While I was initially fairly scared of the vchip I have to say that it's final implementation was very banal and actually a usefull tool to empower proactive parents to help screen the content their children are watching.
My interpretation of this was "it lets even spineless little gits who don't have what it takes to *actually parent* their children to at least pretend to do the job they signed up for when they spawned the little brats".
Doctors (their mistakes) are the 3rd leading cause of death in the USA.
Assuming this little statistic is even true, it might be because doctors are the ONLY professional source of health-care in the United States. That means that ALL of the mistakes in health-care are going to be attributed to doctors rather than, say, cosmetologists.
If a significant portion of your population is being medicated for mental illness, that doesn't mean that your a significant portion of the population is actually suffering from mental illness. It's far more likely that the diagnostic tools used to describe 'mental illness' are flawed.
Think about it: approximately 28 million Americans are regularly taking drugs for a diagnosed mental illness. That's about 1 in 10 people. It beggars the imagination to believe that 1 in 10 people are so mentally defective that they require drugs in order to function. It's ludicrous to think that mental illness is this widespread, or that so many people are in desperate need of drugs to alter their brain chemistry.
What you have here isn't a growing population of nut-cases, but a wider net being cast in order to convince people that they're sick and in need of these drugs. I'd say this has more to due with the search for profit on the part of some, as well as the craving of a significant portion of the population for self-centered melodrama, than any actual medical condition.
Most of the people I know have several horror stories about misdiagnosis and otherwise apalling incompetence on the part of a doctor against themselves personally
Perhaps, but just think of how many horror stories you'd hear if the diagnoses were being made by Jack the mechanic, or Betty the hairdresser. The bodies would be stacking up faster than we could bury them.
and that there's a reason why people ignore their doctors.
It certainly isn't because the doctor doesn't know what he's talking about. Most doctors know more about the human body than any amateur ever will, regardless of how much time he spends dicking around the internet on 'health care' sites.
People don't like the advice that doctors give them because a) it isn't exciting enough, b) it involves too much work, and sometimes c) because a doctor will tell them there's no real cure for problem X, at least not yet. People don't want to be told "eat less and healthier, and exercise more". They want the WONDER diet which takes far less effort and is CERTAIN to work - because some internet site or store-bought magazine told them so!
And then, of course, there's the large minority of people who're just hypochondriacs looking for attention. A doctor who tells them there's nothing wrong with them is obviously wrong, because if that were true they wouldn't be able to grasp for sympathy with all of their spineless whining and complaining. Especially the older sorts who can't accept the fact that they're aging and that *they'll never be twenty again*, no matter what pill they take or what weird-ass regimen they follow. This seems to be an especial curse of the Boomer generation, who for some strange reason thought they were going to live forever.
Forget about the doctors and their "fads of the week".
You've got to be kidding. You think DOCTORS have fads of the week??? Jesus H., just take a look at all the people who AREN'T doctors and then you'll see real fads in action.
There's a saying (taken from an old SF writer) that 90% of what you read on the internet is crap. When it comes to health care, 99% of what you read on the internet is crap primarily because the people spewing it around in one big technicolor yawn don't have the first fucking clue what they're talking about. Most of this 'health care advice' is on par with astrology or crystal power.
While I'll be the first to admit (from personal experience) that there are doctors out there who should never have been awarded an M.D., I'll definitely give more weight to the advice of a doctor than I'll some internet idiot who's decided that he's qualified to dispense medical advice simply because he thinks his vast intellect outstrips that of every doctor in existence.
I can't believe that you are seriously defending the music of Britney Spears.
Music is a matter of personal choice. Anyone who's managed to mature beyond the age of 12 eventually clues in to this fact. For example, I think rap is pure shit but I recognize that this is my personal opinion, nothing more, and that there are millions out there who'd vehemently disagree with me. And since I don't have a "rebel without a clue" complex I also realize that declaring "rap is shit" as a fact is just plain rude and obnoxious. It won't make me look cool; it'll just make me look like an immature asshole (except, perhaps, to other immature assholes).
The same goes for any other form of music, including popular music. The folks who go around slamming Britney are just little twats who haven't managed to grow up and whose mamas apparently didn't bitch-slap any manners into them. They also seem to think that making these 'bold' statements somehow qualifies them as the intellectual superior to everyone who actually does like Britney Spears, which is nothing more than laughable.
And I do mean laughable. It doesn't get much more pathetic than this.
Interestingly the average age of first intercourse in Canada is 17 while in the states it's 15.
I did a little research today looking for accredited studies published in peer-reviewed journals which at least partially encompassed the average age of first sexual encounters (meaning intercourse here). It appears from my admittedly cursory review that all the studies have flaws (small sample size, restricted sample size, self-selection, etc.) which might account for my findings. Which are:
- the average age ranges from 14.4 years to 17.1 years in the U.S. The only thing the studies were consistent on is that girls have sex earlier than boys do.
- the average age for Canada ranges from 14.6 years to 17.8 years. Although most of the studies stated that girls were having sex earlier than boys, unlike the American ones this wasn't always true. So they aren't even consistent on this question.
- the average age for European teenagers was reported as generally higher than for either American OR Canadian teenagers, but the studies here seem to be just as flawed in their sampling techniques.
- Although all of these studies were published in peer-reviewed journals, I got the impression that the ones which got extreme high or low figures were commissioned or directed by people with an agenda, based on the conclusions the people doing the study reached. In particular it seemed that both extremes were dominated by conservatives either looking to prove that teen sex is a rarity (high end) or a scourge bound to unleash HIV on teens who engaged in 'immoral' activity (low end).
All in all I'd say the middle ground is probably the safest bet here. For Americans that would be somewhere between the ages of 15 and 16, and for Canadians probably between 15.5 and 16.5 years. I seriously doubt the extreme figures presented by some of these studies, although since they were all flawed in one fashion or another it's impossible to do more than make an educated guess.
In any event, it's pretty unlikely that Canadian teens are having sex two years later than American teens. From what I can gather it appears that the teens of all First World nations are pretty much having sex about the same time on average, plus or minus a year at most. This would make sense, as the average age of puberty is roughly the same across all First World nations as well.
Britney Spears is middle school music, not college music.
Another Britney slam from one of those cool counterculture rebels. Y'know, dishing crap about "popular" culture doesn't make you witty or admirable, and it sure as hell won't get you laid. All it does is make you look like a geek, and not in a good way.
What you're describing isn't the mindset of a majority of Americans, just a very loud minority. You're mistaking the supposed (and I do mean "supposed") value system of a small slice of the American population as applying to the entire population, and that just isn't true and never has been.
Most Americans don't think there's anything wrong with casual sex. They just don't obnoxiously scream about their views every time a TV camera is pointed in their direction.
Then there's the fact that these female characters are made the way they are because the designer's know that sex sells.
I don't see how this is a problem. Sex has sold since the stone age - primarily because normal, rational people actually LIKE sex. Especially sex with beautiful people, or at least the thought of it.
Take half of the female characters in games that actually wear 'armor' and look at how functional it is.
Do I give a shit how "functional" it is? No, I don't. I play female characters exclusively and look for the most stylish, revealing armor I can find. Why? Easy: do I want to look at some muscle-bound idiot in full plate for the entire game, or a hot babe in a chainmail bikini?
if you take a step further by allowing corporations and businesses to censor certain products
It isn't something you "allow". The Constitution doesn't give you the right to *force* others to sell things they don't want to sell. If that bothers you then you can always start your own business to sell these things (and perhaps make a mint in the process).
The age of consent in Canada is actually 14, not 16, assuming you don't hold a 'position of authority' over the person in question. Yes, that means that in Canada you can bang the hot 14-year-old neighbor girl instead of just dreaming about it....
There is no law on the internet. Some countries punish spammers via the law but this only works for spammers within the borders of those countries, or reciprocating countries, and only if the spammer is actually caught. Crime prevention on the internet has been a laughable exercise in futility from the get-go regardless of the 'high-profile' cases touted about as a bizarre metric of success.
You're dealing with a system that really doesn't give a shit what the law is in any one country, or any one group of countries. And since only the insane among us want a world government, that leaves with the question of what to do when law enforcement is essentially ineffective. Which it has been, and will be, no matter what laws the U.S. decides to pass or what the penalties are. U.S. law, after all, stops at U.S. borders.
So long as there are countries that'll host spammers there'll be mountains of spam to contend with.
If the law can't control the problem, what does that leave you? Seems to me that vigilantism doesn't sound so bad when the alternative is "bend over and grab your ankles".
When a jury awards money to the perpitrator of a crime, usually the crime victim had set a booby trap or used very excessive force to defend their property
And this generally only happens in states where you can be assured that the majority of the jurors will have bought into the "everyone should be a victim" mind set. For example, the People's Republic of California.
In many other places if you do something like investigate a noise at 2:00 in the morning, discover it's an intruder, and blow the son-of-a-bitch away you'll never be charged, much less brought to trial. That's because saner states default to "fear for one's life or the lives of one's family" in these cases. No matter what the original intent of the intruder, it's assumed that the homeowner has reason to fear the worst and act appropriately; the criminal doesn't get the benefit of the doubt.
What this means is that while the guy might be there to do nothing more than take your stereo, YOU don't know that and it's equally reasonable to assume that he's there to take your stereo AND rape your wife and kids AND chop the entire lot of you into tiny, bite-sized chunks. As the victim you can't know the criminal's mind - or whether he'll change is mind at any point in the future - and you have every right to act on the worst assumption. In fact, it's dangerously stupid, even negligent if others are at risk, to do anything else.
After all, if the stupid motherfucker didn't want to get his ass shot he shouldn't have broken into your home, now should he?
You do realize that those now in charge of the only functioning spamming system will be faced with all the money that used to go to the 'evil' spammers.
Anyone who has a computer and a connection has a "functioning spamming system". Apparently you have little understanding of the mysterious box you're posting from.
That is so stupid as to border on the stupid. Its like something USA would do.
Oh, I see. You ARE an idiot. That would explain things.
The "so what" part is that it takes more than a gallon of ethanol to produce a gallon of ethanol. That's a problem.
On the other hand, it takes less than a gallon of oil to produce a gallon of oil. This is one of the reasons we have an oil-based and not ethanol-based economy.
Essentially what you have is a collection of the biggest egos in the world trying to collaborate on a single project which will affect the entire movie industry as well as the customers who buy those movies. And the studios in question not only have a history of fighting each other tooth and nail, but of going head-to-head with Microsoft whenever they get the chance.
Conspiracies between megalomaniacs rarely end well.
Anyways, speaking of hospitals, as we have... I often hear, or see on tv, how some of America's hospitals turn away people who need help... is this true?
This depends. If it's a private hospital (as opposed to a university or municipal hospital) and the case isn't urgent, the patient can be turned away, and sometimes is.
However, some of my friends are doctors and they tell me that it's a very rare thing to turn away someone who needs care, even at a private hospital. Aside from the bad press that would follow, many doctors - especially ER doctors - take the Hippocratic Oath seriously and just won't tell folks to bugger off when they can help them.
then the government could crack down harder on the people, with much worse things then the patriot act.
I think the U.S. government plans on things much worse than the PATRIOT Act because they're fairly certain Americans are too spineless to do anything about it. Sad, but it true.
You a practioner of Asatru?
Not exactly. Most days I'm an atheist; on some days I make a fervent prayer or two to the Norse gods. Usually along the lines of "please Odin, give me the strength to resist the temptation to throttle this stupid son-of-a-bitch to death!" So far it's worked, so I give the gods their due.;-)
This doesn't mean that any local government is able to decide for itself what constitues obscenity
Of course it does. This is what allows municipal governments to outlaw strip joints and video porn stores.
You really think a court which ruled child pornography is protected speech
I think you misspoke here. You can and will be arrested for possessing child porn, in any of the 50 states of the U.S. The possession of child porn isn't legal anywhere in America.
Face it, compared to governments, private corporations have far greater power of censorship, at least in the US.
I don't agree with you on that one, at least with respect to internet access.
My point is rather that your censorship argument is weak.
Perhaps, but government is the only entity capable of enforcing censorship at gunpoint. That makes government the entity you least want in control of any form of communication.
Of course. I'm a libertarian, not an anarchist. Although these days too many "libertarians" are actually anarchists in sheeps clothing.
No real libertarian will ever say "free market uber alles!" We fully acknowledge that the free market *cannot* provide all the services an organized society might wish - or in many cases, *will not* provide those services. Even where it can, in some instances (e.g., public infrastructure) it's generally a waste of resources to allow the free market to hash things out. You don't, for example, want eight different power companies laying eight different sets of lines to every home in the city, with eight different sets of power stations and junction boxes, etc. It's more efficient for government to lay a single set of lines, and then lease those lines to any and all who can pay the fee and do the collections.
Anarchists don't acknowledge this. They think "gubmint is eeeevil!" in any form. Libertarians realize that govermnent is necessary, even critical (how else to enforce contracts?), we just want to keep it as small and as unoppressive as possible.
I'm not trying to be your enemy here Max
Never said you were. I just disagree with some of the things you think government should provide.
What's even shittier is for a lot of things we have to cater to the lowest common denominator.
I suspect it's more likely that we THINK we have to cater to the lowest common denominator, else there'll be anarchy. But consider: there were no social programs in most countries until just before World War 2 and the masses didn't tear their nations into pieces. In many countries there still aren't any effective social programs of note, and yet the lack of these programs doesn't incite revolution (although a good many other things do).
I think that charity work could easily replace the role of government, assuming there's enough people around who care about more than what's on TV for the night. Perhaps I'm wrong and most people would say "screw the poor, let 'em starve" but I hope I'm not. Yes, there will always be rat-bastards who care nothing for anyone but themselves (2% of the population are sociopaths, after all), but even these swine deserve the freedoms that everyone should have.
I agree there are some things that need sweeping reform, and damn if it doesn't piss me off how much I'm taxed
The tax burden of the average American is THREE TIMES the tax burden that served as one of the triggers for the American Revolutionary War. If George Washington were alive today he'd be burning D.C. to the ground. So I agree, taxes are outrageous.
Disagree all you like, but it is indeed historical fact that the Fertile Crescent was covered in huge temperate forests, and that deforestation caused by humans dramatically reduced the rainfall the region received. Here are a few excerpts on the topic for ya:
"Along with its other distinctive qualities, the Epic of Gilgamesh is the earliest recorded story of desertification caused by the extensive destruction of forestlands. Lebanon went from more than 90 percent forest (the famous Cedars of Lebanon) to less than 7 percent over a 1,500-year period. Trees and their roots are an important part of the water cycle, so rainfall downwind of deforested areas decreased by 80 percent. Over time, millions of acres of land in the Fertile Crescent area turned to desert or scrubland, and remain relatively barren to this day...
"The result of this local climatic change more than 5000 years ago was widespread famine. The collapse of the last Mesopotamian empire happened around 4,000 years ago, and the records they left behind show that only at the very end of their empire did they realize how they had destroyed their precious source of food and fuel by razing their forests and despoiling the rest of their environment." This is actually just a summary of what you can find in any ecological textbook for undergrads, but is reprinted in "The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight" by Thom Hartmann, copyright (c) 1998, 1999, 2004 by Mythical Research, Inc. Used by permission of Harmony Books, a division of Random House, Inc.
Another:
". ..Fertile Crescent and eastern Mediterranean societies had the misfortune to arise in an ecologically fragile environment," writes Jared Diamond in Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. "They committed ecological suicide by destroying their own resource base."
Jared is referring to the fact that the societies in the Fertile Crescent cut down their forests for agricultural use and wood burning, which ultimately altered the climate and destroyed the land they were cultivating.
Another:
"A cautionary tale comes from the arc of land through parts of Jordan, Syria, Turkey, Iraq, and Iran -- the cradle of civilization known as the Fertile Crescent. In ancient times much of this land was forest. The area became a leader in food production as trees were cleared for agriculture, and cut for timber, firewood, and manufacturing plaster. Now the expression "Fertile Crescent" is absurd, because the land is largely desert, semi-desert, steppe-eroded and salinized terrain, unsuitable for agriculture." A summarization of another textbook article by Ann Hancock, who simplified it for a magazine article.
I can go on here. Any undergrad in ecological science will be able to confirm what I've said. It isn't an area of dispute where scientists are concerned.
I can't argue you this point, because it's simply not correct.
You can't argue with it because you've apparently never bothered to do a whit of research on the topic. But I suppose you're more learned than Jared Diamond, or just about any other ecological scientist on the planet?
Slashdot Mirror
While I was initially fairly scared of the vchip I have to say that it's final implementation was very banal and actually a usefull tool to empower proactive parents to help screen the content their children are watching.
My interpretation of this was "it lets even spineless little gits who don't have what it takes to *actually parent* their children to at least pretend to do the job they signed up for when they spawned the little brats".
Max
Doctors (their mistakes) are the 3rd leading cause of death in the USA.
Assuming this little statistic is even true, it might be because doctors are the ONLY professional source of health-care in the United States. That means that ALL of the mistakes in health-care are going to be attributed to doctors rather than, say, cosmetologists.
I think a big "Duh" is in order here.
Max
If a significant portion of your population is being medicated for mental illness, that doesn't mean that your a significant portion of the population is actually suffering from mental illness. It's far more likely that the diagnostic tools used to describe 'mental illness' are flawed.
Think about it: approximately 28 million Americans are regularly taking drugs for a diagnosed mental illness. That's about 1 in 10 people. It beggars the imagination to believe that 1 in 10 people are so mentally defective that they require drugs in order to function. It's ludicrous to think that mental illness is this widespread, or that so many people are in desperate need of drugs to alter their brain chemistry.
What you have here isn't a growing population of nut-cases, but a wider net being cast in order to convince people that they're sick and in need of these drugs. I'd say this has more to due with the search for profit on the part of some, as well as the craving of a significant portion of the population for self-centered melodrama, than any actual medical condition.
Max
Most of the people I know have several horror stories about misdiagnosis and otherwise apalling incompetence on the part of a doctor against themselves personally
Perhaps, but just think of how many horror stories you'd hear if the diagnoses were being made by Jack the mechanic, or Betty the hairdresser. The bodies would be stacking up faster than we could bury them.
Max
and that there's a reason why people ignore their doctors.
It certainly isn't because the doctor doesn't know what he's talking about. Most doctors know more about the human body than any amateur ever will, regardless of how much time he spends dicking around the internet on 'health care' sites.
People don't like the advice that doctors give them because a) it isn't exciting enough, b) it involves too much work, and sometimes c) because a doctor will tell them there's no real cure for problem X, at least not yet. People don't want to be told "eat less and healthier, and exercise more". They want the WONDER diet which takes far less effort and is CERTAIN to work - because some internet site or store-bought magazine told them so!
And then, of course, there's the large minority of people who're just hypochondriacs looking for attention. A doctor who tells them there's nothing wrong with them is obviously wrong, because if that were true they wouldn't be able to grasp for sympathy with all of their spineless whining and complaining. Especially the older sorts who can't accept the fact that they're aging and that *they'll never be twenty again*, no matter what pill they take or what weird-ass regimen they follow. This seems to be an especial curse of the Boomer generation, who for some strange reason thought they were going to live forever.
Max
Forget about the doctors and their "fads of the week".
You've got to be kidding. You think DOCTORS have fads of the week??? Jesus H., just take a look at all the people who AREN'T doctors and then you'll see real fads in action.
There's a saying (taken from an old SF writer) that 90% of what you read on the internet is crap. When it comes to health care, 99% of what you read on the internet is crap primarily because the people spewing it around in one big technicolor yawn don't have the first fucking clue what they're talking about. Most of this 'health care advice' is on par with astrology or crystal power.
While I'll be the first to admit (from personal experience) that there are doctors out there who should never have been awarded an M.D., I'll definitely give more weight to the advice of a doctor than I'll some internet idiot who's decided that he's qualified to dispense medical advice simply because he thinks his vast intellect outstrips that of every doctor in existence.
Max
I can't believe that you are seriously defending the music of Britney Spears.
Music is a matter of personal choice. Anyone who's managed to mature beyond the age of 12 eventually clues in to this fact. For example, I think rap is pure shit but I recognize that this is my personal opinion, nothing more, and that there are millions out there who'd vehemently disagree with me. And since I don't have a "rebel without a clue" complex I also realize that declaring "rap is shit" as a fact is just plain rude and obnoxious. It won't make me look cool; it'll just make me look like an immature asshole (except, perhaps, to other immature assholes).
The same goes for any other form of music, including popular music. The folks who go around slamming Britney are just little twats who haven't managed to grow up and whose mamas apparently didn't bitch-slap any manners into them. They also seem to think that making these 'bold' statements somehow qualifies them as the intellectual superior to everyone who actually does like Britney Spears, which is nothing more than laughable.
And I do mean laughable. It doesn't get much more pathetic than this.
Max
Interestingly the average age of first intercourse in Canada is 17 while in the states it's 15.
I did a little research today looking for accredited studies published in peer-reviewed journals which at least partially encompassed the average age of first sexual encounters (meaning intercourse here). It appears from my admittedly cursory review that all the studies have flaws (small sample size, restricted sample size, self-selection, etc.) which might account for my findings. Which are:
- the average age ranges from 14.4 years to 17.1 years in the U.S. The only thing the studies were consistent on is that girls have sex earlier than boys do.
- the average age for Canada ranges from 14.6 years to 17.8 years. Although most of the studies stated that girls were having sex earlier than boys, unlike the American ones this wasn't always true. So they aren't even consistent on this question.
- the average age for European teenagers was reported as generally higher than for either American OR Canadian teenagers, but the studies here seem to be just as flawed in their sampling techniques.
- Although all of these studies were published in peer-reviewed journals, I got the impression that the ones which got extreme high or low figures were commissioned or directed by people with an agenda, based on the conclusions the people doing the study reached. In particular it seemed that both extremes were dominated by conservatives either looking to prove that teen sex is a rarity (high end) or a scourge bound to unleash HIV on teens who engaged in 'immoral' activity (low end).
All in all I'd say the middle ground is probably the safest bet here. For Americans that would be somewhere between the ages of 15 and 16, and for Canadians probably between 15.5 and 16.5 years. I seriously doubt the extreme figures presented by some of these studies, although since they were all flawed in one fashion or another it's impossible to do more than make an educated guess.
In any event, it's pretty unlikely that Canadian teens are having sex two years later than American teens. From what I can gather it appears that the teens of all First World nations are pretty much having sex about the same time on average, plus or minus a year at most. This would make sense, as the average age of puberty is roughly the same across all First World nations as well.
Max
Britney Spears is middle school music, not college music.
Another Britney slam from one of those cool counterculture rebels. Y'know, dishing crap about "popular" culture doesn't make you witty or admirable, and it sure as hell won't get you laid. All it does is make you look like a geek, and not in a good way.
Max
Even if you win, you'll have some major legal bills.
But you and your family will still be alive, and that just can't be beat.
Max
What you're describing isn't the mindset of a majority of Americans, just a very loud minority. You're mistaking the supposed (and I do mean "supposed") value system of a small slice of the American population as applying to the entire population, and that just isn't true and never has been.
Most Americans don't think there's anything wrong with casual sex. They just don't obnoxiously scream about their views every time a TV camera is pointed in their direction.
Max
Then there's the fact that these female characters are made the way they are because the designer's know that sex sells.
I don't see how this is a problem. Sex has sold since the stone age - primarily because normal, rational people actually LIKE sex. Especially sex with beautiful people, or at least the thought of it.
Take half of the female characters in games that actually wear 'armor' and look at how functional it is.
Do I give a shit how "functional" it is? No, I don't. I play female characters exclusively and look for the most stylish, revealing armor I can find. Why? Easy: do I want to look at some muscle-bound idiot in full plate for the entire game, or a hot babe in a chainmail bikini?
For the vast majority of men that's a no-brainer.
Max
if you take a step further by allowing corporations and businesses to censor certain products
It isn't something you "allow". The Constitution doesn't give you the right to *force* others to sell things they don't want to sell. If that bothers you then you can always start your own business to sell these things (and perhaps make a mint in the process).
Max
In Canada, Age of Consent is 16.
The age of consent in Canada is actually 14, not 16, assuming you don't hold a 'position of authority' over the person in question. Yes, that means that in Canada you can bang the hot 14-year-old neighbor girl instead of just dreaming about it....
Max
There is no law on the internet. Some countries punish spammers via the law but this only works for spammers within the borders of those countries, or reciprocating countries, and only if the spammer is actually caught. Crime prevention on the internet has been a laughable exercise in futility from the get-go regardless of the 'high-profile' cases touted about as a bizarre metric of success.
You're dealing with a system that really doesn't give a shit what the law is in any one country, or any one group of countries. And since only the insane among us want a world government, that leaves with the question of what to do when law enforcement is essentially ineffective. Which it has been, and will be, no matter what laws the U.S. decides to pass or what the penalties are. U.S. law, after all, stops at U.S. borders.
So long as there are countries that'll host spammers there'll be mountains of spam to contend with.
If the law can't control the problem, what does that leave you? Seems to me that vigilantism doesn't sound so bad when the alternative is "bend over and grab your ankles".
Max
When a jury awards money to the perpitrator of a crime, usually the crime victim had set a booby trap or used very excessive force to defend their property
And this generally only happens in states where you can be assured that the majority of the jurors will have bought into the "everyone should be a victim" mind set. For example, the People's Republic of California.
In many other places if you do something like investigate a noise at 2:00 in the morning, discover it's an intruder, and blow the son-of-a-bitch away you'll never be charged, much less brought to trial. That's because saner states default to "fear for one's life or the lives of one's family" in these cases. No matter what the original intent of the intruder, it's assumed that the homeowner has reason to fear the worst and act appropriately; the criminal doesn't get the benefit of the doubt.
What this means is that while the guy might be there to do nothing more than take your stereo, YOU don't know that and it's equally reasonable to assume that he's there to take your stereo AND rape your wife and kids AND chop the entire lot of you into tiny, bite-sized chunks. As the victim you can't know the criminal's mind - or whether he'll change is mind at any point in the future - and you have every right to act on the worst assumption. In fact, it's dangerously stupid, even negligent if others are at risk, to do anything else.
After all, if the stupid motherfucker didn't want to get his ass shot he shouldn't have broken into your home, now should he?
Max
You do realize that those now in charge of the only functioning spamming system will be faced with all the money that used to go to the 'evil' spammers.
Anyone who has a computer and a connection has a "functioning spamming system". Apparently you have little understanding of the mysterious box you're posting from.
That is so stupid as to border on the stupid. Its like something USA would do.
Oh, I see. You ARE an idiot. That would explain things.
Max
Why couldn't you use a nuclear power plant (or solar/sun!!) to transform corn into ethanol?
Because no one's figured out how to build an affordable nuclear-powered tractor or nuclear-powered tanker truck.
Max
So what?
The "so what" part is that it takes more than a gallon of ethanol to produce a gallon of ethanol. That's a problem.
On the other hand, it takes less than a gallon of oil to produce a gallon of oil. This is one of the reasons we have an oil-based and not ethanol-based economy.
Max
Essentially what you have is a collection of the biggest egos in the world trying to collaborate on a single project which will affect the entire movie industry as well as the customers who buy those movies. And the studios in question not only have a history of fighting each other tooth and nail, but of going head-to-head with Microsoft whenever they get the chance.
Conspiracies between megalomaniacs rarely end well.
Max
Anyways, speaking of hospitals, as we have... I often hear, or see on tv, how some of America's hospitals turn away people who need help... is this true?
;-)
This depends. If it's a private hospital (as opposed to a university or municipal hospital) and the case isn't urgent, the patient can be turned away, and sometimes is.
However, some of my friends are doctors and they tell me that it's a very rare thing to turn away someone who needs care, even at a private hospital. Aside from the bad press that would follow, many doctors - especially ER doctors - take the Hippocratic Oath seriously and just won't tell folks to bugger off when they can help them.
then the government could crack down harder on the people, with much worse things then the patriot act.
I think the U.S. government plans on things much worse than the PATRIOT Act because they're fairly certain Americans are too spineless to do anything about it. Sad, but it true.
You a practioner of Asatru?
Not exactly. Most days I'm an atheist; on some days I make a fervent prayer or two to the Norse gods. Usually along the lines of "please Odin, give me the strength to resist the temptation to throttle this stupid son-of-a-bitch to death!" So far it's worked, so I give the gods their due.
Max
The lesson here is that if you're going to bait the scammer, don't do it in his fucking home town!
Or at the very least, go armed.
Max
This doesn't mean that any local government is able to decide for itself what constitues obscenity
Of course it does. This is what allows municipal governments to outlaw strip joints and video porn stores.
You really think a court which ruled child pornography is protected speech
I think you misspoke here. You can and will be arrested for possessing child porn, in any of the 50 states of the U.S. The possession of child porn isn't legal anywhere in America.
Face it, compared to governments, private corporations have far greater power of censorship, at least in the US.
I don't agree with you on that one, at least with respect to internet access.
My point is rather that your censorship argument is weak.
Perhaps, but government is the only entity capable of enforcing censorship at gunpoint. That makes government the entity you least want in control of any form of communication.
Max
but you admit there that the taxes are needed.
Of course. I'm a libertarian, not an anarchist. Although these days too many "libertarians" are actually anarchists in sheeps clothing.
No real libertarian will ever say "free market uber alles!" We fully acknowledge that the free market *cannot* provide all the services an organized society might wish - or in many cases, *will not* provide those services. Even where it can, in some instances (e.g., public infrastructure) it's generally a waste of resources to allow the free market to hash things out. You don't, for example, want eight different power companies laying eight different sets of lines to every home in the city, with eight different sets of power stations and junction boxes, etc. It's more efficient for government to lay a single set of lines, and then lease those lines to any and all who can pay the fee and do the collections.
Anarchists don't acknowledge this. They think "gubmint is eeeevil!" in any form. Libertarians realize that govermnent is necessary, even critical (how else to enforce contracts?), we just want to keep it as small and as unoppressive as possible.
I'm not trying to be your enemy here Max
Never said you were. I just disagree with some of the things you think government should provide.
What's even shittier is for a lot of things we have to cater to the lowest common denominator.
I suspect it's more likely that we THINK we have to cater to the lowest common denominator, else there'll be anarchy. But consider: there were no social programs in most countries until just before World War 2 and the masses didn't tear their nations into pieces. In many countries there still aren't any effective social programs of note, and yet the lack of these programs doesn't incite revolution (although a good many other things do).
I think that charity work could easily replace the role of government, assuming there's enough people around who care about more than what's on TV for the night. Perhaps I'm wrong and most people would say "screw the poor, let 'em starve" but I hope I'm not. Yes, there will always be rat-bastards who care nothing for anyone but themselves (2% of the population are sociopaths, after all), but even these swine deserve the freedoms that everyone should have.
I agree there are some things that need sweeping reform, and damn if it doesn't piss me off how much I'm taxed
The tax burden of the average American is THREE TIMES the tax burden that served as one of the triggers for the American Revolutionary War. If George Washington were alive today he'd be burning D.C. to the ground. So I agree, taxes are outrageous.
Max
I disagree with your statements, entirely
.Fertile Crescent and eastern Mediterranean societies had the misfortune to arise in an ecologically fragile environment," writes Jared Diamond in Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. "They committed ecological suicide by destroying their own resource base."
Disagree all you like, but it is indeed historical fact that the Fertile Crescent was covered in huge temperate forests, and that deforestation caused by humans dramatically reduced the rainfall the region received. Here are a few excerpts on the topic for ya:
"Along with its other distinctive qualities, the Epic of Gilgamesh is the earliest recorded story of desertification caused by the extensive destruction of forestlands. Lebanon went from more than 90 percent forest (the famous Cedars of Lebanon) to less than 7 percent over a 1,500-year period. Trees and their roots are an important part of the water cycle, so rainfall downwind of deforested areas decreased by 80 percent. Over time, millions of acres of land in the Fertile Crescent area turned to desert or scrubland, and remain relatively barren to this day...
"The result of this local climatic change more than 5000 years ago was widespread famine. The collapse of the last Mesopotamian empire happened around 4,000 years ago, and the records they left behind show that only at the very end of their empire did they realize how they had destroyed their precious source of food and fuel by razing their forests and despoiling the rest of their environment." This is actually just a summary of what you can find in any ecological textbook for undergrads, but is reprinted in "The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight" by Thom Hartmann, copyright (c) 1998, 1999, 2004 by Mythical Research, Inc. Used by permission of Harmony Books, a division of Random House, Inc.
Another:
". .
Jared is referring to the fact that the societies in the Fertile Crescent cut down their forests for agricultural use and wood burning, which ultimately altered the climate and destroyed the land they were cultivating.
Another:
"A cautionary tale comes from the arc of land through parts of Jordan, Syria, Turkey, Iraq, and Iran -- the cradle of civilization known as the Fertile Crescent. In ancient times much of this land was forest. The area became a leader in food production as trees were cleared for agriculture, and cut for timber, firewood, and manufacturing plaster. Now the expression "Fertile Crescent" is absurd, because the land is largely desert, semi-desert, steppe-eroded and salinized terrain, unsuitable for agriculture." A summarization of another textbook article by Ann Hancock, who simplified it for a magazine article.
I can go on here. Any undergrad in ecological science will be able to confirm what I've said. It isn't an area of dispute where scientists are concerned.
I can't argue you this point, because it's simply not correct.
You can't argue with it because you've apparently never bothered to do a whit of research on the topic. But I suppose you're more learned than Jared Diamond, or just about any other ecological scientist on the planet?
Max