As if people can't type in a URL after reading a leaflet included in the box?
Lots of people can't do that. (You're assuming that the customers found the leaflet in the first place!) They fat-finger it, misspell it, and can't figure out what happened. Yes, they are clueless dipshits, but that's no consolation to the marketer. After all, even clueless dipshits buy things.
Are they aware that people type URLs all the time without trouble?
Apparently you aren't aware that typing something into a web browser is sheer wizardry for millions of people. Yes, you're a super cool computer literate Internet using badass. Compared to you, the rest of the world (the vast majority of it, at least) is morons. What if you were the guy who is trying to market something to all of the morons? Are you going to expect those morons to be able to read something and type it into a web browser? I wouldn't.
Before someone gets mad, I think what Belkin did was wrong. That doesn't invalidate some of the reasons they gave (even if they happened to be lies).
Why can't they just admit that they wanted to prominently promote their subscription-based service?
Probably because Belkin is used to marketing to dim-witted fuckups who aren't as savvy as the folks on the Internet who are currently reaming Belkin for their bad business and subsequent deceit.
Hey Loundry, my sig used to be "By Pentagon standards, the WTC was a "dual-use" target." Hope you're having fun with your outRAGEous sig!
Let me see if I understand what you're trying to do here.
In my other response to you, I debated several of your points and asked some direct questions. You seem to have ignored all of that (despite your promise to "check it out") and instead opted to paint me as a troll in a mocking manner.
On what grounds do you raise objections toward my belief that HIV/AIDS is a fraud? It seems that when we start talking about it your debate skills fall to middle-shool quality.
Let me put it another way: If my sig was "The Apollo landings were faked" you probably wouldn't take me seriously either. Even if I had been making sense up until then.
Argument by analogy.
I am not so informed as to really be able agree or disagree with your sig, but I will check it out.
Cool, a friend.:)
That's a good question. I think the answer is that gay men are highly promiscuous and frequently have bloody assholes when done fucking -- a vector for transmission that even promiscuous straights are not likely to have.
Straights are also promiscuous and also have unprotected anal sex. According to the CDC, even microscopic tears in the rectum can allow the passage of HIV, so the asshole being bloody or not is irrelevent. You may try to argue that gays are merely *more* promiscuous that straights. If you do, then I expect you to come up with some kind of standard of measuring promiscuity.
(Insert tangent about low rate of lesbian AIDS here)
Which, as it turns out, is practically the same as the AIDS rate for straights who have anal sex. Furthermore, the CDC argues that "everyone is at risk". The numbers show otherwise, don't they?
Bug Chasers and Gift Givers aren't doing any favors for the gay community either.
Bug Chasers and Gift Givers are media hype. Yes, some gay guys get off on that, but you even have to consider bugchasers/giftgivers to realize that many, many gay men do not use protection. If the percentage of gay men who have unprotected sex were 30% I would not be surprised, whereas I would be stunned if the number of bugchasers/giftgivers were higher than.1% of gay men.
I'm gay, by the way, and I think HIV/AIDS is the singlemost anti-gay thing ever.
I see that you tried to answer one of my questions and ignored the others. Why? Were they not worth examining?
I don't think it's something that would be offensive to anyone -- it's just that it's so closely associated with all the other whacko conspiracy theories out there that its assertion tends to greatly diminsh the credibility of the author.
You're wrong about it not being offensive. My.sig has made lots of people very mad and they've called me nasty things. And why is it so closely associated with "all the other" conspiracy theories? Is anything that goes against "conventional knowledge" a baseless conspiracy theory?
I mean, it's like saying "The E==Mc^2 hypothesis is the biggest physics fraud in human history. Fusion bombs don't exist -- those explosions in Japan were caused by,... uhh, other things..."
This is the flaw of argument by analogy. As it turns out, the fraud of HIV/AIDS is *not* like those other things you mentioned.
Yes, trust. I do trust that, given my understanding of human nature, in a society as free as ours, that there are going to be enough scientists who really are more concerned with scientific truth than with whatever some conspiracy theorist says their motives must be, that I can trust what they say.
People used to give the same trust and faith to priests in the catholic church with similar rationalizations: "In a society as free as ours, there are going to be enough priests who really are more concerned with God's Truth than whatever some heathen says their motives must be." I repeat: HIV/AIDS is a religion, its high priests are scientists, and its practitioners, like those in the Catholic church, are humans with human failings.
In fact, one of the major motivations of up-and-coming young scientists is always going to be to overturn the "accepted truths" of the day.
This is naive. Do you really think there is no ego in the world of science? Do you really think that overturning accepted truths would have no upsetting factors that other scientists would prefer not to see?
And don't give me any of that "they're all in a big conspiracy, or they're all ignorant" nonsense.
I have no interest in conspiracy theories.
So the fact that it hasn't been big news in the respected media (especially in scientific publications)
It has been, it's just that you're not aware it because of how AIDS dissidents are treated by the scientific elite. You're probably also not aware of some of the startling admissions made by those who do believe in HIV/AIDS, such as HIV *not* killing T-cells (which used to be how AIDS worked, right?)
And so I accept the HIV==AIDS hypothesis.
And yet you have made no effort at all to answer any of the questions I asked. Why not? Are you afraid of what the answer may be?
The difference is, you don't know for a fact that buying a 29-inch over a 27-inch will harm someone.
We have to come to agreement as to what "harming" means. Many people argue that capitalism is harmful while I think it is moral.
Does Nike know that the Indonesian government violently breaks up labor strikes so that the workers will continue to produces shoes at slave wages? Yes, but they keep doing it. That's Greed with a capital G.
Nike is taking advantage of deadly force that they don't legally have so that they don't have to answer to organized labor. Normally I hate labor unions. They exist to give workers what they feel like they need, not what they have earned. Moreso, they exist to increase the power of those in control of the labor union. At the same time, any corporation which has a labor union deserves it. One of the reasons that Home Depot (a relatively new company) lacks any unions is becuase they were so generous with their stock and stock options.
Perhaps you will argue here that the thing which motivates Nike to take advantage of the Indonesian government's license to deadly force is "greed". Well, what is greed? "An excessive desire for wealth." How much is "excessive"? Is it greedy to want a 29 inch TV? Even that is powered by some desire for wealth.
Your argument lost its momentum when I got to your sig.
Two points here:
1. If what my.sig says is offensive to you, does that diminsh the reason behind everything else I may argue? Can you really not separate the two?
2. If you disagree with my.sig, then please answer the following:
Does HIV kill T-cells?
Are there any cofactors involved in AIDS?
What are the side effects of AZT?
Why is African AIDS so drastically different from North American AIDS?
If "everyone is at risk" for AIDS (according to the CDC), then why has AIDS remained confined to its original risk groups (IV drug users and promiscuous homosexual men) in North America?
Just because I don't believe the religion of HIV/AIDS does not make me wrong or stupid.
But Occam's razor, the flat out negation by everyone involved, and common sense ALL agree that it just isn't rational.
I don't believe in common sense. It's usually used as a means of putting down one's opponent. "It's common sense! (i.e. You're a dumbass for not knowing this!)"
They don't NEED to futz around with cloak-and-dagger funding.
How do you know? They may have other other motivations that are hidden from you.
Thus I say, that to within a reasonable degree of doubt, it just isn't happening.
Consider this: Linux is Microsoft's biggest enemy, just as Netscape used to be Microsoft's biggest enemy. Since Microsoft spent millions upon millions fighting Netscape, I see no reason why they wouldn't do the same thing to counter Linux. The problem is that their strategy has to be different; it's not like they can spend millions developing a web browser and give it away for free in order to fight Linux since Linux does not follow the same market strategy that Netscape did. So the alternative way to fight Linux is through the courts, and SCO happens to be doing just that. It is in Microsoft's best interest to see SCO succeed and also in Microsoft's best interest to make their involvement in the seem smaller. Hence, it makes sense to me why Microsoft would want to hide the fact that they are funding SCO.
As an aside, the subject of your.sig is one of the biggest and most poorly researched conspiracy theories I've seen. It's nice to have a Nobel Laureate that you can quote on the subject, but it doesn't help when he's out of his league and half demented. Have you ever met Kary Mullis? I used to work for a company that collaborated with him, and the guy is a certifiable nutcase. If you're going to quote his opinions on HIV/AIDS, then you should also quote his theories on alien seeding.
I'm not the slightest bit impressed.
I like my.sig: it generates a lot of discussion. HIV/AIDS is a religion, not a science. And when I dare defy the screed of the Church of AIDS, I get very similar treatment as I do when I dare defy the tenets of Christianity. Please answer the following questions:
1. Why was AZT banned?
2. Why is North American AIDS so vastly different from African AIDS? (The answer from the AIDS church is essentially this: "We can't expect those niggers over there to restrain themselves from fucking everything in sight." Will your answer be as racist as theirs is?)
3. Does HIV kill T-cells?
4. How were the figures of African AIDS cases determined?
5. Why is KS so limited to the homosexual male population?
6. How do you account for long-term non-progressors?
Let's see how well-researched you are into the contradictory statements which eminate from the AIDS High Priests.
A legal fiction is a definition or assumption make by the law that is not congruent with reality.
I understand. How is a corporation a legal fiction?
They can sue the corporation. They can't sue the stockholders. You, as an individual, are absolved of responsibility by the state;
And the monetary damages pass right to the individuals who happen to be stockholders. I don't buy this absolition of responsibility.
all you can lose is your investment in the company, even if you were woefully negligent.
Just because I have a corporation does not mean I'm raking in money, regardless of how greedy and selfish you think I am. We put everything we had left into our store, so while it's "just an investment" to you, it's hopes, dreams, and livliehood for me, jobs for my employees, and services for my customers.
Furthermore, the point about our being a litigious society is relevent because it counters the point that individuals can deny any responsibility for the actions of a corporation. There are cases where individuals will bear the responsibility of a corporation unjustly.
I maintain: looters and leeches see "corporation" and think "rich, greedy bastards who deserve to be sued". Your "all you lose is your investment" is evidential of this attitude.
Corporate crime kills more people than street crime, but you can't arrest a fiction.
The burden of proof is on you: show me how corporate crime kills more people than street crime does. I want to see statistics and URLs.
Of course incorporation doen't create evil; but it creates a means and an environment that is condusive to it.
All we're missing here is a definition of "evil". Is it evil to make a lot of money or to want to?
You got paid by your former employer. Great. I'm supposed to be impressed that part of that payment was in the form of lottery tickets that happened to pay off for you???
Your desire to be impressed is among the least of my concerns and your snide comments are not welcome in this discussion. I am countering the notion that corporations are not generous with their employees. Stock options are not lottery tickets. In an up economy, the stock options were paying off for lots of people in big ways. Yes, the stock tanked, but we made a good decision to exercise and diversify. You can't do that with lottery tickets; hence, your necessarily-flawed analogy crumbles as all analogies do.
It's very nice and all - I make a nice win for myself when a former employer went public, then got bought out. Doesn't mean that Trusted Information Systems or Network Associates is an ethically commendible organization,
Strawman.
or that the legal concept of a corporation isn't badly flawed,
You have yet to support this. I think you hate capitalism so it's convenient for your ideology to claim that corporations are "badly flawed", but you may yet show me that you think otherwise.
There's no more altruism in a stock option than in a regular paycheck - oftentimes less.
Nor is there any altruism at all in anything. Every human action has a selfish motivation. Every human action may have multiple motivations, many of them non-selfish. But if there is no selfish motivation included then humans won't do it. I can think of a selfless action, and I know that you won't do it.
If you're working from the assumption that selfishness is bad, then we have some groundwork to cover. I am an objectivist and believe that rational self-interest is the highest moral good. I also believe that self-importance is antisocial and thus immoral. I am hoping for questions but expecting slander in your response.
The problem, of course, is that you can't prove a negative. Can you prove that there are no humans living on Jupiter? No. Can you prove that there is no god? No. Can you prove that Iraq has no WMDs? No. Can you prove that Microsoft isn't funding SCO (through this $50M investment)? No.
Stick with the "pony up the evidence" and don't come forth with negative claims.
The law claims corporations are a legal person, with all the rights that entitles one to. So Corporations can own property.
What is this in response to? Are you trying to refute or illuminate something with this statement?
The stockholders are absolved of any responsibility.
I would hope so! The stockholders are usually only investors, not the decision-makers. Executives who withhold information from stockholders should be tried for fraud.
A Corp srews up and noone is responsible.
Your statement is absurd: corporations are often held responsible for their screw-ups. It doesn't seem like you're putting a lot of thought into this discussion.
Your store screws up, and you are responsible.
My store cannot screw up. It is an inanimate object that has no will and makes no choices. The people in my store can screw up. Whether or not that liability passes on to my corporation is another matter, as in the case of one of my employees committing murder in my store without my knowledge or consent. You also failed to address the point I made in which I can be held liable for something that is not my fault.
That is the big difference, that a lot of us plebes take umbrage at.
Why do you call yourself a "plebe"?
Do you think the profit motive is moral or immoral?
What does this mean? Do you mean that people claim that corporations exist in law, but that they actually dont? Or perhaps you mean that corporations should not exist in law?
in which individuals deny any responsibility for the actions of the fiction.
My corporation owns my store. If a person slips on the pavement outside my store, they may sue. Since we live in the most litigous society on the planet (13% of the population but 40% of the lawyers!), they may win, even if the "sufferer" is the one at fault. Who does the sufferer sue? My corporation. Who suffers? Me, the individual, even if they or no one is at fault.
So I don't buy your analysis. I may be held responsible for things even if I may rightly deny it. Looters and leeches see "corporation" and think, "Rich, greedy bastards who deserve to be sued".
No responsibility, no rights.
Except that there is responsibility. Maybe not as much as you or I would like, and not that they don't try and minimize the reponsibility, but corporations take their licks and often. Corporations do a lot of good for individuals that you probably overlook. The stock options provided by my former employer (The Home Depot, a huge satanic babykilling corporation, right?) paid for our store and the adoption of our son.
I think your real beef might be that you think the profit motive is immoral.
No, you totally misunderstand. I'm not saying that *I* know what coolness is. I'm saying that coolness is not static, and can't be pinned down or bought.
I'm with you so far.
Just because the notion of cool has been commodified doesnt mean that it doesnt exist in its pure form any more.
You claim that "coolness" has a "pure form", yet you deny that you know what "coolness" is. If you don't know what it is, then how do you know that it has a "pure form"?
Are you telling me you never thing anything is cool? Or that when you do it is just because its image has been sold to you? No, you probably find something you think is cool for its own merit every single day.
Strawman. Perhaps you and I should agree as to what one means when one describes something as "cool". I use "cool" to describe new technology that I think is exciting. Kids use "cool" to describe the ability to win their peers' attention and appreciation in their juvenile social circles.
You people are confusing the appearance of coolness with actual coolness.
10,000,000 pierced-and-tattooed kids buy into the newest thing, be it shoes, clothing, electronics, whatever. They buy it because they think it is "cool". Corporate execs contgratulate themselves and give big bonuses to their marketroids for sucessfully manufacturing "coolness" (and making money off it, too!).
"But no!" you say, "That's not true coolness. Only I (and my truly cool friends) know what 'cool' truly is."
You can proclaim this with confidence because you are just much more intelligent, hip, street-smart, and cultured than those 10,000,000 other pierced-and-tattooed dolts who fell into the latest marketing blitz. In other words, you're a snob.
Don't misunderstand me: there's nothing inherently wrong with being "snobbish" in the sense of having well-developed taste. To prove that I believe this, I'll show my own snobbery. I, for one, know gobs more about good cuisine than millions of hot-dog-and-american-cheese-eating Americans.
But "true coolness"? Give me a break! The whole notion of that which is "cool" is almost completely the realm of the young and inexperienced. It exists as a means by which young and inexperienced people win favor with their peer group.
The Democrats were really mad that they lost, I know. Keep in mind that if the roles were reversed, they would probably be very happy with the electoral college. Democrats and Republicans are about political power over every other issue. For the record, the electoral college functioned exactly as it was intended to: to remove power from population centers. You might want to read Hamilton's writings in Federalist #68.
More like one works for his money and the other uses his powers as a convicted monopolist to extort it.
The parent poster was wrong. He claimed that Linus begs for money when, in fact, he is gainfully employed, exchanging value-for-value. Gates willfully uses fraud to make money. He is not a capitalist; instead, he is a con-man.
The 'noble poor' don't have time to read 'that sort of stuff'.
And how would you know such a thing? Did you assemble a team of tens of thousands of researchers to interview every poor person on their leisure habits (and then take the noble poor at their word)? Or perhaps you have a neural link to all of the noble poor so you know all their thoughts and desires at any given instant? No, I've got it: there's no way you could know such a thing, but it's beneficial to your political platform to pretend like you can speak for the poor in gross generalizations such as the one above.
Hi, come to LI, NY, I'll walk you around introduce you to the many of these 'mythical persons'.
Is it that you've really, honestly, found many people who conform to the list I gave, or did you find people who like lots of "fancy stuff" and you demonize them for it? My guess is it's the latter. How much insight do you have into others' private lives? Their big houses and Lexuses are obvious. Their hobbies and interpersonal relationships are not.
I've heard that the book, Nanny Diaries might give you an insight into these people's lives.
Or maybe it's just another smear screed against people who choose to make a lot of money. The noble poor like reading that sort of stuff.
Oh, and I should have put 'American Family' in quotes. Because I don't think that you need to have 2 kids a wife and a dog,
As part of a gay adoptive family, I think we've found a point on which we agree!
but conservatives who cry and bitch about the death of the American Family blame everything, but certainly not good old American greed. And I agree, Greed is subjective.
I don't understand how you can talk about "good old American greed" and then admit that greed is subjective. What you see as "good old American greed" looks different to just about every person you may meet. Greed is defined as "an excessive desire for wealth". Well, just how much is "excessive"? Ask 1,000 people and you'll get 1,000 different answers. This is why I reject all greed-based (and exploitation-based) arguments.
But I hope that I will never have to put expanding my bank account over my friends, family, and enriching experiences.
I've never met a person who puts expanding their bank account over friends, family, and "enriching experiences" (whatever the those are). I know that it's convenient for your argument that these people exist, but that doesn't mean that they do. How would you be able to tell if a person truly, honestly, put expanding their bank account over everything? I don't think such a determination would be possible short of reading that person's mind.
The notion of greed is completely subjective. Is it greedy to own a 27" television when you could have bought a 25" television and given the difference to the poor?
All anyone cares about is themselves and their possesions.
As if blanket assertions like this were ever helpful.
Hell that's what's killing the American Family.
I expect doom-and-gloom statements about the "health of the American family" from Fundamentalist Christians. Now Leftists invoke it as well. Yet another way that I see Fundamentalist Christianity and Leftism as the similar religions with different gods.
Let's see, why do mommy and daddy work 80 hours a week each?
Perhaps the American corporate culture has something to do with working its employees harder. It's completely understandable in this cruddy economy. I can think of several people who are in this situation right now.
Man that's so worth it isn't it? I mean you get to have your kids driven to school by the nanny in the new Lexus. Isn't that the American Dream?
Leftists (and college kids) often whine about this mythical person who meets the following qualities:
1. Has no interest in parenting their children 2. Has no interest in their marraige 3. Has no interest in hobbies 4. Has no interest in friendships 5. Has an overwhelming, extreme interest in buying things to impress strangers, make up for low self-esteem, or make up for small penis size
I think this person is a boogeyman; i.e., this person does not exist except in the argument where his/her (mythical) existence is beneficial to the argument.
It's like Oracle telling their customers to also keep a dead-tree cardbox system in parallel *just to be sure*
All analogies are invalid. If you have a good argument, then you should be able to support it with reason and evidence and not have to rely on necessarily-flawed analogies.
Every year in every large city in a cold place (detroit, chicago, New York) lots of people die from the cold. They take shelter in the subways and such when they can but inevitably some die and the city comes by and picks up their bodies. It happens all the time.
I didn't ask you to repeat your anecdote. I asked you for evidence.
Normal people can't pay those kinds of bills so the hospital asks them to declare bankrupcy so they can hit up the state for the bill.
I need to clear up a problem first. My statement you are responding to is, "They have medical care and choose not to pay", and the "they" that I am referring to are people who use the ER as a free health care system knowing that the ER, under law, cannot refuse treatment. I should have written, "They receive medical care with no intention of paying and then proceed to make good on their intention", as it is a better explanation of my point.
Now that I got that out of the way, I'll point out that you didn't respond to it. I am talking about deadbeats who abuse that law and cause insurance premiums to rise for those who can pay. Care to comment?
It's broken health care system.
I think I would call the US health system "imperfect", as it can be improved upon. (For instance, I do not think that government should mandate that insurance pay for pregnancy-related and delivery-related medical costs.) I think you prefer the word "broken" because you think that health care should be turned over to the government which is currently doing such a stellar job with the War on Some Drugs, Social Security, the Postal Service, and childhood education.
No I would not be interested. I was simply pointing out that your point about drugs being more expensive outside the US was false.
The post you replied to was my first entry into this thread. I never argued that drugs are more expensive outside the US. You have me confused with someone else.
If the other countries have found a way to burden the US citizens with the cost their drugs more power to them.
Are you arguing that it is good that US citizens should be burdened with the cost of drug research while non-US citizens should get a free ride? If so, the I would like to understand your logic behind this claim.
There are lots of people who get no health care. Who simply die on the street and are swept up by the cities. It's tragic but true.
Likewise, I can claim that baby-eating vultures swoop out of the sky snatching infants from their mothers' arms and then add, "It's tragic but true." It's the evidence, not my easy-to-fabricate claims which make something believable. Care to pony up some evidence for your claim? I want to see news reports of someone who died in the street due to a failure in the U.S. health system and then was subsequently swept up by the city.
Also many people are forced to commit bankrupcy as a result of a hospital visit. They lose their credit and any ability to live a normal life.
Likewise, many illegal aliens and deadbeats abuse the law which states that no ER can turn anyone away. They have medical care and then choose not to pay. The hospital has no other choice but to raise the bills of their customers who can pay. This causes insurance premiums to rise. I'd bet that for every sob story there are ten deadbeats and losers who are ready and willing to abuse the system at the expense of those who earn money.
A lot of US citizens travel to Mexico and Canada to buy cheaper drugs.
Perhaps you'd be interested in knowing why drugs are cheaper in other countries. It's because other countries have laws that regulate how much profit a (foreign) drug manufacturer can make on drugs. This limits the mount of money that U.S. drug manufacturers can charge in foreign countries while, in the U.S., they can charge whatever they want to due to absense of such laws. The Americans end up bearng the burden of the drug companies R&D, as their R&D is directly related to their profits. The Canadians (and Americans who buy drugs in Canada) get a free ride in that regard.
Slashdot Mirror
As if people can't type in a URL after reading a leaflet included in the box?
Lots of people can't do that. (You're assuming that the customers found the leaflet in the first place!) They fat-finger it, misspell it, and can't figure out what happened. Yes, they are clueless dipshits, but that's no consolation to the marketer. After all, even clueless dipshits buy things.
Are they aware that people type URLs all the time without trouble?
Apparently you aren't aware that typing something into a web browser is sheer wizardry for millions of people. Yes, you're a super cool computer literate Internet using badass. Compared to you, the rest of the world (the vast majority of it, at least) is morons. What if you were the guy who is trying to market something to all of the morons?
Are you going to expect those morons to be able to read something and type it into a web browser? I wouldn't.
Before someone gets mad, I think what Belkin did was wrong. That doesn't invalidate some of the reasons they gave (even if they happened to be lies).
Why can't they just admit that they wanted to prominently promote their subscription-based service?
Probably because Belkin is used to marketing to dim-witted fuckups who aren't as savvy as the folks on the Internet who are currently reaming Belkin for their bad business and subsequent deceit.
Hey Loundry, my sig used to be "By Pentagon standards, the WTC was a "dual-use" target." Hope you're having fun with your outRAGEous sig!
Let me see if I understand what you're trying to do here.
In my other response to you, I debated several of your points and asked some direct questions. You seem to have ignored all of that (despite your promise to "check it out") and instead opted to paint me as a troll in a mocking manner.
On what grounds do you raise objections toward my belief that HIV/AIDS is a fraud? It seems that when we start talking about it your debate skills fall to middle-shool quality.
Let me put it another way: If my sig was "The Apollo landings were faked" you probably wouldn't take me seriously either. Even if I had been making sense up until then.
:)
.1% of gay men.
Argument by analogy.
I am not so informed as to really be able agree or disagree with your sig, but I will check it out.
Cool, a friend.
That's a good question. I think the answer is that gay men are highly promiscuous and frequently have bloody assholes when done fucking -- a vector for transmission that even promiscuous straights are not likely to have.
Straights are also promiscuous and also have unprotected anal sex. According to the CDC, even microscopic tears in the rectum can allow the passage of HIV, so the asshole being bloody or not is irrelevent. You may try to argue that gays are merely *more* promiscuous that straights. If you do, then I expect you to come up with some kind of standard of measuring promiscuity.
(Insert tangent about low rate of lesbian AIDS here)
Which, as it turns out, is practically the same as the AIDS rate for straights who have anal sex. Furthermore, the CDC argues that "everyone is at risk". The numbers show otherwise, don't they?
Bug Chasers and Gift Givers aren't doing any favors for the gay community either.
Bug Chasers and Gift Givers are media hype. Yes, some gay guys get off on that, but you even have to consider bugchasers/giftgivers to realize that many, many gay men do not use protection. If the percentage of gay men who have unprotected sex were 30% I would not be surprised, whereas I would be stunned if the number of bugchasers/giftgivers were higher than
I'm gay, by the way, and I think HIV/AIDS is the singlemost anti-gay thing ever.
I see that you tried to answer one of my questions and ignored the others. Why? Were they not worth examining?
I don't think it's something that would be offensive to anyone -- it's just that it's so closely associated with all the other whacko conspiracy theories out there that its assertion tends to greatly diminsh the credibility of the author.
.sig has made lots of people very mad and they've called me nasty things. And why is it so closely associated with "all the other" conspiracy theories? Is anything that goes against "conventional knowledge" a baseless conspiracy theory?
... uhh, other things..."
You're wrong about it not being offensive. My
I mean, it's like saying "The E==Mc^2 hypothesis is the biggest physics fraud in human history. Fusion bombs don't exist -- those explosions in Japan were caused by,
This is the flaw of argument by analogy. As it turns out, the fraud of HIV/AIDS is *not* like those other things you mentioned.
Yes, trust. I do trust that, given my understanding of human nature, in a society as free as ours, that there are going to be enough scientists who really are more concerned with scientific truth than with whatever some conspiracy theorist says their motives must be, that I can trust what they say.
People used to give the same trust and faith to priests in the catholic church with similar rationalizations: "In a society as free as ours, there are going to be enough priests who really are more concerned with God's Truth than whatever some heathen says their motives must be." I repeat: HIV/AIDS is a religion, its high priests are scientists, and its practitioners, like those in the Catholic church, are humans with human failings.
In fact, one of the major motivations of up-and-coming young scientists is always going to be to overturn the "accepted truths" of the day.
This is naive. Do you really think there is no ego in the world of science? Do you really think that overturning accepted truths would have no upsetting factors that other scientists would prefer not to see?
And don't give me any of that "they're all in a big conspiracy, or they're all ignorant" nonsense.
I have no interest in conspiracy theories.
So the fact that it hasn't been big news in the respected media (especially in scientific publications)
It has been, it's just that you're not aware it because of how AIDS dissidents are treated by the scientific elite. You're probably also not aware of some of the startling admissions made by those who do believe in HIV/AIDS, such as HIV *not* killing T-cells (which used to be how AIDS worked, right?)
And so I accept the HIV==AIDS hypothesis.
And yet you have made no effort at all to answer any of the questions I asked. Why not? Are you afraid of what the answer may be?
The difference is, you don't know for a fact that buying a 29-inch over a 27-inch will harm someone.
We have to come to agreement as to what "harming" means. Many people argue that capitalism is harmful while I think it is moral.
Does Nike know that the Indonesian government violently breaks up labor strikes so that the workers will continue to produces shoes at slave wages? Yes, but they keep doing it. That's Greed with a capital G.
Nike is taking advantage of deadly force that they don't legally have so that they don't have to answer to organized labor. Normally I hate labor unions. They exist to give workers what they feel like they need, not what they have earned. Moreso, they exist to increase the power of those in control of the labor union. At the same time, any corporation which has a labor union deserves it. One of the reasons that Home Depot (a relatively new company) lacks any unions is becuase they were so generous with their stock and stock options.
Perhaps you will argue here that the thing which motivates Nike to take advantage of the Indonesian government's license to deadly force is "greed". Well, what is greed? "An excessive desire for wealth." How much is "excessive"? Is it greedy to want a 29 inch TV? Even that is powered by some desire for wealth.
Guess what Sherlock,
Your snide words show the weakness of your argument.
almost no meanful concept can be measured objectively. Not love, hate, justice, freedom, or anything else.
Can you define "eyeball"?
Can you define "pencil"?
So much for "almost no".
Your argument lost its momentum when I got to your sig.
.sig says is offensive to you, does that diminsh the reason behind everything else I may argue? Can you really not separate the two?
.sig, then please answer the following:
Two points here:
1. If what my
2. If you disagree with my
Does HIV kill T-cells?
Are there any cofactors involved in AIDS?
What are the side effects of AZT?
Why is African AIDS so drastically different from North American AIDS?
If "everyone is at risk" for AIDS (according to the CDC), then why has AIDS remained confined to its original risk groups (IV drug users and promiscuous homosexual men) in North America?
Just because I don't believe the religion of HIV/AIDS does not make me wrong or stupid.
greedy corporations from capitalism
There is no such thing as greed. It is a completely subjective notion that has no objective means of measuring it.
Is it greedy to buy a 29 inch television when you could have bought a 27 inch television and given the difference to someone who "needed it"?
If so, then is it greedy to have bought a 27 inch television when you could have bought a 25 inch television...?
But Occam's razor, the flat out negation by everyone involved, and common sense ALL agree that it just isn't rational.
.sig is one of the biggest and most poorly researched conspiracy theories I've seen. It's nice to have a Nobel Laureate that you can quote on the subject, but it doesn't help when he's out of his league and half demented. Have you ever met Kary Mullis? I used to work for a company that collaborated with him, and the guy is a certifiable nutcase. If you're going to quote his opinions on HIV/AIDS, then you should also quote his theories on alien seeding.
.sig: it generates a lot of discussion. HIV/AIDS is a religion, not a science. And when I dare defy the screed of the Church of AIDS, I get very similar treatment as I do when I dare defy the tenets of Christianity. Please answer the following questions:
I don't believe in common sense. It's usually used as a means of putting down one's opponent. "It's common sense! (i.e. You're a dumbass for not knowing this!)"
They don't NEED to futz around with cloak-and-dagger funding.
How do you know? They may have other other motivations that are hidden from you.
Thus I say, that to within a reasonable degree of doubt, it just isn't happening.
Consider this: Linux is Microsoft's biggest enemy, just as Netscape used to be Microsoft's biggest enemy. Since Microsoft spent millions upon millions fighting Netscape, I see no reason why they wouldn't do the same thing to counter Linux. The problem is that their strategy has to be different; it's not like they can spend millions developing a web browser and give it away for free in order to fight Linux since Linux does not follow the same market strategy that Netscape did. So the alternative way to fight Linux is through the courts, and SCO happens to be doing just that. It is in Microsoft's best interest to see SCO succeed and also in Microsoft's best interest to make their involvement in the seem smaller. Hence, it makes sense to me why Microsoft would want to hide the fact that they are funding SCO.
As an aside, the subject of your
I'm not the slightest bit impressed.
I like my
1. Why was AZT banned?
2. Why is North American AIDS so vastly different from African AIDS? (The answer from the AIDS church is essentially this: "We can't expect those niggers over there to restrain themselves from fucking everything in sight." Will your answer be as racist as theirs is?)
3. Does HIV kill T-cells?
4. How were the figures of African AIDS cases determined?
5. Why is KS so limited to the homosexual male population?
6. How do you account for long-term non-progressors?
Let's see how well-researched you are into the contradictory statements which eminate from the AIDS High Priests.
A legal fiction is a definition or assumption make by the law that is not congruent with reality.
I understand. How is a corporation a legal fiction?
They can sue the corporation. They can't sue the stockholders. You, as an individual, are absolved of responsibility by the state;
And the monetary damages pass right to the individuals who happen to be stockholders. I don't buy this absolition of responsibility.
all you can lose is your investment in the company, even if you were woefully negligent.
Just because I have a corporation does not mean I'm raking in money, regardless of how greedy and selfish you think I am. We put everything we had left into our store, so while it's "just an investment" to you, it's hopes, dreams, and livliehood for me, jobs for my employees, and services for my customers.
Furthermore, the point about our being a litigious society is relevent because it counters the point that individuals can deny any responsibility for the actions of a corporation. There are cases where individuals will bear the responsibility of a corporation unjustly.
I maintain: looters and leeches see "corporation" and think "rich, greedy bastards who deserve to be sued". Your "all you lose is your investment" is evidential of this attitude.
Corporate crime kills more people than street crime, but you can't arrest a fiction.
The burden of proof is on you: show me how corporate crime kills more people than street crime does. I want to see statistics and URLs.
Of course incorporation doen't create evil; but it creates a means and an environment that is condusive to it.
All we're missing here is a definition of "evil". Is it evil to make a lot of money or to want to?
You got paid by your former employer. Great. I'm supposed to be impressed that part of that payment was in the form of lottery tickets that happened to pay off for you???
Your desire to be impressed is among the least of my concerns and your snide comments are not welcome in this discussion. I am countering the notion that corporations are not generous with their employees. Stock options are not lottery tickets. In an up economy, the stock options were paying off for lots of people in big ways. Yes, the stock tanked, but we made a good decision to exercise and diversify. You can't do that with lottery tickets; hence, your necessarily-flawed analogy crumbles as all analogies do.
It's very nice and all - I make a nice win for myself when a former employer went public, then got bought out. Doesn't mean that Trusted Information Systems or Network Associates is an ethically commendible organization,
Strawman.
or that the legal concept of a corporation isn't badly flawed,
You have yet to support this. I think you hate capitalism so it's convenient for your ideology to claim that corporations are "badly flawed", but you may yet show me that you think otherwise.
There's no more altruism in a stock option than in a regular paycheck - oftentimes less.
Nor is there any altruism at all in anything. Every human action has a selfish motivation. Every human action may have multiple motivations, many of them non-selfish. But if there is no selfish motivation included then humans won't do it. I can think of a selfless action, and I know that you won't do it.
If you're working from the assumption that selfishness is bad, then we have some groundwork to cover. I am an objectivist and believe that rational self-interest is the highest moral good. I also believe that self-importance is antisocial and thus immoral. I am hoping for questions but expecting slander in your response.
You were fine until you wrote this:
It's not happening.
The problem, of course, is that you can't prove a negative. Can you prove that there are no humans living on Jupiter? No. Can you prove that there is no god? No. Can you prove that Iraq has no WMDs? No. Can you prove that Microsoft isn't funding SCO (through this $50M investment)? No.
Stick with the "pony up the evidence" and don't come forth with negative claims.
The law claims corporations are a legal person, with all the rights that entitles one to. So Corporations can own property.
What is this in response to? Are you trying to refute or illuminate something with this statement?
The stockholders are absolved of any responsibility.
I would hope so! The stockholders are usually only investors, not the decision-makers. Executives who withhold information from stockholders should be tried for fraud.
A Corp srews up and noone is responsible.
Your statement is absurd: corporations are often held responsible for their screw-ups. It doesn't seem like you're putting a lot of thought into this discussion.
Your store screws up, and you are responsible.
My store cannot screw up. It is an inanimate object that has no will and makes no choices. The people in my store can screw up. Whether or not that liability passes on to my corporation is another matter, as in the case of one of my employees committing murder in my store without my knowledge or consent. You also failed to address the point I made in which I can be held liable for something that is not my fault.
That is the big difference, that a lot of us plebes take umbrage at.
Why do you call yourself a "plebe"?
Do you think the profit motive is moral or immoral?
Majority still rules in Congress when the Congressman vote on the bills. If there are more yays than nays then the bill is passed on.
In does not matter. My original point stands and yours does not. The United States of America is a constitutional republic, not a democracy.
No. A corporation is a legal fiction
What does this mean? Do you mean that people claim that corporations exist in law, but that they actually dont? Or perhaps you mean that corporations should not exist in law?
in which individuals deny any responsibility for the actions of the fiction.
My corporation owns my store. If a person slips on the pavement outside my store, they may sue. Since we live in the most litigous society on the planet (13% of the population but 40% of the lawyers!), they may win, even if the "sufferer" is the one at fault. Who does the sufferer sue? My corporation. Who suffers? Me, the individual, even if they or no one is at fault.
So I don't buy your analysis. I may be held responsible for things even if I may rightly deny it. Looters and leeches see "corporation" and think, "Rich, greedy bastards who deserve to be sued".
No responsibility, no rights.
Except that there is responsibility. Maybe not as much as you or I would like, and not that they don't try and minimize the reponsibility, but corporations take their licks and often. Corporations do a lot of good for individuals that you probably overlook. The stock options provided by my former employer (The Home Depot, a huge satanic babykilling corporation, right?) paid for our store and the adoption of our son.
I think your real beef might be that you think the profit motive is immoral.
But America == democracy so if the majority wants
The USA is not a democracy. It is a constitutional republic. The founding fathers worked hard to thwart what the majority wants.
No, you totally misunderstand. I'm not saying that *I* know what coolness is. I'm saying that coolness is not static, and can't be pinned down or bought.
I'm with you so far.
Just because the notion of cool has been commodified doesnt mean that it doesnt exist in its pure form any more.
You claim that "coolness" has a "pure form", yet you deny that you know what "coolness" is. If you don't know what it is, then how do you know that it has a "pure form"?
Are you telling me you never thing anything is cool? Or that when you do it is just because its image has been sold to you? No, you probably find something you think is cool for its own merit every single day.
Strawman. Perhaps you and I should agree as to what one means when one describes something as "cool". I use "cool" to describe new technology that I think is exciting. Kids use "cool" to describe the ability to win their peers' attention and appreciation in their juvenile social circles.
You people are confusing the appearance of coolness with actual coolness.
10,000,000 pierced-and-tattooed kids buy into the newest thing, be it shoes, clothing, electronics, whatever. They buy it because they think it is "cool". Corporate execs contgratulate themselves and give big bonuses to their marketroids for sucessfully manufacturing "coolness" (and making money off it, too!).
"But no!" you say, "That's not true coolness. Only I (and my truly cool friends) know what 'cool' truly is."
You can proclaim this with confidence because you are just much more intelligent, hip, street-smart, and cultured than those 10,000,000 other pierced-and-tattooed dolts who fell into the latest marketing blitz. In other words, you're a snob.
Don't misunderstand me: there's nothing inherently wrong with being "snobbish" in the sense of having well-developed taste. To prove that I believe this, I'll show my own snobbery. I, for one, know gobs more about good cuisine than millions of hot-dog-and-american-cheese-eating Americans.
But "true coolness"? Give me a break! The whole notion of that which is "cool" is almost completely the realm of the young and inexperienced. It exists as a means by which young and inexperienced people win favor with their peer group.
push for the abolition of the electoral college
The Democrats were really mad that they lost, I know. Keep in mind that if the roles were reversed, they would probably be very happy with the electoral college. Democrats and Republicans are about political power over every other issue. For the record, the electoral college functioned exactly as it was intended to: to remove power from population centers. You might want to read Hamilton's writings in Federalist #68.
More like one works for his money and the other uses his powers as a convicted monopolist to extort it.
The parent poster was wrong. He claimed that Linus begs for money when, in fact, he is gainfully employed, exchanging value-for-value. Gates willfully uses fraud to make money. He is not a capitalist; instead, he is a con-man.
The 'noble poor' don't have time to read 'that sort of stuff'.
And how would you know such a thing? Did you assemble a team of tens of thousands of researchers to interview every poor person on their leisure habits (and then take the noble poor at their word)? Or perhaps you have a neural link to all of the noble poor so you know all their thoughts and desires at any given instant? No, I've got it: there's no way you could know such a thing, but it's beneficial to your political platform to pretend like you can speak for the poor in gross generalizations such as the one above.
Whatever.
This low-thought response puts you in the 16-22 age range.
Judging from your sig, your logical reasoning skills are definitly superior to mine.
Does HIV cause AIDS by killing T-cells?
Why is African AIDS so different from North American AIDS?
Don't be so quick to dismiss my skepticism if you can't answer questions such as these.
Hi, come to LI, NY, I'll walk you around introduce you to the many of these 'mythical persons'.
Is it that you've really, honestly, found many people who conform to the list I gave, or did you find people who like lots of "fancy stuff" and you demonize them for it? My guess is it's the latter. How much insight do you have into others' private lives? Their big houses and Lexuses are obvious. Their hobbies and interpersonal relationships are not.
I've heard that the book, Nanny Diaries might give you an insight into these people's lives.
Or maybe it's just another smear screed against people who choose to make a lot of money. The noble poor like reading that sort of stuff.
Oh, and I should have put 'American Family' in quotes. Because I don't think that you need to have 2 kids a wife and a dog,
As part of a gay adoptive family, I think we've found a point on which we agree!
but conservatives who cry and bitch about the death of the American Family blame everything, but certainly not good old American greed. And I agree, Greed is subjective.
I don't understand how you can talk about "good old American greed" and then admit that greed is subjective. What you see as "good old American greed" looks different to just about every person you may meet. Greed is defined as "an excessive desire for wealth". Well, just how much is "excessive"? Ask 1,000 people and you'll get 1,000 different answers. This is why I reject all greed-based (and exploitation-based) arguments.
But I hope that I will never have to put expanding my bank account over my friends, family, and enriching experiences.
I've never met a person who puts expanding their bank account over friends, family, and "enriching experiences" (whatever the those are). I know that it's convenient for your argument that these people exist, but that doesn't mean that they do. How would you be able to tell if a person truly, honestly, put expanding their bank account over everything? I don't think such a determination would be possible short of reading that person's mind.
Greed is now God.
The notion of greed is completely subjective. Is it greedy to own a 27" television when you could have bought a 25" television and given the difference to the poor?
All anyone cares about is themselves and their possesions.
As if blanket assertions like this were ever helpful.
Hell that's what's killing the American Family.
I expect doom-and-gloom statements about the "health of the American family" from Fundamentalist Christians. Now Leftists invoke it as well. Yet another way that I see Fundamentalist Christianity and Leftism as the similar religions with different gods.
Let's see, why do mommy and daddy work 80 hours a week each?
Perhaps the American corporate culture has something to do with working its employees harder. It's completely understandable in this cruddy economy. I can think of several people who are in this situation right now.
Man that's so worth it isn't it? I mean you get to have your kids driven to school by the nanny in the new Lexus. Isn't that the American Dream?
Leftists (and college kids) often whine about this mythical person who meets the following qualities:
1. Has no interest in parenting their children
2. Has no interest in their marraige
3. Has no interest in hobbies
4. Has no interest in friendships
5. Has an overwhelming, extreme interest in buying things to impress strangers, make up for low self-esteem, or make up for small penis size
I think this person is a boogeyman; i.e., this person does not exist except in the argument where his/her (mythical) existence is beneficial to the argument.
It's like Oracle telling their customers to also keep a dead-tree cardbox system in parallel *just to be sure*
All analogies are invalid. If you have a good argument, then you should be able to support it with reason and evidence and not have to rely on necessarily-flawed analogies.
Every year in every large city in a cold place (detroit, chicago, New York) lots of people die from the cold. They take shelter in the subways and such when they can but inevitably some die and the city comes by and picks up their bodies. It happens all the time.
I didn't ask you to repeat your anecdote. I asked you for evidence.
Normal people can't pay those kinds of bills so the hospital asks them to declare bankrupcy so they can hit up the state for the bill.
I need to clear up a problem first. My statement you are responding to is, "They have medical care and choose not to pay", and the "they" that I am referring to are people who use the ER as a free health care system knowing that the ER, under law, cannot refuse treatment. I should have written, "They receive medical care with no intention of paying and then proceed to make good on their intention", as it is a better explanation of my point.
Now that I got that out of the way, I'll point out that you didn't respond to it. I am talking about deadbeats who abuse that law and cause insurance premiums to rise for those who can pay. Care to comment?
It's broken health care system.
I think I would call the US health system "imperfect", as it can be improved upon. (For instance, I do not think that government should mandate that insurance pay for pregnancy-related and delivery-related medical costs.) I think you prefer the word "broken" because you think that health care should be turned over to the government which is currently doing such a stellar job with the War on Some Drugs, Social Security, the Postal Service, and childhood education.
No I would not be interested. I was simply pointing out that your point about drugs being more expensive outside the US was false.
The post you replied to was my first entry into this thread. I never argued that drugs are more expensive outside the US. You have me confused with someone else.
If the other countries have found a way to burden the US citizens with the cost their drugs more power to them.
Are you arguing that it is good that US citizens should be burdened with the cost of drug research while non-US citizens should get a free ride? If so, the I would like to understand your logic behind this claim.
There are lots of people who get no health care. Who simply die on the street and are swept up by the cities. It's tragic but true.
Likewise, I can claim that baby-eating vultures swoop out of the sky snatching infants from their mothers' arms and then add, "It's tragic but true." It's the evidence, not my easy-to-fabricate claims which make something believable. Care to pony up some evidence for your claim? I want to see news reports of someone who died in the street due to a failure in the U.S. health system and then was subsequently swept up by the city.
Also many people are forced to commit bankrupcy as a result of a hospital visit. They lose their credit and any ability to live a normal life.
Likewise, many illegal aliens and deadbeats abuse the law which states that no ER can turn anyone away. They have medical care and then choose not to pay. The hospital has no other choice but to raise the bills of their customers who can pay. This causes insurance premiums to rise. I'd bet that for every sob story there are ten deadbeats and losers who are ready and willing to abuse the system at the expense of those who earn money.
A lot of US citizens travel to Mexico and Canada to buy cheaper drugs.
Perhaps you'd be interested in knowing why drugs are cheaper in other countries. It's because other countries have laws that regulate how much profit a (foreign) drug manufacturer can make on drugs. This limits the mount of money that U.S. drug manufacturers can charge in foreign countries while, in the U.S., they can charge whatever they want to due to absense of such laws. The Americans end up bearng the burden of the drug companies R&D, as their R&D is directly related to their profits. The Canadians (and Americans who buy drugs in Canada) get a free ride in that regard.