The only way to empirically find out "what part of global warming is natural and what part is due to human activity" is to keep pumping out CO2 and see what happens. That's what empiricism means.
No, you can also use empiricism in the form of data gathered from past climactic events to model changes (and hopefully causes) in future ones. This same sort of methodology is used to test darwinian evolution without the need for several million years of direct observation.
Apparently you don't. You're a fanatic on a crusade; and like any fanatic you're convinced that you're right, and anyone who disagrees with you is wrong.
In case you haven't managed to grab a clue, that makes you somewhat less than credible.
The only bullshit is coming from the neoliberal, right-wing think tanks who the free market is the lord and savior of the mankind.
Riiiight. The free market is the source of all environmental evil. Silly me - I guess I should be working to bring socialism to the unwashed masses!
They are in the business of manufacturing doubt
And you're in the business of manufacturing hysteria.
they don't have to worry about pesky governments
Those "pesky governments" are far more likely to pass pro-business than anti-business legislation. How you've come to the conclusion that government will save us is beyond me. It's also fucking ridiculous, if history is any judge.
All I'm saying is that mankind is raping the fuck out of the earth.
You certainly do have a fascination with rape. Counseling might be able to help with that.
Coral reefs are dying
Corals have gone extinct at least three times in the past. They keep re-evolving. What any of this has to do with this 'rape' you keep talking about is unclear.
there's massive deforstation
And this time it's due to human activity, but "massive deforestation" isn't anything new to the planet, either. And while it's locally bad for human populations, there's no evidence to indicate that it's globally bad.
massive extinctions
Nobody has any idea just how many species have gone extinct, nor how many of those extinctions are due to human activity. Any claim to the contrary is unsupported hysteria.
and many, many climatologists clearly believe that mankind is certainly influencing our temperature in a negative way.
Many, many climatologists are convinced that the Earth is in a warming trend, and has been for several thousand years. How much humans are contributing, and whether this is a bad, is still up for debate - at least among scientists.
We can't continue to just believe in some fanciful free market consumerist that will magically make our problems vanish.
So you would rather have what? A world-wide socialist dictatorship bringing your particular views of how things should be to the masses, by force? Get real.
There's absolutely no basis for believing that's a solution
A solution to what? Your obvious angst over the fact that a lot of people just don't agree with you?
except if you are heavy into the Bible and believe mankind is ordained by God to rule the world.
I'm an atheist, but it's a fact that humankind rules the world. And so far as I'm concerned that's a good thing. Much better than if, say, tigers ruled the world - because then I'd be lunch.
But anyone who thinks we can just continue to rape the globe forever
Perhaps you haven't figured this out yet, but the whole Gaia-as-goddess thing is a load of horseshit. The globe can't be "raped".
are we going to be stupid enough to continue down this wreckless path?
You mean of technological progress and a better standard of living, at least for some of the race? Sure, sounds good to me.
Does humanity secretly have an unfulfilled death wish?
Only if you define "death wish" as "wanting to live a better life".
Listen I'm willing to admit I'm part of the problem.
You sure as hell are. Have you thought about toning down the drama queen act?
I recognize things have to change.
Starting with the fact that we need to rely on science and empiricism, and not extremist loons chanting slogans or spouting party lines about the man-made doom-of-the-week.
find a way to snap out of these unsustainable lifestyles
So far the lifestyle *has* been sustainable. You're predicting unsustainability on the premise that technology will never progress beyond what we have today - like all alarmists. As if the status quo this moment is all we're ever going to achieve, despite the fact that the entirety of human history contradicts this notion.
avoid the terrible consequences that surely await us if we don't.
Why don't you just pick up a piece of cardboard, write "The End Times Approach!" on it in black magic marker, and start marching back and forth along a busy street someplace? You'll be following in the footsteps of many other folks just like you.
There has got to be something in the US education system that makes this type of behaviour prevalent - climate change, peak oil, kennedy assassination - you seem to love to ignore common sense and nit pick on some small item of data to try and construct some alternative view of the world which strains credulity?
On the other hand we haven't as yet tried our hand at conquering Europe, nor have we decided to pick some random set of ethnic groups and cook them up in ovens. On the whole I'd say that the U.S. form of silliness is rather benign compared to the examples we *could* follow....
Since I'm a fairly inexperienced chemical engineer and those I consider my superiors are reaching conflicting conclusions on these matters, I certainly don't feel qualified to make any statments, even with my strong background in chemistry.
This is precisely the point I try to drive home. Even the experts don't really know what the hell is going on, and why should we expect them to? It's not as if we spend an enormous amount of money researching either the direct question or the indirect factors involved (such as peat bogs, the supposed topic of this discussion).
I have no problem with the government directing a good chunk of change in trying to figure out what's going on, what part is due to our activities, and what - if anything - can be done to slow down the change. Assuming that's what we want to do. Which it might not be, if it turns out that it's human activity which is preventing our break between ice ages from ending.
I have a huge problem with passing seat-of-the-pants legislation which will have real, measurable, enormous effects on our standard of living, but which lacks a single iota of proof that it will have any effect (or the desired effect) just because some folks are convinced they have all the answers, and want to force their world-view on everything else.
The science here is primitive. Better science I'll vote for, and put my tax dollars behind. Bullshit legislation based on wishful thinking I won't.
The earth has no proper temperature but it has a proper rate of change of temperature
Bullshit. Dramatic climactic changes have occurred numerous times in the past, and long before humankind was around to do anything about it. Sometimes climactic change is slow, sometimes it's sudden and abrupt. There is no, and has never been, a "proper rate of change".
thanks to a huge anthropogenic perturbation
Perhaps. Perhaps not. How much human beings are accelerating global warming is still up for debate - and it's almost certain we aren't the sole cause of it, regardless of what the greenie fanatics say.
Anyone who capitalizes "Global Warming" isn't exactly going to be a font of scientific dispassion and empiricism.
Nobody possessed of a modicum of reason disputes that the globe seems to be heating up, at least a bit. A great many people dispute the cause, the projected trends (which vary wildly, depending on the agenda of the people involved), and what, if anything, can be done about it. Only the loony extremists on either end of the political spectrum are absolutely certain they possess The Truth(TM).
If we act now to drastically reduce our fossil fuel emissions and other man-made greenhouse gasses, we're still mostly fucked.
You don't know that, either way. You have zip in empirical evidence to indicate that "we're fucked", however you define it.
We can't help pristine environments like the Siberian taiga
But if things continue we might be able to sell summer condos there. Me, I think that's a good thing. Siberia is a frozen shithole of little value to anyone other than a few thousand reindeer farmers; any change is bound to be a good one, at least for human beings.
prevent most of Florida from going under-water
That would certainly solve the Social Security problem.
We should probably take drastic action now anyway
Drastic action. Not a single person on Earth - you included - can say with any certainty if ANY action will have an effect, yet you're more than willing to bet the future of everyone on the planet (and a good deal of our present, as well) just to make you feel like 'something's being done'. No thanks, chicken little.
I bet you'll get a lot of people to jump up and down about how crazy that is.
The only freedoms socialists favor are those they personally approve of...usually those that they themselves benefit from. For everyone else there's the Reeducation Camp!
On the other hand when I say I have some nice seafront property in northern Canada to sell you, it reall means I have some nice seafront property for sale! And think - we'll finally have that Northern Passage so many Age of Exploration captains lost their shorts looking for....
If we do nothing as far as policy is concerned, the science tells us pretty clearly that things will keep getting more out of whack and faster.
The science says NOTHING conclusive concerning what part of global warming is natural and what part is due to human activity. Jury's still out on this one, at least to people who care about empiricism.
Without an answer to that question (and even with one) we really have no idea what, if anything, can be done to slow down warming. Everything in that area is pure guesswork and nobody knows if doing things like drastically reducing emissions will have any effect. We only have a single sample to work with, and a wrong guess won't become apparent for at least fifty years.
The question is, when do we decide to do something about it?
Perhaps when we know what part of climate change is natural and what part is artificial? And after we determine with some reasonable degree of certainty what methods can be used to slow it down - assuming that's the desirable outcome?
whatever we see at any given moment will be a small fraction of what we are already committed to.
That's true no matter what happens and what process is to blame. We've only got the one planet, which means we're "committed to" whatever the hell happens to it regardless.
At this point we are in big trouble
No, we aren't. The doomsayers cry out that the end is nigh, but so far humans have adapted remarkably well to changing climactic conditions. In fact, humans sans any real technology have managed to survive several much more radical climate changes - and without their numbers being endangered in any real way.
still lots of folks are coming up with irrational arguments for ignoring it.
Some folks ignore it, but a good many would like some more science along with an empirically sound approach, rather than frenzied hair-pulling, teeth-gnashing, and I-just-pulled-this-out-of-my-ass guesswork.
Which became an obvious load of horseshit once it was revealed that Google was actively working with the Chinese government on their national firewall. Google apparently has no problem whatsoever "doing evil" so long as there's money involved, although because it's a geek religious icon a great many idiots will jump to their defense in order to defend their false divinity.
Oh, please. Stop being such a goddamned drama queen. And while you're at it, get your mouth off of Google's corporate cock for a moment and go back and read the original article - which, by the way, did nothing more than reveal a few trivial details about Google's CEO.
And I do mean trivial. Truly personal information, like an actual street address, or phone number, or where the man's kids went to school, was never revealed in the article. Ever. It was just a demonstration of some of the things you could find with Google, the implication being that perhaps this isn't always a good thing.
The CEO threw a hissy fit. Which made the situation even more amusing because it outlined both the capabilities of his search engine AND the probable reaction of most folks if they knew that the search engine could be used to collect both vital facts and trivia on their lives. The tantrum just made it clear that while Google muckety-mucks had no problem with this being done to OTHER people, it was a whole different story if it happened to THEM.
In technical terms we call such a person a "prick".
If the cops have no respect for the law or for the rights of a citizen (regardless of their personal feelings for the citizen) then the cop is nothing more than a thug with a badge. That cop needs to take up a different and less demanding line of work...like flipping burgers.
This is hardly comforting when someone is trying to break into your home and the police are "too busy" to respond to your 911 call...and yet they always seem to have an overabundance of traffic cops eagerly cracking down on those nasty speeders.
I don't, and have never, lived in what you'd call a 'bad' neighborhood. And yet on three separate occasions, at three separate homes (one I was housesitting for a friend), I had some incredibly stupid burglars attempt to break in while I was home, and up, and the lights were on. On all three occasions I called 911 while the attempted break-in was in progress; two times the cops failed to respond because all available units were busy doing something else (what? cracking down on noise complaints? eating donuts?), and the third time they showed up TWO HOURS after the call. In all of these cases I ended up running off the crooks myself (once with hilarious results, when I scared the crap out of a would-be burglar and he charged straight into a woodpile).
Incidents like these tend to make me irritable. I can't get a cop when a break-in is happening right then and there, but the city seems to have plenty of money to pay for cops who...bust speeders. Yeah, got their priorities real straight, they do.
Perhaps I'd be somewhat mollified if the traffic cops went around handing out tickets to aging Boomers who drive their minivans/SUVs like they were tanks, or to those fucking idiots who talk on their cell phones while weaving back and forth across lanes/blasting through stop signs/etc., but these people seem to get a free pass....
You make the wrong assumption that just because someone happens to be able to write (for example) that that also means they have to be payed for each time someone obtains a copy of their writing in order for the writer to get compensated.
That isn't a wrong assumption; it's a legal one. Just because you don't happen to like the legality doesn't make it wrong. Clearly the vast majority of Americans are just fine with paying authors and musicians for their work and have no problem with reasonable copyright laws.
None of it has anything to do with ripping off anyones creative work at all, rather, it has to do with the people creating that work sharing it on purpose, and seeing a huge payback as a result.
So I write a book, you distribute for free, and I get...what? A condescending pat on the back from you because I bowed down before your false moral position? And that feeds my family...how?
I have a better idea. We stick with the current idea of copyright and you protest the idea by refusing to purchase anything that's copyrighted. That way we're both happy.
They are, go read your local version of copyright law. If it weren't for that law, copyright would not exist, whereas no laws are needed at all for the notion of physical property to exist. Again, you may not like this, but notion of copyright is not universal
The notion of physical property isn't universal, either. Whackos in every form abound.
You assume that what you created is yours.
Indeed. I created it, therefore it's mine.
but I rather think you are completely failing to understand that quite a few people do not believe that this applies to ideas and expressions of those ideas.
A tiny minority, at best. The vast majority of people would laugh in your face if you demanded that the very idea of copyright be abolished.
In short, your argument is based on assumptions that are at the least not shared by everyone
So the fuck what? Reality isn't defined by a consensus viewpoint.
I suggest you go ask to some artists, what you are saying here is not true for the large majority of artists, famous or not.
And I suggest you go ask some writers - the folks who actually put food on the table by selling their creative effort, not the fanfic and slash sort. Nearly every one of them will tell you to "fuck off".
I don't mind you copying my work when you find it.
I do mind if you copy my work without paying me for it and I'll sue you if I discover that you've done just that. Your choice here is to either a) pay me what I ask, or b) refuse to purchase what I'm selling. You don't get an option c).
I no longer accept anyone's definition of copyright or the expectation of any person or corporation that they can legally deny access to any digitized recording, image, or written work for any reason.
So, when all is said and done, you're just another one of those "everything I want for free should be free" assholes. Get over yourself, junior; you're just another fucking loser trying to justify why it's okay for you to violate copyright.
I'm really beginning to wish that all the celebrities would all just go the fuck away.
And a jealous loser, at that. Guess the fact that you're never going to bang Natalie Portman or Jessica Alba is really a source of deep personal bitterness for you.
There are commercial artists who I respect for their music, but I don't respect the attitude of them or anyone else who one the one hand claims to be an artist and then on the other demands that people pay money for their works in order to support their lifestyle.
Then you can show your lack of respect by refusing to purchase or listen to their music. Now you AND the artist are happy. Unless you think that you're somehow morally righteous enough to make that decision FOR the artist?
RMS's philosophy is that software should be "free as in my definition of freedom". That definition of "freedom" just happens to include making selling software practically impossible.
RMS has nothing to do with it. It's up to the developer(s) of the software whether or not they want to use the GPL, and since it's their code and they can do whatever the fuck they want with it. If they don't want *you* to be able to take the code, wrap it into your proprietary product, and sell it without source then that's their business. You have no right whatsoever to complain about it, or to insist that they do things differently to suit your desires. If you don't like it, write your own damned code, or hire someone to write it for you.
The world doesn't owe you anything, and that includes code that someone else wrote.
Either that, or he thinks that nobody has any right to express (or hear) any opinion except his.
RMS is absolutely convinced that he's always right, and anyone who disagrees with him is always wrong. And he's more than willing to assert that in the most direct way possible.
Ah, that old myth that if there was no piracy prices would be lower.
Although I'm sure a number of slashdotters are too young to remember this, a version of this myth was used in years past to sell mandatory seatbelt legislation. It goes something like this:
Congress told car manufacturers that they'd have to include airbags in all new vehicles unless a certain number of states passed seatbelt laws by a specific date. This proved to be a hard law to argue since (at the time) most Americans didn't like the idea that their neighbors thought they were so incompetent that they couldn't decide for themselves something as trivial as whether or not they would wear a seatbelt.
Insurance companies came to the rescue of car manufacturers by claiming that if seatbelt laws were passed then insurance rates would decline since the number of accident-related injuries would go down. In fact, the argument was spun so that people who didn't wear seatbelts were somehow costing everyone else in terms of increased insurance rates. People against seatbelt laws were somehow 'stealing' from everyone else. This argument was so successful that even today people spout this sort of nonsense as if it were actually true.
Unfortunately for the car manufacturers they still didn't get seatbelt laws passed in enough states, so airbags became mandatory. Notice, however, that seatbelt laws weren't repealed.
Despite the passage of seatbelt legislation *insurance rates never went down in any of the fifty states*. Contrary to the argument, they've actually gone up - faster than inflation, in many cases. So how did the seatbelt laws benefit the insurance companies? Because statistics are now kept of the number of people ticketed for violating this law, and insurance companies claim that rates needed to be increased to make up for the people who don't wear their seatbelts!
Nice trick, that. One that the media industry has apparently copied.
Apple has proven people are willing to accept DRM if it isn't noticable for most of the things people normally do.
Apple has sold a grand total of 25 million ipods world-wide, ten million of those in the U.S. While that seems like a lot, the ten million U.S. owners of ipods represents about 1 in 29 people. In comparison, there are 248 million television sets in the U.S., and around 125 million VCRs (despite what some slashdotters think about the VCR being 'dead technology). DVD player figures vary quite a bit depending on who's giving out the numbers, but the upper bound seems to be around 60 million (and growing, as VCR numbers decline).
Geeks tend to lose sight of the fact that their behavior is *not* typical of the population at large. Geeks tend to be obsessed with pieces of technology which simply don't interest Joe and Jane Doe. The ipod is clearly one of those pieces, as only 1 in 29 Americans actually owns one. So while Apple, the press, and the geek set here on Slashdot make a huge deal out of the ipod, market penetration is absolutely tiny in comparison to items which are actually ubiquitous (TVs, VCRs, computers, refrigerators, etc.).
The ipod is not, has never been, and appears that it will never be, a 'common' piece of household technology. It's a toy that appeals to less than 4% of the population. The vast majority of Americans do not own an ipod and never will; they simply don't give a shit about it.
On the other hand, the opposite is true of the TV, VCR, and DVD. Nearly every American household as a TV and a VCR or DVD, which means that Americans *do* give a damn about these items. The one recent attempt to impose DRM on TV-related entertainment - Divx - failed miserably. There's no reason to believe that a similar attempt will do any better.
The only thing that ipod sales have proven is that an extremely small subset of the American population - geeks and college students - are willing to accept DRM on the ipod. It can't logically be extended to any other device or form of entertainment. Although it's amusing to note that the people who complain most about DRM seem to be the most willing to put up with it when it comes to 'hip' new shinies.
If we became a culture of book readers, that watched backyard scifi we downloaded off the Internet for a fee and learned to play our own musicale instruments then the big corporations could DRM the entire system and take away all our rights and it wouldn't mater a bit.
Of course it would. These companies would simply outlaw paper books and backyard scifi and musical instruments, turning everyone who attempted to access these devices into "pirates" denying them the "right to profit".
There is no limit to the lengths these folks will go to in order to retain the power they now enjoy. The retention of that power outweighs all other considerations.
Slashdot Mirror
The only way to empirically find out "what part of global warming is natural and what part is due to human activity" is to keep pumping out CO2 and see what happens. That's what empiricism means.
No, you can also use empiricism in the form of data gathered from past climactic events to model changes (and hopefully causes) in future ones. This same sort of methodology is used to test darwinian evolution without the need for several million years of direct observation.
Max
Don't you get it?
Apparently you don't. You're a fanatic on a crusade; and like any fanatic you're convinced that you're right, and anyone who disagrees with you is wrong.
In case you haven't managed to grab a clue, that makes you somewhat less than credible.
The only bullshit is coming from the neoliberal, right-wing think tanks who the free market is the lord and savior of the mankind.
Riiiight. The free market is the source of all environmental evil. Silly me - I guess I should be working to bring socialism to the unwashed masses!
They are in the business of manufacturing doubt
And you're in the business of manufacturing hysteria.
they don't have to worry about pesky governments
Those "pesky governments" are far more likely to pass pro-business than anti-business legislation. How you've come to the conclusion that government will save us is beyond me. It's also fucking ridiculous, if history is any judge.
These guys are ideologues, not climatologists.
You've just described yourself in a nutshell.
Max
All I'm saying is that mankind is raping the fuck out of the earth.
You certainly do have a fascination with rape. Counseling might be able to help with that.
Coral reefs are dying
Corals have gone extinct at least three times in the past. They keep re-evolving. What any of this has to do with this 'rape' you keep talking about is unclear.
there's massive deforstation
And this time it's due to human activity, but "massive deforestation" isn't anything new to the planet, either. And while it's locally bad for human populations, there's no evidence to indicate that it's globally bad.
massive extinctions
Nobody has any idea just how many species have gone extinct, nor how many of those extinctions are due to human activity. Any claim to the contrary is unsupported hysteria.
and many, many climatologists clearly believe that mankind is certainly influencing our temperature in a negative way.
Many, many climatologists are convinced that the Earth is in a warming trend, and has been for several thousand years. How much humans are contributing, and whether this is a bad, is still up for debate - at least among scientists.
We can't continue to just believe in some fanciful free market consumerist that will magically make our problems vanish.
So you would rather have what? A world-wide socialist dictatorship bringing your particular views of how things should be to the masses, by force? Get real.
There's absolutely no basis for believing that's a solution
A solution to what? Your obvious angst over the fact that a lot of people just don't agree with you?
except if you are heavy into the Bible and believe mankind is ordained by God to rule the world.
I'm an atheist, but it's a fact that humankind rules the world. And so far as I'm concerned that's a good thing. Much better than if, say, tigers ruled the world - because then I'd be lunch.
Max
But anyone who thinks we can just continue to rape the globe forever
Perhaps you haven't figured this out yet, but the whole Gaia-as-goddess thing is a load of horseshit. The globe can't be "raped".
are we going to be stupid enough to continue down this wreckless path?
You mean of technological progress and a better standard of living, at least for some of the race? Sure, sounds good to me.
Does humanity secretly have an unfulfilled death wish?
Only if you define "death wish" as "wanting to live a better life".
Listen I'm willing to admit I'm part of the problem.
You sure as hell are. Have you thought about toning down the drama queen act?
I recognize things have to change.
Starting with the fact that we need to rely on science and empiricism, and not extremist loons chanting slogans or spouting party lines about the man-made doom-of-the-week.
find a way to snap out of these unsustainable lifestyles
So far the lifestyle *has* been sustainable. You're predicting unsustainability on the premise that technology will never progress beyond what we have today - like all alarmists. As if the status quo this moment is all we're ever going to achieve, despite the fact that the entirety of human history contradicts this notion.
avoid the terrible consequences that surely await us if we don't.
Why don't you just pick up a piece of cardboard, write "The End Times Approach!" on it in black magic marker, and start marching back and forth along a busy street someplace? You'll be following in the footsteps of many other folks just like you.
Max
There has got to be something in the US education system that makes this type of behaviour prevalent - climate change, peak oil, kennedy assassination - you seem to love to ignore common sense and nit pick on some small item of data to try and construct some alternative view of the world which strains credulity?
On the other hand we haven't as yet tried our hand at conquering Europe, nor have we decided to pick some random set of ethnic groups and cook them up in ovens. On the whole I'd say that the U.S. form of silliness is rather benign compared to the examples we *could* follow....
Max
Since I'm a fairly inexperienced chemical engineer and those I consider my superiors are reaching conflicting conclusions on these matters, I certainly don't feel qualified to make any statments, even with my strong background in chemistry.
This is precisely the point I try to drive home. Even the experts don't really know what the hell is going on, and why should we expect them to? It's not as if we spend an enormous amount of money researching either the direct question or the indirect factors involved (such as peat bogs, the supposed topic of this discussion).
I have no problem with the government directing a good chunk of change in trying to figure out what's going on, what part is due to our activities, and what - if anything - can be done to slow down the change. Assuming that's what we want to do. Which it might not be, if it turns out that it's human activity which is preventing our break between ice ages from ending.
I have a huge problem with passing seat-of-the-pants legislation which will have real, measurable, enormous effects on our standard of living, but which lacks a single iota of proof that it will have any effect (or the desired effect) just because some folks are convinced they have all the answers, and want to force their world-view on everything else.
The science here is primitive. Better science I'll vote for, and put my tax dollars behind. Bullshit legislation based on wishful thinking I won't.
Max
The earth has no proper temperature but it has a proper rate of change of temperature
Bullshit. Dramatic climactic changes have occurred numerous times in the past, and long before humankind was around to do anything about it. Sometimes climactic change is slow, sometimes it's sudden and abrupt. There is no, and has never been, a "proper rate of change".
thanks to a huge anthropogenic perturbation
Perhaps. Perhaps not. How much human beings are accelerating global warming is still up for debate - and it's almost certain we aren't the sole cause of it, regardless of what the greenie fanatics say.
Max
Anyone who capitalizes "Global Warming" isn't exactly going to be a font of scientific dispassion and empiricism.
Nobody possessed of a modicum of reason disputes that the globe seems to be heating up, at least a bit. A great many people dispute the cause, the projected trends (which vary wildly, depending on the agenda of the people involved), and what, if anything, can be done about it. Only the loony extremists on either end of the political spectrum are absolutely certain they possess The Truth(TM).
If we act now to drastically reduce our fossil fuel emissions and other man-made greenhouse gasses, we're still mostly fucked.
You don't know that, either way. You have zip in empirical evidence to indicate that "we're fucked", however you define it.
We can't help pristine environments like the Siberian taiga
But if things continue we might be able to sell summer condos there. Me, I think that's a good thing. Siberia is a frozen shithole of little value to anyone other than a few thousand reindeer farmers; any change is bound to be a good one, at least for human beings.
prevent most of Florida from going under-water
That would certainly solve the Social Security problem.
We should probably take drastic action now anyway
Drastic action. Not a single person on Earth - you included - can say with any certainty if ANY action will have an effect, yet you're more than willing to bet the future of everyone on the planet (and a good deal of our present, as well) just to make you feel like 'something's being done'. No thanks, chicken little.
Max
I bet you'll get a lot of people to jump up and down about how crazy that is.
The only freedoms socialists favor are those they personally approve of...usually those that they themselves benefit from. For everyone else there's the Reeducation Camp!
Max
On the other hand when I say I have some nice seafront property in northern Canada to sell you, it reall means I have some nice seafront property for sale! And think - we'll finally have that Northern Passage so many Age of Exploration captains lost their shorts looking for....
Max
If we do nothing as far as policy is concerned, the science tells us pretty clearly that things will keep getting more out of whack and faster.
The science says NOTHING conclusive concerning what part of global warming is natural and what part is due to human activity. Jury's still out on this one, at least to people who care about empiricism.
Without an answer to that question (and even with one) we really have no idea what, if anything, can be done to slow down warming. Everything in that area is pure guesswork and nobody knows if doing things like drastically reducing emissions will have any effect. We only have a single sample to work with, and a wrong guess won't become apparent for at least fifty years.
The question is, when do we decide to do something about it?
Perhaps when we know what part of climate change is natural and what part is artificial? And after we determine with some reasonable degree of certainty what methods can be used to slow it down - assuming that's the desirable outcome?
whatever we see at any given moment will be a small fraction of what we are already committed to.
That's true no matter what happens and what process is to blame. We've only got the one planet, which means we're "committed to" whatever the hell happens to it regardless.
At this point we are in big trouble
No, we aren't. The doomsayers cry out that the end is nigh, but so far humans have adapted remarkably well to changing climactic conditions. In fact, humans sans any real technology have managed to survive several much more radical climate changes - and without their numbers being endangered in any real way.
still lots of folks are coming up with irrational arguments for ignoring it.
Some folks ignore it, but a good many would like some more science along with an empirically sound approach, rather than frenzied hair-pulling, teeth-gnashing, and I-just-pulled-this-out-of-my-ass guesswork.
Max
You know, the whole "do no evil" thing.
Which became an obvious load of horseshit once it was revealed that Google was actively working with the Chinese government on their national firewall. Google apparently has no problem whatsoever "doing evil" so long as there's money involved, although because it's a geek religious icon a great many idiots will jump to their defense in order to defend their false divinity.
Max
ZDnet's actions were unconscionable.
Oh, please. Stop being such a goddamned drama queen. And while you're at it, get your mouth off of Google's corporate cock for a moment and go back and read the original article - which, by the way, did nothing more than reveal a few trivial details about Google's CEO.
And I do mean trivial. Truly personal information, like an actual street address, or phone number, or where the man's kids went to school, was never revealed in the article. Ever. It was just a demonstration of some of the things you could find with Google, the implication being that perhaps this isn't always a good thing.
The CEO threw a hissy fit. Which made the situation even more amusing because it outlined both the capabilities of his search engine AND the probable reaction of most folks if they knew that the search engine could be used to collect both vital facts and trivia on their lives. The tantrum just made it clear that while Google muckety-mucks had no problem with this being done to OTHER people, it was a whole different story if it happened to THEM.
In technical terms we call such a person a "prick".
Max
If the cops have no respect for the law or for the rights of a citizen (regardless of their personal feelings for the citizen) then the cop is nothing more than a thug with a badge. That cop needs to take up a different and less demanding line of work...like flipping burgers.
Max
This is hardly comforting when someone is trying to break into your home and the police are "too busy" to respond to your 911 call...and yet they always seem to have an overabundance of traffic cops eagerly cracking down on those nasty speeders.
I don't, and have never, lived in what you'd call a 'bad' neighborhood. And yet on three separate occasions, at three separate homes (one I was housesitting for a friend), I had some incredibly stupid burglars attempt to break in while I was home, and up, and the lights were on. On all three occasions I called 911 while the attempted break-in was in progress; two times the cops failed to respond because all available units were busy doing something else (what? cracking down on noise complaints? eating donuts?), and the third time they showed up TWO HOURS after the call. In all of these cases I ended up running off the crooks myself (once with hilarious results, when I scared the crap out of a would-be burglar and he charged straight into a woodpile).
Incidents like these tend to make me irritable. I can't get a cop when a break-in is happening right then and there, but the city seems to have plenty of money to pay for cops who...bust speeders. Yeah, got their priorities real straight, they do.
Perhaps I'd be somewhat mollified if the traffic cops went around handing out tickets to aging Boomers who drive their minivans/SUVs like they were tanks, or to those fucking idiots who talk on their cell phones while weaving back and forth across lanes/blasting through stop signs/etc., but these people seem to get a free pass....
Max
You make the wrong assumption that just because someone happens to be able to write (for example) that that also means they have to be payed for each time someone obtains a copy of their writing in order for the writer to get compensated.
That isn't a wrong assumption; it's a legal one. Just because you don't happen to like the legality doesn't make it wrong. Clearly the vast majority of Americans are just fine with paying authors and musicians for their work and have no problem with reasonable copyright laws.
None of it has anything to do with ripping off anyones creative work at all, rather, it has to do with the people creating that work sharing it on purpose, and seeing a huge payback as a result.
So I write a book, you distribute for free, and I get...what? A condescending pat on the back from you because I bowed down before your false moral position? And that feeds my family...how?
I have a better idea. We stick with the current idea of copyright and you protest the idea by refusing to purchase anything that's copyrighted. That way we're both happy.
They are, go read your local version of copyright law. If it weren't for that law, copyright would not exist, whereas no laws are needed at all for the notion of physical property to exist. Again, you may not like this, but notion of copyright is not universal
The notion of physical property isn't universal, either. Whackos in every form abound.
You assume that what you created is yours.
Indeed. I created it, therefore it's mine.
but I rather think you are completely failing to understand that quite a few people do not believe that this applies to ideas and expressions of those ideas.
A tiny minority, at best. The vast majority of people would laugh in your face if you demanded that the very idea of copyright be abolished.
In short, your argument is based on assumptions that are at the least not shared by everyone
So the fuck what? Reality isn't defined by a consensus viewpoint.
Max
I suggest you go ask to some artists, what you are saying here is not true for the large majority of artists, famous or not.
And I suggest you go ask some writers - the folks who actually put food on the table by selling their creative effort, not the fanfic and slash sort. Nearly every one of them will tell you to "fuck off".
I don't mind you copying my work when you find it.
I do mind if you copy my work without paying me for it and I'll sue you if I discover that you've done just that. Your choice here is to either a) pay me what I ask, or b) refuse to purchase what I'm selling. You don't get an option c).
Max
I no longer accept anyone's definition of copyright or the expectation of any person or corporation that they can legally deny access to any digitized recording, image, or written work for any reason.
So, when all is said and done, you're just another one of those "everything I want for free should be free" assholes. Get over yourself, junior; you're just another fucking loser trying to justify why it's okay for you to violate copyright.
I'm really beginning to wish that all the celebrities would all just go the fuck away.
And a jealous loser, at that. Guess the fact that you're never going to bang Natalie Portman or Jessica Alba is really a source of deep personal bitterness for you.
Max
There are commercial artists who I respect for their music, but I don't respect the attitude of them or anyone else who one the one hand claims to be an artist and then on the other demands that people pay money for their works in order to support their lifestyle.
Then you can show your lack of respect by refusing to purchase or listen to their music. Now you AND the artist are happy. Unless you think that you're somehow morally righteous enough to make that decision FOR the artist?
Max
RMS's philosophy is that software should be "free as in my definition of freedom". That definition of "freedom" just happens to include making selling software practically impossible.
RMS has nothing to do with it. It's up to the developer(s) of the software whether or not they want to use the GPL, and since it's their code and they can do whatever the fuck they want with it. If they don't want *you* to be able to take the code, wrap it into your proprietary product, and sell it without source then that's their business. You have no right whatsoever to complain about it, or to insist that they do things differently to suit your desires. If you don't like it, write your own damned code, or hire someone to write it for you.
The world doesn't owe you anything, and that includes code that someone else wrote.
Max
Either that, or he thinks that nobody has any right to express (or hear) any opinion except his.
RMS is absolutely convinced that he's always right, and anyone who disagrees with him is always wrong. And he's more than willing to assert that in the most direct way possible.
So yes, he's an asshole.
Max
Ah, that old myth that if there was no piracy prices would be lower.
Although I'm sure a number of slashdotters are too young to remember this, a version of this myth was used in years past to sell mandatory seatbelt legislation. It goes something like this:
Congress told car manufacturers that they'd have to include airbags in all new vehicles unless a certain number of states passed seatbelt laws by a specific date. This proved to be a hard law to argue since (at the time) most Americans didn't like the idea that their neighbors thought they were so incompetent that they couldn't decide for themselves something as trivial as whether or not they would wear a seatbelt.
Insurance companies came to the rescue of car manufacturers by claiming that if seatbelt laws were passed then insurance rates would decline since the number of accident-related injuries would go down. In fact, the argument was spun so that people who didn't wear seatbelts were somehow costing everyone else in terms of increased insurance rates. People against seatbelt laws were somehow 'stealing' from everyone else. This argument was so successful that even today people spout this sort of nonsense as if it were actually true.
Unfortunately for the car manufacturers they still didn't get seatbelt laws passed in enough states, so airbags became mandatory. Notice, however, that seatbelt laws weren't repealed.
Despite the passage of seatbelt legislation *insurance rates never went down in any of the fifty states*. Contrary to the argument, they've actually gone up - faster than inflation, in many cases. So how did the seatbelt laws benefit the insurance companies? Because statistics are now kept of the number of people ticketed for violating this law, and insurance companies claim that rates needed to be increased to make up for the people who don't wear their seatbelts!
Nice trick, that. One that the media industry has apparently copied.
Max
I'm pretty sure you forgot #4 freeloaders
You misspelled "college students".
Max
Apple has proven people are willing to accept DRM if it isn't noticable for most of the things people normally do.
Apple has sold a grand total of 25 million ipods world-wide, ten million of those in the U.S. While that seems like a lot, the ten million U.S. owners of ipods represents about 1 in 29 people. In comparison, there are 248 million television sets in the U.S., and around 125 million VCRs (despite what some slashdotters think about the VCR being 'dead technology). DVD player figures vary quite a bit depending on who's giving out the numbers, but the upper bound seems to be around 60 million (and growing, as VCR numbers decline).
Geeks tend to lose sight of the fact that their behavior is *not* typical of the population at large. Geeks tend to be obsessed with pieces of technology which simply don't interest Joe and Jane Doe. The ipod is clearly one of those pieces, as only 1 in 29 Americans actually owns one. So while Apple, the press, and the geek set here on Slashdot make a huge deal out of the ipod, market penetration is absolutely tiny in comparison to items which are actually ubiquitous (TVs, VCRs, computers, refrigerators, etc.).
The ipod is not, has never been, and appears that it will never be, a 'common' piece of household technology. It's a toy that appeals to less than 4% of the population. The vast majority of Americans do not own an ipod and never will; they simply don't give a shit about it.
On the other hand, the opposite is true of the TV, VCR, and DVD. Nearly every American household as a TV and a VCR or DVD, which means that Americans *do* give a damn about these items. The one recent attempt to impose DRM on TV-related entertainment - Divx - failed miserably. There's no reason to believe that a similar attempt will do any better.
The only thing that ipod sales have proven is that an extremely small subset of the American population - geeks and college students - are willing to accept DRM on the ipod. It can't logically be extended to any other device or form of entertainment. Although it's amusing to note that the people who complain most about DRM seem to be the most willing to put up with it when it comes to 'hip' new shinies.
Max
If we became a culture of book readers, that watched backyard scifi we downloaded off the Internet for a fee and learned to play our own musicale instruments then the big corporations could DRM the entire system and take away all our rights and it wouldn't mater a bit.
Of course it would. These companies would simply outlaw paper books and backyard scifi and musical instruments, turning everyone who attempted to access these devices into "pirates" denying them the "right to profit".
There is no limit to the lengths these folks will go to in order to retain the power they now enjoy. The retention of that power outweighs all other considerations.
Max