According to www.m-w.com: a chiefly 20th century philosophical movement embracing diverse doctrines but centering on analysis of individual existence in an unfathomable universe and the plight of the individual who must assume ultimate responsibility for his acts of free will without any certain knowledge of what is right or wrong or good or bad
To me, this doesn't state that all beliefs are equally valid. My interpretation is that we are all ultimately responsible for our actions- we reap what we sow. However, this responsibility doesn't come in the form of the judgment of a divine being- only in whatever the natural consequences of those actions are.
Logic is essentially cause-and-effect, and thus is dependent on your starting point. If your starting point is that there is no God or divine judgment, then yes, there are absolutely no absolutes- how could there be?
If your starting point is that there *is* a God, and God determines right and wrong, then in that scenerio there *are* absolute right and wrongs. I get the impression that this is the camp you're in, and you may have noticed I'm in the other one:)
" It is the illogical foundation from which all liberal thought carries out logically to illogical conclusions and practices."
That's funny, because I think the same of conservative thought- illogical foundation carried out to illogical practices.
So remember, while you think you're right and liberals are dumbasses, to them, you're the dumbass.
This isn't meant as a flame- just a reminder that these sorts of opinions *are* highly subjective.
I do agree with you that liberal vs conservative isn't a terribly accurate way of describing political thought, especially since it presents the notion that there are only two choices, and these two choices are polar opposites.
" And you need unbleeped versions... umm... why was that again?"
I hear WalMart has a good sale on robes you can use to cover nude statues. You can pick up some paint and cover up the naughty bits at your local art museum. Then you can swing by the WalMart gas station to get a few gallons of unleaded for this weekend's book burning.
Censorship is ugly, no matter who is doing it.
If you don't like the dirty words, don't listen to them. Don't make that choice for other people.
"Deliberately and knowingly spreading disinformation is another."
I imagine you're just as outraged over the forged documents regarding Nigerian uranium used to justify the war?
The fact that Rather presented some documents that were forgeries does not change the fact that there are some serious questions remaining about Bush's service record, as well as lingering questions about forged documents used for Bush's own purpose.
"You can hold positions which would be considered socially-conservative (against gay marriage, against abortion, against drug use), and not use the power of the gun to force people into your morality."
Not if you're a member of congress, you can't.
Or at least, you can't codify those beliefs into law, because as soon as you do, you're using the power of the gun (i.e. the law) to force people into your morality.
He's certainly free to believe that gay marriage is wrong, etc. If he uses his position as a lawmaker to prevent gay people from being married, he's forcing people into his morality.
He's not taking a position on getting the government completely out of marriage in general. He's specifically excluding certain people from marriage. Is there strong support from the state's rights croud to remove all federal recognition of marriage, straight or gay? I'm thinking it's a thinly veiled excuse for homophobia.
" Live in the northwest: Volcanoes Live in the southwest: Earthquakes Live on the east coast: Hurricanes Live in the south/central part of the country: Tornadoes Live in the north: Blizzards Live in Indiana: You have to live in Indiana"
I *DO* live in Indiana.
My advice: take your chances with the natural disasters.
In retrospect it seems the people may have been over-reacting, but it's always the people who underestimate the severity of natural disasters that end up dying in them.
If we elect the President by the Electoral College, then Presidential candidates will simply spend huge amounts of money in a few swing states. Your cote won't count unless you live in Ohio, Florida, and a few other places. As a side effect, the views of people who live in strongly-Republican or strongly-Democratic states won't be represented at all, they might as well not even vote. So if disenfranchising 40% or more of the population is your goal, by all means keep the Electoral College.
"I'm pretty sure they weren't around in the 1950s...Democratic Socialists of America dates to the early 1980s. And the Democratic is as in democracy, not as in the Democratic party."
From all the DSA literature I ever read, they state that they work within the Democratic party.
but thanks for the info on them being from the early 80s.. I wasn't sure about that.
"Can you rebuild your own transmission? That's the auto equivalent of rolling a kernel, or maybe fixing driver corruption in Windows without a complete reinstall (aka chucking a car and getting a new one)"
To stick with the car analogy, I'd say it's more like buying a car without any idea of how to drive it, and refusing to learn how.
I don't know anything about this, which is why I ask...
I RTFA and it mentions being less visible to radar, infrared, etc but says nothing about sonar detection. Isn't sonar a big way of tracking warships? Is this still going to be vulnerable to that?
It's like saying: "The only way to eliminate murder is to make it unprofitable."
I'm sorry, but that's the most ridiculous analogy I've ever heard. Spammers spam because it makes them money. If you remove the incentive to spam (the profit) then why would a spammer continue to spam?
Most murder has nothing to do with making a profit for the murderer. And for the few that do involve a profit for the murderer, if you eliminated that profit, then yes, you would reduce the number of murders.
"Thank you! I can't stand how, in the minds of the masses, Computer Science = programming."
It's even worse than that.
In the minds of the masses, computer science makes one qualified to answer "Why doesn't my mouse work?" or "How do send email?" or "What does this blue screen mean?"
ack.
and why not just run directly off the electricity that the solar panels produce, rather than create hydrogen and then generate electricity off of that? I would think that the laws of thermodynamics would make that a rather inefficient process.
"You could probably expect some people to play knights using swords as their weapons, others as archers, etc."
Then I think this is a problem with the game itself, not the gamers.
If you're a knight, you should get bonuses for weapons a knight would use, and penalties for non-knight weapons. Same thing for archer, or any other character.
One of the games I play a lot is Morrowind. My character is an archer, and the main weapons of an archer are the bow and the longsword.
If I want to, I could pick up an axe and try to kill stuff with it, but I suck with an axe. If I tried using one enough, eventually I'd get better, or I could pay lots of money for someone to train me how to use an axe.
"They will work just fine until the mp3 format license requires the DRM add-ons and players start refusing to play music encoded without the DRM support."
That will work fine until someone finds a way around the DRM support, we continue using the old MP3 players, or write our own that will still play the old format.
Ultimately, any attempt to break what works now, or makes playing the MP3s more inconvenient is going to fail.
Slashdot Mirror
According to www.m-w.com:
:)
a chiefly 20th century philosophical movement embracing diverse doctrines but centering on analysis of individual existence in an unfathomable universe and the plight of the individual who must assume ultimate responsibility for his acts of free will without any certain knowledge of what is right or wrong or good or bad
To me, this doesn't state that all beliefs are equally valid. My interpretation is that we are all ultimately responsible for our actions- we reap what we sow. However, this responsibility doesn't come in the form of the judgment of a divine being- only in whatever the natural consequences of those actions are.
Logic is essentially cause-and-effect, and thus is dependent on your starting point. If your starting point is that there is no God or divine judgment, then yes, there are absolutely no absolutes- how could there be?
If your starting point is that there *is* a God, and God determines right and wrong, then in that scenerio there *are* absolute right and wrongs. I get the impression that this is the camp you're in, and you may have noticed I'm in the other one
" It is the illogical foundation from which all liberal thought carries out logically to illogical conclusions and practices."
That's funny, because I think the same of conservative thought- illogical foundation carried out to illogical practices.
So remember, while you think you're right and liberals are dumbasses, to them, you're the dumbass.
This isn't meant as a flame- just a reminder that these sorts of opinions *are* highly subjective.
I do agree with you that liberal vs conservative isn't a terribly accurate way of describing political thought, especially since it presents the notion that there are only two choices, and these two choices are polar opposites.
I think you meant 'emigrate', not 'immigrate'.
Actually I'm pretty sure immigrate was correct. The initial poster said:
If you really care that much, you can immigrate.
meaning, if you're a non-US citizen and you care that much about the US election, you can immigrate to the US and vote here.
Unless I'm wrong here. I'm curious about what your reasoning behind wanting to use emigrate instead of immigrate.
" And you need unbleeped versions... umm... why was that again?"
I hear WalMart has a good sale on robes you can use to cover nude statues. You can pick up some paint and cover up the naughty bits at your local art museum. Then you can swing by the WalMart gas station to get a few gallons of unleaded for this weekend's book burning.
Censorship is ugly, no matter who is doing it.
If you don't like the dirty words, don't listen to them. Don't make that choice for other people.
"Deliberately and knowingly spreading disinformation is another."
I imagine you're just as outraged over the forged documents regarding Nigerian uranium used to justify the war?
The fact that Rather presented some documents that were forgeries does not change the fact that there are some serious questions remaining about Bush's service record, as well as lingering questions about forged documents used for Bush's own purpose.
"You can hold positions which would be considered socially-conservative (against gay marriage, against abortion, against drug use), and not use the power of the gun to force people into your morality."
Not if you're a member of congress, you can't.
Or at least, you can't codify those beliefs into law, because as soon as you do, you're using the power of the gun (i.e. the law) to force people into your morality.
He's certainly free to believe that gay marriage is wrong, etc. If he uses his position as a lawmaker to prevent gay people from being married, he's forcing people into his morality.
He's not taking a position on getting the government completely out of marriage in general. He's specifically excluding certain people from marriage. Is there strong support from the state's rights croud to remove all federal recognition of marriage, straight or gay? I'm thinking it's a thinly veiled excuse for homophobia.
" When does life start exactly?"
Life begins at 40!
or so I've heard.
" Yeah, um, the Northeast doesn't lose people at the rate of multiple dozens every winter to blizzards."
People die all the time due to blizzards:
people die shovelling, people die in car accidents due to the ice and snow, people die from freezing, etc.
" Live in the northwest: Volcanoes
Live in the southwest: Earthquakes
Live on the east coast: Hurricanes
Live in the south/central part of the country: Tornadoes
Live in the north: Blizzards
Live in Indiana: You have to live in Indiana"
I *DO* live in Indiana.
My advice: take your chances with the natural disasters.
In retrospect it seems the people may have been over-reacting, but it's always the people who underestimate the severity of natural disasters that end up dying in them.
If we elect the President by the Electoral College, then Presidential candidates will simply spend huge amounts of money in a few swing states. Your cote won't count unless you live in Ohio, Florida, and a few other places. As a side effect, the views of people who live in strongly-Republican or strongly-Democratic states won't be represented at all, they might as well not even vote. So if disenfranchising 40% or more of the population is your goal, by all means keep the Electoral College.
"If marriage is only about "love" then the argument for "marrying" your dog seems pretty strong."
And as soon as your dog can say "I do" go ahead and marry it.
"I'm pretty sure they weren't around in the 1950s...Democratic Socialists of America dates to the early 1980s. And the Democratic is as in democracy, not as in the Democratic party."
From all the DSA literature I ever read, they state that they work within the Democratic party.
but thanks for the info on them being from the early 80s.. I wasn't sure about that.
"What socialists were these, exactly?"
One socialist group is the Democratic Socialists of America, and they work within the Democratic party.
I don't know if they were around during the 50s and 60s, but they're around today.
"Can you rebuild your own transmission? That's the auto equivalent of rolling a kernel, or maybe fixing driver corruption in Windows without a complete reinstall (aka chucking a car and getting a new one)"
To stick with the car analogy, I'd say it's more like buying a car without any idea of how to drive it, and refusing to learn how.
"If you buy a Gamecube or an iMac you can be pretty sure that whatever you grab off the shelf will run on it."
And if someone is too clueless to be able to handle a real computer, they should go ahead and get one of those.
I don't know anything about this, which is why I ask...
I RTFA and it mentions being less visible to radar, infrared, etc but says nothing about sonar detection. Isn't sonar a big way of tracking warships? Is this still going to be vulnerable to that?
It's like saying: "The only way to eliminate murder is to make it unprofitable."
I'm sorry, but that's the most ridiculous analogy I've ever heard. Spammers spam because it makes them money. If you remove the incentive to spam (the profit) then why would a spammer continue to spam?
Most murder has nothing to do with making a profit for the murderer. And for the few that do involve a profit for the murderer, if you eliminated that profit, then yes, you would reduce the number of murders.
"Thank you! I can't stand how, in the minds of the masses, Computer Science = programming." It's even worse than that. In the minds of the masses, computer science makes one qualified to answer "Why doesn't my mouse work?" or "How do send email?" or "What does this blue screen mean?" ack.
I'll admit I didn't RTFA but
how much heat does a house in Malaysia need?
and why not just run directly off the electricity that the solar panels produce, rather than create hydrogen and then generate electricity off of that?
I would think that the laws of thermodynamics would make that a rather inefficient process.
"You could probably expect some people to play knights using swords as their weapons, others as archers, etc."
Then I think this is a problem with the game itself, not the gamers.
If you're a knight, you should get bonuses for weapons a knight would use, and penalties for non-knight weapons. Same thing for archer, or any other character.
One of the games I play a lot is Morrowind. My character is an archer, and the main weapons of an archer are the bow and the longsword.
If I want to, I could pick up an axe and try to kill stuff with it, but I suck with an axe. If I tried using one enough, eventually I'd get better, or I could pay lots of money for someone to train me how to use an axe.
It's a really effective system.
".cx is the domain extention of christmas island, and some people thought it cleaver to combine it with goatse."
Merry Christmas! Time to open your present!
"What right of mine is being violated?"
Rights don't have to be violated for something to suck.
"They will work just fine until the mp3 format license requires the DRM add-ons and players start refusing to play music encoded without the DRM support."
That will work fine until someone finds a way around the DRM support, we continue using the old MP3 players, or write our own that will still play the old format.
Ultimately, any attempt to break what works now, or makes playing the MP3s more inconvenient is going to fail.
I also came up with a great way to correctly sort 50% of email into spam/non-spam catagories.
if random_number >= 0.50 it's spam.
else
it's not spam.