Extremism, as you well know, but won't admit to, is used in a very specific sense in the press (from Wikipedia):
Extremism is any ideology or political act far outside the perceived political center of a society
- so yes, it is almost by definition a bad thing. Is it a crime? No. Should it be a crime in itself? No, of course not.
Apart from that, I don't think your examples count as extremism - liking motorbikes is not really all that political, and speaking out against car driving is not at all likely to cause loss of life.
On the other hand, inciting people to hate gays, making a public display of burning the Quran, inciting to violent actions gainst abortion clinics or inflaming Muslims to attack Americans at the Friday prayer - that is directly causing people to commit crimes, and it should be prosecuted.
So - it's OK when those Jihadist clerics fire up people's temperaments in every Friday prayer, then? Because of "Freedom of Speech". And if I say something like "Go an kill Mitt Romney, I'll give you 1 million dollars for it" - that is covered by "Freedom of Speech", is it? There are so many ways you can cause damage with words, and most of us already agree that there are cases when you should be held responsible for that damage; it's just a matter of deciding exactly where to say stop.
Oh, and why does religion warrant such protection?
It doesn't - but I think the discussion focuses on the wrong thing. This is not about protecting our freedom of speech against Muslim or other extremists, this is about protecting the freedom - of speech, of anything - against extremists on all sides. The socalled "freedom" extremists are in effect helping their spiritual brothers, the Muslim extremists, against the moderate majority everywhere.
Another thing is - what does freedom of speech actually mean? Does it mean that you have a right to publically make any communication at all, without ever being called to responsibility, no matter what damage your actions have caused? Or does it mean, simply, that expressing your views is not in itself a crime? There is a difference there; and I personally believe in the second version, not the first. It should never be a crime simply to express you views. But if you cause damage or loss of life, then you should be made to pay for it.
There is no such thing as complete freedom - of expression, or anything else; this is something we all need to bear in mind, instead of just parading all the usual, automatic responses. When one person takes more freedom, then there are others who get less, in essence. This certainly holds true when some extremist decides that he has the right to provoke violent responses; every time somebody sticks his finger up at the prophet Muhammed or some other stupid stunt, there are people who suffer, women who get oppressed a bit more etc.
Saying that "it isn't my fault that x choses to react like so and so..." is nonsense - that is no more than another way of saying "I don't care about those people". And any way - this is about cause and effect. In other parts of life, if you cause damage, whether it is because you are careless, stupid, unlucky or malicious, then you bear part of the responsibility and may well be prosecuted.
I think it is perfectly reasonable that if you abuse your freedom of speech, then you should be held legally responsible. If you cause riots and loss of life or property, should you not be made to pay? Extremists are cowards, who hide behind laws they only regard with contempt.
The next big thing - in which sense? Moneywise? Or...?
To me, the next big goal is to get beyond quantum mechanics somehow. It's going to be really tough, though.
Quantum mechanics is one of the most successful theories in physics - (the other being General relativity - but unlike GR, it is full of rules of thumb, poorly understood mechanisms and vague concepts. I think we need to establish a much more firm basis for the concepts employed in QM, otherwise we won't really be able to unify our two most successful models of the physical reality. What I am after is good answers to questions like "What is a particle?" and "Why is time different from space?" - and by "good" I mean something that does not invoke the Copenhagen interpretation or other quasi religious claptrap.
Traditionally at this point I get asked why I think it QM that needs to change, not GR, so I might as well answer that. There are several reasons - one is that is it QM that has a problem explaining what dark matter and dark energy are; GR offers no opinion on what particles there ought to be. Another is that it is beginning to show some crumbling along the edges - just take the recent results which demonstrate that Heisenberg's uncertainty principle may not be universal.
When it comes to web browsers, I am quite reactionary (look it up on Wikipedia) - or cautious, as I like to call it. For my part, I am not going to upgrade beyond version 3.5 until there is a plugin that allows me complete control over what animated and other intrusive crap I am willing to allow.
Experience has taught me not to trust content providers at all. Which is why I use AdBlock, NoScript, AniDisable and other plugins - I have too often come across web pages designed by idiots that feel entitled to rape my PC, more or less. Once or twice I have even come across looping Javascripts that steal 100% CPU time. I just don't want that kind of shite.
Certainly, not in every case, but you can probably link higher incidents of poverty, crime, teen pregnancy, and maybe a dozen more undesired outcomes of which a person's course in life was directed fairly early on in life because of poor parenting.
Sadly, the problem here is poor parenting skills, and it is going to take more than legislation to sort that out. Personally, I think a number of important life skills should be taught in school - parenting being one, but also things like household management (cookery, basic cleaning, family economy etc). And since it actually is a problem, how to handle intoxication and recreational drugs use - it would be far better to approach this subject with a clear and open mind, rather than hushing it up and leaving it to shady characters like we do now.
In a way I think we should be happy when this kind of idiocy bubbles to the surface from the festering mire that is politics in the US (and to some etent, elsewhere). I am confident that most people are, on average, fairly sensible and intelligent, and putting the bottomless stupidity of certain people in power on display like this can only benefit us in the long run. That is the thing about reality - it remains real no matter how much some try to deny it.
Of course, a rude conversation has never happened on Slashdot in the last 15 years
This is, ironically, true. Rudeness tends to occur when people stop trying to communicate and instead engage in monologue. In a dialogue, people try to reach out and find some sort of common understanding - that is almost the definition of a dialogue. Thus, even on/., when conversation happens at all (as opposed to a shouting match), it will tend to be polite, although what constitutes 'polite' may sometimes be surprising.
Once upon a time there was this great, new concept for an OS called OS/2 Warp 3 - it was object oriented and really cool; and it completely failed to win the customers over. Because it was initially very confusing until you figured out that you had to do everything, more or less, by copying template objects, IIRC. And of course, Microsoft offered something people felt more familiar with.
I just wonder - isn't this going to be the new Warp 3?
Thank you for you thoughtful response - I was of course being a bit provocative. I guess I hoped people would realise when they saw my rather immodest self-assessment.
What always irritates me when the talk is about sex or pornography, is this constant teenage giggle and the Beavis & Butthead style comments, and I thought somebody ought to give a bit of counterplay. I know there is more than Ken and Barbie out there, and I particularly enjoy the beauty of the natural women on display - but looking at sexual acts per se just doesn't do it for me.
BTW, I'm sorry you have lost your teenage enthusiasm.
Don't be. Life is still good, and I have every confidence that it will continue to be so until I pass my 110th birthday and get shot by a jealous husband. We all change as we get older, and for me it has meant that I now have other interests that I find more satisfying. I'm happy - how can that not be good? Trying to hold on to youth is a losing game and can only make you frustrated.
You sir have grossly underestimated the Internet porn surfing public.
Hmm, I wonder. You see, the porn industry has been complaining for a long time about hard times (yes, I know, a pun of sorts, but not intended). I think the truth of the matter is that pornography only really attracts those who have been unable to find anything better in their lives, which is really sad. Pornography seems always to be disappointing - plasticky looking Ken and Barbie types mechanically doing things and looking utterly bored. I am, by the way, from Denmark, where people are incredibly open-minded and at it all the time, everywhere, as we all know, so I know what I am talking about.
Sex is nice, but vastly overhyped. Like anything enjoyable, it becomes trivial when you have had enough, and that happens much sooner than you imagine as a teenager; and it's a good thing really, because there is so much more to life than screwing around.
Seems like it's most likely to be branded "hate speech" when it is true.
Are you feeling sore or something? There is nothing mysterious about the term "Hate speech" - if the purpose of your speech is to inflame hatred in your audience, then it is hate speech. Of course, it is sometimes a matter of interpretation what the purpose of anybody's words is, but since the purpose of hate speech is to whip up feelings, it will usually be rather short on objectivity while things like accusations and generalisations come thick and fast.
It is perfectly possible to discuss even serious and difficult problems without inciting hate - one good way would be to start out by seeking out any common ground and looking for reasonable solutions.
There is an disturbing irony in the fact that the extremists on both sides of any conflict are so often helping each other by polarising the situation - the anti-muslim extremists are very much carrying fuel to the muslim extremists' bonfire, and are in that sense betraying their own people. To an objective person, the real conflict is not between "The Muslims" and "The Christians", but between those in the middle and the extremists on both sides.
Hmm, I see I have gone OT, sorry about that - but I think what I say is valid in general, and who knows, it may even apply to the subject at hand.
Well, maybe you are one of the lucky ones whose "stop-signal" (for lack of a better word) works; apparently there is a sizeable proportion of people for whom this isn't the case - the signal is too weak, and too easy to ignore.
Personally, I find it much easier to stop when I eat slowly; something that is much more likely with Chinese food, in my experience. It has to be added that my wife is Chinese, so I probably eat a more typical Chinese diet rather than the stuff you get in restaurants, which tends to be heavy on fat and salt (and sometimes sugar as well). Chopsticks are just not as high-throughput as a fork or spoon.
This sort of response has always been stupid, in my view, but with the amount of knoledge we now have about nutrition, how we become obese, how advertising influences people etc etc etc, it is staggerign that there are still this sort of uninformed opinions about.
First of all, nobody is blaming it all on advertising - not least because there is a lot more going on than idiotic TV adverts. Like the fact that when you go to any shop (even so called health food shops) the ratio between sugary, fatty luxury snacks and appealing, genuinely healthy alternatives is something like one or two orders of magnitude, if I'm not much mistaken.
And secondly, blaming it on poor parenting or "lack of self-control" is just too much like blaming the victim. People make poor choices because they are not really given any real alternatives. It is so easy to blurt things like "just pull yourself together" - but do you even know how to do this? Can you teach this skill to others? Are you able to help people overcome their moments of weakness? If you know and cared, you wouldn't say this kind of shit.
I agree, but I think it is a wider issue than that. I remember, when growing up, I was always told to "eat up" and not waste food, even when I genuinely felt that I didn't want to eat more. This makes sense, of course, if you can't be sure when the next meal will be around, but it teaches us at an early age to override the signal to stop eating. That, in combination with the way we serve food in the West: a whole meal on a large plate, means that it is very easy to develop a habit of overeating.
Perhaps we should learn from the Chinese: you put all the dishes in the middle of the table and eat out of small bowls; and you only take a little bit at a time, so you don't have to sit there, being full with half a meal on your plate, feeling that you must finish. And of course, the Chinese tend to integrate the leftovers in the next meal, so there is less food wasted overall.
China is a whole lot more complicated than your statement would have it. Describing China in the same terms as, say, Syria or similar, is like describing the US as "a right-wing theocracy". Not entirely accurate, I imagine. You use sweeping statements that cover the fact that you don't have any real knowledge about the subject.
A lot of high achievers suffer from middle class guilt complex and so tentatively support socialist policies to assuage that guilt. Meanwhile its natural that the people who actually suffer from socialist policies such as unfettered immigration are going to be against it.
Middle class guilt? It is in other words impossible to imagine that an educated person can simply be genuinely idealistic? Does the same apply for a Christian? I mean, the teachings of Christ do sound a lot like Socialism, so it is easy to imagine that Christians must suffer from middle class guilt as well, then.
And you bring new insights to the table as well: "unfettered immigration" is a form of "Socialism". Well, we live and learn, don't we just.
"reactionary" is standard liberal lefty shorthand for right wing views they don't agree with.
And this is the standard whinge that we hear all the time from people like yourself when they can't come up with proper arguments.
According to Wikipedia:
A reactionary is an individual that holds political viewpoints which cause them to seek to return to a previous state (the status quo ante) in a society.
This is the sense in which I use the word; it isn't used as an insult, it simply describes a viewpoint. To my mind you can split the political spectrum in two: those who define themselves in terms of what they are for, and those who define themselves in terms of what they are against. Many reactionaries would fall in the second category, I think. The thing is, when you are anti-something, then your opnions depend on that something; thus they are no longer under your control.
You're getting the logic wrong - I'm not saying "all high-achievers...", only "... many of..." which is not at all the same thing. And my implication goes the opposite way - you are trying to make out that I say "All high-achievers are socialists", while what I actually say is "Many are Socialists because they are well-educated". I think it makes sense: With better education comes the ability to think critically, and when you are young, you haven't yet grown cynical about the unfairness in the world; it is very natural to become a Socialist at that age, and it is not surprising that it will still colour your outlook when you get older.
This has nothing to do with a "communist dictatorship"...
Only too true.
There is a strange irony to the fact that these abuses arise from a combination of the kind of corruption typical of pre-Communist China and unfettered Western-style Capitalism. And hasn't it always been one of the criticisms of Communism, that it stifles progress because nobody feel an incentive to work hard, when the state takes care of you even you are lazy to the bone?
Some Americans in particular imagine that nobody could possibly feel genuinely happy with life under Communism. Well, apart from the "47% that feel they are victims", but they don't count, since they are "plebs", to quote one Tory MP. On that background it is strange that so many of those that sympathise with Socialism are well-educated high-achievers, while so many of the most conservative and reactionary are found amongst those with little or no education.
Well, I can understand your view, but I think what Milgram's experiment really shows, is that our moral standards are very flexible. He demonstrated that it is possible to get people to commit atrocities, but it seems reasonable to believe that it is equally possible to persuade people to be the opposite. People are full of shit, basically; it is up to you to decide whether it is waste or manure.
As for reality - I think it is a mistake to look for absolute certainty. The best we can hope for is a model of reality that is self-consistent and doesn't contradict our observations. Most religions seem to fail on both counts, which is why I am not religious, but it is a matter of choice: I have deliberately and consciously decided to regard my experiences as real, at least when they seem consistent and reproducible, but I do realise that I may be proven wrong at some point.
One class of religions I find quite appealing, though, is the Neo-Paganisms; I think an important realisation about God or gods is that they are created by their believers rather than the other way round.
I like your happy-go-lucky attitude. But I don't agree; if it were really as bad as that, then we would hardly have seen any progress over the millennia, I think.
It is true, though, that you often meet this sort of brean-dead attitude when you first engage with people, but I think that is often only the mask they wear in public. Once you get past their defences and find the common ground, they will turn out to be quite open even to unfamiliar ideas. Being rational is something that intimidates many, and I often find I have to first appeal to the familiar and comfortable instead of launching a full-scale logical attack.
Take the creationists - to somebody with a rigorous, scientific background, they quite frankly sound like idiots; but the blame lies on us, to some extent, because we didn't communicate in the right way. If we just roll out the theory of evolution and the science behind it, it sounds like we want to take their dearest treasure away; but in reality, the ultimate goal of the scientist is the same as any sincere believer: knowing the real truth, whatever it may be. There is a lot of common ground in that, and it is possible to reach a real understanding, even if the Christian would call it "knowing God's nature".
I've been saying for years that there is nothing particularly risky about GM foods - it's dumping horrendous of herbicide on things that's risky... this is obvious to me, but not to the ignorant masses.
Strictly speaking, we don't know whether GM food is risky; historically, there has been a long list of substances that were regarded as "obviously harmless" or even "beneficial", which none the less turned out to be harmful.
However, there is a more subtle danger: genes will eventually escape into wild plants. If, say, wheat is given this RoundUp gene, there is a large risk that this gene will spread to closely related grasses one day, and suddenly we have a wild and potetially undesirable, wild plant with resistence to RoundUp. The truth is, we know far too little about how genes transfer between species to rule out any scenario.
Or, just imagine if pharming takes off as an industry - what will happen if the genes that produce some powerful medicine somehow escape into the wild? And perhaps combine with other genes to produce effects that are completely unexpected? It would be nice if we, as a species, would sometimes look before we jump.
Are you saying 17 year old boys are children, and a 22 year old college girl giving a 17 year old boy is devastatingly harmful?
No.
Are you saying that it is OK to rape infants? I thought not; so stop being a complete twit, because you know perfectly well that this is not what I say. If you want to be taken serious as a thinking, mature individual, you would do well to stop using this sort of braindead retoric.
Slashdot Mirror
Extremism, as you well know, but won't admit to, is used in a very specific sense in the press (from Wikipedia):
Extremism is any ideology or political act far outside the perceived political center of a society
- so yes, it is almost by definition a bad thing. Is it a crime? No. Should it be a crime in itself? No, of course not.
Apart from that, I don't think your examples count as extremism - liking motorbikes is not really all that political, and speaking out against car driving is not at all likely to cause loss of life.
On the other hand, inciting people to hate gays, making a public display of burning the Quran, inciting to violent actions gainst abortion clinics or inflaming Muslims to attack Americans at the Friday prayer - that is directly causing people to commit crimes, and it should be prosecuted.
You cannot cause damage or harm with words...
So - it's OK when those Jihadist clerics fire up people's temperaments in every Friday prayer, then? Because of "Freedom of Speech". And if I say something like "Go an kill Mitt Romney, I'll give you 1 million dollars for it" - that is covered by "Freedom of Speech", is it? There are so many ways you can cause damage with words, and most of us already agree that there are cases when you should be held responsible for that damage; it's just a matter of deciding exactly where to say stop.
Oh, and why does religion warrant such protection?
It doesn't - but I think the discussion focuses on the wrong thing. This is not about protecting our freedom of speech against Muslim or other extremists, this is about protecting the freedom - of speech, of anything - against extremists on all sides. The socalled "freedom" extremists are in effect helping their spiritual brothers, the Muslim extremists, against the moderate majority everywhere.
Another thing is - what does freedom of speech actually mean? Does it mean that you have a right to publically make any communication at all, without ever being called to responsibility, no matter what damage your actions have caused? Or does it mean, simply, that expressing your views is not in itself a crime? There is a difference there; and I personally believe in the second version, not the first. It should never be a crime simply to express you views. But if you cause damage or loss of life, then you should be made to pay for it.
There is no such thing as complete freedom - of expression, or anything else; this is something we all need to bear in mind, instead of just parading all the usual, automatic responses. When one person takes more freedom, then there are others who get less, in essence. This certainly holds true when some extremist decides that he has the right to provoke violent responses; every time somebody sticks his finger up at the prophet Muhammed or some other stupid stunt, there are people who suffer, women who get oppressed a bit more etc.
Saying that "it isn't my fault that x choses to react like so and so ..." is nonsense - that is no more than another way of saying "I don't care about those people". And any way - this is about cause and effect. In other parts of life, if you cause damage, whether it is because you are careless, stupid, unlucky or malicious, then you bear part of the responsibility and may well be prosecuted.
I think it is perfectly reasonable that if you abuse your freedom of speech, then you should be held legally responsible. If you cause riots and loss of life or property, should you not be made to pay? Extremists are cowards, who hide behind laws they only regard with contempt.
The next big thing - in which sense? Moneywise? Or ...?
To me, the next big goal is to get beyond quantum mechanics somehow. It's going to be really tough, though.
Quantum mechanics is one of the most successful theories in physics - (the other being General relativity - but unlike GR, it is full of rules of thumb, poorly understood mechanisms and vague concepts. I think we need to establish a much more firm basis for the concepts employed in QM, otherwise we won't really be able to unify our two most successful models of the physical reality. What I am after is good answers to questions like "What is a particle?" and "Why is time different from space?" - and by "good" I mean something that does not invoke the Copenhagen interpretation or other quasi religious claptrap.
Traditionally at this point I get asked why I think it QM that needs to change, not GR, so I might as well answer that. There are several reasons - one is that is it QM that has a problem explaining what dark matter and dark energy are; GR offers no opinion on what particles there ought to be. Another is that it is beginning to show some crumbling along the edges - just take the recent results which demonstrate that Heisenberg's uncertainty principle may not be universal.
When it comes to web browsers, I am quite reactionary (look it up on Wikipedia) - or cautious, as I like to call it. For my part, I am not going to upgrade beyond version 3.5 until there is a plugin that allows me complete control over what animated and other intrusive crap I am willing to allow.
Experience has taught me not to trust content providers at all. Which is why I use AdBlock, NoScript, AniDisable and other plugins - I have too often come across web pages designed by idiots that feel entitled to rape my PC, more or less. Once or twice I have even come across looping Javascripts that steal 100% CPU time. I just don't want that kind of shite.
Certainly, not in every case, but you can probably link higher incidents of poverty, crime, teen pregnancy, and maybe a dozen more undesired outcomes of which a person's course in life was directed fairly early on in life because of poor parenting.
Sadly, the problem here is poor parenting skills, and it is going to take more than legislation to sort that out. Personally, I think a number of important life skills should be taught in school - parenting being one, but also things like household management (cookery, basic cleaning, family economy etc). And since it actually is a problem, how to handle intoxication and recreational drugs use - it would be far better to approach this subject with a clear and open mind, rather than hushing it up and leaving it to shady characters like we do now.
In a way I think we should be happy when this kind of idiocy bubbles to the surface from the festering mire that is politics in the US (and to some etent, elsewhere). I am confident that most people are, on average, fairly sensible and intelligent, and putting the bottomless stupidity of certain people in power on display like this can only benefit us in the long run. That is the thing about reality - it remains real no matter how much some try to deny it.
Yummy, that sounds almost as appetising as sea cucumber.
Of course, a rude conversation has never happened on Slashdot in the last 15 years
This is, ironically, true. Rudeness tends to occur when people stop trying to communicate and instead engage in monologue. In a dialogue, people try to reach out and find some sort of common understanding - that is almost the definition of a dialogue. Thus, even on /., when conversation happens at all (as opposed to a shouting match), it will tend to be polite, although what constitutes 'polite' may sometimes be surprising.
Once upon a time there was this great, new concept for an OS called OS/2 Warp 3 - it was object oriented and really cool; and it completely failed to win the customers over. Because it was initially very confusing until you figured out that you had to do everything, more or less, by copying template objects, IIRC. And of course, Microsoft offered something people felt more familiar with.
I just wonder - isn't this going to be the new Warp 3?
Thank you for you thoughtful response - I was of course being a bit provocative. I guess I hoped people would realise when they saw my rather immodest self-assessment.
What always irritates me when the talk is about sex or pornography, is this constant teenage giggle and the Beavis & Butthead style comments, and I thought somebody ought to give a bit of counterplay. I know there is more than Ken and Barbie out there, and I particularly enjoy the beauty of the natural women on display - but looking at sexual acts per se just doesn't do it for me.
BTW, I'm sorry you have lost your teenage enthusiasm.
Don't be. Life is still good, and I have every confidence that it will continue to be so until I pass my 110th birthday and get shot by a jealous husband. We all change as we get older, and for me it has meant that I now have other interests that I find more satisfying. I'm happy - how can that not be good? Trying to hold on to youth is a losing game and can only make you frustrated.
You sir have grossly underestimated the Internet porn surfing public.
Hmm, I wonder. You see, the porn industry has been complaining for a long time about hard times (yes, I know, a pun of sorts, but not intended). I think the truth of the matter is that pornography only really attracts those who have been unable to find anything better in their lives, which is really sad. Pornography seems always to be disappointing - plasticky looking Ken and Barbie types mechanically doing things and looking utterly bored. I am, by the way, from Denmark, where people are incredibly open-minded and at it all the time, everywhere, as we all know, so I know what I am talking about.
Sex is nice, but vastly overhyped. Like anything enjoyable, it becomes trivial when you have had enough, and that happens much sooner than you imagine as a teenager; and it's a good thing really, because there is so much more to life than screwing around.
Seems like it's most likely to be branded "hate speech" when it is true.
Are you feeling sore or something? There is nothing mysterious about the term "Hate speech" - if the purpose of your speech is to inflame hatred in your audience, then it is hate speech. Of course, it is sometimes a matter of interpretation what the purpose of anybody's words is, but since the purpose of hate speech is to whip up feelings, it will usually be rather short on objectivity while things like accusations and generalisations come thick and fast.
It is perfectly possible to discuss even serious and difficult problems without inciting hate - one good way would be to start out by seeking out any common ground and looking for reasonable solutions.
There is an disturbing irony in the fact that the extremists on both sides of any conflict are so often helping each other by polarising the situation - the anti-muslim extremists are very much carrying fuel to the muslim extremists' bonfire, and are in that sense betraying their own people. To an objective person, the real conflict is not between "The Muslims" and "The Christians", but between those in the middle and the extremists on both sides.
Hmm, I see I have gone OT, sorry about that - but I think what I say is valid in general, and who knows, it may even apply to the subject at hand.
Well, maybe you are one of the lucky ones whose "stop-signal" (for lack of a better word) works; apparently there is a sizeable proportion of people for whom this isn't the case - the signal is too weak, and too easy to ignore.
Personally, I find it much easier to stop when I eat slowly; something that is much more likely with Chinese food, in my experience. It has to be added that my wife is Chinese, so I probably eat a more typical Chinese diet rather than the stuff you get in restaurants, which tends to be heavy on fat and salt (and sometimes sugar as well). Chopsticks are just not as high-throughput as a fork or spoon.
lets blame advertisers for poor parenting.
Groan. Need I say more? *Groan*
This sort of response has always been stupid, in my view, but with the amount of knoledge we now have about nutrition, how we become obese, how advertising influences people etc etc etc, it is staggerign that there are still this sort of uninformed opinions about.
First of all, nobody is blaming it all on advertising - not least because there is a lot more going on than idiotic TV adverts. Like the fact that when you go to any shop (even so called health food shops) the ratio between sugary, fatty luxury snacks and appealing, genuinely healthy alternatives is something like one or two orders of magnitude, if I'm not much mistaken.
And secondly, blaming it on poor parenting or "lack of self-control" is just too much like blaming the victim. People make poor choices because they are not really given any real alternatives. It is so easy to blurt things like "just pull yourself together" - but do you even know how to do this? Can you teach this skill to others? Are you able to help people overcome their moments of weakness? If you know and cared, you wouldn't say this kind of shit.
I agree, but I think it is a wider issue than that. I remember, when growing up, I was always told to "eat up" and not waste food, even when I genuinely felt that I didn't want to eat more. This makes sense, of course, if you can't be sure when the next meal will be around, but it teaches us at an early age to override the signal to stop eating. That, in combination with the way we serve food in the West: a whole meal on a large plate, means that it is very easy to develop a habit of overeating.
Perhaps we should learn from the Chinese: you put all the dishes in the middle of the table and eat out of small bowls; and you only take a little bit at a time, so you don't have to sit there, being full with half a meal on your plate, feeling that you must finish. And of course, the Chinese tend to integrate the leftovers in the next meal, so there is less food wasted overall.
... china is a capitalist dictatorship ...
China is a whole lot more complicated than your statement would have it. Describing China in the same terms as, say, Syria or similar, is like describing the US as "a right-wing theocracy". Not entirely accurate, I imagine. You use sweeping statements that cover the fact that you don't have any real knowledge about the subject.
A lot of high achievers suffer from middle class guilt complex and so tentatively support socialist policies to assuage that guilt. Meanwhile its natural that the people who actually suffer from socialist policies such as unfettered immigration are going to be against it.
Middle class guilt? It is in other words impossible to imagine that an educated person can simply be genuinely idealistic? Does the same apply for a Christian? I mean, the teachings of Christ do sound a lot like Socialism, so it is easy to imagine that Christians must suffer from middle class guilt as well, then.
And you bring new insights to the table as well: "unfettered immigration" is a form of "Socialism". Well, we live and learn, don't we just.
"reactionary" is standard liberal lefty shorthand for right wing views they don't agree with.
And this is the standard whinge that we hear all the time from people like yourself when they can't come up with proper arguments.
According to Wikipedia:
A reactionary is an individual that holds political viewpoints which cause them to seek to return to a previous state (the status quo ante) in a society.
This is the sense in which I use the word; it isn't used as an insult, it simply describes a viewpoint. To my mind you can split the political spectrum in two: those who define themselves in terms of what they are for, and those who define themselves in terms of what they are against. Many reactionaries would fall in the second category, I think. The thing is, when you are anti-something, then your opnions depend on that something; thus they are no longer under your control.
You're getting the logic wrong - I'm not saying "all high-achievers ...", only "... many of ..." which is not at all the same thing. And my implication goes the opposite way - you are trying to make out that I say "All high-achievers are socialists", while what I actually say is "Many are Socialists because they are well-educated". I think it makes sense: With better education comes the ability to think critically, and when you are young, you haven't yet grown cynical about the unfairness in the world; it is very natural to become a Socialist at that age, and it is not surprising that it will still colour your outlook when you get older.
Apple Reportedly Luring Ex-Google Mappers With Jobs
Have they no respect? The man's been dead for quite a while; makes you wonder what kind of people they actually manage to lure with mr Jobs.
This has nothing to do with a "communist dictatorship" ...
Only too true.
There is a strange irony to the fact that these abuses arise from a combination of the kind of corruption typical of pre-Communist China and unfettered Western-style Capitalism. And hasn't it always been one of the criticisms of Communism, that it stifles progress because nobody feel an incentive to work hard, when the state takes care of you even you are lazy to the bone?
Some Americans in particular imagine that nobody could possibly feel genuinely happy with life under Communism. Well, apart from the "47% that feel they are victims", but they don't count, since they are "plebs", to quote one Tory MP. On that background it is strange that so many of those that sympathise with Socialism are well-educated high-achievers, while so many of the most conservative and reactionary are found amongst those with little or no education.
Well, I can understand your view, but I think what Milgram's experiment really shows, is that our moral standards are very flexible. He demonstrated that it is possible to get people to commit atrocities, but it seems reasonable to believe that it is equally possible to persuade people to be the opposite. People are full of shit, basically; it is up to you to decide whether it is waste or manure.
As for reality - I think it is a mistake to look for absolute certainty. The best we can hope for is a model of reality that is self-consistent and doesn't contradict our observations. Most religions seem to fail on both counts, which is why I am not religious, but it is a matter of choice: I have deliberately and consciously decided to regard my experiences as real, at least when they seem consistent and reproducible, but I do realise that I may be proven wrong at some point.
One class of religions I find quite appealing, though, is the Neo-Paganisms; I think an important realisation about God or gods is that they are created by their believers rather than the other way round.
I like your happy-go-lucky attitude. But I don't agree; if it were really as bad as that, then we would hardly have seen any progress over the millennia, I think.
It is true, though, that you often meet this sort of brean-dead attitude when you first engage with people, but I think that is often only the mask they wear in public. Once you get past their defences and find the common ground, they will turn out to be quite open even to unfamiliar ideas. Being rational is something that intimidates many, and I often find I have to first appeal to the familiar and comfortable instead of launching a full-scale logical attack.
Take the creationists - to somebody with a rigorous, scientific background, they quite frankly sound like idiots; but the blame lies on us, to some extent, because we didn't communicate in the right way. If we just roll out the theory of evolution and the science behind it, it sounds like we want to take their dearest treasure away; but in reality, the ultimate goal of the scientist is the same as any sincere believer: knowing the real truth, whatever it may be. There is a lot of common ground in that, and it is possible to reach a real understanding, even if the Christian would call it "knowing God's nature".
I've been saying for years that there is nothing particularly risky about GM foods - it's dumping horrendous of herbicide on things that's risky... this is obvious to me, but not to the ignorant masses.
Strictly speaking, we don't know whether GM food is risky; historically, there has been a long list of substances that were regarded as "obviously harmless" or even "beneficial", which none the less turned out to be harmful.
However, there is a more subtle danger: genes will eventually escape into wild plants. If, say, wheat is given this RoundUp gene, there is a large risk that this gene will spread to closely related grasses one day, and suddenly we have a wild and potetially undesirable, wild plant with resistence to RoundUp. The truth is, we know far too little about how genes transfer between species to rule out any scenario.
Or, just imagine if pharming takes off as an industry - what will happen if the genes that produce some powerful medicine somehow escape into the wild? And perhaps combine with other genes to produce effects that are completely unexpected? It would be nice if we, as a species, would sometimes look before we jump.
Are you saying 17 year old boys are children, and a 22 year old college girl giving a 17 year old boy is devastatingly harmful?
No.
Are you saying that it is OK to rape infants? I thought not; so stop being a complete twit, because you know perfectly well that this is not what I say. If you want to be taken serious as a thinking, mature individual, you would do well to stop using this sort of braindead retoric.