go to some of those places with low prison populations, rampant crime and corruption, and ask some residents there what they think about the discrepancy. i don't think you fill find patriotic pride in their response. i think you will find that people living in places with low prison populations and huge corruption would love to see some more american style prison population levels
if your neighbor is making a lot of noise attempting to repair a leaking dam, and you stick your head out the window and tell him to keep the noise down, you aren't keeping your mind trained on the larger picture
same with those who criticize the cops and have nothing to say about criminals
who have no regard for morals or ethics, scrupulously conforming to morals and ethics hampers your ability to fight
the danger of course, is not to become what you fight by doing that
so you slightly bend the rules, all the time, without making the sort of flat out trangression of major moral issues that constitutes what criminals do
but you will still get flak from people who expect moral certitude from those who fight criminals, and criticize you like no tomorrow, all the while completely ignoring and not criticizing the criminals themselves
your average hysterical slippery sloper "ITS THE FIRST STEP TO 1984 FASCISM PAPERS PLEASE..." crowd sees any invasion of privacy, no matter how limited, no matter what the reason, no matter what the context, as something tantamount to pulling your pants down for a border guard
yes, "WONT SOMEONE THINK OF THE CHILDREN" as a mental state is a signifier pointer of hysteria eroding privacy. however, hysteria exists in the privacy defender camp as well. just look at some of the hypermanic comments here bordering on paranoid sschizophrenia. folks: if you wish to actually protect privacy, the first thing you want to do is avoid hysteria of your own
this handing over pedophile information in brazil is not the unstoppable slide into fascists police statehood. its just not. if you believe it is, you have ceded your ability to reason to your own fear uncertainty and denial, and you are in the same mental state as the hysterics you say are eroding privacy. hysterics for privacy rights is not an asset
so how do you protect privacy? with a rational, calm, realistic mind. if someone moves an inch down the road to no privacy rights, you don't act like they moved a mile down the road, and you don't act like its an unstoppable slide. the first thing you do when you think about prudence and realism, is you realize that sometimes, in limited ways, for valid reasons, with a set of rules in place and with public disclosure, privacy deserves to be violated. or that every now and then the authorities may overstep their bounds. shrug it off. really. privacy fundamentalism is not realistic, its just a naive idealism
when i say that, if you immediately imagine jack booted thugs marching through the street, you are not an asset to the fight for privacy rights. you simply aren't. you are simply a victim of the same kind of hysteria you imagine powers the "WONT SOMEONE THINK OF THE CHILDREN CROWD"
gentle admonishment. not "OMG WERE ALL SLAVES". got it?
otherwise, you are of the "WONT SOMEONE THINK OF THE PRIVACY" loony bin. passion for an issue is not useful unless it is also accompanied by an intelligence for an issue. a thrashing drooling psychotic fear is not a valuable asset in your fight for privacy rights. so calm the fuck down. argue rationally. or shut up. you're not helping any cause you think you are helping with histrionics
something like this disclosure in brazil is not an unstoppable slippery slope into fascism and 1984. it really isnt. so snap out of it
its like the original asteroids, without the asteroids, and instead a maze of a bunch of other ships (random people from around the world)
i think a lot of slashdotters messed with it 10 years ago, and forgot about it
however, i recently rediscovered it (its free now) and was surprised to find a lot of zones still heavily populated. each zone has a different variation on the basic ship types and their abilities. you can waste 5 minutes or half an hour on it, to great effect
nothing like meeting a guy in a tank from finland, dodging his mine, blowing him away, while a guy from china materializes out of cloak and shoots you in the back. its cheap and easy mmorpg fun without the massive time commitment something like WoW demands
dude. everytime you convert to a new energy medium, you are wasting energy. every KIND of conversion of energy from one medium to another wastes a different AMOUNT of energy
now, you go, and you research, and you compare converting to hydrogen, and then back to desired work by burning, to the energy wasted in say, battery storage. and then get back to us as an informed person in the discussion
competition between points of view breeds objectivity. you cannot decide the truth before anyone has discussed an issue. you let people discuss an issue, then the truth begins to reveal itself
the media, the news cycle, is a form of discussion as facts trickle out. in the media, when something is published, no one, anywhere, is in a position to determine with enough veracity how truthful or not something is. but as the facts begin to reveal themselves over time, the bullshit is allowed to be winnowed from the gold
therefore, you and a lot of other people are going about this problem all wrong. you want the media to present you with something up front as unquestionable and unassailable. that's impossible. what you do instead is you let any old stupid crap get published, and you let people sort it out themselves. outlets that engage in too much bullshit flinging will see their integrity be questioned, and lose readership by serious readers
in other words, propaganda DOES breed objectivity. you are forgetting what propaganda is: half truth
here's truth:
1. bob stabs mike. 2. mike shoots bob in response.
here's the propaganda-addled media's take on the truth:
pro-bob media: "MIKE SHOOTS BOB"
its a half truth. its the truth, but only half of the truth of the situation
pro-mike media headline: "BOB STABS MIKE"
again, a half truth, it didn't tell what came next
but anyone paying attention to both sources can tease out the chain of events and see bob is the original culprit
see, real propaganda isn't lies at all. it is 100% truth... that conveniently omits some truths
now go to drudgereport.com
see the headlines?
when you read those headlines, HOW ARE THEY CHOSEN? in other words, drudgereport doesn't lie. it just chooses to show us some truths, and ignore others
now: you tell me how in the real world a media organization is supposed to pick what headlines are chosen for front page, what ones go on the last page, and what doesn't get published IN A COMPLETELY OBJECTIVE MANNER
utterly impossible
so you allow the ideologically addled media to manipulate, since the manipulation is unavoidable. then, you simply rely on more than one source of info, and you get a picture of the real truth of your world
proven: propaganda DOES breed objectivity, in a country with robust media (that is, there isn't only the propaganda-addled official state media, with no competition)
and finally, you present us with the spectre of the brainless moron who believes everything they read. huh? is such a person ever someone who can be salvaged from thinking stupid things? should the goal of media be to protect such fragile morons? morons will exist, in an environment populated with propaganda, or your hypothetical (impossible) universe where the media is flawless, either way. so that's a red herring
everything i said is compatible with universal human nature, and is observed in every society with mass media (and those without mass media, where there is nothing but gossip)
and the rest of what you said is similar grasping at straws. so i see i've exhausted your resistance: you are sputtering
so maybe now that i've peeled away through your mind, i'm beginning to speak to your heart;-)
truth is manufactured
mankind manufactures his reality
the desire to have no war is not a truth, it is a passion of yours, it is something you and like-hearted souls are attempting to manufacture. and its a good passion, its one we need
so: stop thinking the "truth", whatever that is, is on your side in the good fight. your heart is in the right place, but your mind is failing you: you have bad tactics
and so you will lose the fight against warmongering until you evolve better tactics. those who manufacture the causes for war are winning, you are being shoved to the sidelines
an issue involving people's intent is not an issue whose fundamental points revolve around static facts. you need to speak to the intent, not the static facts
now: unite your passion with your mouth, and speak your heart. because currently, what your mind is saying, and what your mind is telling you to do to win your cause is failing your cause, and we are having war and will have more war because you are so ineffective
the warmongerers have an open field before them. you are on the sidelines, ineffectual and ignored. listen to me, and get back in the game, or be satisfied in your ivory tower, influencing no one, and watching the world pass you by
same reason i was apopleptic about the idiocy of hydrogen power. which, as a fashionable topic for science morons, seems to have run its course thankfully
please, science idiots, learn:
if you expend lots of energy manufacturing your energy medium, you are being more wasteful than just choosing a more intelligent energy medium
hydrogen is great, of course, because it burns clean. but it is a b*tch to store and transport, and most importantly, although something clean is coming out of your exhaust, everything that went into getting hydrogen into your fuel tank created more pollution than if you were burning coal in your car
the solution to our energy crisis is nuclear and electric cars
japan and france: show us the way to a cleaner, cheaper energy future, without the security concerns: nuclear
its safer than it ever was (you can walk away from a pebble bed reactor and it will just gradually shut down: no active management needed), and horrible waste is only a product of the usa's hesitance to use breeder reactors (because they make bomb grade materials). but if you use breeder reactors, you have a tenth of the nuclear fuel waste which loses its radioactivity in a few centuries, rather in 10,000s of years, AND you get way more energy output. as uranium runs out, use thorium like india. and as we begin to run out of thorium in a few centuries, mankind better have been able to master fusion power by then, or we are doomed anyways
i think, to provide security to nuclear plants, you would need one one hundredth of the amount of security resources you need now to make sure oil still flows to our shores
or just keep counting the body bags coming from iraq because your mind still believes propaganda about nuclear power based on 1960s technology
no, i'm not being a cynic, i'm serious, and i say manufacturing turth is a good aspect of mankind. mankind is not an animal in static captivity to his environment. mankind goes out, and changes the environment. mankind manufactures the truth about the world he lives in. he invents things. he invents things like the gun and the atom bomb. but he also invents science and reason and morality and civilization
so when i say truth is manufactured i am not being cynical about what bullshit people will swallow, i am calling you to arms to manufacture your "truth": a world with less war. the truth is NOT on your side in the desire to end war. mother nature is cruel and violent. civilization and morality are truths mankind manufactured to fight the essential cruelty of nature. the state of murder and war is the truth. what you are adovcating for, an end to war, is an unnatural thing you need to manufacture
for example: should we go to war with iraq? well, those who wanted to go outright manipulated facts about weapons iraq did not have. this is not a reason for you to uncover these manipulations, because no one cares about that. because the quesiton is driven by emotion, not a situation driven by static facts
therefore, you manipulate your own facts in support not going to war with iraq. why not go to war with iraq?: justify the reason. static unchanging facts like "there is no wmd" does not actually help that cause. if you look deeply in yourself, you'll find it is not because you are a defender of some sort of truth, but because of your own emotional bias about the value of war to "fix" things
it is a lie you tell yourself that you defend the truth. you are beholden to emotional assumptions just as untruthful as those held by warhawks. i would say though that your emotional assumptions are more well-intentioned than those of a warhawk. that the positive value of your beliefs is not some sort of hewing to the truth more than others, because you don't, but because of the nature of your emotional bias as compared to others
unfortunately, you believe that a wonkish slavish devotion to the "truth", whatever that is supposed to mean in an environment where all truths are manufactured, will somehow set us on the right path. that, for example, if some massive expose in the media about how the wmd issue was utter bullshit in 2002 would have actually prevented the us from going to war in iraq in 2003. no, the war hawks would have found some other means to start the war. it was their passion. the bullshit wmd charge was merely one avenue available to them among many. they would have kept trying, and would have succeeded, if you had actually met them on their battlefield: the battlefield of propaganda
in other words: so why did we go to war? because those who opposed the war didn't try hard enough to tell their passionate side of the issue. they just thought the "facts" would save them. never did. never will. its a case of if you can't beat em, join em: you need to start manufacturing your own truths. because what you call truth isn't really on your side, and probably doesn't even exist. its simply your passion versus their passion. meet them on that battlefield, or lose by assuming the battlefield between cold hard facts and propaganda will decide the day
your passion, your subjective feelings about an issue defines your reality. not the "facts"
because mankind simply makes his own reality. not just in his head, but via his technological inventions, he turns deserts into cities and valleys into breadbaskets
you don't win anything with a slavish devotion to the truth when dealing with a creature who invents whatever truth he wants. its emotional and subjective what he wants. so you have to meet him at an emotional and subjective level to persuade him
shortening this entire comment into one sentence: you don't alter the contents of someone's heart by appealing to their mind: you have to appeal directly to their heart
not thinking deeply about the news somehow nullifies my points? or that thinking deeply about the news was something i even said or assumed? or that i reply upon to make my conclusions?
"There are some of us that believe in them, and believe in sources, and believe in referential integrity."
so you're kind of like the dodo or the passenger pigeon then?
"There are those that only want to listen to what they want to hear.... and some that re-write for the public consumption, just that."
and so welcome to slashdot! microsoft can only do evil, google can only do good, the greatest evil is the riaa and the most prtessing need is patent reform. enjoy your drudgereport, your shrill partisan blogs... this is the future friend. ideological fiefdoms, enclaves that don't recognize each other's validity, that snipe at each other and decry the other's venom and say "who me?" when confronted with their own venom
the acrimonious and grwoing divide between left and right in the usa is but the start of this fragmentation. in the future, all media consumption and production will be cliquish, everything will be manufactured, reality will be determined by partisan preference. what will be huge on fox news won't be mentioned on cnn, and visa versa. and the consumers of one or the other won't even notice the discrepancy. this will apply to all newspapers, radio shows, websites
Historian Michael Robertson has said that "Newspaper reporters and readers of the 1890s were much less concerned with distinguishing among fact-based reporting, opinion and literature."[17]
people react to this revelation as if there was some sort of mythical time and place where the media was pure as snow and that the arrival of gw bush has somehow corrupted it
folks, this is standard operating procedure, always has been, and ALWAYS WILL BE. here's a story: war hawks trump up a lie about military activities in a country they want to invade. 2003? no, 1898:
people need to realize the media has always been corrupt, always has been ideological, always had an aggressive agenda, and always will be, and people need to have a better appreciation for the value of a robust bullshit meter
the proper response to this story about pentagon manipulations is not "how can we clean up the media", because you can't, but "what was wrong with me when i thought the media could ever be pure?"
the ideal world is not a fair and impartial media: this is a ridiculous fairy tale beleived by naive fools. the ideal world is openly ideological media, OF EVERY IDEOLOGICAL STRIPE. then let the viewer pick and choose what he or she thinks is true based on his or her own proclivities
the danger is a country that tries to systematically shut down right-leaning media, or a country that tries to systematically shut down a left-leaning media, or only has a state controlled media. no: give us fox news, and give us cnn, and msnbc, and give us anyone else who wants to play the game, and let all of the ideologies screm all of the manipulations and propaganda they want as loud as they want
and thereby train the general populace to have a muscular bullshit meter
that is the best you can do, and its not the worst case scneario, its the best: you don't get a healthy bullshit meter in an environment of no propaganda. you only get a healthy bullshit meter by being exposed to ever increasing toxic doses of propaganda, until you are immune
think about it: a "pure" media would spawn a general population with weak, flabby minds, blindly trusting whatever the media said. meanwhile, a corrupt, vicious lying media with screaming propaganda and subtle outright manipulation everywhere would breed strong distrustful minds. the caveat being of course, is that both the left and right be allowed to play this game, that there be more than one media outlet
(sidebar: if you believe all media companies are pretty much the same, with the same ideological spin: congratulations, you're a fringe character. you are either so far left or so far right, you can't tell the difference between mildly left or mildly right, it all looks the same to you. in whcih case, being on the fringe, you simply don't matter)
so those of you who grieve at the rise of fox news: celebrate it friend: all diseases need an innoculation. consider fox news a vaccination against propaganda. turn it on, let your mind soak in it. its not poisoning you, you are building resistance to a disease
the first rule of public relations is that there is no such thing as bad publicity. if you get your name out there, you can do something to cash in on that fame and/ or notoriety. a million signatures merely means a million people not only know who the guy is, but are actually passionate enough to go to a website and register their disgust for him
thus ensuring you will hear about uwe boll again and again forever
the only way you will ensure you will never hear of use boll again is to not mention him. btw, a front page slashdot story, unfortuantely, extends uwe boll's shelflife
love is basically the same as hate when it comes to garnishering attention. just ask any troll. the only way to defeat a real life troll like boll, just like online, is to IGNORE them. if you give them attention, they win
so any stupid petition ensures boll lives on and on. is that what you want?
yes, the animals wouldn't have existed if it weren't for our desire to eat them, but that doesn't absolve us of the suffering we create. it is better that they never existed in the first place to suffer at all
however, we need to eat meat, so livestock are ok, for now. when meat vats are perfected, there is no valid reason to keep livestock around
because they taste good and we evolved to eat them
the only reason eating animals is a problem is suddenly because we evolved higher mental faculties like empathy, morality
luckily, we also developed science, which will soon give us meat vats, and we can go on with our carnivorous delights and not a single animal need be killed anymore
but if you try to ask people to give up meat just because the animals suffer, you have just as much success asking people to stop having sex because of disease and overpopulation
it is a compulsion, hard wired into us. do not underestimate it. it is deeper and stronger this compulsion than our higher faculties
so much as birth control and penicillin sidesteps the issue of disease and too many babies as byproduct of our love of sex, so will meat vats sidestep the issue of cruelty and our love of meat
but you are really insane if you think a nice morality lecture will stop people from eating meat just because its cruel. as if a "just say no to sex" because of disease and overpopulation approach would work
the "FRANKENFOOD IS EEEEEVIL" crowd will not accept this. so you have the "don't kill animals" idealists now in a knife fight with the "no genetically modified food" idealists
so lets just sit back and watch the firewords and pass me the, um, are you sure that's popcorn?
Slashdot Mirror
it will be called middle earth: clone wars
is it controlled by the government or is it not?
that's some creative bullshit you got there that posits media wholly controlled by the government is somehow less harmful than one that clearly isn't
a free press is a free press. you believe in some sort of vast government manipulation? are you paranoid schizophrenic?
go to some of those places with low prison populations, rampant crime and corruption, and ask some residents there what they think about the discrepancy. i don't think you fill find patriotic pride in their response. i think you will find that people living in places with low prison populations and huge corruption would love to see some more american style prison population levels
does there happen to be any difference between
1. some cromagnon neocons calling you names
2. some cromagnon neocons closing down any media that differs from the party line?
gee, i dunno, maybe a slight difference there?
if your neighbor is making a lot of noise attempting to repair a leaking dam, and you stick your head out the window and tell him to keep the noise down, you aren't keeping your mind trained on the larger picture
same with those who criticize the cops and have nothing to say about criminals
those are examples of breaking the rules, of becoming what you are fighting
those are not examples of bending the rules, such as with these botnet inflitrators
so you are not correctly identifying what i am talking about
who have no regard for morals or ethics, scrupulously conforming to morals and ethics hampers your ability to fight
the danger of course, is not to become what you fight by doing that
so you slightly bend the rules, all the time, without making the sort of flat out trangression of major moral issues that constitutes what criminals do
but you will still get flak from people who expect moral certitude from those who fight criminals, and criticize you like no tomorrow, all the while completely ignoring and not criticizing the criminals themselves
your average hysterical slippery sloper "ITS THE FIRST STEP TO 1984 FASCISM PAPERS PLEASE..." crowd sees any invasion of privacy, no matter how limited, no matter what the reason, no matter what the context, as something tantamount to pulling your pants down for a border guard
yes, "WONT SOMEONE THINK OF THE CHILDREN" as a mental state is a signifier pointer of hysteria eroding privacy. however, hysteria exists in the privacy defender camp as well. just look at some of the hypermanic comments here bordering on paranoid sschizophrenia. folks: if you wish to actually protect privacy, the first thing you want to do is avoid hysteria of your own
this handing over pedophile information in brazil is not the unstoppable slide into fascists police statehood. its just not. if you believe it is, you have ceded your ability to reason to your own fear uncertainty and denial, and you are in the same mental state as the hysterics you say are eroding privacy. hysterics for privacy rights is not an asset
so how do you protect privacy? with a rational, calm, realistic mind. if someone moves an inch down the road to no privacy rights, you don't act like they moved a mile down the road, and you don't act like its an unstoppable slide. the first thing you do when you think about prudence and realism, is you realize that sometimes, in limited ways, for valid reasons, with a set of rules in place and with public disclosure, privacy deserves to be violated. or that every now and then the authorities may overstep their bounds. shrug it off. really. privacy fundamentalism is not realistic, its just a naive idealism
when i say that, if you immediately imagine jack booted thugs marching through the street, you are not an asset to the fight for privacy rights. you simply aren't. you are simply a victim of the same kind of hysteria you imagine powers the "WONT SOMEONE THINK OF THE CHILDREN CROWD"
gentle admonishment. not "OMG WERE ALL SLAVES". got it?
otherwise, you are of the "WONT SOMEONE THINK OF THE PRIVACY" loony bin. passion for an issue is not useful unless it is also accompanied by an intelligence for an issue. a thrashing drooling psychotic fear is not a valuable asset in your fight for privacy rights. so calm the fuck down. argue rationally. or shut up. you're not helping any cause you think you are helping with histrionics
something like this disclosure in brazil is not an unstoppable slippery slope into fascism and 1984. it really isnt. so snap out of it
a head designer was the guy who coined the term mmorpg. it is in fact the first (graphical, sorry mudders) example of an mmorpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SubSpace_(computer_game)
its like the original asteroids, without the asteroids, and instead a maze of a bunch of other ships (random people from around the world)
i think a lot of slashdotters messed with it 10 years ago, and forgot about it
however, i recently rediscovered it (its free now) and was surprised to find a lot of zones still heavily populated. each zone has a different variation on the basic ship types and their abilities. you can waste 5 minutes or half an hour on it, to great effect
nothing like meeting a guy in a tank from finland, dodging his mine, blowing him away, while a guy from china materializes out of cloak and shoots you in the back. its cheap and easy mmorpg fun without the massive time commitment something like WoW demands
dude. everytime you convert to a new energy medium, you are wasting energy. every KIND of conversion of energy from one medium to another wastes a different AMOUNT of energy
now, you go, and you research, and you compare converting to hydrogen, and then back to desired work by burning, to the energy wasted in say, battery storage. and then get back to us as an informed person in the discussion
otherwise, you might look STUPID
doesn't mean it is going to stop
life has ugly truths. deal with it
competition between points of view breeds objectivity. you cannot decide the truth before anyone has discussed an issue. you let people discuss an issue, then the truth begins to reveal itself
the media, the news cycle, is a form of discussion as facts trickle out. in the media, when something is published, no one, anywhere, is in a position to determine with enough veracity how truthful or not something is. but as the facts begin to reveal themselves over time, the bullshit is allowed to be winnowed from the gold
therefore, you and a lot of other people are going about this problem all wrong. you want the media to present you with something up front as unquestionable and unassailable. that's impossible. what you do instead is you let any old stupid crap get published, and you let people sort it out themselves. outlets that engage in too much bullshit flinging will see their integrity be questioned, and lose readership by serious readers
in other words, propaganda DOES breed objectivity. you are forgetting what propaganda is: half truth
here's truth:
1. bob stabs mike.
2. mike shoots bob in response.
here's the propaganda-addled media's take on the truth:
pro-bob media: "MIKE SHOOTS BOB"
its a half truth. its the truth, but only half of the truth of the situation
pro-mike media headline: "BOB STABS MIKE"
again, a half truth, it didn't tell what came next
but anyone paying attention to both sources can tease out the chain of events and see bob is the original culprit
see, real propaganda isn't lies at all. it is 100% truth... that conveniently omits some truths
now go to drudgereport.com
see the headlines?
when you read those headlines, HOW ARE THEY CHOSEN? in other words, drudgereport doesn't lie. it just chooses to show us some truths, and ignore others
now: you tell me how in the real world a media organization is supposed to pick what headlines are chosen for front page, what ones go on the last page, and what doesn't get published IN A COMPLETELY OBJECTIVE MANNER
utterly impossible
so you allow the ideologically addled media to manipulate, since the manipulation is unavoidable. then, you simply rely on more than one source of info, and you get a picture of the real truth of your world
proven: propaganda DOES breed objectivity, in a country with robust media (that is, there isn't only the propaganda-addled official state media, with no competition)
and finally, you present us with the spectre of the brainless moron who believes everything they read. huh? is such a person ever someone who can be salvaged from thinking stupid things? should the goal of media be to protect such fragile morons? morons will exist, in an environment populated with propaganda, or your hypothetical (impossible) universe where the media is flawless, either way. so that's a red herring
i'm sure the french aristocracy missed their cake too
recognize the obscene costs in human blood and CO2 that stupid noise represents, and it will disgust you, not fire up romantic notions
the american romance with the automobile is self-destruction, nothing more. congratulations on your stupid hobby destroying our country and our world
frankly, fuck you your v8
everything i said is compatible with universal human nature, and is observed in every society with mass media (and those without mass media, where there is nothing but gossip)
;-)
and the rest of what you said is similar grasping at straws. so i see i've exhausted your resistance: you are sputtering
so maybe now that i've peeled away through your mind, i'm beginning to speak to your heart
truth is manufactured
mankind manufactures his reality
the desire to have no war is not a truth, it is a passion of yours, it is something you and like-hearted souls are attempting to manufacture. and its a good passion, its one we need
so: stop thinking the "truth", whatever that is, is on your side in the good fight. your heart is in the right place, but your mind is failing you: you have bad tactics
and so you will lose the fight against warmongering until you evolve better tactics. those who manufacture the causes for war are winning, you are being shoved to the sidelines
an issue involving people's intent is not an issue whose fundamental points revolve around static facts. you need to speak to the intent, not the static facts
now: unite your passion with your mouth, and speak your heart. because currently, what your mind is saying, and what your mind is telling you to do to win your cause is failing your cause, and we are having war and will have more war because you are so ineffective
the warmongerers have an open field before them. you are on the sidelines, ineffectual and ignored. listen to me, and get back in the game, or be satisfied in your ivory tower, influencing no one, and watching the world pass you by
same reason i was apopleptic about the idiocy of hydrogen power. which, as a fashionable topic for science morons, seems to have run its course thankfully
please, science idiots, learn:
if you expend lots of energy manufacturing your energy medium, you are being more wasteful than just choosing a more intelligent energy medium
hydrogen is great, of course, because it burns clean. but it is a b*tch to store and transport, and most importantly, although something clean is coming out of your exhaust, everything that went into getting hydrogen into your fuel tank created more pollution than if you were burning coal in your car
the solution to our energy crisis is nuclear and electric cars
japan and france: show us the way to a cleaner, cheaper energy future, without the security concerns: nuclear
its safer than it ever was (you can walk away from a pebble bed reactor and it will just gradually shut down: no active management needed), and horrible waste is only a product of the usa's hesitance to use breeder reactors (because they make bomb grade materials). but if you use breeder reactors, you have a tenth of the nuclear fuel waste which loses its radioactivity in a few centuries, rather in 10,000s of years, AND you get way more energy output. as uranium runs out, use thorium like india. and as we begin to run out of thorium in a few centuries, mankind better have been able to master fusion power by then, or we are doomed anyways
i think, to provide security to nuclear plants, you would need one one hundredth of the amount of security resources you need now to make sure oil still flows to our shores
or just keep counting the body bags coming from iraq because your mind still believes propaganda about nuclear power based on 1960s technology
no, i'm not being a cynic, i'm serious, and i say manufacturing turth is a good aspect of mankind. mankind is not an animal in static captivity to his environment. mankind goes out, and changes the environment. mankind manufactures the truth about the world he lives in. he invents things. he invents things like the gun and the atom bomb. but he also invents science and reason and morality and civilization
so when i say truth is manufactured i am not being cynical about what bullshit people will swallow, i am calling you to arms to manufacture your "truth": a world with less war. the truth is NOT on your side in the desire to end war. mother nature is cruel and violent. civilization and morality are truths mankind manufactured to fight the essential cruelty of nature. the state of murder and war is the truth. what you are adovcating for, an end to war, is an unnatural thing you need to manufacture
for example: should we go to war with iraq? well, those who wanted to go outright manipulated facts about weapons iraq did not have. this is not a reason for you to uncover these manipulations, because no one cares about that. because the quesiton is driven by emotion, not a situation driven by static facts
therefore, you manipulate your own facts in support not going to war with iraq. why not go to war with iraq?: justify the reason. static unchanging facts like "there is no wmd" does not actually help that cause. if you look deeply in yourself, you'll find it is not because you are a defender of some sort of truth, but because of your own emotional bias about the value of war to "fix" things
it is a lie you tell yourself that you defend the truth. you are beholden to emotional assumptions just as untruthful as those held by warhawks. i would say though that your emotional assumptions are more well-intentioned than those of a warhawk. that the positive value of your beliefs is not some sort of hewing to the truth more than others, because you don't, but because of the nature of your emotional bias as compared to others
unfortunately, you believe that a wonkish slavish devotion to the "truth", whatever that is supposed to mean in an environment where all truths are manufactured, will somehow set us on the right path. that, for example, if some massive expose in the media about how the wmd issue was utter bullshit in 2002 would have actually prevented the us from going to war in iraq in 2003. no, the war hawks would have found some other means to start the war. it was their passion. the bullshit wmd charge was merely one avenue available to them among many. they would have kept trying, and would have succeeded, if you had actually met them on their battlefield: the battlefield of propaganda
in other words: so why did we go to war? because those who opposed the war didn't try hard enough to tell their passionate side of the issue. they just thought the "facts" would save them. never did. never will. its a case of if you can't beat em, join em: you need to start manufacturing your own truths. because what you call truth isn't really on your side, and probably doesn't even exist. its simply your passion versus their passion. meet them on that battlefield, or lose by assuming the battlefield between cold hard facts and propaganda will decide the day
your passion, your subjective feelings about an issue defines your reality. not the "facts"
because mankind simply makes his own reality. not just in his head, but via his technological inventions, he turns deserts into cities and valleys into breadbaskets
you don't win anything with a slavish devotion to the truth when dealing with a creature who invents whatever truth he wants. its emotional and subjective what he wants. so you have to meet him at an emotional and subjective level to persuade him
shortening this entire comment into one sentence: you don't alter the contents of someone's heart by appealing to their mind: you have to appeal directly to their heart
what are you doing in this thread, under this story, about this article? ;-P
never did, and never will
not thinking deeply about the news somehow nullifies my points? or that thinking deeply about the news was something i even said or assumed? or that i reply upon to make my conclusions?
(scratches head)
so you're kind of like the dodo or the passenger pigeon then?
"There are those that only want to listen to what they want to hear.... and some that re-write for the public consumption, just that."
and so welcome to slashdot! microsoft can only do evil, google can only do good, the greatest evil is the riaa and the most prtessing need is patent reform. enjoy your drudgereport, your shrill partisan blogs... this is the future friend. ideological fiefdoms, enclaves that don't recognize each other's validity, that snipe at each other and decry the other's venom and say "who me?" when confronted with their own venom
the acrimonious and grwoing divide between left and right in the usa is but the start of this fragmentation. in the future, all media consumption and production will be cliquish, everything will be manufactured, reality will be determined by partisan preference. what will be huge on fox news won't be mentioned on cnn, and visa versa. and the consumers of one or the other won't even notice the discrepancy. this will apply to all newspapers, radio shows, websites
the future, is the past
people react to this revelation as if there was some sort of mythical time and place where the media was pure as snow and that the arrival of gw bush has somehow corrupted it
folks, this is standard operating procedure, always has been, and ALWAYS WILL BE. here's a story: war hawks trump up a lie about military activities in a country they want to invade. 2003? no, 1898:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism#Spanish-American_War
people need to realize the media has always been corrupt, always has been ideological, always had an aggressive agenda, and always will be, and people need to have a better appreciation for the value of a robust bullshit meter
the proper response to this story about pentagon manipulations is not "how can we clean up the media", because you can't, but "what was wrong with me when i thought the media could ever be pure?"
the ideal world is not a fair and impartial media: this is a ridiculous fairy tale beleived by naive fools. the ideal world is openly ideological media, OF EVERY IDEOLOGICAL STRIPE. then let the viewer pick and choose what he or she thinks is true based on his or her own proclivities
the danger is a country that tries to systematically shut down right-leaning media, or a country that tries to systematically shut down a left-leaning media, or only has a state controlled media. no: give us fox news, and give us cnn, and msnbc, and give us anyone else who wants to play the game, and let all of the ideologies screm all of the manipulations and propaganda they want as loud as they want
and thereby train the general populace to have a muscular bullshit meter
that is the best you can do, and its not the worst case scneario, its the best: you don't get a healthy bullshit meter in an environment of no propaganda. you only get a healthy bullshit meter by being exposed to ever increasing toxic doses of propaganda, until you are immune
think about it: a "pure" media would spawn a general population with weak, flabby minds, blindly trusting whatever the media said. meanwhile, a corrupt, vicious lying media with screaming propaganda and subtle outright manipulation everywhere would breed strong distrustful minds. the caveat being of course, is that both the left and right be allowed to play this game, that there be more than one media outlet
(sidebar: if you believe all media companies are pretty much the same, with the same ideological spin: congratulations, you're a fringe character. you are either so far left or so far right, you can't tell the difference between mildly left or mildly right, it all looks the same to you. in whcih case, being on the fringe, you simply don't matter)
so those of you who grieve at the rise of fox news: celebrate it friend: all diseases need an innoculation. consider fox news a vaccination against propaganda. turn it on, let your mind soak in it. its not poisoning you, you are building resistance to a disease
the first rule of public relations is that there is no such thing as bad publicity. if you get your name out there, you can do something to cash in on that fame and/ or notoriety. a million signatures merely means a million people not only know who the guy is, but are actually passionate enough to go to a website and register their disgust for him
thus ensuring you will hear about uwe boll again and again forever
the only way you will ensure you will never hear of use boll again is to not mention him. btw, a front page slashdot story, unfortuantely, extends uwe boll's shelflife
love is basically the same as hate when it comes to garnishering attention. just ask any troll. the only way to defeat a real life troll like boll, just like online, is to IGNORE them. if you give them attention, they win
so any stupid petition ensures boll lives on and on. is that what you want?
yes, the animals wouldn't have existed if it weren't for our desire to eat them, but that doesn't absolve us of the suffering we create. it is better that they never existed in the first place to suffer at all
however, we need to eat meat, so livestock are ok, for now. when meat vats are perfected, there is no valid reason to keep livestock around
here you go, religious people discussing anthropomorphic weather:
http://www.christianforumsite.com/tropical-systems/10567-2008-hurricane-season-storm-names-info.html
(it's a joke, laugh)
because they taste good and we evolved to eat them
the only reason eating animals is a problem is suddenly because we evolved higher mental faculties like empathy, morality
luckily, we also developed science, which will soon give us meat vats, and we can go on with our carnivorous delights and not a single animal need be killed anymore
but if you try to ask people to give up meat just because the animals suffer, you have just as much success asking people to stop having sex because of disease and overpopulation
it is a compulsion, hard wired into us. do not underestimate it. it is deeper and stronger this compulsion than our higher faculties
so much as birth control and penicillin sidesteps the issue of disease and too many babies as byproduct of our love of sex, so will meat vats sidestep the issue of cruelty and our love of meat
but you are really insane if you think a nice morality lecture will stop people from eating meat just because its cruel. as if a "just say no to sex" because of disease and overpopulation approach would work
the "FRANKENFOOD IS EEEEEVIL" crowd will not accept this. so you have the "don't kill animals" idealists now in a knife fight with the "no genetically modified food" idealists
so lets just sit back and watch the firewords and pass me the, um, are you sure that's popcorn?