Here is a brief bio of the Shiva Ayyadurai, if you are not familiar with him. His sons, of course, are much more famous.
Ayyadurai started his career as a relentlessly self-improving boulangerie owner from Belgium with low-grade narcolepsy and a penchant for buggery. In 1978, he married a fifteen-year-old French prostitute named Chloe with webbed feet. Ayyadurai enjoys womanizing and drinking. In addition to email, he also invented the question mark. Ayyadurai has two sons, Austin and Douglas.
Astronomy created wifi, which you may have used to post your nonsense
Well, no, it didn't. But even if it did, it would be a lousy return on investment. That is, if private companies had spent a similar amount to funding for astronomy on development of wireless communications, they would have come up with much more than just WiFi.
Maybe the tech needed to see these planets will diagnose cancer in a family member of yours in 10 years time and save their life.
It might. Pigs might fly too. But that isn't a rational way of funding things. If we want better cancer diagnosis, the solution is to fund the development of better diagnostic systems for cancer. But we don't even know whether that's what people want; maybe they are more concerned about heart disease, or maybe they don't care and want better amusement rides. That's why people vote on what they want with something called "dollars".
Now, personally, I think that government funding for astronomy is so small that it really isn't anything to worry about right now; it is not where government wastes most of the money. That doesn't change the fact that your reasoning is spurious.
PS. You don't belong on this website.
In fact, it's people like you who are the enemies of reason and progress.
or that it is still solely the fault of the person because of choices that they are allegedly still consciously making
No, they are not making the choices consciously at all and that is the problem. To lose weight, you need to pay attention, plan ahead, and make conscious choices. And that's all you really need to do. People find paying attention hard, but that is not unique to obesity; it's the same with financial problems, interpersonal problems, etc.
But the bank just wouldn't stop paying just because you told them to, and the service wouldn't allow you to unsubscribe.
And you won't be able to get out of this with a lawsuit either because no lawyer is going to take such a case. The correct solution is to (1) not let companies withdraw money directly from your account, and (2) for direct credit card billing, get a new card and optionally dispute the charges. If you were foolish enough to set up direct withdrawal and people are abusing that, you need to close the account.
Incidentally, this is a far worse problem in Europe, where there is little arbitration, but lots of companies won't even do business with you unless you allow direct withdrawal. At least in the US, few companies demand that, and most are satisfied with credit cards.
Outside of circumstances where the brain is capable of perceiving an imminent threat to survival, you are radically underestimating how powerful habits are.
There is nothing "powerful" that keeps you from saying "bring me a large salad with a lo-cal dressing" instead of "bring me ribs and mashed potatoes". Really, it's very easy and completely different from trying to abstain from eating when you are hungry.
There is nothing wrong with eating foods that make you fat for the pleasure it brings you. Really. But you should then accept the consequences and not blame "neuroscience" or "powerful forces" for your weight.
the habitual behavior can even override the instinctive one, or else conditions like anorexia would not exist
Anorexia isn't a "habitual behavior", it's related to OCD and has a strong genetic component. It's a neurological disorder and has a prevalence of less than 1% in the US.
And I have difficulty seeing how you could prefer the idea of arbitration, as it exists now, to using the courts.
I thought I was pretty clear about that: I find the current court system highly biased against me as a customer, because it favors greedy lawyers and greedy individuals enriching themselves at my expense.
But let me try again more slowly.
It is very unlikely that I'm going to sue my doctor, my phone company, or my employer. But when other people drag these institutions through the courts, their prices go up and/or their profits go down. So, I end up paying for your million dollar award over "pain and suffering" or some medical accident, much of which goes to the lawyers anyway. And I don't want to do that.
It takes a deliberate choice, a conscious act of willpower, to choose to not act in a habitual way, that is no less intense than an instinctive need to satisfy hunger or thirst.
Bullshit. A habit is a learned behavior that you can unlearn. Hunger is a basic drive that you have at birth and that you can never eliminate.
And when that something healthier doesn't satisfy.... or is simply unappealing to one's pallet, one ends up simply avoiding eating entirely, being preferable to one's immediate circumstances than putting food in one's mouth simply to stave off a threat of alleged starvation
You'd be amazed at how easy it is to eat a salad. You should try it some time.
I'm saying that changing it is FAR easier said than done, but you seem to be ignoring that point
I'm not "ignoring" that point. I'm saying what keeps people from adopting a healthy lifestyle is not some basic biological drive like hunger, but the usual things that always cause problems for humans: ignorance, carelessness, and rationalizations.
You again are assuming that most of a persons caloric intake will be at home
The same principles apply anywhere else. When you go to a restaurant or cafeteria, you end up eating what's on your plate; so, get/order lots of low-calorie bulk (salads, vegetables), instead of starchy, sweet, or fatty foods. When there are free high sugar snacks at your workplace, you can avoid eating them by bringing in low calorie snacks and keeping them at your desk. The point is: nobody has the willpower to reduce caloric intake directly; what you can do far more easily is make sure that when you're hungry, you fill up with something healthier.
Look, you can rationalize your unhealthy lifestyle all you want. The fact remains that there is a basic, fundamental difference between the motivation that causes you to put a juicy piece of bacon from your plate into your mouth, and the motivation that causes you to put a package of bacon from a supermarket shelf into your shopping basket. And though you may find it impossible to overcome both urges, the fact is that, for most people, the latter is much easier to overcome than the former.
He's making an announcement to the entire company. Difficult as that may be to believe, IT staff isn't actually the most popular group of employees in many companies.
So, roughly translated, his message reads: "Rejoice, journalists, artists, writers, editors, and business people, our ornery and expensive IT staff is being replaced with more efficient and friendlier overseas staff, and we're going to save money too!"
(Whether this is going to work out as planned is, of course, another question.)
Actually, neuroscience quite agrees on the difference I pointed out.
really not seeing the entire picture about why weight is difficult for people to take off once they've accumulated it in the first place
Oh, changing your lifestyle is quite difficult, for lots of reasons: ignorance, laziness, social pressures, circumstance, rational cost/benefit tradeoffs. Nevertheless, all of those are fundamentally different from hunger.
And you expect that he will be feeding fair and representative opinions?
Personally, I don't "expect" anything. But the world is full of semi-literate people like you, and that's why, unfortunately, even the obvious needs to be pointed out again and again. Like the fact that "trending" on Facebook is a lie.
You assume that most of one's caloric intake will be at home
I'm not "assuming" anything. I'm just pointing out that there is a difference between the willpower necessary to resist eating stuff in your fridge (major) and the willpower necessary to change your life in a way that you can lose weight (minor). Nowhere did I say that everybody had that option to them.
Always bringing all of the food that you will eat with you from home wherever you go is not always practical.
And then you're SOL unless you change jobs. After all, there are lots of jobs that make you sick or fat.
I think you are an excellent example of how delusions about progress and economic illiteracy combine to produce massive crony capitalism. Thanks for the demonstration.
But currently the courts are less biased against the customers than are the (selected by the company) arbitrators.
I find the current court system highly biased against me as a customer, because it favors greedy lawyers and greedy individuals enriching themselves at my expense.
Even so, except for small claims court they are biased against the customer, because the corporation maintains lawyers on retainer, and the customer can't afford top quality and experienced lawyers.
And that is one of many reasons why the current court system is already inferior to arbitration, even though some arbitrators may be biased.
I'm sorry, which part of this did you find so hard to understand?
What people are upset about with Facebook is that they misrepresent their editorial choices as "trending topics"; that is, they are falsely saying that their editorial choices represent majority opinions.
If FB get's singled, why would huffington post, another low IQ and low energy place be any different?
What people are upset about with Facebook is that they misrepresent their editorial choices as "trending topics"; that is, they are falsely saying that their editorial choices represent majority opinions.
When HuffPo journalists are frothing at the mouth, they put their byline on it.
all of the sudden corporations can be called out for their censorship despite the fact that the First Amendment only applies to the federal government and everyone else is free to do what they want
You're conflating "calling out" corporations for their speech and imposing legal restrictions on free speech. We non-lefties have no problem with the former, only with the latter.
The GOP is not Conservative at all. They like to spend as much as the Democrats do. People need to find a better label for the Republicrats.
How long did it take you to reach that brilliant insight? Amazingly enough, Democrats and progressives are not "liberal" either, and Bernie's "socialism" is a lie too.
Democrats and Republicans are largely interchangeable: power-hungry statists with delusions of grandeur. This year, we get to choose between a power-hungry vain nutcase statist and a power-hungry corrupt incompetent statist for president.
Which requires something called willpower, which you just finished saying doesn't work for weight loss.
No, it doesn't. You need impossible willpower to resist eating a slice of cheesecake you have sitting in the fridge when you're hungry. You don't need willpower to buy apples instead of cheesecake when you're at the supermarket, so that when you get home and you get hungry, apples is all that tempts you.
Arbitration might be a good mechanism for resolving disputes, if there existed any way to ensure their impartiality.
That's true for all dispute resolution mechanisms. In fact, courts and regulators have their own biases.
Unsurprisingly, as of 2009 mediators found in favor of the consumer in only 4% of arbitration cases [...] As far as I see it, forced arbitration is nothing more than an attempt by greedy entities to circumvent the judicial system.
And as I see it, many lawsuits are attempts by greedy individuals to enrich themselves at other people's expense, and as a society, we are paying heavily for that. In addition, the court system is largely not usable for anything other than large awards, because the cost of bringing a lawsuit is too high.
Fact is that none of our current dispute resolution mechanisms work particularly well. As I was saying it's important to ensure [arbitration] is fair, and hopefully we can come up with ways of improving it. Mandating the use of a bloated, inefficient, and broken court system, as you imply, is not a reasonable solution
Slashdot Mirror
Luddites,start smashing the looms!
Here is a brief bio of the Shiva Ayyadurai, if you are not familiar with him. His sons, of course, are much more famous.
Ayyadurai started his career as a relentlessly self-improving boulangerie owner from Belgium with low-grade narcolepsy and a penchant for buggery. In 1978, he married a fifteen-year-old French prostitute named Chloe with webbed feet. Ayyadurai enjoys womanizing and drinking. In addition to email, he also invented the question mark. Ayyadurai has two sons, Austin and Douglas.
Well, no, it didn't. But even if it did, it would be a lousy return on investment. That is, if private companies had spent a similar amount to funding for astronomy on development of wireless communications, they would have come up with much more than just WiFi.
It might. Pigs might fly too. But that isn't a rational way of funding things. If we want better cancer diagnosis, the solution is to fund the development of better diagnostic systems for cancer. But we don't even know whether that's what people want; maybe they are more concerned about heart disease, or maybe they don't care and want better amusement rides. That's why people vote on what they want with something called "dollars".
Now, personally, I think that government funding for astronomy is so small that it really isn't anything to worry about right now; it is not where government wastes most of the money. That doesn't change the fact that your reasoning is spurious.
In fact, it's people like you who are the enemies of reason and progress.
No, they are not making the choices consciously at all and that is the problem. To lose weight, you need to pay attention, plan ahead, and make conscious choices. And that's all you really need to do. People find paying attention hard, but that is not unique to obesity; it's the same with financial problems, interpersonal problems, etc.
And you won't be able to get out of this with a lawsuit either because no lawyer is going to take such a case. The correct solution is to (1) not let companies withdraw money directly from your account, and (2) for direct credit card billing, get a new card and optionally dispute the charges. If you were foolish enough to set up direct withdrawal and people are abusing that, you need to close the account.
Incidentally, this is a far worse problem in Europe, where there is little arbitration, but lots of companies won't even do business with you unless you allow direct withdrawal. At least in the US, few companies demand that, and most are satisfied with credit cards.
There is nothing "powerful" that keeps you from saying "bring me a large salad with a lo-cal dressing" instead of "bring me ribs and mashed potatoes". Really, it's very easy and completely different from trying to abstain from eating when you are hungry.
There is nothing wrong with eating foods that make you fat for the pleasure it brings you. Really. But you should then accept the consequences and not blame "neuroscience" or "powerful forces" for your weight.
Anorexia isn't a "habitual behavior", it's related to OCD and has a strong genetic component. It's a neurological disorder and has a prevalence of less than 1% in the US.
I thought I was pretty clear about that: I find the current court system highly biased against me as a customer, because it favors greedy lawyers and greedy individuals enriching themselves at my expense.
But let me try again more slowly.
It is very unlikely that I'm going to sue my doctor, my phone company, or my employer. But when other people drag these institutions through the courts, their prices go up and/or their profits go down. So, I end up paying for your million dollar award over "pain and suffering" or some medical accident, much of which goes to the lawyers anyway. And I don't want to do that.
Bullshit. A habit is a learned behavior that you can unlearn. Hunger is a basic drive that you have at birth and that you can never eliminate.
You'd be amazed at how easy it is to eat a salad. You should try it some time.
Meet Mordac
I'm not "ignoring" that point. I'm saying what keeps people from adopting a healthy lifestyle is not some basic biological drive like hunger, but the usual things that always cause problems for humans: ignorance, carelessness, and rationalizations.
The same principles apply anywhere else. When you go to a restaurant or cafeteria, you end up eating what's on your plate; so, get/order lots of low-calorie bulk (salads, vegetables), instead of starchy, sweet, or fatty foods. When there are free high sugar snacks at your workplace, you can avoid eating them by bringing in low calorie snacks and keeping them at your desk. The point is: nobody has the willpower to reduce caloric intake directly; what you can do far more easily is make sure that when you're hungry, you fill up with something healthier.
"And already she's twice as beautiful as she was before!"
https://youtu.be/Bnx95KyQEAA?t...
Look, you can rationalize your unhealthy lifestyle all you want. The fact remains that there is a basic, fundamental difference between the motivation that causes you to put a juicy piece of bacon from your plate into your mouth, and the motivation that causes you to put a package of bacon from a supermarket shelf into your shopping basket. And though you may find it impossible to overcome both urges, the fact is that, for most people, the latter is much easier to overcome than the former.
He's making an announcement to the entire company. Difficult as that may be to believe, IT staff isn't actually the most popular group of employees in many companies.
So, roughly translated, his message reads: "Rejoice, journalists, artists, writers, editors, and business people, our ornery and expensive IT staff is being replaced with more efficient and friendlier overseas staff, and we're going to save money too!"
(Whether this is going to work out as planned is, of course, another question.)
Actually, neuroscience quite agrees on the difference I pointed out.
Oh, changing your lifestyle is quite difficult, for lots of reasons: ignorance, laziness, social pressures, circumstance, rational cost/benefit tradeoffs. Nevertheless, all of those are fundamentally different from hunger.
Personally, I don't "expect" anything. But the world is full of semi-literate people like you, and that's why, unfortunately, even the obvious needs to be pointed out again and again. Like the fact that "trending" on Facebook is a lie.
I'm not "assuming" anything. I'm just pointing out that there is a difference between the willpower necessary to resist eating stuff in your fridge (major) and the willpower necessary to change your life in a way that you can lose weight (minor). Nowhere did I say that everybody had that option to them.
And then you're SOL unless you change jobs. After all, there are lots of jobs that make you sick or fat.
I think you are an excellent example of how delusions about progress and economic illiteracy combine to produce massive crony capitalism. Thanks for the demonstration.
Yes, if you sign a multi-year contract with a company, you are stuck with it (unless you declare bankruptcy). What is wrong with that?
US companies and courts are actually exceptionally lenient in this regard compared to, say, Europe.
I find the current court system highly biased against me as a customer, because it favors greedy lawyers and greedy individuals enriching themselves at my expense.
And that is one of many reasons why the current court system is already inferior to arbitration, even though some arbitrators may be biased.
I'm sorry, which part of this did you find so hard to understand?
What people are upset about with Facebook is that they misrepresent their editorial choices as "trending topics"; that is, they are falsely saying that their editorial choices represent majority opinions.
When HuffPo journalists are frothing at the mouth, they put their byline on it.
You're conflating "calling out" corporations for their speech and imposing legal restrictions on free speech. We non-lefties have no problem with the former, only with the latter.
How long did it take you to reach that brilliant insight? Amazingly enough, Democrats and progressives are not "liberal" either, and Bernie's "socialism" is a lie too.
Democrats and Republicans are largely interchangeable: power-hungry statists with delusions of grandeur. This year, we get to choose between a power-hungry vain nutcase statist and a power-hungry corrupt incompetent statist for president.
No, it doesn't. You need impossible willpower to resist eating a slice of cheesecake you have sitting in the fridge when you're hungry. You don't need willpower to buy apples instead of cheesecake when you're at the supermarket, so that when you get home and you get hungry, apples is all that tempts you.
That's true for all dispute resolution mechanisms. In fact, courts and regulators have their own biases.
And as I see it, many lawsuits are attempts by greedy individuals to enrich themselves at other people's expense, and as a society, we are paying heavily for that. In addition, the court system is largely not usable for anything other than large awards, because the cost of bringing a lawsuit is too high.
Fact is that none of our current dispute resolution mechanisms work particularly well. As I was saying it's important to ensure [arbitration] is fair, and hopefully we can come up with ways of improving it. Mandating the use of a bloated, inefficient, and broken court system, as you imply, is not a reasonable solution