But if you keep subtracting a couple of seconds at a time, you will eventually cross a boundary where that something could no longer have been achieved.
If you keep subtracting a couple of seconds, you're no longer talking about a couple of seconds per person, but the sum of all you've taken away. That's a different argument.
You still haven't addressed other people who waste your time. If you want to make time wasting on the order of 1-2 seconds illegal because of cumulative effects, then suddenly almost everybody on Earth is "guilty" of your new law. The guy who drove 5mph below the speed limit and delayed the hundreds of cars behind him. The guy who turned left and had to wait for oncoming traffic so everybody behind him missed the green and lost minutes of their lives (maybe that SHOULD be illegal, it is awfully annoying). The radio and tv stations that run ads that try to get you to buy something you don't need.
OK, I'll try to put it into a language/. understands. If I have one smashed up car, will smashing up the road make it fixed?
I was thinking of it more like, if front left tire has uneven wear and it's making the car pull to the left, you could fix it, or you could introduce a problem to the front right tire to make it pull right and balance it.
Nope. Republicans have re-written the definition to mean that, but it is incorrect.
If the definition has been rewritten, then now it is correct and you're incorrect. Do a search for "the rich are undertaxed" and you'll find that Democrats are in full agreement with Republicans about what under/over taxed means, and it has nothing to do with whether they were taxed what they were supposed to be taxed. It means the taxes are too low. Overtaxed means the taxes are too high.
Correct, there is a term for that which is "overpriced", yet republicans on purpose are using the term "overcharged" in an attempt to muddle the issue.
Overcharge: Verb Charge (someone) too high a price for goods or a service. Noun An excessive charge for goods or a service.
Seems legit to me... again based on the common usage.
"Overtaxed" means you feel that you are paying too much for what you get from the government. Going back to your restaurant analogy, it's like saying the food is overpriced. Since the tax an individual pays is his price for government it's a pretty good analogy.
In some hypothetical literal sense of "overpriced", nothing is "overpriced" because the price is what it is. That type of reasoning seems a bit silly. We know what "overpriced" and "overtaxed" mean and I don't think it's an equivocation to use these well known terms as they're commonly defined.
"oh well, I was dumb, here I sink, farewell dear world".
Oh well, I was dumb, my house sank. Got my insurance check. Gonna rebuild inland a few miles.
Why do you think they would go down with the "ship" so to speak?
They'll come to YOU and want YOUR home. Whether they get it and kick you out or die trying doesn't really matter much, considering that they have no real option.
What on Earth.. do you really think that way? You lose your house so you feel entitled to kill others??
but to address the ignorant notion implied by the GP, that for the past 2000 (ahem..) years
The OP specified "the Middle East" not "Islamic culture" so your "ahem" is unwarranted. And considering AC's "Please come up with an innovation that is less the 2000 years old please" was referring to Arabic numerals, it has nothing to do with Islamic culture since they were developed before Islam began.
I agree, that's exactly my point: We are not overtaxed.
That's true, but it's not the issue. Nobody is concerned with whether the amount of tax collected is equal to the amount of tax that is supposed to be collected.
Just like your restaurant example, you're focusing on something that nobody is concerned about (overpaying your bill, versus over-ordering your food). I guess this is a technically a strawman argument even though you are literally correct. It's just that when people say they're overtaxed, they are not talking about what you're talking about.
Funny, more people would rather rescue animals than fellow humans. Just what does that say about our species?
I think it's a combination of beliefs. People can rescue themselves, especially from human-created problems, and the people who can't rescue themselves are often "broken" in a way that other people can't help (or don't know how). Animals can't rescue themselves from human-created problems (from invading their habitats to not spaying and neutering pets) and often respond very well to human help.
I mean not in all situations (wouldn't apply to your Coast Guard example, or natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina) but it explains why some people might donate to a "save the whales" fund but not donate to "save the starving children" funds. There usually is a large volunteer/donation response to natural disasters that affect humans.
Why don't we equally discount businesses having to do with sports, car enthusiasts, video games, power tools and tech gadgets?
We do. If guys were only involved in those businesses, and women ran the banks, hospitals, factories, research labs, etc. then I would be very sad as a guy.
1) Teachers are too often humanities teachers. This means the route of memorization is used, instead of the logic approach.
Memory is a key component of intelligence. If anything I think there isn't enough emphasis on memorization anymore. People think "who cares, I can look it up..." well that's not true... you have to remember what's available to look up for solving the problem at hand. Many people can't even do that. Probably because their "memory muscles" are weak due to lack of practice.
When my nephew was growing up, he decided that memorizing multiplication tables was stupid because he could just calculate the product in his head whenever he needed to. In theory that's right. In reality, he was soooooo sloooooow at doing simple math that he couldn't keep up, he became very bad at math, and through today he absolutely hates it. Even when it was obvious what was going on, and I implored him to just memorize some stuff so he would be faster, he refused to "waste his time" memorizing. And he didn't do enough math (what people today call "unnecessary busy work that distracts from creativity" or something) to memorize it on accident. It was like watching a train wreck in slow motion.
I think memorization promotes an intuitive understanding of the subject.
2) Math and Science are way too abstract. They are taught without any relation to reality.
This is very true, especially for basic subjects. I think part of the problem is that the applications for basic subjects are really boring and have been generally superseded in the real world by more advanced math and/or computers. I mean seriously, I can't believe how much time was wasted in... hmm I forget what grade... when we spent weeks and weeks studying geometry with compasses and rulers! I mean yeah, you can draw stuff, that's technically an application of geometry, but holy crap it was boring, and I never did it right because the stupid point on the compass would create a large hole while I was rotating it, and.. well whatever. The proofs are "character building" perhaps but they are soooo dry and uninteresting compared to, say, combinatorics, and much harder than say, basic Boolean logic proofs.
In high school calculus though the applications came fast and furious and were awesome. As soon as we learned derivatives we were studying the relationships of acceleration, velocity, and position, as well as maximization/minimization problems.
I think calculus should be taught much earlier than it is, certainly before geometry.
Take for example the Pythagorean Theorem. It was use in the past to build straight buildings. Maybe that is how it should be taught now!
I took a class in college about the history of mathematics and it had all kinds of stuff like that. I think it would be incredibly valuable to teach kids math along with the historical reasoning for and application of the math.
3) In the end either you have it or you don't.
I have mixed feelings about this. It's hard to decide when to give up on a kid. But you're definitely right. Some kids should not learn more than the most basic math, like how to make change for $10, because it's just a waste of time and money and accomplishes nothing but make the kid feel dumb. Maybe that bar is still too high for some kids.
I think tracking programs (low, average, high) are the way to go, but there should also be some small programs for the very low and very high.
Say if you go to a restaurant and start paying by installments. How do you go about finding out if you have over or underpaid? well you check to see if you still have a deficit on your tab, if there is still one you haven't paid enough.
The issue isn't about overpaying, it's about over-ordering. You have $10. The restaurant charges $8 for a burger, and $12 for steak. You order the steak. The deficit is most directly caused by your ordering decision, not the fact that you didn't bring enough cash, because the ordering decision happened after you had full knowledge of your cash on hand and the price on the menu.
The Employee-Employer relationship is fundamentally different then the relationship between Card and I: there is an imbalance of power in that relationship and that invalidates the comparison.
In terms of power, the consumer and the employer are the same. The consumer can decide completely on his own who to purchase from or whether to purchase at all, just like the employer can decide who to hire/fire/give a raise, or whether to do it at all. The only difference is in the impact of the decision.. one consumer doesn't typically make a big difference to a producer, whereas losing your job makes a big difference to the employee. On the other hand, a widespread organized boycott dramatically increases the impact of the consumers' purchasing decision on the producer.
If you think it's the scale that matters, then we could talk about the morality of an employer paying black employees $10 less per pay period, which has a pretty minor impact but is still quite obviously immoral.
Here, I am the customer: there are any number of possible places where my money can go and no one has any claim on it. If I do not buy something it is not a penalty, therefore the act of not buying something is not a punishment.
We're not talking about random customers making rational decisions in a capitalistic framework. We're talking about people boycotting a movie due to the political views of one person involved in the movie. Here's Google's definition of boycott:
Verb Withdraw from commercial or social relations with (a country, organization, or person) as a punishment or protest. Noun A punitive ban that forbids relations with other bodies, cooperation with a policy, or the handling of goods.
So your argument about this specific discussion, where people are saying they won't see the movie due to Card's anti-gay stance, is incorrect. A boycott is a financial punishment. The difference between a boycott and a rational purchasing decision is that the boycott is due to an external factor not related to the transaction at hand. If there are two widgets that do the exact same thing, and one is made by Card, and the other is made by someone else, and you exclusively buy the other one and convince other people to buy the other one solely due to the identity of the person who made it.. then you are boycotting Card's products.
Now if you don't want to see the movie because you just aren't interested in the movie, regardless of Card's involvement, then nothing I've said applies to you. But that's not the group I'm talking about, I'm talking about people who claim to be avoiding the movie solely because of Card's irrelevant speech about gays, implying they would otherwise be interested in seeing the movie.
Yes, if someone wants to not shop at a store because it has gay people in it, they are entirely free to do so. Doing so does not punish the store.
There's a store near my house. I've been shopping there for the past 10 years. They hire a gay guy and suddenly I say "Hmm you know, I'm gonna shop somewhere else from now on because I hate gays!" You REALLY HONESTLY believe that is not a punishment against the store for hiring a gay person? How about if I come on slashdot and post "I'm not gonna go to that store anymore because they hired a gay guy and I want to punish them for deviating from what I think is morally right." It's still not a punishment? There's no morality involved? You wouldn't call me a bigot, you'd just say "Oh well, stdarg is just making a rational purchasing decision?" I mean I'm telling you I want to punish them and I'm doing it by withholding my business from the store. I don't know how you can possibly say that's not a punishment. And that's exactly what you're doing -- in fact you're calling it a boycott against Card due to his political activism, and I already showed the definition of boycott is that it's a withdrawal from commerce as a means of punishment.
Card has publicly advocated jailing homosexuals to create a reign of terror and overthrowing the government
That's not my interpretation of the quote you posted, which I've also seen elsewhere in this discussion as evidence that Card is a violent bigot. It kind of reminds me of people quoting the Bible saying Jesus is violent because of some passage about him being a sword that divides houses and sets brother against brother, when that is quite obviously metaphorical. Somehow I don't think Card meant that if gay marriage is approved he's going to go on a murderous rampage to singlehandedly overthrow the federal government. I don't know Card personally but I just don't get that vibe from what I've read. So in my opinion those quotes are a very weak attack, really just a pretext for calling him a violent bigot as a rhetorical technique like I said before. He's obviously not a violent bigot nor does he want to throw all the gays in jail.
It is not a "financial attack" when I decline to buy a product and encourage others to do the same. No one has a right to make a profit from anything.
Here's the definition of boycott on Google:
Verb Withdraw from commercial or social relations with (a country, organization, or person) as a punishment or protest.
I'm not sure why people are trying to say it's not a financial attack to organize a boycott against someone. I really am not sure. I'm not calling you physically violent just because I used the word attack (and other people have responded the same way as you when I said "financial punishment"). You want to hurt someone financially due to what they have said in a completely different context. How is that not a financial attack?
Also you're wrong that nobody has a right to make a profit. Not only do they have a moral right, but a legal right as well, as long as certain conditions are met, which is why we have laws against discrimination based on race, religion, etc. If your company only buys labor from white people, then you are guilty of discrimination, because the black laborers DO have "a right to make a profit from anything" including their time. I give that example not to draw a complete equivalence between going to a movie and giving someone a job, but to illustrate the idea that people have rights in the marketplace as long as certain preconditions (like offering a competitive product or being qualified for a job) are fulfilled. Race is a very obvious example, even to people who want to boycott Card, that shows that simple purchasing decisions can be immoral.
To get away from the large impact of hiring vs not hiring, here's another example -- if a store that you shopped at for the last decade suddenly hired a black guy, and you start shopping at a different store for that reason.. that is quite obviously an immoral action.
That's really close to my point with the movie... not that you HAVE to see the movie out of duty to free speech, but that if you want to see the movie but stopped yourself because of Card's involvement, and tried to convince others who want to see the movie to not see it, you're as bad as the racist who stops shopping at a store that hires a black guy. It doesn't make you evil, but it makes you less noble than you probably think you are, and it requires you to acknowledge what you're doing and not pretend you're doing nothing more than exercising your right to make purchase decisions.
The people who have no interest in seeing the movie because the movie itself doesn't interest them regardless of Card's involvement are completely excluded from what I've been saying, because you're right, the owners of the movie have no right to make a profit from them.
I think by "kid" he meant non-adult. If you want to make 17-year olds full adults, fine, just make sure to lower the voting age, the age of consent, etc.
"Kid" isn't a legal term and it implies more than just "under 18." Another example would be the word "baby" which also applies to people under 18 and implies more than just "under 18"... and calling Trayvon Martin a baby since he's under 18 would be retarded right?
Not to mention the age of consent is already lower in many places -- though it depends what kind of consent you're talking about.
As for "gold teeth"... For starters, my mother had gold teeth and fillings. It's superior to standard dental amalgam. Does that make my mother a thug?
By itself, no.. and yes, when I posted my very short description of Trayvon Martin, I only included a few details. I'm not going to give a 1000 word description outlining his thuggish appearance when someone can do a quick image search. If someone said "Huh he had gold teeth, but my mom had gold teeth and she wasn't a thug, let me see what he really looked like" and then did a search and looked at the pics would say "Oh, yeah, I get it, he's a thug." So I really don't think I was distorting anything.
I mean really, what are you trying to argue? We're not talking in a vacuum here, we've both seen pics of Trayvon Martin (here, I did an image search for you) and we both know he looks like a thug. Everybody reading this thread knows he looked like a thug. I think you're being critical for no reason.
I don't know if you're just ignorant, or if you're actively false. It looks like what you're trying to do there is dehumanize a person by making them up into a stereotype.
That's ridiculous -- again, look at the pics of the older Trayvon Martin. If you think I'm stereotyping him based on his name or race or something, that's just utterly stupid. Given how he posed for the pictures found on his own cellphone, if anybody was stereotyping Trayvon Martin -- it was himself! He wanted to look like a stereotypical thug, and he did. And I then said he looked like a thug. Mission accomplished, Trayvon.
But there's plenty of legal precedent for people going to jail for manslaughter and, if everything Zimmerman has said is 100% true, he's definitely guilty of manslaughter.
If everything Zimmerman said is true then he acted in self defense and wouldn't be guilty of manslaughter. Otherwise I agree that the state should have pursued manslaughter charges, not murder. It would be a much more realistic case.
Of course now they've thrown on the charge of "child abuse" which is similarly ridiculous.
I'm not missing the point you raise, but that point wasn't present in the post I responded to. The post I was responding too was talking about ancient authors and why they get a pass. I disagree with their proposed reason. It's not why ancient authors get a pass, it's why Card is not getting a pass (from some people, like you) -- there is a difference.
With your hyperbolic rants about "bigoted hate speech" you act like gays are being rounded up in ghettos and summarily executed in gas chambers. I understand why you phrase it in those terms, because it's a shortcut rhetorical trick to embarrass your opponents and silence them and it gives you a sense of power and superiority over them.
It's so sad to me that some otherwise intelligent and nice people (I'm sure) are soooo consumed by gay marriage that they turn into little better than thugs who want to attack others financially for disagreeing with them.
how on Earth is that supposed to benefit single people?
Umm ok, let's look at Social Security.
If you are (or were) married you can get the higher of your own SS benefit or 1/2 of your spouse's (or former spouse's) benefit when you retire. That's an advantage.
Now can you imagine that benefiting single people? Yeah obviously. Why can't I get the higher of my own benefit or half of my best friend's benefit, or my dad's benefit, or my girlfriend's benefit, or my roommate's benefit?
You are so incredibly stupid.
Coming from the guy who CAN'T IMAGINE how the benefits for married people could be useful to unmarried people as well... yet arguing that currently unmarried gay people should be allowed to marry SO THEY CAN GET those benefits... alrighty then.
Maybe in your mind, but to many people ancient authors get a pass because people just don't care that they were racist or sexist or whatever.
All this criticism of Orson Scott Card is as stupid as people who don't want their kids to read any Homer because Ancient Greek civilization promoted homosexuality and pedophilia.
If a story is good, it doesn't matter who wrote it. In fact, reading a great story and then learning that the person who wrote it has very different, even disagreeable, views than you makes it more interesting, not something to be avoided.
The Federal government has over a thousand laws referring to marriage. Many of those laws benefits couples living together like social security benefits, inheritance rights, etc. I am advocating this from an egalitarian standpoint that those people who are in love with each other are treated like any other pair of human beings consensually in love with each other.
That makes no sense.. if the laws are unfair because they apply only to married people, then very slightly expanding the pool of married people doesn't make the laws more fair. The laws should be repealed.
Everything you said is still discriminatory against single people which is a much larger part of the population than gay people.
One has to conclude then that you don't actually care about fairness and egalitarianism, just gay rights.
If you want to call it a "civil union" or whatever, that's fine. But I don't want employers or government offices calling some people "married" and other people "civil unioned" because that can lead to "second class" treatment and promotes discrimination among employers.
Employers or government offices call some people "married" and other people "single" -- is that ok in your mind?
The reason I don't support gay marriage isn't exactly that I'm against gay marriage but that I don't see a point FOR gay marriage. If there's no point, why add it, especially when it conflicts with so many people? Why increase tension with half the population for the tiny benefit of the ~1% of the population who is gay AND who wants to get gay married instead of staying single?
I was explaining the way in which I was using it in my post, not trying to redefine something you used. You didn't even use the word private in your first reply to me. It doesn't make sense to me that you're rejecting my own explanation of my own usage of a word.
If you want to call it something else, fine.. "Well I believe making purchasing decisions based on the business owner's [non-immediately-relevant-to-the-business-transaction-at-hand] beliefs is also bad."
Once one becomes an activist and puts their name, their reputation, their money behind a cause that is no longer a private matter.
Yes, in the common sense of the word "private" you're right. However..
It is at that point entirely justified to consider those matters of public policy that they are so strongly advocating when deciding if you want to give them your business or not.
I don't believe it's justified. You do. That's a difference of a opinion. It's not a point of fact. I know my belief isn't dominant which is why I explicitly said "I believe..."
There's a lot of false equivalencies you have going on there that I'm not gonna address because the above is sufficient, but--
I don't think the above is sufficient and I'm sure you knew that I wouldn't. I'm curious to hear your reasoning on why financially punishing an employee for his public opinions and views (though private to the business, by my definition) is not equivalent to financially punishing Orson Scott Card for his public opinions and views (though private to the movie, by my definition). That's clear enough to me that I'm not sure it's what you're even referring to as a false equivalence.
Are you disagreeing that making business decisions based on irrelevant-to-the-transaction beliefs of the other party is not a punishment for those beliefs? I mean, punishment means "The infliction or imposition of a penalty as retribution for an offense" and that's exactly what you're doing, the offense being the espousal of certain views, and the penalty being to withhold your money for something that you otherwise would spend on.
Anyway, enough speculation on my part, I'd like to hear your views fleshed out a bit more if you care to respond.
First off, if your employee says this shit publicly, and their job depends on public perception (both true in this case), then yes, they will be dropped.
Okay. So if my customers don't like black people, then as a business owner I can fire any black person who has to interact with the black-hating public.
That does make business sense. And I don't even have to be racist myself to fire the black people, I can point to the customers.
So.. you are the racist customer. Orson Scott Card is black. I am a producer who is deciding what movie to make next and who I want to hire/buy rights from/whatever movie people do, and part of my decision is how my customers will react to my next movie.
Are you comfortable with your role as the racist customer?
It's a weird culture where you're accused of violating free speech if you say "I'm not going to watch a bigot's movie".
I don't think my views are mainstream enough to be called a culture.
Sometimes I push a principle very far just to see what happens, and then I like the result. I have somewhat extreme and occasionally contradicting views on free speech that I haven't fully worked out. I'm almost certain about society's responsibility to free speech though. Rights don't spring out of nature fully formed and protected. They come from good societies. A good society provides good rights for its members. In our society, in America at least, I feel like rights have become too much associated with the government, and less with society. It's why Bush and a shit-ton of people who voted for him thought he could install a fully functional democracy complete with modern liberal rights in a society that doesn't generate those rights on their own. I believed it too.
But free speech isn't just about the government not being allowed to enforce laws that restrict certain protected types of speech. That's really dang limited. We have free speech in this country because MANY people not in the government value it in their personal lives to a broad extent.
You mentioned the case of various mayors and officials threatening Chick Fil-A... officials from Chicago, Boston, and San Francisco all made statements that Chick Fil-A was not welcome. That is bad. And yet, is it much worse than if a few big property owners or banks not connected with the government did the same thing? "Sorry, no loans for Chick Fil-A franchises because we support gay marriage." That would have a greater effect than the mayors of a handful of cities. On the other hand does the size of the effect matter, or are we concerned with principle? Most bankers, I hope, would say "You know, I'm not going to look at it as a personal issue but business. What they do and why they do it is up to them, I'm just concerned with whether the loan will be repaid." Not... "Oh man, I'm Christian, and I absolutely will not give any loan to a Muslim, because I don't want to give money to someone who thinks I'm an infidel."
Enough of our society IS like that, that we have passed laws protecting people from certain classes of discrimination. Probably not a majority, but a sizable number of people have very anti-liberal views. You and the others who want to demonize Orson Scott Card's business that is unrelated to his personal views are part of that movement away from liberalism and rights. As we go down the road of "voting with our wallet" against anybody who disagrees with us, and having protests, and getting people fired (e.g. Paula Deen), we'll simply lose the right to free speech because it won't exist in practice.
No; however I wouldn't find it any less wrong than the employer voting for a party/policy that discriminates against a section of society either.
I also wouldn't find it less wrong than the act of voting for a party that you support.. because voting is not wrong at all. Right? Or are you saying that voting for a party that discriminates against a section of society is wrong? Like voting for Democrats is wrong since they discriminate against the rich, which is a section of society?
Fortunately what we're talking about here isn't the same as an employee being fired it's about buying products where a proportion of the profits will go on political lobbying that I strongly disagree with.
Yeah I'm not saying the two actions are equivalent, but they are both on the scale of financially punishing someone for disagreeing with your own views in a way that is unrelated to the financial transaction.
If you vote Democrat that doesn't affect how you do your job. I don't think your boss is morally right to fire you because you voted against his interests as an evil rich business owner or whatever, even if it's true.
And it would be morally wrong for him to pass over you for a raise or promotion, even though that's less severe than firing.
And it would be morally wrong for him to make your bonus $10 smaller, even though that's around the price of a movie ticket and now we're on exactly the same financial severity as boycotting this movie.
And it would be morally wrong for him to make your salary $1 smaller cumulatively over your entire career, even though now we're at the same relative financial severity as boycotting this movie.
It's the motivation and intent to harm that makes it immoral.
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But if you keep subtracting a couple of seconds at a time, you will eventually cross a boundary where that something could no longer have been achieved.
If you keep subtracting a couple of seconds, you're no longer talking about a couple of seconds per person, but the sum of all you've taken away. That's a different argument.
You still haven't addressed other people who waste your time. If you want to make time wasting on the order of 1-2 seconds illegal because of cumulative effects, then suddenly almost everybody on Earth is "guilty" of your new law. The guy who drove 5mph below the speed limit and delayed the hundreds of cars behind him. The guy who turned left and had to wait for oncoming traffic so everybody behind him missed the green and lost minutes of their lives (maybe that SHOULD be illegal, it is awfully annoying). The radio and tv stations that run ads that try to get you to buy something you don't need.
In a few man-years of smart peoples' times, spread out over a couple of seconds per person, almost nothing of worth could have been accomplished.
If it's gonna be illegal to waste others' time, let's start by throwing in jail those city workers who fail to properly time red/green light cycles.
OK, I'll try to put it into a language /. understands. If I have one smashed up car, will smashing up the road make it fixed?
I was thinking of it more like, if front left tire has uneven wear and it's making the car pull to the left, you could fix it, or you could introduce a problem to the front right tire to make it pull right and balance it.
Nope. Republicans have re-written the definition to mean that, but it is incorrect.
If the definition has been rewritten, then now it is correct and you're incorrect. Do a search for "the rich are undertaxed" and you'll find that Democrats are in full agreement with Republicans about what under/over taxed means, and it has nothing to do with whether they were taxed what they were supposed to be taxed. It means the taxes are too low. Overtaxed means the taxes are too high.
Correct, there is a term for that which is "overpriced", yet republicans on purpose are using the term "overcharged" in an attempt to muddle the issue.
Overcharge:
Verb
Charge (someone) too high a price for goods or a service.
Noun
An excessive charge for goods or a service.
Seems legit to me... again based on the common usage.
So it's they which are equivocating
"Overtaxed" means you feel that you are paying too much for what you get from the government. Going back to your restaurant analogy, it's like saying the food is overpriced. Since the tax an individual pays is his price for government it's a pretty good analogy.
In some hypothetical literal sense of "overpriced", nothing is "overpriced" because the price is what it is. That type of reasoning seems a bit silly. We know what "overpriced" and "overtaxed" mean and I don't think it's an equivocation to use these well known terms as they're commonly defined.
"oh well, I was dumb, here I sink, farewell dear world".
Oh well, I was dumb, my house sank. Got my insurance check. Gonna rebuild inland a few miles.
Why do you think they would go down with the "ship" so to speak?
They'll come to YOU and want YOUR home. Whether they get it and kick you out or die trying doesn't really matter much, considering that they have no real option.
What on Earth.. do you really think that way? You lose your house so you feel entitled to kill others??
but to address the ignorant notion implied by the GP, that for the past 2000 (ahem ..) years
The OP specified "the Middle East" not "Islamic culture" so your "ahem" is unwarranted. And considering AC's "Please come up with an innovation that is less the 2000 years old please" was referring to Arabic numerals, it has nothing to do with Islamic culture since they were developed before Islam began.
Erm you think the Arabs invented algebra?
It's the same problem as the numerals... we got the *word* for algebra from Arabs, but algebra had been practiced since at least the Sumerians.
There actually weren't many great advances in math during the Islamic Golden Age.
Well the Arabs did change the shape of the numerals a bit, but I agree that they didn't enhance the number system.
I agree, that's exactly my point: We are not overtaxed.
That's true, but it's not the issue. Nobody is concerned with whether the amount of tax collected is equal to the amount of tax that is supposed to be collected.
Just like your restaurant example, you're focusing on something that nobody is concerned about (overpaying your bill, versus over-ordering your food). I guess this is a technically a strawman argument even though you are literally correct. It's just that when people say they're overtaxed, they are not talking about what you're talking about.
He scratches a couple of designated dining room chairs, we don't have any pet furniture.
I bet he's the one who designated those chairs though :)
Funny, more people would rather rescue animals than fellow humans. Just what does that say about our species?
I think it's a combination of beliefs. People can rescue themselves, especially from human-created problems, and the people who can't rescue themselves are often "broken" in a way that other people can't help (or don't know how). Animals can't rescue themselves from human-created problems (from invading their habitats to not spaying and neutering pets) and often respond very well to human help.
I mean not in all situations (wouldn't apply to your Coast Guard example, or natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina) but it explains why some people might donate to a "save the whales" fund but not donate to "save the starving children" funds. There usually is a large volunteer/donation response to natural disasters that affect humans.
Why don't we equally discount businesses having to do with sports, car enthusiasts, video games, power tools and tech gadgets?
We do. If guys were only involved in those businesses, and women ran the banks, hospitals, factories, research labs, etc. then I would be very sad as a guy.
1) Teachers are too often humanities teachers. This means the route of memorization is used, instead of the logic approach.
Memory is a key component of intelligence. If anything I think there isn't enough emphasis on memorization anymore. People think "who cares, I can look it up..." well that's not true... you have to remember what's available to look up for solving the problem at hand. Many people can't even do that. Probably because their "memory muscles" are weak due to lack of practice.
When my nephew was growing up, he decided that memorizing multiplication tables was stupid because he could just calculate the product in his head whenever he needed to. In theory that's right. In reality, he was soooooo sloooooow at doing simple math that he couldn't keep up, he became very bad at math, and through today he absolutely hates it. Even when it was obvious what was going on, and I implored him to just memorize some stuff so he would be faster, he refused to "waste his time" memorizing. And he didn't do enough math (what people today call "unnecessary busy work that distracts from creativity" or something) to memorize it on accident. It was like watching a train wreck in slow motion.
I think memorization promotes an intuitive understanding of the subject.
2) Math and Science are way too abstract. They are taught without any relation to reality.
This is very true, especially for basic subjects. I think part of the problem is that the applications for basic subjects are really boring and have been generally superseded in the real world by more advanced math and/or computers. I mean seriously, I can't believe how much time was wasted in... hmm I forget what grade... when we spent weeks and weeks studying geometry with compasses and rulers! I mean yeah, you can draw stuff, that's technically an application of geometry, but holy crap it was boring, and I never did it right because the stupid point on the compass would create a large hole while I was rotating it, and.. well whatever. The proofs are "character building" perhaps but they are soooo dry and uninteresting compared to, say, combinatorics, and much harder than say, basic Boolean logic proofs.
In high school calculus though the applications came fast and furious and were awesome. As soon as we learned derivatives we were studying the relationships of acceleration, velocity, and position, as well as maximization/minimization problems.
I think calculus should be taught much earlier than it is, certainly before geometry.
Take for example the Pythagorean Theorem. It was use in the past to build straight buildings. Maybe that is how it should be taught now!
I took a class in college about the history of mathematics and it had all kinds of stuff like that. I think it would be incredibly valuable to teach kids math along with the historical reasoning for and application of the math.
3) In the end either you have it or you don't.
I have mixed feelings about this. It's hard to decide when to give up on a kid. But you're definitely right. Some kids should not learn more than the most basic math, like how to make change for $10, because it's just a waste of time and money and accomplishes nothing but make the kid feel dumb. Maybe that bar is still too high for some kids.
I think tracking programs (low, average, high) are the way to go, but there should also be some small programs for the very low and very high.
Say if you go to a restaurant and start paying by installments. How do you go about finding out if you have over or underpaid? well you check to see if you still have a deficit on your tab, if there is still one you haven't paid enough.
The issue isn't about overpaying, it's about over-ordering. You have $10. The restaurant charges $8 for a burger, and $12 for steak. You order the steak. The deficit is most directly caused by your ordering decision, not the fact that you didn't bring enough cash, because the ordering decision happened after you had full knowledge of your cash on hand and the price on the menu.
The Employee-Employer relationship is fundamentally different then the relationship between Card and I: there is an imbalance of power in that relationship and that invalidates the comparison.
In terms of power, the consumer and the employer are the same. The consumer can decide completely on his own who to purchase from or whether to purchase at all, just like the employer can decide who to hire/fire/give a raise, or whether to do it at all. The only difference is in the impact of the decision.. one consumer doesn't typically make a big difference to a producer, whereas losing your job makes a big difference to the employee. On the other hand, a widespread organized boycott dramatically increases the impact of the consumers' purchasing decision on the producer.
If you think it's the scale that matters, then we could talk about the morality of an employer paying black employees $10 less per pay period, which has a pretty minor impact but is still quite obviously immoral.
Here, I am the customer: there are any number of possible places where my money can go and no one has any claim on it. If I do not buy something it is not a penalty, therefore the act of not buying something is not a punishment.
We're not talking about random customers making rational decisions in a capitalistic framework. We're talking about people boycotting a movie due to the political views of one person involved in the movie. Here's Google's definition of boycott:
Verb
Withdraw from commercial or social relations with (a country, organization, or person) as a punishment or protest.
Noun
A punitive ban that forbids relations with other bodies, cooperation with a policy, or the handling of goods.
So your argument about this specific discussion, where people are saying they won't see the movie due to Card's anti-gay stance, is incorrect. A boycott is a financial punishment. The difference between a boycott and a rational purchasing decision is that the boycott is due to an external factor not related to the transaction at hand. If there are two widgets that do the exact same thing, and one is made by Card, and the other is made by someone else, and you exclusively buy the other one and convince other people to buy the other one solely due to the identity of the person who made it.. then you are boycotting Card's products.
Now if you don't want to see the movie because you just aren't interested in the movie, regardless of Card's involvement, then nothing I've said applies to you. But that's not the group I'm talking about, I'm talking about people who claim to be avoiding the movie solely because of Card's irrelevant speech about gays, implying they would otherwise be interested in seeing the movie.
Yes, if someone wants to not shop at a store because it has gay people in it, they are entirely free to do so. Doing so does not punish the store.
There's a store near my house. I've been shopping there for the past 10 years. They hire a gay guy and suddenly I say "Hmm you know, I'm gonna shop somewhere else from now on because I hate gays!" You REALLY HONESTLY believe that is not a punishment against the store for hiring a gay person? How about if I come on slashdot and post "I'm not gonna go to that store anymore because they hired a gay guy and I want to punish them for deviating from what I think is morally right." It's still not a punishment? There's no morality involved? You wouldn't call me a bigot, you'd just say "Oh well, stdarg is just making a rational purchasing decision?" I mean I'm telling you I want to punish them and I'm doing it by withholding my business from the store. I don't know how you can possibly say that's not a punishment. And that's exactly what you're doing -- in fact you're calling it a boycott against Card due to his political activism, and I already showed the definition of boycott is that it's a withdrawal from commerce as a means of punishment.
Card has publicly advocated jailing homosexuals to create a reign of terror and overthrowing the government
That's not my interpretation of the quote you posted, which I've also seen elsewhere in this discussion as evidence that Card is a violent bigot. It kind of reminds me of people quoting the Bible saying Jesus is violent because of some passage about him being a sword that divides houses and sets brother against brother, when that is quite obviously metaphorical. Somehow I don't think Card meant that if gay marriage is approved he's going to go on a murderous rampage to singlehandedly overthrow the federal government. I don't know Card personally but I just don't get that vibe from what I've read. So in my opinion those quotes are a very weak attack, really just a pretext for calling him a violent bigot as a rhetorical technique like I said before. He's obviously not a violent bigot nor does he want to throw all the gays in jail.
It is not a "financial attack" when I decline to buy a product and encourage others to do the same. No one has a right to make a profit from anything.
Here's the definition of boycott on Google:
Verb
Withdraw from commercial or social relations with (a country, organization, or person) as a punishment or protest.
I'm not sure why people are trying to say it's not a financial attack to organize a boycott against someone. I really am not sure. I'm not calling you physically violent just because I used the word attack (and other people have responded the same way as you when I said "financial punishment"). You want to hurt someone financially due to what they have said in a completely different context. How is that not a financial attack?
Also you're wrong that nobody has a right to make a profit. Not only do they have a moral right, but a legal right as well, as long as certain conditions are met, which is why we have laws against discrimination based on race, religion, etc. If your company only buys labor from white people, then you are guilty of discrimination, because the black laborers DO have "a right to make a profit from anything" including their time. I give that example not to draw a complete equivalence between going to a movie and giving someone a job, but to illustrate the idea that people have rights in the marketplace as long as certain preconditions (like offering a competitive product or being qualified for a job) are fulfilled. Race is a very obvious example, even to people who want to boycott Card, that shows that simple purchasing decisions can be immoral.
To get away from the large impact of hiring vs not hiring, here's another example -- if a store that you shopped at for the last decade suddenly hired a black guy, and you start shopping at a different store for that reason.. that is quite obviously an immoral action.
That's really close to my point with the movie... not that you HAVE to see the movie out of duty to free speech, but that if you want to see the movie but stopped yourself because of Card's involvement, and tried to convince others who want to see the movie to not see it, you're as bad as the racist who stops shopping at a store that hires a black guy. It doesn't make you evil, but it makes you less noble than you probably think you are, and it requires you to acknowledge what you're doing and not pretend you're doing nothing more than exercising your right to make purchase decisions.
The people who have no interest in seeing the movie because the movie itself doesn't interest them regardless of Card's involvement are completely excluded from what I've been saying, because you're right, the owners of the movie have no right to make a profit from them.
I think by "kid" he meant non-adult. If you want to make 17-year olds full adults, fine, just make sure to lower the voting age, the age of consent, etc.
"Kid" isn't a legal term and it implies more than just "under 18." Another example would be the word "baby" which also applies to people under 18 and implies more than just "under 18"... and calling Trayvon Martin a baby since he's under 18 would be retarded right?
Not to mention the age of consent is already lower in many places -- though it depends what kind of consent you're talking about.
As for "gold teeth"... For starters, my mother had gold teeth and fillings. It's superior to standard dental amalgam. Does that make my mother a thug?
By itself, no.. and yes, when I posted my very short description of Trayvon Martin, I only included a few details. I'm not going to give a 1000 word description outlining his thuggish appearance when someone can do a quick image search. If someone said "Huh he had gold teeth, but my mom had gold teeth and she wasn't a thug, let me see what he really looked like" and then did a search and looked at the pics would say "Oh, yeah, I get it, he's a thug." So I really don't think I was distorting anything.
I mean really, what are you trying to argue? We're not talking in a vacuum here, we've both seen pics of Trayvon Martin (here, I did an image search for you) and we both know he looks like a thug. Everybody reading this thread knows he looked like a thug. I think you're being critical for no reason.
I don't know if you're just ignorant, or if you're actively false. It looks like what you're trying to do there is dehumanize a person by making them up into a stereotype.
That's ridiculous -- again, look at the pics of the older Trayvon Martin. If you think I'm stereotyping him based on his name or race or something, that's just utterly stupid. Given how he posed for the pictures found on his own cellphone, if anybody was stereotyping Trayvon Martin -- it was himself! He wanted to look like a stereotypical thug, and he did. And I then said he looked like a thug. Mission accomplished, Trayvon.
But there's plenty of legal precedent for people going to jail for manslaughter and, if everything Zimmerman has said is 100% true, he's definitely guilty of manslaughter.
If everything Zimmerman said is true then he acted in self defense and wouldn't be guilty of manslaughter. Otherwise I agree that the state should have pursued manslaughter charges, not murder. It would be a much more realistic case.
Of course now they've thrown on the charge of "child abuse" which is similarly ridiculous.
I'm not missing the point you raise, but that point wasn't present in the post I responded to. The post I was responding too was talking about ancient authors and why they get a pass. I disagree with their proposed reason. It's not why ancient authors get a pass, it's why Card is not getting a pass (from some people, like you) -- there is a difference.
With your hyperbolic rants about "bigoted hate speech" you act like gays are being rounded up in ghettos and summarily executed in gas chambers. I understand why you phrase it in those terms, because it's a shortcut rhetorical trick to embarrass your opponents and silence them and it gives you a sense of power and superiority over them.
It's so sad to me that some otherwise intelligent and nice people (I'm sure) are soooo consumed by gay marriage that they turn into little better than thugs who want to attack others financially for disagreeing with them.
how on Earth is that supposed to benefit single people?
Umm ok, let's look at Social Security.
If you are (or were) married you can get the higher of your own SS benefit or 1/2 of your spouse's (or former spouse's) benefit when you retire. That's an advantage.
Now can you imagine that benefiting single people? Yeah obviously. Why can't I get the higher of my own benefit or half of my best friend's benefit, or my dad's benefit, or my girlfriend's benefit, or my roommate's benefit?
You are so incredibly stupid.
Coming from the guy who CAN'T IMAGINE how the benefits for married people could be useful to unmarried people as well... yet arguing that currently unmarried gay people should be allowed to marry SO THEY CAN GET those benefits... alrighty then.
Maybe in your mind, but to many people ancient authors get a pass because people just don't care that they were racist or sexist or whatever.
All this criticism of Orson Scott Card is as stupid as people who don't want their kids to read any Homer because Ancient Greek civilization promoted homosexuality and pedophilia.
If a story is good, it doesn't matter who wrote it. In fact, reading a great story and then learning that the person who wrote it has very different, even disagreeable, views than you makes it more interesting, not something to be avoided.
The Federal government has over a thousand laws referring to marriage. Many of those laws benefits couples living together like social security benefits, inheritance rights, etc. I am advocating this from an egalitarian standpoint that those people who are in love with each other are treated like any other pair of human beings consensually in love with each other.
That makes no sense.. if the laws are unfair because they apply only to married people, then very slightly expanding the pool of married people doesn't make the laws more fair. The laws should be repealed.
Everything you said is still discriminatory against single people which is a much larger part of the population than gay people.
One has to conclude then that you don't actually care about fairness and egalitarianism, just gay rights.
If you want to call it a "civil union" or whatever, that's fine. But I don't want employers or government offices calling some people "married" and other people "civil unioned" because that can lead to "second class" treatment and promotes discrimination among employers.
Employers or government offices call some people "married" and other people "single" -- is that ok in your mind?
The reason I don't support gay marriage isn't exactly that I'm against gay marriage but that I don't see a point FOR gay marriage. If there's no point, why add it, especially when it conflicts with so many people? Why increase tension with half the population for the tiny benefit of the ~1% of the population who is gay AND who wants to get gay married instead of staying single?
I reject your definition of private.
I was explaining the way in which I was using it in my post, not trying to redefine something you used. You didn't even use the word private in your first reply to me. It doesn't make sense to me that you're rejecting my own explanation of my own usage of a word.
If you want to call it something else, fine.. "Well I believe making purchasing decisions based on the business owner's [non-immediately-relevant-to-the-business-transaction-at-hand] beliefs is also bad."
Once one becomes an activist and puts their name, their reputation, their money behind a cause that is no longer a private matter.
Yes, in the common sense of the word "private" you're right. However..
It is at that point entirely justified to consider those matters of public policy that they are so strongly advocating when deciding if you want to give them your business or not.
I don't believe it's justified. You do. That's a difference of a opinion. It's not a point of fact. I know my belief isn't dominant which is why I explicitly said "I believe..."
There's a lot of false equivalencies you have going on there that I'm not gonna address because the above is sufficient, but--
I don't think the above is sufficient and I'm sure you knew that I wouldn't. I'm curious to hear your reasoning on why financially punishing an employee for his public opinions and views (though private to the business, by my definition) is not equivalent to financially punishing Orson Scott Card for his public opinions and views (though private to the movie, by my definition). That's clear enough to me that I'm not sure it's what you're even referring to as a false equivalence.
Are you disagreeing that making business decisions based on irrelevant-to-the-transaction beliefs of the other party is not a punishment for those beliefs? I mean, punishment means "The infliction or imposition of a penalty as retribution for an offense" and that's exactly what you're doing, the offense being the espousal of certain views, and the penalty being to withhold your money for something that you otherwise would spend on.
Anyway, enough speculation on my part, I'd like to hear your views fleshed out a bit more if you care to respond.
First off, if your employee says this shit publicly, and their job depends on public perception (both true in this case), then yes, they will be dropped.
Okay. So if my customers don't like black people, then as a business owner I can fire any black person who has to interact with the black-hating public.
That does make business sense. And I don't even have to be racist myself to fire the black people, I can point to the customers.
So.. you are the racist customer. Orson Scott Card is black. I am a producer who is deciding what movie to make next and who I want to hire/buy rights from/whatever movie people do, and part of my decision is how my customers will react to my next movie.
Are you comfortable with your role as the racist customer?
It's a weird culture where you're accused of violating free speech if you say "I'm not going to watch a bigot's movie".
I don't think my views are mainstream enough to be called a culture.
Sometimes I push a principle very far just to see what happens, and then I like the result. I have somewhat extreme and occasionally contradicting views on free speech that I haven't fully worked out. I'm almost certain about society's responsibility to free speech though. Rights don't spring out of nature fully formed and protected. They come from good societies. A good society provides good rights for its members. In our society, in America at least, I feel like rights have become too much associated with the government, and less with society. It's why Bush and a shit-ton of people who voted for him thought he could install a fully functional democracy complete with modern liberal rights in a society that doesn't generate those rights on their own. I believed it too.
But free speech isn't just about the government not being allowed to enforce laws that restrict certain protected types of speech. That's really dang limited. We have free speech in this country because MANY people not in the government value it in their personal lives to a broad extent.
You mentioned the case of various mayors and officials threatening Chick Fil-A... officials from Chicago, Boston, and San Francisco all made statements that Chick Fil-A was not welcome. That is bad. And yet, is it much worse than if a few big property owners or banks not connected with the government did the same thing? "Sorry, no loans for Chick Fil-A franchises because we support gay marriage." That would have a greater effect than the mayors of a handful of cities. On the other hand does the size of the effect matter, or are we concerned with principle? Most bankers, I hope, would say "You know, I'm not going to look at it as a personal issue but business. What they do and why they do it is up to them, I'm just concerned with whether the loan will be repaid." Not... "Oh man, I'm Christian, and I absolutely will not give any loan to a Muslim, because I don't want to give money to someone who thinks I'm an infidel."
Enough of our society IS like that, that we have passed laws protecting people from certain classes of discrimination. Probably not a majority, but a sizable number of people have very anti-liberal views. You and the others who want to demonize Orson Scott Card's business that is unrelated to his personal views are part of that movement away from liberalism and rights. As we go down the road of "voting with our wallet" against anybody who disagrees with us, and having protests, and getting people fired (e.g. Paula Deen), we'll simply lose the right to free speech because it won't exist in practice.
No; however I wouldn't find it any less wrong than the employer voting for a party/policy that discriminates against a section of society either.
I also wouldn't find it less wrong than the act of voting for a party that you support.. because voting is not wrong at all. Right? Or are you saying that voting for a party that discriminates against a section of society is wrong? Like voting for Democrats is wrong since they discriminate against the rich, which is a section of society?
Fortunately what we're talking about here isn't the same as an employee being fired it's about buying products where a proportion of the profits will go on political lobbying that I strongly disagree with.
Yeah I'm not saying the two actions are equivalent, but they are both on the scale of financially punishing someone for disagreeing with your own views in a way that is unrelated to the financial transaction.
If you vote Democrat that doesn't affect how you do your job. I don't think your boss is morally right to fire you because you voted against his interests as an evil rich business owner or whatever, even if it's true.
And it would be morally wrong for him to pass over you for a raise or promotion, even though that's less severe than firing.
And it would be morally wrong for him to make your bonus $10 smaller, even though that's around the price of a movie ticket and now we're on exactly the same financial severity as boycotting this movie.
And it would be morally wrong for him to make your salary $1 smaller cumulatively over your entire career, even though now we're at the same relative financial severity as boycotting this movie.
It's the motivation and intent to harm that makes it immoral.