a fairly decent education supported by taxpayers, or you can go get your own education. So what's the problem?
If I hire a private security guard to watch over my mansion, should I get my police-supporting taxes back? If I would rather just have open borders, should I get my Border-Patrol-supporting taxes back? No. Taxes pay for public goods, and if you want to buy a similar private good then you can but that doesn't affect your taxation.
"For a large part doctors and biologists have no clue what they are really doing."
Obvious troll is obvious.
I don't know. The professor is "gone"; he was fired.
I've pondered the best corollary and I think this is it:
Would we ask his former students to forget the knowledge he taught them? No? Then why would we ask his future students to never learn the knowledge he will teach them?
You nailed it. Let's take this argument to Congress and see if it is absurd enough to make them think.
I've never personally encountered that. Maybe I need more adventurous browsing tastes.
Perhaps advertisers should finally move away
I stopped reading after this opening phrase because I agree with it so strongly that I assume everything else you said is equally agreeable.
Advertisers should move away.
The notion of a "best free market outcome" is a complete joke.
The "best free market outcome" isn't so much a joke, it's just a terrible outcome. The best free-market outcome is far worse than the worst regulated-market outcome.
Can I suggest AdBlock Plus or one of the similar alternatives?
It would be fine if I could trust the ad networks to not serve up malware
I disagree. It still wouldn't be fine.
How much does one ad impression net for a website? Something like 1/50th of a cent? Okay, tell you what, I'll pay you 1/25th of a cent to see the page, okay? You've now doubled your income. Problem solved.
"forcing me to watch an ad and type "I LOVE MCDONALDS" before showing me content"
No way has that happened? on what site? I would never engage in that. The page would already be closed before the ad started.
Ten years ago I signed up for Monster.com when seeking a new job. I immediately quit the site but then forgot why. Four years ago I was seeking a new job again so I went and signed up for Monster again and remembered why I'd dropped it in the first place: they got my email address (okay) then my name (okay) then some other info (okay) then put up a full-page ad (annoying, but... okay). After that ad there was ANOTHER full-page ad. That was not okay, and I was ready to quit the site, but I gave it one my chance and clicked again and got... ANOTHER third full page ad.
I emailed them to let them know that their apparently unending series of full-page ads had chased me away. I don't know how many there would be -- three? ten? a thousand? endless? -- but one was too many and three was comically out-of-touch. Now I remember why Monster will never be my place to find a job.
I would suggest that any commercial venture take a page from history and engage in this form of revenue generation colloquially known as selling your damn product.
I'd tired of people trying to ruin my life with advertising by claiming that selling your damn product is somehow magically impossible. It's not impossible. If you want money, then trade your product for money. I'm not willing to ruin my life with advertising just so some website jockey can have a dime.
Exactly. If the mafia and advertisers are fighting each other then that is like the USSR fighting against the Taliban.
All I have to do is sit back, enjoy the show, and not fucking invade Afghanistan fifteen years later. Uh... well I don't know, the simile sort of breaks down at that point but I think it's all good advice.
Fuck advertisers. Anything bad for them is good for the world. Also fuck criminals. Anything bad for them is good for the world.
I don't support sending robots to other worlds using tons and tons of tax dollars. NASA was and should be about putting humans on other worlds. That part of the mission has been dropped and without it I don't support NASA.
Shut it down. Send everyone home. Shutter the agency if they cannot put human beings onto rocks in space.
If we want to fund science, then wonderful, transfer NASAs budget to the NSF or whatever.
The justification is to undermine a system which makes the world worse, thus making the world better. Personally I see "making the world better" as the best possible justification for an action. How do you see it?
And everybody else sees that as bullshit.