In fact it is more valuable to learn how to learn.
See now, that's pretty strange, because I was learning (not memorizing, but truly learning to understand) things like Calculus while the rest of my know-nothing classmates were studying algebra when I was in public school. No one taught me to learn how to learn. Motivated and intelligent people don't need such a thing. Other people need to spend tens of thousands of dollars for someone to motivate their lazy asses to learn theory and such, but I never needed that. On the other hand, there are people who do get value out of college and university, and they understand the value of true education; I am not insulting them, just most college students.
People with no formal education are easy to spot in this standard.
Except when they're not. You only notice when they are easy to spot. Likewise, I have seen many people who had formal educations who knew *nothing* of the theory that these colleges were supposed to teach. So basically, most people on both 'sides' likely have low intelligence.
The problem is that you seem to believe that knowledge exists only in colleges and formal institutions, but this is less true than ever in the age of information.
It can train you with thinking and critical skills that guide you to new knowledge.
I had and have no trouble with this.
I have no inherent problem with formal education in general; it's just not for me. However, I do have a problem with people belittling others because of their lack of formal education, and those who speak in absolutes. Whatever you may (or may not) think of most people without formal education, know that there are intelligent people without it who are nonetheless very educated and have few gaps in essential knowledge.
and think we should start off with the premise they're crooked and on the take and force them to live under much more careful scrutiny.
You should be doing that already. I know I do. Every society that doesn't is in danger, but with all the ways the government is infringing upon our fundamental liberties and the constitution, we've obviously not been careful.
And yet Article 1, Section 9 makes no distinction between civil and criminal. How did the 'precedent' (pronounced 'bullshit') get set that this only refers to criminal issues?
If what he said is true, then this is yet another (out of many) example of the courts 'creatively interpreting' (in other words, modifying it with invisible ink) the constitution.
At the same time high school standards are dropping, so maybe you need dumbed-down college standards to reach an acceptable level?
The answer is to raise high school standards (Which, by the way, *were never high to begin with and always involved rote memorization, crappy standardized tests, and a one-size-fits-all environment.*), not drop standards in colleges.
Now you will almost certainly have a life impediment without that college degree.
If you have actual knowledge, like I did, you will likely eventually find an employer who will employ you, regardless of any lack of degree. Unless, of course, you pissed away the time you were supposed to be self-educating and didn't work on anything to show the employers who actually try to evaluate a candidate's understanding of programming. Then you will have an even harder time, but that is your fault.
Self-taught tends however to be self-taught in only the interesting stuff (ie, no theory, no writing classes, no physics lab courses, no arguing with profs you disagree with, etc).
And guess what? College students tend to be worse than mediocre, and even if they took those classes and did those things, never really stuck. You're comparing self-education done improperly with college education done correctly, which is quite unfair. In fact, my employer's experience is that self-taught programmers tend to be superior to college students, even when it comes to theory.
I am not saying this is the correct way for companies to behave, however it is the way most of them operate.
I had the mentality that going to college would be the same as admitting defeat and accepting the illogical status quo, so I simply persevered.
Everyone's gotta go because it is the only way to get ahead.
Incorrect.
Skipping college is a major life impedement.
Incorrect.
I suggest not speaking in absolutes so often.
We have had immigrants for over one hundred years scrimping and saving to get their children a college educated and move ahead in the world. And now that's turned on its head because of native born solidly middle class or higher people being hip and cool by skipping college.
They're not going to be educated, because the standards are being dropped to laughable levels. Not all colleges/universities are like that, but a frighteningly high number of them are.
If you think that a pinup girl's opinion on a medical topic like vaccination deserves a response
It deserves a response from *someone* because some people actually believe her. She should be refuted, and openly.
If she thought that undressing for Heff was a good idea, I'm not interested in her "good ideas" about anything.
She is factually incorrect, but not because she undresses for people. The science is simply not on her side, and refuting her dumb arguments as much as possible by pointing this out is better than using ad hominems.
Most people from college seem to have those gaps, too. Or do you think that being a college graduate automatically indicates that a person is intelligent or well-informed? It doesn't.
You're talking about college education done well and comparing it to self-education done wrong (otherwise the gaps in necessary knowledge would largely not exist, but there is no way to be 100% informed about everything); that's not a very good comparison.
As I said before, prejudices exist because they work.
Prejudices exist because unintelligent people are too lazy to actually refute their opponent's arguments without resorting to logical fallacies.
That choice is not irrelevant
The fact that you think this way is not irrelevant to the validity of your arguments. It tells me something about your character. Therefore, all of your arguments are completely incorrect.
I have every right to dismiss her for that and it would be foolish to ignore a correlation as strong as that.
I'm not aware of any correlation, and I never said you don't have that right; just that it's retarded.
Dismissing someone because of irrelevancies is intellectually lazy and stupid, even if statistics are on your side. Either debunk their arguments or don't bother.
Not entering a classroom at all if you have such parents is likely to be even better, as your kids will just be wasting their time getting a one-size-fits-all, rote memorization 'education' if they spend their time in a classroom. Almost always, anyway.
There is no naivete. I expect nothing but thuggery from the government, so it isn't a surprise when we see the NSA being evil pieces of trash. It is, however, something that must be stopped.
I did not say that you cannot make a judgement, just that determining one's political views based on single comments (where political overall views are not explicitly mentioned) is absolutely absurd.
I was not talking about you, specifically. And "hate" could also refer to criticizing people and generally disagreeing with them.
Now that my faculties are more developed, I can discern rationally who's who.
No, you can't, because that would involve reading their minds. Unless you mean situations where the person explicitly states their political positions, but in that case, everyone who can read can discern who's who, too. There is no one way that individuals in any group behave.
Has it ever occurred to you that just because you hate someone on one "side," that doesn't mean you're part of the Other Side? If I insult democrats, that doesn't mean I like republicans, and vice versa. I just dislike warmongers and authoritarian assholes who don't care about people's fundamental liberties, period. That's why I don't like Bush, Obama, Romney, Clinton, etc. (too damn many to list, but it ends up being almost every politician).
One is, in fact, required to have a coherent worldview.
Really? Is someone going to beat up anyone who doesn't, or what?
You don't get to say things like "physics is wrong, that's my opinion" with no actual backing of that stance.
It's actually very possible to say that, but I wouldn't agree with it.
But this is about morality.
The structure of the statement implies you have an alternative you can support. Well, do so.
Do what?
That is your -claim-, that there is no objectively true stance. It is again, an unbacked claim on your part.
"again"? I don't recall having this discussion before.
Also, much like how there is no reason to believe in a god due to lack of evidence, I have no reason to believe in the existence of objective morality, especially given my observations.
Were you correct, and you aren't
Speaking of unbacked claims...
because subjectivism means that for any given issue, Position X, and the exact opposite of Position X, are equally subjectively true.
Equally subjectively true? In different people's minds, maybe. "Subjectivism" doesn't mean you have to agree with everyone.
But if someone claims that they like apples, and they aren't lying, then it is objectively true that they like apples. To begin with, it is nonsensical to claim that someone's feelings about a subjective matter like morality are 'wrong'; what does that even mean? That their feelings don't exist? That some magical fairy decided they're wrong? What implications does that have, and how can you even tell?
That doesn't alter the fact you have to actually specify your preferred culture for comparison, and defend the merits of its views.
Have to? Why? Who's going to stop you from not doing that?
What does any of this have to do with the above poster's comment, which just mocked the bible? As far as I can tell, nothing.
Otherwise, your position is a void that as specified exists nowhere--you just are hesitant to admit that, naturally.
I think you're confusing me with the person the AC replied to above. And someone could just as easily say that you're hesitant to admit you're wrong. It's quite easy to make claims about what someone else is thinking.
An agnostic lacks a belief in a god. An Atheist actively believes that god does not exist. It's right there in the word: Agnostic - I don't know if there is a god. Atheist - There is no god.
Agnosticism has to do with knowledge. There are agnostic theists and agnostic atheists, for example. There are also multiple definitions of "atheist," and one of them is simply the lack of belief in a god. I'm certainly not going to take god more seriously than I do flying spaghetti monsters or any other nonsensical thing that people could claim exists.
I don't have an unwavering belief in my belief system
The tone of your comment suggested otherwise to me.
As far has been presented, he's saying these acts are unethical, which we could know only by reference to an objective standard, and the only standard under discussion is the one he's rejecting.
Evolution has nothing to do with anything, then. And I believe he was stating his opinion.
I could, actually, dispose rather quickly of whatever his objection is as merely his unbacked subjective feelings
That's true of anyone, though. Even if you claim that what you're doing is objectively correct, someone can disagree. Indeed, that happened an uncountable number of times throughout history. Pretending that these things are objective does not stop 'bad' things from happening.
which he mostly has by his unadmitted assimilation of theistic norms from a theistic culture
I don't think it takes a theistic culture for people to believe that these sorts of things are wrong.
Even most of the people who currently are programmers are utterly terrible at it. Many people just don't have enough intelligence to be able to innovate, and do so well. History has proven this many times over.
An atheist believes there is no God or gods. They can only "believe" this. They must have faith in this.
An atheist lacks a belief in a god; nothing more. I lack a belief in Santa, the flying spaghetti monster, magical invisible pink unicorns, and many other things that I have no reason to believe in. If this is "faith," then your definition of "faith" is useless indeed. There is simply no reason for me to believe in such a thing as a god, and the very notion sounds ridiculous.
At least an agnostic is scientific about it.
Is this the same as an agnostic atheist?
Funnily enough, you seem to have an unwavering devotion to your own belief system.
Slashdot Mirror
No, he doesn't. He's referring to the real puppeteers: NSO.
In fact it is more valuable to learn how to learn.
See now, that's pretty strange, because I was learning (not memorizing, but truly learning to understand) things like Calculus while the rest of my know-nothing classmates were studying algebra when I was in public school. No one taught me to learn how to learn. Motivated and intelligent people don't need such a thing. Other people need to spend tens of thousands of dollars for someone to motivate their lazy asses to learn theory and such, but I never needed that. On the other hand, there are people who do get value out of college and university, and they understand the value of true education; I am not insulting them, just most college students.
People with no formal education are easy to spot in this standard.
Except when they're not. You only notice when they are easy to spot. Likewise, I have seen many people who had formal educations who knew *nothing* of the theory that these colleges were supposed to teach. So basically, most people on both 'sides' likely have low intelligence.
The problem is that you seem to believe that knowledge exists only in colleges and formal institutions, but this is less true than ever in the age of information.
It can train you with thinking and critical skills that guide you to new knowledge.
I had and have no trouble with this.
I have no inherent problem with formal education in general; it's just not for me. However, I do have a problem with people belittling others because of their lack of formal education, and those who speak in absolutes. Whatever you may (or may not) think of most people without formal education, know that there are intelligent people without it who are nonetheless very educated and have few gaps in essential knowledge.
and think we should start off with the premise they're crooked and on the take and force them to live under much more careful scrutiny.
You should be doing that already. I know I do. Every society that doesn't is in danger, but with all the ways the government is infringing upon our fundamental liberties and the constitution, we've obviously not been careful.
And yet Article 1, Section 9 makes no distinction between civil and criminal. How did the 'precedent' (pronounced 'bullshit') get set that this only refers to criminal issues?
If what he said is true, then this is yet another (out of many) example of the courts 'creatively interpreting' (in other words, modifying it with invisible ink) the constitution.
At the same time high school standards are dropping, so maybe you need dumbed-down college standards to reach an acceptable level?
The answer is to raise high school standards (Which, by the way, *were never high to begin with and always involved rote memorization, crappy standardized tests, and a one-size-fits-all environment.*), not drop standards in colleges.
Now you will almost certainly have a life impediment without that college degree.
If you have actual knowledge, like I did, you will likely eventually find an employer who will employ you, regardless of any lack of degree. Unless, of course, you pissed away the time you were supposed to be self-educating and didn't work on anything to show the employers who actually try to evaluate a candidate's understanding of programming. Then you will have an even harder time, but that is your fault.
Self-taught tends however to be self-taught in only the interesting stuff (ie, no theory, no writing classes, no physics lab courses, no arguing with profs you disagree with, etc).
And guess what? College students tend to be worse than mediocre, and even if they took those classes and did those things, never really stuck. You're comparing self-education done improperly with college education done correctly, which is quite unfair. In fact, my employer's experience is that self-taught programmers tend to be superior to college students, even when it comes to theory.
I am not saying this is the correct way for companies to behave, however it is the way most of them operate.
I had the mentality that going to college would be the same as admitting defeat and accepting the illogical status quo, so I simply persevered.
Everyone's gotta go because it is the only way to get ahead.
Incorrect.
Skipping college is a major life impedement.
Incorrect.
I suggest not speaking in absolutes so often.
We have had immigrants for over one hundred years scrimping and saving to get their children a college educated and move ahead in the world. And now that's turned on its head because of native born solidly middle class or higher people being hip and cool by skipping college.
They're not going to be educated, because the standards are being dropped to laughable levels. Not all colleges/universities are like that, but a frighteningly high number of them are.
If you think that a pinup girl's opinion on a medical topic like vaccination deserves a response
It deserves a response from *someone* because some people actually believe her. She should be refuted, and openly.
If she thought that undressing for Heff was a good idea, I'm not interested in her "good ideas" about anything.
She is factually incorrect, but not because she undresses for people. The science is simply not on her side, and refuting her dumb arguments as much as possible by pointing this out is better than using ad hominems.
Non collegiates generally have gaps in knowledge
Most people from college seem to have those gaps, too. Or do you think that being a college graduate automatically indicates that a person is intelligent or well-informed? It doesn't.
You're talking about college education done well and comparing it to self-education done wrong (otherwise the gaps in necessary knowledge would largely not exist, but there is no way to be 100% informed about everything); that's not a very good comparison.
As I said before, prejudices exist because they work.
Prejudices exist because unintelligent people are too lazy to actually refute their opponent's arguments without resorting to logical fallacies.
That choice is not irrelevant
The fact that you think this way is not irrelevant to the validity of your arguments. It tells me something about your character. Therefore, all of your arguments are completely incorrect.
I have every right to dismiss her for that and it would be foolish to ignore a correlation as strong as that.
I'm not aware of any correlation, and I never said you don't have that right; just that it's retarded.
Dismissing someone because of irrelevancies is intellectually lazy and stupid, even if statistics are on your side. Either debunk their arguments or don't bother.
It pretty much disqualifies her
No, it doesn't. No amount of petty nonsense like that would disqualify someone.
Not entering a classroom at all if you have such parents is likely to be even better, as your kids will just be wasting their time getting a one-size-fits-all, rote memorization 'education' if they spend their time in a classroom. Almost always, anyway.
There is no naivete. I expect nothing but thuggery from the government, so it isn't a surprise when we see the NSA being evil pieces of trash. It is, however, something that must be stopped.
That sounds like copyright, period.
I did not say that you cannot make a judgement, just that determining one's political views based on single comments (where political overall views are not explicitly mentioned) is absolutely absurd.
Hate? I don't hate anyone.
I was not talking about you, specifically. And "hate" could also refer to criticizing people and generally disagreeing with them.
Now that my faculties are more developed, I can discern rationally who's who.
No, you can't, because that would involve reading their minds. Unless you mean situations where the person explicitly states their political positions, but in that case, everyone who can read can discern who's who, too. There is no one way that individuals in any group behave.
Has it ever occurred to you that just because you hate someone on one "side," that doesn't mean you're part of the Other Side? If I insult democrats, that doesn't mean I like republicans, and vice versa. I just dislike warmongers and authoritarian assholes who don't care about people's fundamental liberties, period. That's why I don't like Bush, Obama, Romney, Clinton, etc. (too damn many to list, but it ends up being almost every politician).
Killing and torture are not the same, by any measure.
They might not be the same, but they're both evil, or at least by my standards. Do yours differ?
There's nothing wrong with intolerance at all, as long as it's directed at an actual problem.
One is, in fact, required to have a coherent worldview.
Really? Is someone going to beat up anyone who doesn't, or what?
You don't get to say things like "physics is wrong, that's my opinion" with no actual backing of that stance.
It's actually very possible to say that, but I wouldn't agree with it.
But this is about morality.
The structure of the statement implies you have an alternative you can support. Well, do so.
Do what?
That is your -claim-, that there is no objectively true stance. It is again, an unbacked claim on your part.
"again"? I don't recall having this discussion before.
Also, much like how there is no reason to believe in a god due to lack of evidence, I have no reason to believe in the existence of objective morality, especially given my observations.
Were you correct, and you aren't
Speaking of unbacked claims...
because subjectivism means that for any given issue, Position X, and the exact opposite of Position X, are equally subjectively true.
Equally subjectively true? In different people's minds, maybe. "Subjectivism" doesn't mean you have to agree with everyone.
But if someone claims that they like apples, and they aren't lying, then it is objectively true that they like apples. To begin with, it is nonsensical to claim that someone's feelings about a subjective matter like morality are 'wrong'; what does that even mean? That their feelings don't exist? That some magical fairy decided they're wrong? What implications does that have, and how can you even tell?
That doesn't alter the fact you have to actually specify your preferred culture for comparison, and defend the merits of its views.
Have to? Why? Who's going to stop you from not doing that?
What does any of this have to do with the above poster's comment, which just mocked the bible? As far as I can tell, nothing.
Otherwise, your position is a void that as specified exists nowhere--you just are hesitant to admit that, naturally.
I think you're confusing me with the person the AC replied to above. And someone could just as easily say that you're hesitant to admit you're wrong. It's quite easy to make claims about what someone else is thinking.
An agnostic lacks a belief in a god. An Atheist actively believes that god does not exist. It's right there in the word: Agnostic - I don't know if there is a god. Atheist - There is no god.
Agnosticism has to do with knowledge. There are agnostic theists and agnostic atheists, for example. There are also multiple definitions of "atheist," and one of them is simply the lack of belief in a god. I'm certainly not going to take god more seriously than I do flying spaghetti monsters or any other nonsensical thing that people could claim exists.
I don't have an unwavering belief in my belief system
The tone of your comment suggested otherwise to me.
As far has been presented, he's saying these acts are unethical, which we could know only by reference to an objective standard, and the only standard under discussion is the one he's rejecting.
Evolution has nothing to do with anything, then. And I believe he was stating his opinion.
I could, actually, dispose rather quickly of whatever his objection is as merely his unbacked subjective feelings
That's true of anyone, though. Even if you claim that what you're doing is objectively correct, someone can disagree. Indeed, that happened an uncountable number of times throughout history. Pretending that these things are objective does not stop 'bad' things from happening.
which he mostly has by his unadmitted assimilation of theistic norms from a theistic culture
I don't think it takes a theistic culture for people to believe that these sorts of things are wrong.
What are you talking about?
Even most of the people who currently are programmers are utterly terrible at it. Many people just don't have enough intelligence to be able to innovate, and do so well. History has proven this many times over.
An atheist believes there is no God or gods. They can only "believe" this. They must have faith in this.
An atheist lacks a belief in a god; nothing more. I lack a belief in Santa, the flying spaghetti monster, magical invisible pink unicorns, and many other things that I have no reason to believe in. If this is "faith," then your definition of "faith" is useless indeed. There is simply no reason for me to believe in such a thing as a god, and the very notion sounds ridiculous.
At least an agnostic is scientific about it.
Is this the same as an agnostic atheist?
Funnily enough, you seem to have an unwavering devotion to your own belief system.