I am willing to accept that you do indeed think human population needs to be lowered as your valid opinion and that something more effective than birth control needs to be done about it -
- on one condition
YOU are the first to take your own life in support of the cause. You do NOT get to ask anyone else for their life, directly or indirectly (by using biofuels to cause famines outside america for instance), before you do that.
I am sure that you can use your testament to publish an article containing that we all need to do similar things.
And if you aren't willing to take your own life... how can you ask others for theirs ?
Think of everything that life has learned up to now. It's all in the DNA. The DNA is everything life has learned about surviving and prospering and experiencing itself and the universe around. Evolved over billions of years, invaluable, irreplaceable information
Oh great. Okay... except we have *saved* said information on the much more efficient at survival and much more prosperous hard drives. You can actually download some of that information if you like. Let's see you do something... anything with it. The best thing I've ever seen anyone do with it is create pretty pictures that had little to do with what the DNA codes for.
So said information won't be lost at all, even if we start mecilessly slaughtering every last animal we could reach (something quite a few animals would do to us if they could). In fact if progress continues we can probably in the no-too-distant future simulate these animals in their natural habitats without any reasonable limits or interference. They could live in an infinite world never having to worry about food or... And given the potential for pretty pictures and study opportunities, they probably will.
We can't do it in the real world. Not with 6 billion people. Unless you kill yourself now I'm not even discussing lowering that number.
And let's not kid ourselves, the "nature" you are defending is a ruthless, totally uncaring, merciless killing machine. The only reason you're alive is that it has failed to kill you, it most certainly didn't lack in tries.
That's why people say "fuzzy little animals". Because that's just about the only likeable aspect of these animals (most of the fuzzies are predators to boot. You won't like dogs if they are in a pack, haven't eaten or are generally irritated and you're alone. You won't like them at all. Death by a thousand little bites). If they think you're their mother or brother they shove a nice thick fur coat in your face and act all nice.
Outside of said circumstances, all animals are ruthless killing machines. And if you state that there are plant-eaters too then I will (obviously) state that plants are also living things. There isn't a single animal that doesn't kill for energy.
So when humans are destroying the environment in trade for energy... we're doing exactly the same as this irreplaceable DNA survival "information" is doing. We're simply better at it, nothing more.
Oh nice attempt at changing the subject. Actually only the peak-oil loonies are on about food production. "extreme weather" and rising sea levels is mostly the Goracle and the IPCC (let's bribe scientists, and when that stopped working, let's threathen them). Everybody else is still in denial, and I don't see all that much change in that.
Besides the only solution for the food and oil problem is "lowering the world's population". As they are about to realise that lowering birth rates won't work, people really need to die, I expect to hear VERY bad things from the "peak-oil" and greenhouse loonies anytime now.
Besides if you were really worried about food production (= oil imports) you wouldn't be a lefty these days, nor an environmentalist.
Then again the way Obama ("let's sue opec !", "let's drop defenses around saudi arabia unless they deliver 1 mbpd more oil") is harping on about oil, it seems to me the democrats are actually more likely to start the next oil war than the republicans.
And for gaia as an organisation at least it really is about the fuzzy animals, I assume you'd consider them environmentalists :
"What is GAIA?
GAIA, or Global Action in the Interest of Animals, unites human defenders of animal welfare and advocates for animal rights in Belgium."
(on gaia.com I was unable to find any stated aims, and this was the first hit on google for "gaia aims", since this does describe itself as part of gaia international, I assume it's the same aims)
Are you seriously claiming the defendant is anti-evolutionist ?
Otoh... the complainant is a young-earth creationist. I'm not saying he believes the quran says this, he actually has an article online advocating young-earth creationism, and co-manages a school that teaches creationism in a sex-segregated environment.
I know that for progressives it's hard to imagine that not every progressive has the same opinion, but this guy is "progressive" (or let's say he has the backing of "progressives", he does not believe in science, nor does he believe in evolution, nor does he even believe in human rights, in fact he believes in using terrorist violence against human rights)
Absolutely. Though human rights are by nature a limited resource - if you give one human too many rights it impedes on the rights of another.
There is more going on than this. If every heap of cells that satisfies the definition "human" is to have equal rights then :
-> no abortion (obviously) I don't think anyone would seriously advocate ending one life to increase the comfort of another -> only sex within marriage (since a pregnancy cannot be terminated, and if a child is born it has "a right" to 2 parents in a stable relationship. That doesn't mean catholic marriage, but it DOES mean an unseperateable legal bond. Therefore only the 100% effective preservative can be allowed : no sex. The 98% of condoms is not good enough, neither is the 95% of "the pill") -> no euthanasia (unless you want murder to be legal)
If you include the rights of the society in general, then add :
-> not attempting to have children imposes costs on the later generations that you obviously didn't have to pay, since they have equal rights to you... sorry. Therefore not having children would be a crime -> single culture. Variations in thought can only be allowed as long as they agree with the basic sets of rules, and even 1 "aberrant" individual cannot ever be tolerated. Yes perhaps you can have catholicism vs anglicism... but that's about the max. variation that could be allowed without imposing costs on the society as a whole. -> obviously individualism will be limited by this. But it will be further limited by the necessary control structures to enforce rules like this.
I hope you can understand why structures like this are necessary to "equalize" everyone, even if just in rights. Even a truly basic human right like "the right to live" is insupportable in an unlimited interpretation.
This also is way to close to communism if implemented : the only equal ALL humans can be is equally miserable.
Taken to it's logical extreme it gets worse than just miserable : some people are blind, and we can't fix (all) the blind, therefore to make everyone equal we can only blind the others.
So to come back to human rights : you don't have the right to see. You can, at the very best, have reasonble (not unlimited) medical support for restoring eyesight, and aids for the blind. That's the absolute limit of what we can do for the blind.
Same with deaf. Same with...
Same with poor. All any state, or law can give the poor is a chance (which will be larger or smaller depending on the economic situation). We cannot end poverty, not even with communism (take the contrast between party members and general public : clearly one side is rich, one side is poor).
The world isn't equal. We don't have the power to fix it. We can only make it less equal.
Now obviously folks like socialist/communists(/democrats ?) know this. It just won't work, no matter the implementation. So if is promised (by say... presidential candidates) they're either stupid (not likely), or they just want power for personal ends. That doens't mean people won't buy their "good intentions".
Actually that's a planned feature. It's vaporware currently, and it will never work with the current layout of the device (there's nothing to preven the support material from sliding off)
Actually just about every ISP outside of america has internet filters in place (even those in the supposed "free" the Netherlands).
For starters if a country has 50% muslims, you can assume it filters the internet.
If a country is not free in speech (and that qualifies quite a bit more countries than you'd think, including all European countries), then they have either ISP or judicial filters, that in practice means their isp's filter.
Even Canada, matter-of-factly has ISP filters. Let's FIRST fix Canada, then we should move on to the UK or so, where there was one site that qualified as hate speech for advocacy against Blair.
I don't think what China does is good, I just question singling out China. And there are many countries where you actually might make a difference.
Besides slashdot users where by far in favor of sensoring stuff if it endangered people's safety, like when death threats were made by muslims about wilder's film. That was in the UK.
Let's start there. Then, AFTER that, and all other European countries and after Canada, then we can move Canada. What point is there in saying as a non-free country to China that they should be free ?
capitalism : 1 move... problem actually gets solved (by the "poor" as the communists probably will point out)... nobody gets hurt... poor are better of... rich are better off...
communism : 1 move (claims to be 0 moves obviously)... problem is NOT solved... lots of people get hurt for pointing out problem is not solved... rich are worse off, because their problem isn't solved... poor are worse of, since they'll be the ones getting hurt for pointing out the problem is not solved...
Have you ever considered a career in politics ? I mean if you train a little bit you could actually avoid stating that you'll hurt people, saying instead that you expect people to take up their responsability (do not point out that that would be the responsability of remaining stupid) and then you're right up there with Obama.
And that carries a paycheck of a few million per year. Merely for claiming there aren't any problems. Your wife will appreciate the $200,000 "completely unrelated" raise too.
Won't work with this machine unfortunately... it lacks a support material, so it can only print a certain, very limited class of 3d shapes.
In fact it can't print any structures that won't retain their shapes when melted to, say 5 degrees below their melting point.
The safe class of objects that it can print are those that are basically straight-up walls upon a flat base. The most complex stuff it would be able to print is a gothic castle (the ones with tiny windows), and you'd have to put the roofs on top of them afterwards.
The "full" class of objects it can print are those where a finite element stress analysis (*with* gravity active obviously) doesn't have any red spots.
(and now translation from technobabble to bad news:)
It can't print Gundam models. At least not directly. For a less limited class of objects you could make 2 half-negatives, allowing you to mass-produce them. You'd have to paint them afterwards.
Great speech, and I like this aspect of the American system.
But I was talking about the european system. Every party controls "bits" of all powers, law-giving, executive AND judicial in European countries.
So everything in government here gets always expanded, and gets expanded in incoherent directions (because ministers from different parties sabotage eachother with the arm of government they have at their disposal). The army got ordered to expand quite a bit (by a "centrum-right" party), and gets a 20% budget cut (by a person from a "left-extreme-left" party) AND got ordered to modernize 60% of its equipment to improve safety (by what I think is truly a centrum party).
It got ordered AND forbidden from checking the borders. In other words, they have to stop people coming in illegaly... without actually being anywhere near the border... without approaching anyone... without...
That's what you have in Europe. That's normal. Social security both expands massively AND contracts massively, making it utterly unreliable. There is no unity in government at all, and that's what you get.
The strange thing is, that this way of doing government actually beats what the muslims have in northern-africa. Heh, perhaps God understands, although I'd find it completely understandable if he wants nothing to do with it.
What also amazes me, is that I actually think that, despite hating communism, and socialism (and therefore not liking obamites at all for example, nor do I have any love for their messiah), I think Barosso is (for the moment...) doing good work (and some terribly bad work, but hey, at least something moves). Then again, I truly fear for what he's going to do when a recession hits, which is happening now.
OTOH most people I know want to move to the US or Australia/New Zeeland, so perhaps I'll simply join them.
Then he should have been independant, or have gone for the position in the EU comission, in other words, he should have bribed the leader of the largest party. Sorry but that's the way the system works.
And, should you think that's bad, try going independant in a union election. It gets worse. Much worse.
Actually it's quite normal for european members of parliament to be forced to go along with their party's stance. In a few countries the parties can actually override a member's vote on a law.
In all other countries it's easy to get thrown out of a party meaning that you have little chance to ever again make an impact on politics. But sometimes this means that you just got "unelected".
So acting all "courageous" wouldn't have done any good.
But the european system doesn't represent the will of the majority so much as it goes as far as what some 50% of the population will not revolt over (which isn't all that far).
This isn't America were you have coherent government. This is Europe. If you want to understand European politics think "how would a government react if the president were republican, the vice president democratic, the secretary of state republican,...".
In other words you get the combined downsides of all parties : massive taxes (democrat), sweeping investigative powers (rep.), no freedom of speech (dem.), direct judicial interference by unions (dem.),...
And if you have an issue like nuclear power, which one of the parties thinks unacceptable, only an absolute majority (which almost never happens, > 66% for one party) can TRY to override it, and even then you'll never hear the end of it on TV.
European governments are utterly blocked and halted things. They never do anything. The EU only manages to do things because it's a completely undemocratic institution governed by unelected (appointed by the prime minister of the respective countries) representatives. In other words : it's like the american executive power : with a few qualifications it's in the hands of one singular person, but it's a law-giving AND executive AND judicial power.
Therefore laws like this don't make sense, since the EU can simply override them. Making them worse (or better, but I've yet to see that happen)
Why do you avoid answering the question. You claim you are better than me. In the end you find yourself superior.
But you simply make other people kill for you, and then you deny that such things happen.
You failed to answer my question, even though you ask many many more, with more than a hint of merely attempting to discredit me, as opposed to engaging my arguments. Why don't you answer :
Who commits violence, and kills if necessary, on your behalf (and don't give me shit about judicial proceedings, if a person attacks you and won't stand down, he will be killed *without* judicial proceedings preceding that kill). Will you seriously claim that you can do without them ?
If you truly are a believer your question in the first paragraph is moot. All authoritarians are corrupt since we are ALL corrupt (I know I am, at least sometimes), including you and me. We're all but fallen humans, who will at some point give in to the easy way out. I'm fond of agreeing with you that perhaps 1 or 2 people in a million wouldn't give in, but there is no way to weed them out. Both Obama and McCain are fallen, weak humans, but only McCain admits this, both to us and to himself (if not, please explain why his 20 year association with "We must kill whitey's God"-Wright, listening to him preaching exactly that, is off-limits for criticism. Same for his campaign adviser that got, to say the least, a VERY suspicious raise). Obama thinks he is above criticism, and therefore if you elect a million Obama's, one or maybe two of them will be good for America, the rest will be a disaster.
McCain is a reasonable man you can discuss different options with. Who can be convinced he is wrong, and who can act accordingly. Obama isn't. Perhaps he is the messiah, and it doesn't matter, but until he rides through the eastern gate with an army of angels, he is not. I'm sure Obama will be able to make bright yellow things rain from the east, but they'll just turn out to be Iranian nuclear devices.
Murder is a kind of killing in the sense that theft is a type of moving. In the sense that rape is a type of physical excercise. Or in the sense that a mafia is a type of police force.
Let's analyse this point of yours. How come you are safe ? Surely there are people who prefer stealing to work near you.
So answer this question : who commits violence, and kills if necessary, on your behalf (and don't give me shit about judicial proceedings, if a person attacks you and won't stand down, he will be killed *without* judicial proceedings preceding that kill). Will you seriously claim that you can do without them ?
It is not, in all ancient languages murder means criminal killing. Killing is just killing.
Like you say killing an animal is never murder but there are more cases. A soldier following orders never murders, he kills. Someone kills in self-defense, one does not murder in self-defense. You kill to protect others, you do not murder to protect others... etc etc etc
You mean the weight of the edible flesh of said life ? Because that's the only value life has for anything that's not human.
It is a problem today that people don't know what the law of the jungle is. In America, not 60 years ago, it was *not* a rare occurance that a hyena killed an infant or a baby. Keep in mind that there are still hyena's, and they *still* try to eat babies. There is a reason that they are wiped out in cities.
Your distinction between murder and killing is wrong, according to scripture, you do NOT get to kill in self-defense according to the bible :
Killing : terminating a person's life for ONE reason : protecting SOMEONE ELSE's life (note that this very narrow condition in reality covers quite a lot of ground, for example, Jesus gave explicit permission to Roman Guards to use violence if they thought it just. They specifically asked him if all killing was wrong, and they should just stop being soldiers. He had a simple answer : "no".
In this notion, to keep things reasonable, you should not weigh one life against another. Once you decide to protect someone, you are to keep doing it, even if it means killing 100 others. (because you should at ALL times keep your word) Only if you don't have the choice obviously.
Murder : terminating a person's life, either to protect yourself, or for personal gain, to satisfy revenge, honor killings like the muslims do, jihad, or...
Certainly you cannot reasonably argue that Christianity doesn't allow the police to use lethal force, even if they do it by mistake. It *is* a sin to use lethal force, but it can be the better of 2 options.
Likewise defensive warfare, like the crusades (check wikipedia, and look up what the reason was for starting the first crusade, before you start going nuts) is certainly allowed. It *is* a sin, but again, leaving others to die is a much worse sin. (in other words : a marine is a much more moral person, even if he kills a thousand people, than a code pink protester, trying to help, even if you end up killing way too many people, is *always* a better act than doing nothing, to say nothing of attempting to force others to let people die, like the politically correct nutcases ask)
Another rule is that one should apologize for any killing done, personally and at the very least to God. Even if you are the last surviving member of a Jewish family and have killed Hitler, you are required to ask for forgiveness, from both his family and from God.
Every death is one to many, but there are situations in which you should kill.
Besides, it's not like you'll change your opinion once you've been shown the truth. Nevertheless, here's hoping.
If Hitler's mother were Jewish, and if he had a close relationship with her (necessary because maternal abandonment might actually trigger this level of hatred), then you'd have a point.
So someone needs to have the exact behavior as hitler to be called a racist ? Funny how you have this standard when it's your little holy cow that gets accused.
But don't worry : I'm sure Obama and Hitler had totally different methods of tying their shoelaces. So they have nothing at all in common, and certainly someone who only climbs the ladder because of the color of his skin couldn't be a racist, right ?
Obama's a demagogue. At the surface Obama taxes for fairness, but it's a shallow, hollow fairness that sounds a lot more like revenge to me.
Given his actions in real life, a lot of his person seems to revolve around revenge... Certainly his spiritual needs center around revenge.
Plus python was nice in the hands of programmers who knew lambda calculus and enjoyed using it.
Right now, it's becoming more and more obvious that it's turning into the next visual basic (sorry, but honestly, have you watched the mailinglists ? It is)
Okay then let's just destroy all car factories and see what happens to the cars...
You claim that nothing will change. After all scarcity of creation != scarcity of goods/services, right ? Well let's check.
You'd have to be an utter fool indeed. Planning for theft (which is your suggested solution) means not producing beyond substinence level plus minimal safety margin.
Software doesn't work that way, though. When my choices are between "I get to play it" and "you and I both get to play it", why shouldn't I choose the latter? If it's good for me to have something I like, surely it's even better for both of us to have something we like.
That software was written in good faith, so you should act in good faith. This means that it was written in the assumption that you would have the good sense not to copy it, even if you were able.
So if you had told them in advance you were going to copy it, you would not have had that software. Taking this idea further, if too many people copied it, it would not have been written in the first place and said software would not have existed in the first place.
So yes, in a strictly limited, very short term view you're right. Copying does not directly damage the currently available software. (just as making stealing cars lawful will TODAY increase the number of available cars in the USA. Tomorrow there will be a lot less, and within a few months you need a big gun to be able to drive a car, after which nobody will want a car, because of the risks associated, until the physically present cars start malfunctioning, when people will start to fight directly over cars. That's the way people work)
You see, it devastates future supply of available software completely*. There won't be any cool games if producers expect them to be copied. There won't be any non-political movies (since the incentive to make movies will obviously no longer be the enjoyment, rewarded with $, of the people who watch them, but influencing them).
Therefore if piracy is allowed to run amok, there will only be "fahrenheit" movies, conspiracy theory movies, propaganda movies of cuba (*cough* made by a certain fat american), "enlist in the army" games,... nothing more.
* because of a simple psychological effect it will also destroy the value of these movies in people's minds, even in your mind (value = scarcity, even in most domestic animals you can see this behavior). So it will be actually worse than this : there won't be any software, which you will totally agree with, since you won't want any software to begin with. Nor will you want books, nor films. Only to be utterly horrified once everyone did indeed get rid of movies. Needless to say, that way lies disaster.
And the major of Teheran, specifically selected for his hard-core radical islamic beliefs and continued support of massive police action against real and perceived "vices" was caught with 8 hookers he had known for at least 5 years (ie. since before he was appointed).
You're saying "this statement is ridiculous, because that would make Obama inconsistent". Well yes, it does indeed make him inconsistent, that doesn't mean it's not true (the same argument in philosophy is known as the "Lucas argument", which has been used to prove the existence of God, and souls, and utterly discredited, because people, quite simply, they lie and they're inconsistent).
That Obama doesn't apply his racist beliefs to his own mother is a property he shares with Hitler, who also did not subject his own family to Nazi rules (in fact he made sweeping exceptions for large numbers of people), nor did he apply them to himself. Or with the islamic prophet, who made exceptions to all sort of islamic laws for himself and his "family".
So if we were to follow your reasoning we would have to say that Hitler couldn't have been very much against Jews since his children were taught, with Hitler's knowledge, by one. He also constantly listened to Jewish music. So he couldn't possibly have been a racist, right ?
Demagogues only want YOU to submit to their beliefs, they don't want to do so themselves.
Obama, for example, wants to lower everyone's income by massively taxing it, however he will not accept anyone criticizing the utterly massive raise he and his wife have enjoyed (if I get 1/1000 the raise Michelle Obama got this year, I'll buy a new house AND a few new cars).
Obviously when someone notices this, it is "unfair to attack his family". Wow, now that's convenient.
Is this the first time you see someone acting one, utterly hypocritical way, in public and then do the exact reverse in private ?
I'm not saying Obama's the new Hitler. I'm just saying that your assumption "everyone is consistent" is beyond stupid. Obama is where he is because of racism and guilt. Electing him would be a *big* mistake. A negative program will lead to negative results (since he doesn't even *want* positive results to be achieved by his government, he wants massively negative results that *may* be perceived as "more fair").
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I am willing to accept that you do indeed think human population needs to be lowered as your valid opinion and that something more effective than birth control needs to be done about it -
... how can you ask others for theirs ?
... except we have *saved* said information on the much more efficient at survival and much more prosperous hard drives. You can actually download some of that information if you like. Let's see you do something ... anything with it. The best thing I've ever seen anyone do with it is create pretty pictures that had little to do with what the DNA codes for.
... And given the potential for pretty pictures and study opportunities, they probably will.
... we're doing exactly the same as this irreplaceable DNA survival "information" is doing. We're simply better at it, nothing more.
- on one condition
YOU are the first to take your own life in support of the cause. You do NOT get to ask anyone else for their life, directly or indirectly (by using biofuels to cause famines outside america for instance), before you do that.
I am sure that you can use your testament to publish an article containing that we all need to do similar things.
And if you aren't willing to take your own life
Think of everything that life has learned up to now. It's all in the DNA. The DNA is everything life has learned about surviving and prospering and experiencing itself and the universe around. Evolved over billions of years, invaluable, irreplaceable information
Oh great. Okay
So said information won't be lost at all, even if we start mecilessly slaughtering every last animal we could reach (something quite a few animals would do to us if they could). In fact if progress continues we can probably in the no-too-distant future simulate these animals in their natural habitats without any reasonable limits or interference. They could live in an infinite world never having to worry about food or
We can't do it in the real world. Not with 6 billion people. Unless you kill yourself now I'm not even discussing lowering that number.
And let's not kid ourselves, the "nature" you are defending is a ruthless, totally uncaring, merciless killing machine. The only reason you're alive is that it has failed to kill you, it most certainly didn't lack in tries.
That's why people say "fuzzy little animals". Because that's just about the only likeable aspect of these animals (most of the fuzzies are predators to boot. You won't like dogs if they are in a pack, haven't eaten or are generally irritated and you're alone. You won't like them at all. Death by a thousand little bites). If they think you're their mother or brother they shove a nice thick fur coat in your face and act all nice.
Outside of said circumstances, all animals are ruthless killing machines. And if you state that there are plant-eaters too then I will (obviously) state that plants are also living things. There isn't a single animal that doesn't kill for energy.
So when humans are destroying the environment in trade for energy
Oh nice attempt at changing the subject. Actually only the peak-oil loonies are on about food production. "extreme weather" and rising sea levels is mostly the Goracle and the IPCC (let's bribe scientists, and when that stopped working, let's threathen them). Everybody else is still in denial, and I don't see all that much change in that.
Besides the only solution for the food and oil problem is "lowering the world's population". As they are about to realise that lowering birth rates won't work, people really need to die, I expect to hear VERY bad things from the "peak-oil" and greenhouse loonies anytime now.
Besides if you were really worried about food production (= oil imports) you wouldn't be a lefty these days, nor an environmentalist.
Then again the way Obama ("let's sue opec !", "let's drop defenses around saudi arabia unless they deliver 1 mbpd more oil") is harping on about oil, it seems to me the democrats are actually more likely to start the next oil war than the republicans.
And for gaia as an organisation at least it really is about the fuzzy animals, I assume you'd consider them environmentalists :
"What is GAIA?
GAIA, or Global Action in the Interest of Animals, unites human defenders of animal welfare and advocates for animal rights in Belgium."
http://www.gaia.be/eng/
(on gaia.com I was unable to find any stated aims, and this was the first hit on google for "gaia aims", since this does describe itself as part of gaia international, I assume it's the same aims)
Then we can plan out bank robberies and gauge the different police reactions in a virtual game before one proceeds to ...
...
Oh wait. Someone's at the door. Guantanamo ? But I don't want to go to
Are you seriously claiming the defendant is anti-evolutionist ?
... the complainant is a young-earth creationist. I'm not saying he believes the quran says this, he actually has an article online advocating young-earth creationism, and co-manages a school that teaches creationism in a sex-segregated environment.
Otoh
I know that for progressives it's hard to imagine that not every progressive has the same opinion, but this guy is "progressive" (or let's say he has the backing of "progressives", he does not believe in science, nor does he believe in evolution, nor does he even believe in human rights, in fact he believes in using terrorist violence against human rights)
Just thought I'd clarify.
Absolutely. Though human rights are by nature a limited resource - if you give one human too many rights it impedes on the rights of another.
... sorry. Therefore not having children would be a crime ... but that's about the max. variation that could be allowed without imposing costs on the society as a whole.
...
... presidential candidates) they're either stupid (not likely), or they just want power for personal ends. That doens't mean people won't buy their "good intentions".
There is more going on than this. If every heap of cells that satisfies the definition "human" is to have equal rights then :
-> no abortion (obviously) I don't think anyone would seriously advocate ending one life to increase the comfort of another
-> only sex within marriage (since a pregnancy cannot be terminated, and if a child is born it has "a right" to 2 parents in a stable relationship. That doesn't mean catholic marriage, but it DOES mean an unseperateable legal bond. Therefore only the 100% effective preservative can be allowed : no sex. The 98% of condoms is not good enough, neither is the 95% of "the pill")
-> no euthanasia (unless you want murder to be legal)
If you include the rights of the society in general, then add :
-> not attempting to have children imposes costs on the later generations that you obviously didn't have to pay, since they have equal rights to you
-> single culture. Variations in thought can only be allowed as long as they agree with the basic sets of rules, and even 1 "aberrant" individual cannot ever be tolerated. Yes perhaps you can have catholicism vs anglicism
-> obviously individualism will be limited by this. But it will be further limited by the necessary control structures to enforce rules like this.
I hope you can understand why structures like this are necessary to "equalize" everyone, even if just in rights. Even a truly basic human right like "the right to live" is insupportable in an unlimited interpretation.
This also is way to close to communism if implemented : the only equal ALL humans can be is equally miserable.
Taken to it's logical extreme it gets worse than just miserable : some people are blind, and we can't fix (all) the blind, therefore to make everyone equal we can only blind the others.
So to come back to human rights : you don't have the right to see. You can, at the very best, have reasonble (not unlimited) medical support for restoring eyesight, and aids for the blind. That's the absolute limit of what we can do for the blind.
Same with deaf. Same with
Same with poor. All any state, or law can give the poor is a chance (which will be larger or smaller depending on the economic situation). We cannot end poverty, not even with communism (take the contrast between party members and general public : clearly one side is rich, one side is poor).
The world isn't equal. We don't have the power to fix it. We can only make it less equal.
Now obviously folks like socialist/communists(/democrats ?) know this. It just won't work, no matter the implementation. So if is promised (by say
Actually that's a planned feature. It's vaporware currently, and it will never work with the current layout of the device (there's nothing to preven the support material from sliding off)
This seems like a VERY good case to start with in Canada :
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/dec/07121902.html
If he gets convicted, what difference will the absense of ISP filters make ?
Actually just about every ISP outside of america has internet filters in place (even those in the supposed "free" the Netherlands).
For starters if a country has 50% muslims, you can assume it filters the internet.
If a country is not free in speech (and that qualifies quite a bit more countries than you'd think, including all European countries), then they have either ISP or judicial filters, that in practice means their isp's filter.
Even Canada, matter-of-factly has ISP filters. Let's FIRST fix Canada, then we should move on to the UK or so, where there was one site that qualified as hate speech for advocacy against Blair.
I don't think what China does is good, I just question singling out China. And there are many countries where you actually might make a difference.
Besides slashdot users where by far in favor of sensoring stuff if it endangered people's safety, like when death threats were made by muslims about wilder's film. That was in the UK.
Let's start there. Then, AFTER that, and all other European countries and after Canada, then we can move Canada. What point is there in saying as a non-free country to China that they should be free ?
Heh capitalism versus communism :
... problem actually gets solved (by the "poor" as the communists probably will point out) ... nobody gets hurt ... poor are better of ... rich are better off ...
... problem is NOT solved ... lots of people get hurt for pointing out problem is not solved ... rich are worse off, because their problem isn't solved ... poor are worse of, since they'll be the ones getting hurt for pointing out the problem is not solved ...
capitalism : 1 move
communism : 1 move (claims to be 0 moves obviously)
Have you ever considered a career in politics ? I mean if you train a little bit you could actually avoid stating that you'll hurt people, saying instead that you expect people to take up their responsability (do not point out that that would be the responsability of remaining stupid) and then you're right up there with Obama.
And that carries a paycheck of a few million per year. Merely for claiming there aren't any problems. Your wife will appreciate the $200,000 "completely unrelated" raise too.
Won't work with this machine unfortunately ... it lacks a support material, so it can only print a certain, very limited class of 3d shapes.
:)
In fact it can't print any structures that won't retain their shapes when melted to, say 5 degrees below their melting point.
The safe class of objects that it can print are those that are basically straight-up walls upon a flat base. The most complex stuff it would be able to print is a gothic castle (the ones with tiny windows), and you'd have to put the roofs on top of them afterwards.
The "full" class of objects it can print are those where a finite element stress analysis (*with* gravity active obviously) doesn't have any red spots.
(and now translation from technobabble to bad news
It can't print Gundam models. At least not directly. For a less limited class of objects you could make 2 half-negatives, allowing you to mass-produce them. You'd have to paint them afterwards.
Great speech, and I like this aspect of the American system.
... without actually being anywhere near the border ... without approaching anyone ... without ...
...) doing good work (and some terribly bad work, but hey, at least something moves). Then again, I truly fear for what he's going to do when a recession hits, which is happening now.
But I was talking about the european system. Every party controls "bits" of all powers, law-giving, executive AND judicial in European countries.
So everything in government here gets always expanded, and gets expanded in incoherent directions (because ministers from different parties sabotage eachother with the arm of government they have at their disposal). The army got ordered to expand quite a bit (by a "centrum-right" party), and gets a 20% budget cut (by a person from a "left-extreme-left" party) AND got ordered to modernize 60% of its equipment to improve safety (by what I think is truly a centrum party).
It got ordered AND forbidden from checking the borders. In other words, they have to stop people coming in illegaly
That's what you have in Europe. That's normal. Social security both expands massively AND contracts massively, making it utterly unreliable. There is no unity in government at all, and that's what you get.
The strange thing is, that this way of doing government actually beats what the muslims have in northern-africa. Heh, perhaps God understands, although I'd find it completely understandable if he wants nothing to do with it.
Well the above speech was true until about 1995, when all EU members surrendered their sovereignty to a single person (the president of the EU, then not yet elected). Currently there is exactly one individual in Europe that has law-giving powers, executive powers AND judicial powers in ALL member states : José Manuel Barroso, a socialist/communist.
What also amazes me, is that I actually think that, despite hating communism, and socialism (and therefore not liking obamites at all for example, nor do I have any love for their messiah), I think Barosso is (for the moment
OTOH most people I know want to move to the US or Australia/New Zeeland, so perhaps I'll simply join them.
Then he should have been independant, or have gone for the position in the EU comission, in other words, he should have bribed the leader of the largest party. Sorry but that's the way the system works.
And, should you think that's bad, try going independant in a union election. It gets worse. Much worse.
Actually it's quite normal for european members of parliament to be forced to go along with their party's stance. In a few countries the parties can actually override a member's vote on a law.
...".
...
In all other countries it's easy to get thrown out of a party meaning that you have little chance to ever again make an impact on politics. But sometimes this means that you just got "unelected".
So acting all "courageous" wouldn't have done any good.
But the european system doesn't represent the will of the majority so much as it goes as far as what some 50% of the population will not revolt over (which isn't all that far).
This isn't America were you have coherent government. This is Europe. If you want to understand European politics think "how would a government react if the president were republican, the vice president democratic, the secretary of state republican,
In other words you get the combined downsides of all parties : massive taxes (democrat), sweeping investigative powers (rep.), no freedom of speech (dem.), direct judicial interference by unions (dem.),
And if you have an issue like nuclear power, which one of the parties thinks unacceptable, only an absolute majority (which almost never happens, > 66% for one party) can TRY to override it, and even then you'll never hear the end of it on TV.
European governments are utterly blocked and halted things. They never do anything. The EU only manages to do things because it's a completely undemocratic institution governed by unelected (appointed by the prime minister of the respective countries) representatives. In other words : it's like the american executive power : with a few qualifications it's in the hands of one singular person, but it's a law-giving AND executive AND judicial power.
Therefore laws like this don't make sense, since the EU can simply override them. Making them worse (or better, but I've yet to see that happen)
There are also tons of studies that tapping phones (esp. mobile phones, but equally normal lines) is like ... really difficult (*ahem*).
...)
So criminals tap phones. So do a lot of foreign governments.
Furthermore there are many cases where police tapping of mobile phones is very useful (who was at the crime scene, flashmobbing,
Yes you don't have 100% privacy. As long as there are 2 people on the planet you will not have 100% privacy.
That's the second time you avoid the question : who commits violence, and yes, kills, on your behalf ?
Do you seriously believe the answer is nobody ?
Why do you avoid answering the question. You claim you are better than me. In the end you find yourself superior.
But you simply make other people kill for you, and then you deny that such things happen.
You failed to answer my question, even though you ask many many more, with more than a hint of merely attempting to discredit me, as opposed to engaging my arguments. Why don't you answer :
Who commits violence, and kills if necessary, on your behalf (and don't give me shit about judicial proceedings, if a person attacks you and won't stand down, he will be killed *without* judicial proceedings preceding that kill). Will you seriously claim that you can do without them ?
If you truly are a believer your question in the first paragraph is moot. All authoritarians are corrupt since we are ALL corrupt (I know I am, at least sometimes), including you and me. We're all but fallen humans, who will at some point give in to the easy way out. I'm fond of agreeing with you that perhaps 1 or 2 people in a million wouldn't give in, but there is no way to weed them out. Both Obama and McCain are fallen, weak humans, but only McCain admits this, both to us and to himself (if not, please explain why his 20 year association with "We must kill whitey's God"-Wright, listening to him preaching exactly that, is off-limits for criticism. Same for his campaign adviser that got, to say the least, a VERY suspicious raise). Obama thinks he is above criticism, and therefore if you elect a million Obama's, one or maybe two of them will be good for America, the rest will be a disaster.
McCain is a reasonable man you can discuss different options with. Who can be convinced he is wrong, and who can act accordingly. Obama isn't. Perhaps he is the messiah, and it doesn't matter, but until he rides through the eastern gate with an army of angels, he is not. I'm sure Obama will be able to make bright yellow things rain from the east, but they'll just turn out to be Iranian nuclear devices.
Murder is a kind of killing in the sense that theft is a type of moving. In the sense that rape is a type of physical excercise. Or in the sense that a mafia is a type of police force.
Let's analyse this point of yours. How come you are safe ? Surely there are people who prefer stealing to work near you.
So answer this question : who commits violence, and kills if necessary, on your behalf (and don't give me shit about judicial proceedings, if a person attacks you and won't stand down, he will be killed *without* judicial proceedings preceding that kill). Will you seriously claim that you can do without them ?
This is a nice article on the subject :
http://www.uwgb.edu/DutchS/PSEUDOSC/ProblemWithPacifism.HTM
It is not, in all ancient languages murder means criminal killing. Killing is just killing.
... etc etc etc
Like you say killing an animal is never murder but there are more cases. A soldier following orders never murders, he kills. Someone kills in self-defense, one does not murder in self-defense. You kill to protect others, you do not murder to protect others
To nature, all life carries the same value.
...
You mean the weight of the edible flesh of said life ? Because that's the only value life has for anything that's not human.
It is a problem today that people don't know what the law of the jungle is. In America, not 60 years ago, it was *not* a rare occurance that a hyena killed an infant or a baby. Keep in mind that there are still hyena's, and they *still* try to eat babies. There is a reason that they are wiped out in cities.
Your distinction between murder and killing is wrong, according to scripture, you do NOT get to kill in self-defense according to the bible :
Killing : terminating a person's life for ONE reason : protecting SOMEONE ELSE's life (note that this very narrow condition in reality covers quite a lot of ground, for example, Jesus gave explicit permission to Roman Guards to use violence if they thought it just. They specifically asked him if all killing was wrong, and they should just stop being soldiers. He had a simple answer : "no".
In this notion, to keep things reasonable, you should not weigh one life against another. Once you decide to protect someone, you are to keep doing it, even if it means killing 100 others. (because you should at ALL times keep your word) Only if you don't have the choice obviously.
Murder : terminating a person's life, either to protect yourself, or for personal gain, to satisfy revenge, honor killings like the muslims do, jihad, or
Certainly you cannot reasonably argue that Christianity doesn't allow the police to use lethal force, even if they do it by mistake. It *is* a sin to use lethal force, but it can be the better of 2 options.
Likewise defensive warfare, like the crusades (check wikipedia, and look up what the reason was for starting the first crusade, before you start going nuts) is certainly allowed. It *is* a sin, but again, leaving others to die is a much worse sin. (in other words : a marine is a much more moral person, even if he kills a thousand people, than a code pink protester, trying to help, even if you end up killing way too many people, is *always* a better act than doing nothing, to say nothing of attempting to force others to let people die, like the politically correct nutcases ask)
Another rule is that one should apologize for any killing done, personally and at the very least to God. Even if you are the last surviving member of a Jewish family and have killed Hitler, you are required to ask for forgiveness, from both his family and from God.
Every death is one to many, but there are situations in which you should kill.
Obama, for example, wants to lower everyone's income by massively taxing it
... Certainly his spiritual needs center around revenge.
This is an old saw about Democrats. Prove it.
Just google it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M81s4bZf6es
Besides, it's not like you'll change your opinion once you've been shown the truth. Nevertheless, here's hoping.
If Hitler's mother were Jewish, and if he had a close relationship with her (necessary because maternal abandonment might actually trigger this level of hatred), then you'd have a point.
So someone needs to have the exact behavior as hitler to be called a racist ? Funny how you have this standard when it's your little holy cow that gets accused.
But don't worry : I'm sure Obama and Hitler had totally different methods of tying their shoelaces. So they have nothing at all in common, and certainly someone who only climbs the ladder because of the color of his skin couldn't be a racist, right ?
Obama's a demagogue. At the surface Obama taxes for fairness, but it's a shallow, hollow fairness that sounds a lot more like revenge to me.
Given his actions in real life, a lot of his person seems to revolve around revenge
You know I think improving programming languages is the wrong way to go. What we really need is a robot at the side of every programmer.
... motivation.
progbabysit
To kill off dumb programmers. Divide by zero ? *poof*. One error dialog "No error" followed by a resetting machine and it aims for the gonads.
And obviously for the microsoft offices we need this one :
we've killed all gays, I mean we don't have any and we have no microsofties in iran either
I say let natural selection improve programmers !
Oh and I require the exclusive use of this robot :
babysit
For uhm
Plus python was nice in the hands of programmers who knew lambda calculus and enjoyed using it.
Right now, it's becoming more and more obvious that it's turning into the next visual basic (sorry, but honestly, have you watched the mailinglists ? It is)
Okay then let's just destroy all car factories and see what happens to the cars ...
You claim that nothing will change. After all scarcity of creation != scarcity of goods/services, right ? Well let's check.
You'd have to be an utter fool indeed. Planning for theft (which is your suggested solution) means not producing beyond substinence level plus minimal safety margin.
Software doesn't work that way, though. When my choices are between "I get to play it" and "you and I both get to play it", why shouldn't I choose the latter? If it's good for me to have something I like, surely it's even better for both of us to have something we like.
... nothing more.
That software was written in good faith, so you should act in good faith. This means that it was written in the assumption that you would have the good sense not to copy it, even if you were able.
So if you had told them in advance you were going to copy it, you would not have had that software. Taking this idea further, if too many people copied it, it would not have been written in the first place and said software would not have existed in the first place.
So yes, in a strictly limited, very short term view you're right. Copying does not directly damage the currently available software. (just as making stealing cars lawful will TODAY increase the number of available cars in the USA. Tomorrow there will be a lot less, and within a few months you need a big gun to be able to drive a car, after which nobody will want a car, because of the risks associated, until the physically present cars start malfunctioning, when people will start to fight directly over cars. That's the way people work)
You see, it devastates future supply of available software completely*. There won't be any cool games if producers expect them to be copied. There won't be any non-political movies (since the incentive to make movies will obviously no longer be the enjoyment, rewarded with $, of the people who watch them, but influencing them).
Therefore if piracy is allowed to run amok, there will only be "fahrenheit" movies, conspiracy theory movies, propaganda movies of cuba (*cough* made by a certain fat american), "enlist in the army" games,
* because of a simple psychological effect it will also destroy the value of these movies in people's minds, even in your mind (value = scarcity, even in most domestic animals you can see this behavior). So it will be actually worse than this : there won't be any software, which you will totally agree with, since you won't want any software to begin with. Nor will you want books, nor films. Only to be utterly horrified once everyone did indeed get rid of movies. Needless to say, that way lies disaster.
And the major of Teheran, specifically selected for his hard-core radical islamic beliefs and continued support of massive police action against real and perceived "vices" was caught with 8 hookers he had known for at least 5 years (ie. since before he was appointed).
You're saying "this statement is ridiculous, because that would make Obama inconsistent". Well yes, it does indeed make him inconsistent, that doesn't mean it's not true (the same argument in philosophy is known as the "Lucas argument", which has been used to prove the existence of God, and souls, and utterly discredited, because people, quite simply, they lie and they're inconsistent).
That Obama doesn't apply his racist beliefs to his own mother is a property he shares with Hitler, who also did not subject his own family to Nazi rules (in fact he made sweeping exceptions for large numbers of people), nor did he apply them to himself. Or with the islamic prophet, who made exceptions to all sort of islamic laws for himself and his "family".
So if we were to follow your reasoning we would have to say that Hitler couldn't have been very much against Jews since his children were taught, with Hitler's knowledge, by one. He also constantly listened to Jewish music. So he couldn't possibly have been a racist, right ?
Demagogues only want YOU to submit to their beliefs, they don't want to do so themselves.
Obama, for example, wants to lower everyone's income by massively taxing it, however he will not accept anyone criticizing the utterly massive raise he and his wife have enjoyed (if I get 1/1000 the raise Michelle Obama got this year, I'll buy a new house AND a few new cars).
Obviously when someone notices this, it is "unfair to attack his family". Wow, now that's convenient.
Is this the first time you see someone acting one, utterly hypocritical way, in public and then do the exact reverse in private ?
I'm not saying Obama's the new Hitler. I'm just saying that your assumption "everyone is consistent" is beyond stupid. Obama is where he is because of racism and guilt. Electing him would be a *big* mistake. A negative program will lead to negative results (since he doesn't even *want* positive results to be achieved by his government, he wants massively negative results that *may* be perceived as "more fair").