Really? Well it's a good thing some of us can tell the difference between a Slashdot poster and a judge. Maybe you should look into it. I understand you are very sure you are completely right about the law in this case. You're so excited to show everyone this, you can't be bothered to identify people who care.
Seriously, what part of "I am not interested in the details of the law involved" do you translate as "I think I would make a good Judge in this case."?
I don't care what the law says. If that's all you care about, then we don't have much to talk about. We care about different things. It happens.
"Cheaper for who? Certainly not for me, if I'm required to pay for his care at any point."
You're required to pay for his health care when the ambulance brings him in to the emergency room. Maybe you don't think you should be, that he should die instead of costing you money. I suggest that, regardless of whether it is fair or not, closing emergency rooms and letting people die is not an idea that's going to get anywhere. The society you live in just isn't going to go for it.
You can argue you just shouldn't have to pay ever if you like. But when you're debating whether you want to pay for peoples check-ups, you should not ignore the fact that you're going to be paying for their heart-attacks. Doing so will lead to making bad decisions, because you're going to be paying for their heart attacks. So you should support paying for their checkups because it will save you money. That you're being forced to pay for something that you don't want to doesn't change the fact that saving money is good.
No, this is slashdot. As I have tried to make clear, I am more interested in whether I personally think Intel are being evil bad guys here than in the details of the law involved. Call me arrogant if you like, but the law does not determine my opinion.
Legally, you are probably right. But in judging Intel ethically, it matters to me whether they started saying "netbook" with the intention of stealing the name and trading on the reputation of Psions product. They clearly did not.
The real clincher (in the court of my opinion) would be whether it was even Intel that started calling them that. This is not clear to me. Certainly I first became aware of "netbook" as a generic descriptor of the class of machines, with no particular tie to Intel.
It's a good name fro a class of machines that needs one, and it seems considerably too late to put the genie back in the bottle.
"any condition that requires modern medicine to permit reproduction is counter-evolution."
No. A condition that requires modern medicine to reproduce makes people less fit to reproduce in an environment without modern medicine. In an environment with modern medicine, it may have less impact on their fitness to reproduce than other factors. Evolution doesn't care why traits are beneficial or not. If a population lives in an environment where making money in the stock market is more beneficial than not having diabtes, that's what will get selected for. It's still evolution.
"imagine a post-apocolyptic society where 500 people are all in the same little bubble of escape"
In a different environment, different traits are beneficial. Evolution happens either way.
Spending money is what stimulates the economy. It's all that stimulates the economy. That's what "stimulus" means: spending money.
As long as you are spending money on people doing stuff, you're stimulating the economy, and the macro-economic job of the stimulus is accomplished. You try to spend the money on having people do stuff that's nice to have anyway. Not because you need to in order to stimulate the economy, but because, well, duh.
Well, some of us care about other people enough that we choose to keep them alive when we can. I understand that you don't. So let me put it this way: there are more of us than there are of you and we're taking your money.
It happens that we're having a lively discussion about how to most efficiently spend this money we're taking from you, so if you would like to take part in that, jump in. But your suggestion to let people die just doesn't remotely fly with enough people. We're not doing that, we're going to send the ambulance when people need it. It's pretty clear that we can save some money by using your money to pay for some preventative care, which is cheap, and not having to send the expensive ambulance quite so often.
We're going to take your money. Do you think we should spend it smartly or not?
Well, the "have not sought compenasation" part is no longer true. Let's assume it's just out of date. The rest sounds like PR. By which I mean BS. If they just want everyone to stop using the term, they should give up, because that's never going to happen. Terms don't get removed from popular usage by lawsuits. Everybody calls them netbooks now. My father-in-law wants "a netbook so he can watch some internets" when he travels. Intel using something else now won't mean squat.
But Intel didn't steal their name. They didn't start saying "netbook" to create confusion and trade on the excellent reputation of the famous Psion netbook. Rather they, or maybe some gadget blogger, noticed that this new class of machines is useful, despite their limited specs, thanks to their access to the network, and "netbook" is kind of catchy. They weren't trying to create an artificial association with the Psion Netbooks - which are kind of like the modern ones except even slower and with out the net access.
So as far as right and wrong - Psion made a product that didn't catch on; that doesn't get them the right to keep the name for all eternity.
Legally, I don't know (or want to know) enough copyright law to predict how this will come out in court. But ethically, others use of "Netbook" isn't hurting the sales or reputation of genuine Psion netbooks. That's what trademark is for; not letting others appropriate your hard earned reputation. That's not happening here because Psion netbooks don't have one. Trademark isn't supposed to be a lottery where you hit the jackpot if your semi-generic name gets popular for a popular class of product.
Um, of course beauty is in the eye of the beholder, how could you possibly argue otherwise?
Are you really suggesting beauty and good taste are objective standards independent of individual human opinions? Let me guess: You have good taste and are an excellent judge of beauty; people who disagree with you don't just have a different opinion, they are objectively wrong.
"IVF is different from abortion, at least in its emotional nature."
A lot of people think so; I assume just because they have more sympathy for people who want a child and can't get pregnant than for people who are pregnant and don't want a child. I don't get that, but it's hardly the only bit of human psychology around this issue that puzzles me. Personally, I don't see the difference, and don't have a problem with either. I do get annoyed by people who protest abortion clinics because they're sure life begins at conception, but don't protest IVF clinics. It seems awfully hypocritical to only go after the more vulnerable, less sympathetic targets.
"Well, the saying didn't come from me, but I do find lots of truth in it."
But you're misquoting it. It's "there's no accounting for taste"; You stuck the "bad" in there. The more common saying has a lot of truth in it, and expresses exactly what rshol said.
I'm just saying, IVF in general means selecting some embryos and not others. I don't see why doing it for dumb reasons is worse than doing it randomly.
I expect this will "fly". Why should selecting embryos for for dumb reasons be worse than selecting them randomly?
IVF generally means embryos being discarded at random. Certainly a lot of people were troubled by IVF initially, but now it's considered no big deal (by most of society.)
Some people are upset about this for, as far as I can tell, the same reasons they are upset about stem cell research: Because they are actually upset about IVF generally, but they know they've lost that battle, so they attack related things society hasn't considered enough to realize they comfortable with it.
That movie was speculative fiction. There appears to be considerable confusion on this point.
Re:Got to say, it creeps me out.
on
Designer Babies
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· Score: 1
The point is, people already make shallow decisions about the eye color of their child. By making shallow decisions about the eye color of the person they have children with. How is this different?
"is it still evolution when it is no longer utterly random?"
Yes.
"Evolution, (as I understand it) requires that a species change randomly"
You understand it incorrectly.
"some of the changes will improve the species ability to thrive in its enviroment."
Yes, no matter where the changes come from or what selects for them.
"since we now change the enviroment to suit us, we stop evolving."
False. We can stop evolving by stopping having childen.
"further, we enable to continuence of genetic material that is detrimental to a pure 'enviromental' survival."
What is "pure"? The environment is where you are, no matter how it got that way. Some people have children, some don't. Any inheritable characteristic that affects the chances of that will get selected for or against.
"Remember when antibiotics were developed and they were hailed as the great solution for bacterial infections? Now look what has happened - yes, we've solved some problems (many, even), but we've made others much worse. "
Worse? Like what? Name one please. Yes, now there are antibiotic resistant bacteria, so there are some problems that are not entirely gone, but they're not any worse than they started, and are generally much much smaller problems.
"1.) How are we supposed to determine whether something is a disease and whether it should be screened for?"
Gee, how do doctors decide if something is a diease and should be treated?
"2.) What if there's some genetic/evolutionary advantage to many of the 'diseases' we hope to prevent? Obviously, no one wants to stand up and say that there's an advantage to -insert horrible disease here- but it's impossible to predict the future and what may be advantageous."
What if there's some genetic/evolutionary advantage to many of the 'diseases' doctors hope to treat?
"3.) We're also bound to get idiots that want their kids screened for stupid things like being short or stupid. There's probably a potential danger in this as well, not to mention that it's stupid."
You mean like we get idiots who marry and reproduce with partners who are tall or smart?
You make an excellent argument for not making any scientific advances out of baseless fear of unknowable consequences. Sure, new knowledge and technology can have unintended consequences, sometimes bad ones. But so far progress has been a huge win (no arguing if you hope to live past 35), so let's save the worry for when we come up with an actual downside beyond unreasoning fear of the unknown.
Re:Parents choose their baby's name
on
Designer Babies
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· Score: 1
"Abstaining from sex is something altogether different, as would selecting sperm and eggs for desirable characteristics."
Actually, there's no difference at all. Do you know what happens to sperm and eggs that aren't allowed to come together? So what is a sperm and an egg. Well, it's a very young person. So 'Abstaining from sex' is exactly like killing someone.
Alright, I understand you think it becomes a person at the moment of conception. But there are those of us who don't think that, and the endless arguments all based on assuming this is immutable, obvious truth are really tiresome.
It's so nice you can discuss this difference of opinion without resorting to profane ad-hominem attacks. It really makes me think you're confident in your position.
Allowing the user to run up a bill that they are almost certainly unable to pay is stupid. Their contract may say whatever you like, but if they don't have the money, they won't be paying the bill. I say a system that generates a bill that obviously won't be paid is broken. You reply that it is performing exactly to it's design spec. I say, OK, the spec is broken. You say it's performing exactly to it's design spec. I'm not sure what's preventing you from grasping the distinction there.
The only clue I've got is your inability to express yourself articulately without swearing. I could speculate this and your inability to grasp the difference between performing as designed and performing well may be traceable to a common root cause.
Slashdot Mirror
"Which is why you would make a lousy judge. "
Really? Well it's a good thing some of us can tell the difference between a Slashdot poster and a judge. Maybe you should look into it. I understand you are very sure you are completely right about the law in this case. You're so excited to show everyone this, you can't be bothered to identify people who care.
Seriously, what part of "I am not interested in the details of the law involved" do you translate as "I think I would make a good Judge in this case."?
I don't care what the law says. If that's all you care about, then we don't have much to talk about. We care about different things. It happens.
"Cheaper for who? Certainly not for me, if I'm required to pay for his care at any point."
You're required to pay for his health care when the ambulance brings him in to the emergency room. Maybe you don't think you should be, that he should die instead of costing you money. I suggest that, regardless of whether it is fair or not, closing emergency rooms and letting people die is not an idea that's going to get anywhere. The society you live in just isn't going to go for it.
You can argue you just shouldn't have to pay ever if you like. But when you're debating whether you want to pay for peoples check-ups, you should not ignore the fact that you're going to be paying for their heart-attacks. Doing so will lead to making bad decisions, because you're going to be paying for their heart attacks. So you should support paying for their checkups because it will save you money. That you're being forced to pay for something that you don't want to doesn't change the fact that saving money is good.
"This is the law."
No, this is slashdot. As I have tried to make clear, I am more interested in whether I personally think Intel are being evil bad guys here than in the details of the law involved. Call me arrogant if you like, but the law does not determine my opinion.
Legally, you are probably right. But in judging Intel ethically, it matters to me whether they started saying "netbook" with the intention of stealing the name and trading on the reputation of Psions product. They clearly did not.
The real clincher (in the court of my opinion) would be whether it was even Intel that started calling them that. This is not clear to me. Certainly I first became aware of "netbook" as a generic descriptor of the class of machines, with no particular tie to Intel.
It's a good name fro a class of machines that needs one, and it seems considerably too late to put the genie back in the bottle.
"any condition that requires modern medicine to permit reproduction is counter-evolution."
No. A condition that requires modern medicine to reproduce makes people less fit to reproduce in an environment without modern medicine. In an environment with modern medicine, it may have less impact on their fitness to reproduce than other factors. Evolution doesn't care why traits are beneficial or not. If a population lives in an environment where making money in the stock market is more beneficial than not having diabtes, that's what will get selected for. It's still evolution.
"imagine a post-apocolyptic society where 500 people are all in the same little bubble of escape"
In a different environment, different traits are beneficial. Evolution happens either way.
Spending money.
Spending money is what stimulates the economy. It's all that stimulates the economy. That's what "stimulus" means: spending money.
As long as you are spending money on people doing stuff, you're stimulating the economy, and the macro-economic job of the stimulus is accomplished. You try to spend the money on having people do stuff that's nice to have anyway. Not because you need to in order to stimulate the economy, but because, well, duh.
"People should already have enough vested interest to take care of themselves. If they don't care about themselves, why should I?"
Because it's cheaper.
Well, some of us care about other people enough that we choose to keep them alive when we can. I understand that you don't. So let me put it this way: there are more of us than there are of you and we're taking your money.
It happens that we're having a lively discussion about how to most efficiently spend this money we're taking from you, so if you would like to take part in that, jump in. But your suggestion to let people die just doesn't remotely fly with enough people. We're not doing that, we're going to send the ambulance when people need it. It's pretty clear that we can save some money by using your money to pay for some preventative care, which is cheap, and not having to send the expensive ambulance quite so often.
We're going to take your money. Do you think we should spend it smartly or not?
If car insurance worked like health insurance, society would pay to replace engines but not to change oil.
If you go to the doctor every year, the total lifetime cost of health care for you will be less than if you don't.
Well, the "have not sought compenasation" part is no longer true. Let's assume it's just out of date. The rest sounds like PR. By which I mean BS. If they just want everyone to stop using the term, they should give up, because that's never going to happen. Terms don't get removed from popular usage by lawsuits. Everybody calls them netbooks now. My father-in-law wants "a netbook so he can watch some internets" when he travels. Intel using something else now won't mean squat.
But Intel didn't steal their name. They didn't start saying "netbook" to create confusion and trade on the excellent reputation of the famous Psion netbook. Rather they, or maybe some gadget blogger, noticed that this new class of machines is useful, despite their limited specs, thanks to their access to the network, and "netbook" is kind of catchy. They weren't trying to create an artificial association with the Psion Netbooks - which are kind of like the modern ones except even slower and with out the net access.
So as far as right and wrong - Psion made a product that didn't catch on; that doesn't get them the right to keep the name for all eternity.
Legally, I don't know (or want to know) enough copyright law to predict how this will come out in court. But ethically, others use of "Netbook" isn't hurting the sales or reputation of genuine Psion netbooks. That's what trademark is for; not letting others appropriate your hard earned reputation. That's not happening here because Psion netbooks don't have one. Trademark isn't supposed to be a lottery where you hit the jackpot if your semi-generic name gets popular for a popular class of product.
Um, of course beauty is in the eye of the beholder, how could you possibly argue otherwise?
Are you really suggesting beauty and good taste are objective standards independent of individual human opinions? Let me guess: You have good taste and are an excellent judge of beauty; people who disagree with you don't just have a different opinion, they are objectively wrong.
"IVF is different from abortion, at least in its emotional nature."
A lot of people think so; I assume just because they have more sympathy for people who want a child and can't get pregnant than for people who are pregnant and don't want a child. I don't get that, but it's hardly the only bit of human psychology around this issue that puzzles me. Personally, I don't see the difference, and don't have a problem with either. I do get annoyed by people who protest abortion clinics because they're sure life begins at conception, but don't protest IVF clinics. It seems awfully hypocritical to only go after the more vulnerable, less sympathetic targets.
"Well, the saying didn't come from me, but I do find lots of truth in it."
But you're misquoting it. It's "there's no accounting for taste"; You stuck the "bad" in there. The more common saying has a lot of truth in it, and expresses exactly what rshol said.
I'm just saying, IVF in general means selecting some embryos and not others. I don't see why doing it for dumb reasons is worse than doing it randomly.
I expect this will "fly". Why should selecting embryos for for dumb reasons be worse than selecting them randomly?
IVF generally means embryos being discarded at random. Certainly a lot of people were troubled by IVF initially, but now it's considered no big deal (by most of society.)
Some people are upset about this for, as far as I can tell, the same reasons they are upset about stem cell research: Because they are actually upset about IVF generally, but they know they've lost that battle, so they attack related things society hasn't considered enough to realize they comfortable with it.
"If there's no conception, there's no child potentiality."
Exactly, because you killed it by not having sex!
So parents in fertility clinics can select which embryos to implant randomly, but if they peek at the eye color you cringe?
That movie was speculative fiction. There appears to be considerable confusion on this point.
The point is, people already make shallow decisions about the eye color of their child. By making shallow decisions about the eye color of the person they have children with. How is this different?
"is it still evolution when it is no longer utterly random?"
Yes.
"Evolution, (as I understand it) requires that a species change randomly"
You understand it incorrectly.
"some of the changes will improve the species ability to thrive in its enviroment."
Yes, no matter where the changes come from or what selects for them.
"since we now change the enviroment to suit us, we stop evolving."
False. We can stop evolving by stopping having childen.
"further, we enable to continuence of genetic material that is detrimental to a pure 'enviromental' survival."
What is "pure"? The environment is where you are, no matter how it got that way. Some people have children, some don't. Any inheritable characteristic that affects the chances of that will get selected for or against.
"Remember when antibiotics were developed and they were hailed as the great solution for bacterial infections? Now look what has happened - yes, we've solved some problems (many, even), but we've made others much worse. "
Worse? Like what? Name one please. Yes, now there are antibiotic resistant bacteria, so there are some problems that are not entirely gone, but they're not any worse than they started, and are generally much much smaller problems.
"1.) How are we supposed to determine whether something is a disease and whether it should be screened for?"
Gee, how do doctors decide if something is a diease and should be treated?
"2.) What if there's some genetic/evolutionary advantage to many of the 'diseases' we hope to prevent? Obviously, no one wants to stand up and say that there's an advantage to -insert horrible disease here- but it's impossible to predict the future and what may be advantageous."
What if there's some genetic/evolutionary advantage to many of the 'diseases' doctors hope to treat?
"3.) We're also bound to get idiots that want their kids screened for stupid things like being short or stupid. There's probably a potential danger in this as well, not to mention that it's stupid."
You mean like we get idiots who marry and reproduce with partners who are tall or smart?
You make an excellent argument for not making any scientific advances out of baseless fear of unknowable consequences. Sure, new knowledge and technology can have unintended consequences, sometimes bad ones. But so far progress has been a huge win (no arguing if you hope to live past 35), so let's save the worry for when we come up with an actual downside beyond unreasoning fear of the unknown.
I'll do that. I love good documentaries.
"Abstaining from sex is something altogether different, as would selecting sperm and eggs for desirable characteristics."
Actually, there's no difference at all. Do you know what happens to sperm and eggs that aren't allowed to come together? So what is a sperm and an egg. Well, it's a very young person. So 'Abstaining from sex' is exactly like killing someone.
Alright, I understand you think it becomes a person at the moment of conception. But there are those of us who don't think that, and the endless arguments all based on assuming this is immutable, obvious truth are really tiresome.
It's so nice you can discuss this difference of opinion without resorting to profane ad-hominem attacks. It really makes me think you're confident in your position.
Allowing the user to run up a bill that they are almost certainly unable to pay is stupid. Their contract may say whatever you like, but if they don't have the money, they won't be paying the bill. I say a system that generates a bill that obviously won't be paid is broken. You reply that it is performing exactly to it's design spec. I say, OK, the spec is broken. You say it's performing exactly to it's design spec. I'm not sure what's preventing you from grasping the distinction there.
The only clue I've got is your inability to express yourself articulately without swearing. I could speculate this and your inability to grasp the difference between performing as designed and performing well may be traceable to a common root cause.