Society is in pretty bad shape now. Who are you to say that you and your friends were doing was harmless? I claim that the kids of your generation running around naked under the lawn sprinkler caused global warming.
Show me a scientific test to prove that one wrong, baby:)
"For-profit" meaning that they charge far above their cost. They are making lots of money--their rates are similar to Kinko's, which is for-profit.
I agree with you that charging users for resource use is the best way to minimise irresponsible use (every time gasoline prices go up, I cheer). However, I like to think of a university as a community with a shared agenda, rather than as a group of businesses trying to milk each other for funding.
I think that the responsible way to handle this is: a university can install fast, low-cost-per-page, reliable, featureful (network, colour, duplex, collating,...?) printers, and then pass on a low cost per page to the users. That way, they don't create incentive for every research group, every office, every student to go out and buy a crappy little personal printer, which has obvious implications for resource use, wastefulness, costs for everyone, etc. Moreover, a paid IT staff is more likely to do things like making sure that toner and whatnot get recycled properly. Last lab I managed, we were printing for an average of about 2 cents per page b&w (5% coverage, blah blah blah). A big fancy printer shared amongst a large number of people is usually, and in almost every way, a far better choice than n personal printers.
the majority of your problems are brought on by.. wait for it.. you and your cohorts.
But I don't see why you have an exclusive right to use something that was just sitting there anyway. If you own a tree, you can take away everyone else's right to enjoy the tree. But the tree has nothing to do with you. It's a tree! How does your claim to ownership trump everyone else's?
Good point about division of labour, of course. But if we allow for the possibility of trade (easier than outlawing it), then you have the right to control that which you create, and that which you traded for that someone else created. Then we have an economy. The only difference between that economy and the one that we have now is that things that nobody created can be the property of everybody equally.
Carried to the logical conclusion, that means that you can't build a house on your land, since your land is communal. I think that here it's reasonable to allow for a "practical, reasonable exception", even if I can't justify it, and it means that someone could build, say, a bloody great wall around China or something.
You propose to divide the world up based on who was there first. Why doesn't the first human who thought of property ("Adam" or etc.) own all physical resources, and you nothing but what you create?
About the elephants and bats... fences have already been invented and private property rights do not protect the VALUE of property, but simply its physical integrity.
That's quite arbitrary, isn't it? How do you determine what is structural? How can you say that I do not have rights related to non-structural aspects of the ability to survive, or to live healthily?
If you cage the bat, the mosquito lives. The consequent malaria outbreak among the beavers kills them all off, and without beaver dams, the river speeds up, increasing erosion, pulling all my topsoil away into the ocean. Same goes if you burn some coal, releasing CO_2, warming the climate, changing the habitat of the bark beetle, which moves north and kills off all the trees on my land, leading to erosion that washes all my topsoil away. Those are silly examples on several levels (although the last one is actually happening here in Colorado), but the idea is that there are many cause-and-effect relationships that just waste everyone's time and money as individual lawsuits. Recognising the bat population or the atmosphere as a common resource and managing it responsibly for the whole community at once seems at least more efficient.
Moreover, if you're suggesting building fences to make it clear who owns this elephant or bat or narwhal, then you're completely batshit insane! I assume I'm misunderstanding you?!
I suppose we disagree on what rights are because people have lumped negative with positive rights.
I don't think so. I agree with you on your examples--the "right to health care" is pretty crazy (it's nothing more than a nice feature of civilised society)--but we disagree because I do not recognise your right to destroy something that I need just because you got there first.
This is urgent: We are running out of trees, drinkable water, air that isn't, er, greenhousey, fish (indeed, an ocean that can even support fish), etc., at an alarming rate. "Too complicated to solve" is simply not acceptable. We need a solution. Care to provide one?
Of course that's the way it was supposed to work. However, that's not the reality of the situation now. The "right to bear arms" that the US Constitution guarantees is meant to allow us to carry weapons that would allow us to overthrow a government that breached that contract--if they breach the contract, what are your options?--but I dare you to try building a weapon that would be effective against that government.
My point was that being able to say whatever you want is lovely, but it's not The Definition Of Freedom.
Of course, privatizing the atmosphere or the ocean is a bit too big of a problem to tackle. But rivers or lakes are totally feasible.
Ah, but they're not too big a problem to handle if you treat them as commons.
Also, while taking private property to extremes might solve many problems if we're all wise and all value things equally, that's a big "if". What if I want to do something on my property that will affect something that you value, but that the legal system does not protect? Say I'm upwind of you. What if I don't like deodorant? What if I want to fart? Or smoke? Or have a campfire? Or burn tires? Or burn oil? Or burn coal?...
Ownership of something that you didn't create is patently ludicrous! "That's MY tree": what did you do to deserve a tree? What does it mean to own something that simply exists? For that matter, whom do you sue if "your" tree dies due to human-induced climate change? And since trees are crucial to the health of the world (cleaning air, preventing topsoil loss, creating topsoil, making oxygen, sequestering carbon, habitat for animals that probably don't respect your notions of property,.....) trees are commons. This goes back to being a complicated problem to solve if everything is privately owned.
Is that your elephant? It spends time on the land owned by hundreds of people. Who owns the ivory in its tusks? Is that your bat? It kills mosquitoes on my lawn--if you kill it, I suffer.
Is that your gorilla? Here's something that is damn near as intelligent as your average Christian, but it has no interest in owning private property--does that mean that it is owned? How is owning any sentient being not slavery? Who gets to decide whether a lobster is sentient?
Also, who gave you the tree? In a free society I can cut down any tree I want. Do you want to take away my freedom?
What about children? If property is inherited, then we are not equal--we start out owning as much as our parents did, which should rub in how ridiculous that system is in a society in which we are "equal". If property is not inherited, what happens when the owner dies? Who gets the proceeds from the sale?
An understanding of the complex interactions in the biosphere tends to destroy faith in private property. Perhaps this is why I've never met a libertarian ecologist.
Natural law states that we are endowed with certain rights. People institute a government to PROTECT these rights that we already possessed before government came into being.
What is the scientific basis for natural law? Can it be measured? Natural law is simply a good (not perfect) set of rules with an overblown name. If rights are innate, then why do you and I disagree on what they are? Moreover, why do they so frequently get trampled? Prove to me that they are a part of nature. Then you can tell me which of the many versions is correct.
Is any software still licensed per lab? Does it make sense to complain that without clusters, they're forcing students to buy lots of ridiculously expensive software? Or with this transformation, does software now get site-licensed for all students?
I'm also worried that without campus clusters, there will be no more introduction to tools and environments with which the students are not already familiar (the most glaring of many examples is that I didn't see Unix until I got to college). Exposure to different environments might be useful... or is it?
At the University of Colorado in Boulder, the people in charge of running printers (the IT department) decided to make the campus printing network for-profit, and it now charges rates that are comparable to Kinko's. As a result, every lab on campus bought its own printer, and many students followed suit.
What rot! In a freedom-based society, you have the choice to live without rules--to just walk away from any government that you don't like.
Freedom is not defined by free speech, or the right to carry guns, or security against torture. Those are rights that the people with guns (the government) grant to its constituents (through contract ("constitution" etc) or whatnot).
I'm not saying that freedom-based societies actually work. There are communal resources that get abused unless they're regulated, and free societies always end up being places where the strong can trample all over the weak. "Freedom" means that you're free to sleep at night, but it's at your own risk.
Freedom is a complicated issue. Even free speech is a complicated issue--look at libel and false advertising. It's nonsense to claim "that's not a free society because they don't have _____".
1) Global warming is not a hoax. We are seeing effects. Humans are doing things that produce enough greenhouse gases to affect it. There is no question. Anyone who tells you that we don't need to worry about it is either misinformed or deliberately trying to mislead you.
2) Dyson is right in an important way, though. Global warming will probably lead to all kinds of trouble including the collapse of society, but it is just one of many things that will do the same. I recommend Jared Diamond's Collapse, in which he discusses in detail 12 threats to our survival, each of which is more than sufficient to do us in. Some of his worries: species loss; topsoil loss; natural habitat destruction (including deforestation); the end of cheap energy; the end of drinkable water; toxic shit everywhere...
Don't underestimate the problems caused by greenhouse gases. But don't underestimate any of the others either--a cool, comfortable climate and secure polar ice caps aren't much good if all our surface water is toxic. Global warming is nothing more than a poster child for our imminent doom. Move away from its religion and towards an actual understanding of the issues.
It makes my job easier! I do robotics research. Any human who follows a zero-tolerance policy (strictly following rules) is easy to replace. The robot will cost a lot less to maintain. Now, robots that do nuance and have common sense... those are hard to build.
I wonder how well that would go over the next time someone stops me for some small, victimless infraction. "If you ticket me according to the literal law, my robotic minions will put you out of a job, officer!"
Actions like this, taken by vast numbers of people, are a large part of the reason the traffic is backed up in the first place.
Yes! But I think a deeper reason is that cities aren't designed for the number of cars that they have to endure. Widening roads can occasionally (rarely) help. Mass transit, carpool lanes, bicycles, etc., help more. Eliminating taxpayer-sponsored ("free") parking helps as well. Ultimately, though, the only solution is to curtail the growth of the population.
Yes, you can post copyrighted documents to slashdot. But now you've put CowboyNeal in the same annoying position of deciding whether to comply with a takedown request.
Actually, you haven't really. Whereas posting and discussing some questions is probably fair use, posting large chunks verbatim is a lot more like good ol'fashioned copyright violation. So you've just caused as much annoyance to the good guys as to the bad guys.
Mentally retarded patients on the 6th floor does not equal intelectuals. You yourself couldn't even be considered an intellectual. [munch] Have you ever wondered why your mom thinks your the most hansom man around yet you have never had a date that you didn't have to product a credit card before hand?
Holy Great Ganesh, Id completely ignored that fact. My bad. Your right on every point: Im not just stupid but ugly too--I will notify my girlfriends at once. I surrendr.
I assume you're trying for some metric of "people who have a certain lifestyle level" or something? That's not unreasonable, except that it seems to me that the definition is almost the same as the definition of waste. Is "X miles of metropolitan area" better than "Income exceeds Y" or "Family owns a car" or "House has electricity" or any of a million other metrics that highly correlates with what you're trying to measure?
Of course, "China" is a rather arbitrary concept. It's a completely fictional line in the sand, just like any political border is. But since everyone within that line is told what to do by the same group of people, it's reasonable to treat it as a whole for some purposes.
Another valid metric might be "Fraction of industrial and post-consumer waste (plastics, agricultural runoff, freon, CO_2, mercury, pesticides, paper, trash.....) that is reclaimed/recycled/disposed of safely/etc." Again, not exactly the number that's needed (that being "Are we going to survive the next century?") but nonetheless perhaps useful for keeping score and placing blame.
Pollution: [...] the contamination of the environment by harmful substances.
Yup, sounds like CO_2 qualifies. In spades. Sure it's a whole new mechanism for damage--not toxic, not carcinogenic, not a quick dose of nutrients to previously clear water, not ugly, etc--but it's certainly harmful!
Looks like the USA's per capita emissions of CO_2 are on the order of 10 times higher than China's (source: quick amalgam of Google results).
Some sources say that the USA leads in other pollutants as well (see http://www.crystalinks.com/pollution.html for a start, but I'm not happy with that page's rigour). That's no surprise given that the USA is a world leader in consumption and disposal of all kinds of goods--sheer volume overcomes good intentions. OTOH, I hear China is investing heavily in coal-fired power plants, which besides helping them to pull ahead in CO_2 will add a nice dose of mercury and some other nasties. Go team! There are lots of causes of pollution, and the USA comes out ahead on many of them.
Of course, the USA isn't doing too badly (relatively speaking) at controlling pollutants, although we're not doing especially well, either. Far better than China or India, AFAIK, although I'm not happy that my country is "better than the worst"!
This is an area I know little about. Do you have a better reference than what I found?
1) Your English needs serious help. Your local community college may offer remedial classes to the community.
2) Learn statistics, and why it was created. Correlation is not causation, but correlation in addition to a predictive model is pretty close.
3) Learn rhetoric. Not because you're bad at it (I don't really care if your arguments are poor) but as a defense against those who are better at it than you.
4) Learn science. Not fact, but method.
5) What, then, causes the crash? The electromagnetic force created when two objects (like the plane and the ground) get close, apparently. Way to be trivially correct. Go you.
6) Start evaluating truth based on what people say and what evidence they present rather than on whether you agree with it.
7) Thanks very much for a fascinating discussion. I learned a great deal from you. I tend to associate with intellectuals, and you helped me to realise that I really need to spend more time studying the thought processes of the average joe.
Yeah, about that... how many times has it been said that there is no bad press? How true is it? It would cause a stir, no doubt, but I thought that the consensus was that that's usually a good thing. To make matters better, some people would understand.
Joke usually have the distinguishing characteristics of being funny or noticeable as a joke.
Sorry. I assumed intelligence on the part of the reader. My bad.
There is no evidence that fossil fuels caused any of that when used correctly.
"Correctly"? You'll have to define that a little more precisely.
You said it caused X. That means it directly caused X.
Ah. I see. I had failed to realise that you were the sole arbiter of correct English. So if I were to say "A failed transistor in the artificial horizon of this aircraft caused 160 people to die" you would deny that that made any sense? Hmmm. I'll have to think about that.
If that wasn't what you meant, then you should have explained your thoughts better.
I usually expect people to be able to put two and two together on their own. Saves the electrons, y'know.
And no, they don't rise to the problem you are making them out to be.
Geez, I thought that was common knowledge. But since you asked me instead of Google, I'll pass along the first few hits to a rather obvious query. Thanks! I didn't know the numbers--125 people per day? That's almost exactly as many as are killed by cars in the USA.
Take global warming for instance, it has become a religion on some parts of the world and non of the rituals surrounding it will do anything to cure it. They blindly accept the Kyoto accords, Carbon offsets, and all that shit without realizing that to date, it has done nothing but caused the pollution to be created elsewhere.
True, people without a scientific background tend to get caught up in belief without understanding. Signs point to you being squarely in this category--blindly accepting on faith that global warming is false, with no understanding of the science. And then you somehow manage to get political "solutions" into the same paragraph. Your criticisms of those solutions are not unfounded, but you are somehow confusing them with science, or something. I'm confused.
I was saying that you aren't mentally acute enough to understand the claims you chastise which was obvious with your statement. Normally, that isn't a problem until you attempt to share your disadvantage with others and then I have to spank you for it. Either learn something about what your bitching about or shut the fuck up like all the other ignorant asses out there.
So teach me, master! So far all you've taught me is that all the other ignorant asses don't generally shut the fuck up.
So: it is well-accepted doctrine of many religions that homosexuality is a sin. Why does that bother you? Could you maybe answer a question, rather than just shouting abuse? Here I'm trying to understand you!
And no, I'm not a liar, although I appreciate the thought.
Now coming close to a definition doesn't make it something defined by the term.
Very good (although most definitions are a little fuzzy). But, as I said, if it comes close, ignoring subtle differences is a form of humour. I guess you'll have to trust me on this one until you grow up.
You mom is a whore that I fucked last weekend and failed to pay is just as relevant as the comments you made.
The significance of my comments was not lost on everyone. Apparently you just need to think a little harder about them.
Many words have duel meanings and that sentence structure is the proper way to clearly convey the correct meaning.
Ah, once again I'd like to express my elation at hav
I've always been confused by the fact that very few companies seem to do this: "Here's a bonus tacked on to the top of your salary. It is earmarked for you to spend on our competitors' products. Tell us what's good about them." What am I missing?
True, but it's not just the creationists. Education in this country is being ruined by everyone with an agenda. Look at the history books that refuse to mention Reagan when addressing the cold war. It's the same type of thing, just from a different groups agenda.
Seriously? Do tell!
I've already started thinking about how I will teach them all the things that schools either leave out or PC up. The problem is that to do it right it's going to be nearly a full time job doing research.
I'm pretty sure that there are well over a million parents and protoparents in the USA who would be willing to help. There ought to be a wiki...?
Hmmm, here's a random thought: teaching out of Wikipedia would perhaps add (1) some non-PC-ness, (2) the ability to delve deeper whenever it's needed, and hopefully (3) a fundamental mistrust of all authorities, including Wikipedia (maybe introduce edit logs and edit-wars and Wikipolitics and conflicting primary sources to them after 9th (?) grade or so; I suspect that if they're younger than that it'll be a bit overwhelming).
A "science" degree in creationism certainly isn't a degree in science.
Of course, nor is a degree in "computer science". But everyone knows that, and nobody expects a computer scientist to know how to set up an experiment (some do, but it's not our training). By the same token, everyone who is likely to be hiring for a successful company knows that creationism isn't a science either. Just as I would be more likely to hire someone with a pottery degree than someone with a philosophy degree if I wanted to design a new low-flow toilet, I would be unlikely to hire someone with a "creationism science" degree for a position for which it was inappropriate (like, say, any position at all, ever).
I love how slashdot posts these creationism stories to stir up the flamewars and mock the religious.
Me too.
One can't often persuade a religious person that his belief in [whatever] is absurd. The best solution I can think of is to mock religion openly and mercilessly, in the hopes that third parties will start looking for a better reason for their faith than "my parents | rabbi | voices | visions | etc told me it was true". It's not a great solution, but I can't figure out anything better. I'm open to suggestions.
And if the comment was made in ancient times when those religions were more relevant, they would have more standing.
The penny has started to drop. Good. Comments that would have been true in other contexts are often called "jokes".
I like the way you lump people who have drank gasoline and poisoned themselves or pored diesel fuel on themselves and lit it on fire to commit suicide in with the bunch.
Say what? I didn't say anything about them.
You have to be doing that because exhaust emissions from oil have not been shown to cause any direct damage
Did I say "direct"? Define "direct". And then tell me why I should care. "Oh, the death was due to exhaust via a well-understood mechanism that does not meet sumdumass's definition of 'direct', so we're innocent!" Exhaust emissions have repeatedly and conclusively been shown to do damage of various sorts. Asthma, various cancers, poisoned ecosystems, smog, global warming,... and that doesn't even consider the environmental costs of extraction, transportation, refining... And then there are the costs of making war on nations who control the oil that we need in order to prop up a crumbling economy that was based on the assumption that energy was essentially free...
unless you view them from unintended ways.
Are you saying that the Shell execs aren't intentionally killing people? I agree that they're not doing it with malicious intent, but they know that they're causing harm, they know how to stop it, and they're doing it anyway. I don't see why I, as an observer, should regard that as "unintentional".
Sure, stuff a hose from the tail pipe into your mouth and claim it caused another death/illness or whatever.
Because whatever you dump into the air goes... where? Yes, in high concentrations it's lethal very quickly. You are surprised that at low concentrations it's still harmful? Global warming is a completely different and unexpected mechanism--not even theorised until 1890 or so, and not shown to be actually happening until the 1960s (and even then shown very poorly), so I guess you're off the hook on that one (at least, if you haven't read a scientific journal in 50 years).
At one time, the best scientific knowledge out there proudly proclaimed that the sun moved across the sky instead of the earth revolving to create that illusion. [munch]
Your argument has turned into "Because science has been wrong before, it's always irrelevant." Could you maybe pull your head out of your arse for long enough to go (back?) to highschool? Of course science has been wrong before. But hauling out examples from hundreds of years ago, when religious dipshits still had a huge say in what was valid science, does not strengthen your case. In fact, we've gotten fairly good at bounding our errors, and saying "Here's what we think will happen, based on this. Here's what we don't know. Here's what we haven't quite pinned down. Here's independent verification of our results. So there's a 95% chance of something in this set of scenarios happening, and a 1% chance of something in this set..." Science isn't exactly right all of the time, but it's generally right most of the time. If you don't believe me, look around you at, you know, "civilisation".
At one time, you made a statement that was more based on ignorance produced by an illusions of intellect which is why I didn't get your joke.
Sorry. I'll try to keep the humour simpler.
Yawn.. Shell is an international company much like most oil companies are. Why would I want to limit my interpretation of society to just one part of their existence?
Good call. Sorry. I assumed wrongly that you were talking about the USA. Of course, the little data in the tip of my brain tells me that the more se
Slashdot Mirror
Society is in pretty bad shape now. Who are you to say that you and your friends were doing was harmless? I claim that the kids of your generation running around naked under the lawn sprinkler caused global warming.
Show me a scientific test to prove that one wrong, baby :)
"for-profit".. heheh.. that's funny.
"For-profit" meaning that they charge far above their cost. They are making lots of money--their rates are similar to Kinko's, which is for-profit.
I agree with you that charging users for resource use is the best way to minimise irresponsible use (every time gasoline prices go up, I cheer). However, I like to think of a university as a community with a shared agenda, rather than as a group of businesses trying to milk each other for funding.
I think that the responsible way to handle this is: a university can install fast, low-cost-per-page, reliable, featureful (network, colour, duplex, collating, ...?) printers, and then pass on a low cost per page to the users. That way, they don't create incentive for every research group, every office, every student to go out and buy a crappy little personal printer, which has obvious implications for resource use, wastefulness, costs for everyone, etc. Moreover, a paid IT staff is more likely to do things like making sure that toner and whatnot get recycled properly. Last lab I managed, we were printing for an average of about 2 cents per page b&w (5% coverage, blah blah blah). A big fancy printer shared amongst a large number of people is usually, and in almost every way, a far better choice than n personal printers.
the majority of your problems are brought on by.. wait for it.. you and your cohorts.
Wait--what?
Most of the things I own I did not create.
But I don't see why you have an exclusive right to use something that was just sitting there anyway. If you own a tree, you can take away everyone else's right to enjoy the tree. But the tree has nothing to do with you. It's a tree! How does your claim to ownership trump everyone else's?
Good point about division of labour, of course. But if we allow for the possibility of trade (easier than outlawing it), then you have the right to control that which you create, and that which you traded for that someone else created. Then we have an economy. The only difference between that economy and the one that we have now is that things that nobody created can be the property of everybody equally.
Carried to the logical conclusion, that means that you can't build a house on your land, since your land is communal. I think that here it's reasonable to allow for a "practical, reasonable exception", even if I can't justify it, and it means that someone could build, say, a bloody great wall around China or something.
You propose to divide the world up based on who was there first. Why doesn't the first human who thought of property ("Adam" or etc.) own all physical resources, and you nothing but what you create?
About the elephants and bats... fences have already been invented and private property rights do not protect the VALUE of property, but simply its physical integrity.
That's quite arbitrary, isn't it? How do you determine what is structural? How can you say that I do not have rights related to non-structural aspects of the ability to survive, or to live healthily?
If you cage the bat, the mosquito lives. The consequent malaria outbreak among the beavers kills them all off, and without beaver dams, the river speeds up, increasing erosion, pulling all my topsoil away into the ocean. Same goes if you burn some coal, releasing CO_2, warming the climate, changing the habitat of the bark beetle, which moves north and kills off all the trees on my land, leading to erosion that washes all my topsoil away. Those are silly examples on several levels (although the last one is actually happening here in Colorado), but the idea is that there are many cause-and-effect relationships that just waste everyone's time and money as individual lawsuits. Recognising the bat population or the atmosphere as a common resource and managing it responsibly for the whole community at once seems at least more efficient.
Moreover, if you're suggesting building fences to make it clear who owns this elephant or bat or narwhal, then you're completely batshit insane! I assume I'm misunderstanding you?!
I suppose we disagree on what rights are because people have lumped negative with positive rights.
I don't think so. I agree with you on your examples--the "right to health care" is pretty crazy (it's nothing more than a nice feature of civilised society)--but we disagree because I do not recognise your right to destroy something that I need just because you got there first.
This is urgent: We are running out of trees, drinkable water, air that isn't, er, greenhousey, fish (indeed, an ocean that can even support fish), etc., at an alarming rate. "Too complicated to solve" is simply not acceptable. We need a solution. Care to provide one?
Of course that's the way it was supposed to work. However, that's not the reality of the situation now. The "right to bear arms" that the US Constitution guarantees is meant to allow us to carry weapons that would allow us to overthrow a government that breached that contract--if they breach the contract, what are your options?--but I dare you to try building a weapon that would be effective against that government.
My point was that being able to say whatever you want is lovely, but it's not The Definition Of Freedom.
Of course, privatizing the atmosphere or the ocean is a bit too big of a problem to tackle. But rivers or lakes are totally feasible.
Ah, but they're not too big a problem to handle if you treat them as commons.
Also, while taking private property to extremes might solve many problems if we're all wise and all value things equally, that's a big "if". What if I want to do something on my property that will affect something that you value, but that the legal system does not protect? Say I'm upwind of you. What if I don't like deodorant? What if I want to fart? Or smoke? Or have a campfire? Or burn tires? Or burn oil? Or burn coal? ...
Ownership of something that you didn't create is patently ludicrous! "That's MY tree": what did you do to deserve a tree? What does it mean to own something that simply exists? For that matter, whom do you sue if "your" tree dies due to human-induced climate change? And since trees are crucial to the health of the world (cleaning air, preventing topsoil loss, creating topsoil, making oxygen, sequestering carbon, habitat for animals that probably don't respect your notions of property, .....) trees are commons. This goes back to being a complicated problem to solve if everything is privately owned.
Is that your elephant? It spends time on the land owned by hundreds of people. Who owns the ivory in its tusks? Is that your bat? It kills mosquitoes on my lawn--if you kill it, I suffer.
Is that your gorilla? Here's something that is damn near as intelligent as your average Christian, but it has no interest in owning private property--does that mean that it is owned? How is owning any sentient being not slavery? Who gets to decide whether a lobster is sentient?
Also, who gave you the tree? In a free society I can cut down any tree I want. Do you want to take away my freedom?
What about children? If property is inherited, then we are not equal--we start out owning as much as our parents did, which should rub in how ridiculous that system is in a society in which we are "equal". If property is not inherited, what happens when the owner dies? Who gets the proceeds from the sale?
An understanding of the complex interactions in the biosphere tends to destroy faith in private property. Perhaps this is why I've never met a libertarian ecologist.
Natural law states that we are endowed with certain rights. People institute a government to PROTECT these rights that we already possessed before government came into being.
What is the scientific basis for natural law? Can it be measured? Natural law is simply a good (not perfect) set of rules with an overblown name. If rights are innate, then why do you and I disagree on what they are? Moreover, why do they so frequently get trampled? Prove to me that they are a part of nature. Then you can tell me which of the many versions is correct.
Is any software still licensed per lab? Does it make sense to complain that without clusters, they're forcing students to buy lots of ridiculously expensive software? Or with this transformation, does software now get site-licensed for all students?
I'm also worried that without campus clusters, there will be no more introduction to tools and environments with which the students are not already familiar (the most glaring of many examples is that I didn't see Unix until I got to college). Exposure to different environments might be useful... or is it?
At the University of Colorado in Boulder, the people in charge of running printers (the IT department) decided to make the campus printing network for-profit, and it now charges rates that are comparable to Kinko's. As a result, every lab on campus bought its own printer, and many students followed suit.
What rot! In a freedom-based society, you have the choice to live without rules--to just walk away from any government that you don't like.
Freedom is not defined by free speech, or the right to carry guns, or security against torture. Those are rights that the people with guns (the government) grant to its constituents (through contract ("constitution" etc) or whatnot).
I'm not saying that freedom-based societies actually work. There are communal resources that get abused unless they're regulated, and free societies always end up being places where the strong can trample all over the weak. "Freedom" means that you're free to sleep at night, but it's at your own risk.
Freedom is a complicated issue. Even free speech is a complicated issue--look at libel and false advertising. It's nonsense to claim "that's not a free society because they don't have _____".
Otherwise, I agree with you.
1) Global warming is not a hoax. We are seeing effects. Humans are doing things that produce enough greenhouse gases to affect it. There is no question. Anyone who tells you that we don't need to worry about it is either misinformed or deliberately trying to mislead you.
2) Dyson is right in an important way, though. Global warming will probably lead to all kinds of trouble including the collapse of society, but it is just one of many things that will do the same. I recommend Jared Diamond's Collapse, in which he discusses in detail 12 threats to our survival, each of which is more than sufficient to do us in. Some of his worries: species loss; topsoil loss; natural habitat destruction (including deforestation); the end of cheap energy; the end of drinkable water; toxic shit everywhere...
Don't underestimate the problems caused by greenhouse gases. But don't underestimate any of the others either--a cool, comfortable climate and secure polar ice caps aren't much good if all our surface water is toxic. Global warming is nothing more than a poster child for our imminent doom. Move away from its religion and towards an actual understanding of the issues.
Don't most sexually mature women carry the strongest ibuprofen they can lay their hands on for at least a few days every month? I know I would!
It makes my job easier! I do robotics research. Any human who follows a zero-tolerance policy (strictly following rules) is easy to replace. The robot will cost a lot less to maintain. Now, robots that do nuance and have common sense... those are hard to build.
I wonder how well that would go over the next time someone stops me for some small, victimless infraction. "If you ticket me according to the literal law, my robotic minions will put you out of a job, officer!"
Actions like this, taken by vast numbers of people, are a large part of the reason the traffic is backed up in the first place.
Yes! But I think a deeper reason is that cities aren't designed for the number of cars that they have to endure. Widening roads can occasionally (rarely) help. Mass transit, carpool lanes, bicycles, etc., help more. Eliminating taxpayer-sponsored ("free") parking helps as well. Ultimately, though, the only solution is to curtail the growth of the population.
Yes, you can post copyrighted documents to slashdot. But now you've put CowboyNeal in the same annoying position of deciding whether to comply with a takedown request.
Actually, you haven't really. Whereas posting and discussing some questions is probably fair use, posting large chunks verbatim is a lot more like good ol'fashioned copyright violation. So you've just caused as much annoyance to the good guys as to the bad guys.
Mentally retarded patients on the 6th floor does not equal intelectuals. You yourself couldn't even be considered an intellectual. [munch] Have you ever wondered why your mom thinks your the most hansom man around yet you have never had a date that you didn't have to product a credit card before hand?
Holy Great Ganesh, Id completely ignored that fact. My bad. Your right on every point: Im not just stupid but ugly too--I will notify my girlfriends at once. I surrendr.
Why would your metric make more sense?
I assume you're trying for some metric of "people who have a certain lifestyle level" or something? That's not unreasonable, except that it seems to me that the definition is almost the same as the definition of waste. Is "X miles of metropolitan area" better than "Income exceeds Y" or "Family owns a car" or "House has electricity" or any of a million other metrics that highly correlates with what you're trying to measure?
Of course, "China" is a rather arbitrary concept. It's a completely fictional line in the sand, just like any political border is. But since everyone within that line is told what to do by the same group of people, it's reasonable to treat it as a whole for some purposes.
Another valid metric might be "Fraction of industrial and post-consumer waste (plastics, agricultural runoff, freon, CO_2, mercury, pesticides, paper, trash.....) that is reclaimed/recycled/disposed of safely/etc." Again, not exactly the number that's needed (that being "Are we going to survive the next century?") but nonetheless perhaps useful for keeping score and placing blame.
Pollution: [...] the contamination of the environment by harmful substances.
Yup, sounds like CO_2 qualifies. In spades. Sure it's a whole new mechanism for damage--not toxic, not carcinogenic, not a quick dose of nutrients to previously clear water, not ugly, etc--but it's certainly harmful!
Looks like the USA's per capita emissions of CO_2 are on the order of 10 times higher than China's (source: quick amalgam of Google results).
Some sources say that the USA leads in other pollutants as well (see http://www.crystalinks.com/pollution.html for a start, but I'm not happy with that page's rigour). That's no surprise given that the USA is a world leader in consumption and disposal of all kinds of goods--sheer volume overcomes good intentions. OTOH, I hear China is investing heavily in coal-fired power plants, which besides helping them to pull ahead in CO_2 will add a nice dose of mercury and some other nasties. Go team! There are lots of causes of pollution, and the USA comes out ahead on many of them.
Of course, the USA isn't doing too badly (relatively speaking) at controlling pollutants, although we're not doing especially well, either. Far better than China or India, AFAIK, although I'm not happy that my country is "better than the worst"!
This is an area I know little about. Do you have a better reference than what I found?
1) Your English needs serious help. Your local community college may offer remedial classes to the community.
2) Learn statistics, and why it was created. Correlation is not causation, but correlation in addition to a predictive model is pretty close.
3) Learn rhetoric. Not because you're bad at it (I don't really care if your arguments are poor) but as a defense against those who are better at it than you.
4) Learn science. Not fact, but method.
5) What, then, causes the crash? The electromagnetic force created when two objects (like the plane and the ground) get close, apparently. Way to be trivially correct. Go you.
6) Start evaluating truth based on what people say and what evidence they present rather than on whether you agree with it.
7) Thanks very much for a fascinating discussion. I learned a great deal from you. I tend to associate with intellectuals, and you helped me to realise that I really need to spend more time studying the thought processes of the average joe.
The PR disaster, of course.
Yeah, about that... how many times has it been said that there is no bad press? How true is it? It would cause a stir, no doubt, but I thought that the consensus was that that's usually a good thing. To make matters better, some people would understand.
Nice, but I did say low-flow toilet. I believe that pretty much rules out the philosophers.
Joke usually have the distinguishing characteristics of being funny or noticeable as a joke.
Sorry. I assumed intelligence on the part of the reader. My bad.
There is no evidence that fossil fuels caused any of that when used correctly.
"Correctly"? You'll have to define that a little more precisely.
You said it caused X. That means it directly caused X.
Ah. I see. I had failed to realise that you were the sole arbiter of correct English. So if I were to say "A failed transistor in the artificial horizon of this aircraft caused 160 people to die" you would deny that that made any sense? Hmmm. I'll have to think about that.
If that wasn't what you meant, then you should have explained your thoughts better.
I usually expect people to be able to put two and two together on their own. Saves the electrons, y'know.
And no, they don't rise to the problem you are making them out to be.
Geez, I thought that was common knowledge. But since you asked me instead of Google, I'll pass along the first few hits to a rather obvious query. Thanks! I didn't know the numbers--125 people per day? That's almost exactly as many as are killed by cars in the USA.
http://www.mailmanschool.org/news/display.asp?ID=636
http://www.7gen.com/book/fossil-fuel-health-risks/572
http://www.cacefindiana.org/node/programs/cieep/global_warming/health
http://knowledgecontext.org/Curriculum/Projects/pollution.html
Take global warming for instance, it has become a religion on some parts of the world and non of the rituals surrounding it will do anything to cure it. They blindly accept the Kyoto accords, Carbon offsets, and all that shit without realizing that to date, it has done nothing but caused the pollution to be created elsewhere.
True, people without a scientific background tend to get caught up in belief without understanding. Signs point to you being squarely in this category--blindly accepting on faith that global warming is false, with no understanding of the science. And then you somehow manage to get political "solutions" into the same paragraph. Your criticisms of those solutions are not unfounded, but you are somehow confusing them with science, or something. I'm confused.
I was saying that you aren't mentally acute enough to understand the claims you chastise which was obvious with your statement. Normally, that isn't a problem until you attempt to share your disadvantage with others and then I have to spank you for it. Either learn something about what your bitching about or shut the fuck up like all the other ignorant asses out there.
So teach me, master! So far all you've taught me is that all the other ignorant asses don't generally shut the fuck up.
So: it is well-accepted doctrine of many religions that homosexuality is a sin. Why does that bother you? Could you maybe answer a question, rather than just shouting abuse? Here I'm trying to understand you!
And no, I'm not a liar, although I appreciate the thought.
Now coming close to a definition doesn't make it something defined by the term.
Very good (although most definitions are a little fuzzy). But, as I said, if it comes close, ignoring subtle differences is a form of humour. I guess you'll have to trust me on this one until you grow up.
You mom is a whore that I fucked last weekend and failed to pay is just as relevant as the comments you made.
The significance of my comments was not lost on everyone. Apparently you just need to think a little harder about them.
Many words have duel meanings and that sentence structure is the proper way to clearly convey the correct meaning.
Ah, once again I'd like to express my elation at hav
I've always been confused by the fact that very few companies seem to do this: "Here's a bonus tacked on to the top of your salary. It is earmarked for you to spend on our competitors' products. Tell us what's good about them." What am I missing?
True, but it's not just the creationists. Education in this country is being ruined by everyone with an agenda. Look at the history books that refuse to mention Reagan when addressing the cold war. It's the same type of thing, just from a different groups agenda.
Seriously? Do tell!
I've already started thinking about how I will teach them all the things that schools either leave out or PC up. The problem is that to do it right it's going to be nearly a full time job doing research.
I'm pretty sure that there are well over a million parents and protoparents in the USA who would be willing to help. There ought to be a wiki...?
Hmmm, here's a random thought: teaching out of Wikipedia would perhaps add (1) some non-PC-ness, (2) the ability to delve deeper whenever it's needed, and hopefully (3) a fundamental mistrust of all authorities, including Wikipedia (maybe introduce edit logs and edit-wars and Wikipolitics and conflicting primary sources to them after 9th (?) grade or so; I suspect that if they're younger than that it'll be a bit overwhelming).
A "science" degree in creationism certainly isn't a degree in science.
Of course, nor is a degree in "computer science". But everyone knows that, and nobody expects a computer scientist to know how to set up an experiment (some do, but it's not our training). By the same token, everyone who is likely to be hiring for a successful company knows that creationism isn't a science either. Just as I would be more likely to hire someone with a pottery degree than someone with a philosophy degree if I wanted to design a new low-flow toilet, I would be unlikely to hire someone with a "creationism science" degree for a position for which it was inappropriate (like, say, any position at all, ever).
I love how slashdot posts these creationism stories to stir up the flamewars and mock the religious.
Me too.
One can't often persuade a religious person that his belief in [whatever] is absurd. The best solution I can think of is to mock religion openly and mercilessly, in the hopes that third parties will start looking for a better reason for their faith than "my parents | rabbi | voices | visions | etc told me it was true". It's not a great solution, but I can't figure out anything better. I'm open to suggestions.
And if the comment was made in ancient times when those religions were more relevant, they would have more standing.
The penny has started to drop. Good. Comments that would have been true in other contexts are often called "jokes".
I like the way you lump people who have drank gasoline and poisoned themselves or pored diesel fuel on themselves and lit it on fire to commit suicide in with the bunch.
Say what? I didn't say anything about them.
You have to be doing that because exhaust emissions from oil have not been shown to cause any direct damage
Did I say "direct"? Define "direct". And then tell me why I should care. "Oh, the death was due to exhaust via a well-understood mechanism that does not meet sumdumass's definition of 'direct', so we're innocent!" Exhaust emissions have repeatedly and conclusively been shown to do damage of various sorts. Asthma, various cancers, poisoned ecosystems, smog, global warming, ... and that doesn't even consider the environmental costs of extraction, transportation, refining... And then there are the costs of making war on nations who control the oil that we need in order to prop up a crumbling economy that was based on the assumption that energy was essentially free...
unless you view them from unintended ways.
Are you saying that the Shell execs aren't intentionally killing people? I agree that they're not doing it with malicious intent, but they know that they're causing harm, they know how to stop it, and they're doing it anyway. I don't see why I, as an observer, should regard that as "unintentional".
Sure, stuff a hose from the tail pipe into your mouth and claim it caused another death/illness or whatever.
Because whatever you dump into the air goes... where? Yes, in high concentrations it's lethal very quickly. You are surprised that at low concentrations it's still harmful? Global warming is a completely different and unexpected mechanism--not even theorised until 1890 or so, and not shown to be actually happening until the 1960s (and even then shown very poorly), so I guess you're off the hook on that one (at least, if you haven't read a scientific journal in 50 years).
At one time, the best scientific knowledge out there proudly proclaimed that the sun moved across the sky instead of the earth revolving to create that illusion. [munch]
Your argument has turned into "Because science has been wrong before, it's always irrelevant." Could you maybe pull your head out of your arse for long enough to go (back?) to highschool? Of course science has been wrong before. But hauling out examples from hundreds of years ago, when religious dipshits still had a huge say in what was valid science, does not strengthen your case. In fact, we've gotten fairly good at bounding our errors, and saying "Here's what we think will happen, based on this. Here's what we don't know. Here's what we haven't quite pinned down. Here's independent verification of our results. So there's a 95% chance of something in this set of scenarios happening, and a 1% chance of something in this set..." Science isn't exactly right all of the time, but it's generally right most of the time. If you don't believe me, look around you at, you know, "civilisation".
At one time, you made a statement that was more based on ignorance produced by an illusions of intellect which is why I didn't get your joke.
Sorry. I'll try to keep the humour simpler.
Yawn.. Shell is an international company much like most oil companies are. Why would I want to limit my interpretation of society to just one part of their existence?
Good call. Sorry. I assumed wrongly that you were talking about the USA. Of course, the little data in the tip of my brain tells me that the more se