Right, and the victim *is* to blame, in that he or she is capable of correcting the situation, but does not.
It doesn't let the abuser off the hook, but to say that there's nothing the victim could do is being disingenuous.
People don't like blaming the victim in real life because it's an asshole thing to do - the victim has already been through enough, and the lion's share of the blame does not belong to them. But I've got nothing against blaming the victim in metaphor.
Cattle are one of the most successful species on the planet
That really depends on your definition of success. I'll grant you that they're waaayy the hell up their in terms of population, but they've also had generations of natural evolutionary pressures removed from them, in favour of the evolutionary fitnesses we impose on them (tastier, bigger, producing more milk).
If we decide to go with the whole meat-vat thing, that decision to throw in with the humans might not look so smart.
How many good models were scrapped because the cooked data made them give obviously bogus results? How much good new data was discarded because it didn't match with the "approved" data.
I'm sorry, but it's not clear at all that what I mean by "memory" is not the same as what you mean by "memory".
The state of the die after it lands *does* affect its future, as it will be picked up in a different manner, and consequently be thrown again in a different manner. The die retains a "memory" of all of its past actions, in that if those past actions had happened differently, the die's current state would be different.
How is this any different from a human memory, which is simply state information (admittedly, a lot more state information) that has come about from the entire history of that human (and before)?
That's ridiculous, dice have memory too. They have a memory of their position and velocity at the moment they were released, a memory of the air resistance, and a memory of how they bounced across a table. All of these memories (past states) inform their current state, which in turn determines their future state, and eventually which side will face up when they come to a rest.
All good points, and each one worthy of its own investigations. For now, though, our knowledge of what factors are involved in gene expression are murky at best.
I can state definitely my opinion on this particular case though - if a gene therapy is available that removes the genes he's blaming, and it can be shown to work, then I support a reduced sentence. My personal main concern with the justice system is rehabilitation and prevention, not revenge. If alternate treatments (chemical, environmental, or otherwise) are available that would work specifically for him, because of how his genes affect his aggression, I'd probably support those too, judged on a case-by-case basis.
And I'm perfectly aware of the can of worms that would be opened with this. If genes can be linked to behaviours, and then tweaked to manipulate those behaviours, we're effectively poking around at the machine-code level of the gigantically-complex system that our entire civilization has emerged from. I have no qualms about applying the technology in this one isolated incident. In the greater picture, my mind swims at what a society with rampant (especially cosmetic) gene therapy might look like.
Is personal responsibility compatible with atheism?
Maybe not. That's not just an atheistic question though - it goes right to the basis of free will.
However, we can accept for the sake of argument that we're all just clockwork beings with no more control of our destiny than a computer program. My programming is telling me that if I am going to continue to achieve my primary objectives (shorthanded as "life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness"), then dangers to those primary objects (including violent criminals) must be neutralized. This guy's genes may be an excuse, and an explanation for his actions. However, that certainly doesn't make him any less dangerous.
The only way I'd want him to get less time on the basis of his "aggressive genes" is if he were to undergo a chemical or genetic treatment that reduces the effects of those genes.
I don't know if I'd characterize the results that way. The way I read it was that there was some clear low-hanging genetic fruit that was taken advantage of early on. After that, the bacteria hit a wall - it looks like there was no (easy) way for them to better adapt to the environment.
In the first step, it wasn't that "almost all of these mutations were beneficial", but "almost all surviving mutations were beneficial" - bacteria with neutral mutations were outbred by the ones with beneficial mutations.
Once the entire population had optimized to the environment, then neutral mutations were no longer outbred by beneficial ones.
In addition, I'd not be surprised to find out that this is an innate trait of most species - in a stable population, mutations become more random. It would increase the chances for the population as a whole to "discover" some new, difficult-to-mutate beneficial set of genes. It would also make the population better suited whenever the environment *does* change. If any species did have this trait, it would be more likely to survive and pass it on.
An interesting experiment would be to take the bacteria from the "random" phase and place them in different environments. I expect that the later populations would have a better chance of thriving in those environments, and if you pitted, say, Generation20001 against Generation35001, the latter would "win".
There are movies that do get the science right (Sunshine) but those were science-y movies
Bad example. Off the top of my head: - Guy gets frostbite from trip through the vacuum of space - Entire premise of restarting the sun with a nuclear explosion
Bit of a non sequitor here, but why all this talk of "waveforms collapsing", rather than assuming the particle had that particular spin the entire time, and you're only now seeing what it's been all along?
But I don't think we're going back. The best solution is to "watch the watchers", so anyone can go back and see who was viewing any particular cam at any particular time.
Absolutely nothing was shown here....except the correlation you suggest may be caused by lack of education. Or maybe it's not, and candy really does cause violence.
Perhaps this study showed that there is a need for further study? Knowing that there is a correlation is the first step to determining causation.
He might be referring to the fact that C# has been winning the language-feature war recently, and Java has been adding not-quite-as-good knockoff features (see generics).
1 side brain can't reason without the opposite side.
Americans are so dumb, educated stupid and evil, they have snot for brain.
Believers have snot brain. Educated have snot brain. God worship only needs a snot brain, but it takes Opposite Brain Analysis to know Harmonic Life.
Einstein was singularity stupid, and you are singularity stupid. "Born Cubic, THINK CUBIC", you rotate a 4 corner stage life. Singularity educated humans are not intelligent.
Slashdot Mirror
Okay, maybe not your views and values, but the statement was meant more generally.
Right, and the victim *is* to blame, in that he or she is capable of correcting the situation, but does not.
It doesn't let the abuser off the hook, but to say that there's nothing the victim could do is being disingenuous.
People don't like blaming the victim in real life because it's an asshole thing to do - the victim has already been through enough, and the lion's share of the blame does not belong to them. But I've got nothing against blaming the victim in metaphor.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure "nothing wrong" is what the GP was going for with the phrase Is the man faultless? Absolutely NOT!
Chicken?
You might want to look up the word "via".
Civilizations rise and fall based upon shoes.
Cattle are one of the most successful species on the planet
That really depends on your definition of success. I'll grant you that they're waaayy the hell up their in terms of population, but they've also had generations of natural evolutionary pressures removed from them, in favour of the evolutionary fitnesses we impose on them (tastier, bigger, producing more milk).
If we decide to go with the whole meat-vat thing, that decision to throw in with the humans might not look so smart.
How many good models were scrapped because the cooked data made them give obviously bogus results? How much good new data was discarded because it didn't match with the "approved" data.
I don't know. How many? How much?
I'm sorry, but it's not clear at all that what I mean by "memory" is not the same as what you mean by "memory".
The state of the die after it lands *does* affect its future, as it will be picked up in a different manner, and consequently be thrown again in a different manner. The die retains a "memory" of all of its past actions, in that if those past actions had happened differently, the die's current state would be different.
How is this any different from a human memory, which is simply state information (admittedly, a lot more state information) that has come about from the entire history of that human (and before)?
That's ridiculous, dice have memory too. They have a memory of their position and velocity at the moment they were released, a memory of the air resistance, and a memory of how they bounced across a table. All of these memories (past states) inform their current state, which in turn determines their future state, and eventually which side will face up when they come to a rest.
All good points, and each one worthy of its own investigations. For now, though, our knowledge of what factors are involved in gene expression are murky at best.
I can state definitely my opinion on this particular case though - if a gene therapy is available that removes the genes he's blaming, and it can be shown to work, then I support a reduced sentence. My personal main concern with the justice system is rehabilitation and prevention, not revenge. If alternate treatments (chemical, environmental, or otherwise) are available that would work specifically for him, because of how his genes affect his aggression, I'd probably support those too, judged on a case-by-case basis.
And I'm perfectly aware of the can of worms that would be opened with this. If genes can be linked to behaviours, and then tweaked to manipulate those behaviours, we're effectively poking around at the machine-code level of the gigantically-complex system that our entire civilization has emerged from. I have no qualms about applying the technology in this one isolated incident. In the greater picture, my mind swims at what a society with rampant (especially cosmetic) gene therapy might look like.
Is personal responsibility compatible with atheism?
Maybe not. That's not just an atheistic question though - it goes right to the basis of free will.
However, we can accept for the sake of argument that we're all just clockwork beings with no more control of our destiny than a computer program. My programming is telling me that if I am going to continue to achieve my primary objectives (shorthanded as "life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness"), then dangers to those primary objects (including violent criminals) must be neutralized. This guy's genes may be an excuse, and an explanation for his actions. However, that certainly doesn't make him any less dangerous.
The only way I'd want him to get less time on the basis of his "aggressive genes" is if he were to undergo a chemical or genetic treatment that reduces the effects of those genes.
I don't know if I'd characterize the results that way. The way I read it was that there was some clear low-hanging genetic fruit that was taken advantage of early on. After that, the bacteria hit a wall - it looks like there was no (easy) way for them to better adapt to the environment.
In the first step, it wasn't that "almost all of these mutations were beneficial", but "almost all surviving mutations were beneficial" - bacteria with neutral mutations were outbred by the ones with beneficial mutations.
Once the entire population had optimized to the environment, then neutral mutations were no longer outbred by beneficial ones.
In addition, I'd not be surprised to find out that this is an innate trait of most species - in a stable population, mutations become more random. It would increase the chances for the population as a whole to "discover" some new, difficult-to-mutate beneficial set of genes. It would also make the population better suited whenever the environment *does* change. If any species did have this trait, it would be more likely to survive and pass it on.
An interesting experiment would be to take the bacteria from the "random" phase and place them in different environments. I expect that the later populations would have a better chance of thriving in those environments, and if you pitted, say, Generation20001 against Generation35001, the latter would "win".
No, water boils when pressure decreases even when temperature remains constant.
(okay, in actuality, it does both, but in a vacuum, with a warm human body nearby, we're talking boilage)
No.
That's copyright.
Copyright = right to copy artistic material
Trademark = a unique "mark" to brand yourself
Patent = an exclusive right to sell an invention
There are separate laws covering all of these fields. Your method might work to establish prior art, but it's definitely no patent.
There are movies that do get the science right (Sunshine) but those were science-y movies
Bad example. Off the top of my head:
- Guy gets frostbite from trip through the vacuum of space
- Entire premise of restarting the sun with a nuclear explosion
That said, they tried a lot harder than most SF.
You are saying we should not like Star Trek because the Federation's economic system is a "socialist utopia".
Don't underestimate the power that socialist propaganda can have over a society.
Proof: You didn't have terrorists flying planes into 100-story buildings before Star Trek first aired.
Bit of a non sequitor here, but why all this talk of "waveforms collapsing", rather than assuming the particle had that particular spin the entire time, and you're only now seeing what it's been all along?
Everyone. If the original feeds are public record, the access records should be as well.
I agree.
But I don't think we're going back. The best solution is to "watch the watchers", so anyone can go back and see who was viewing any particular cam at any particular time.
Absolutely nothing was shown here. ...except the correlation you suggest may be caused by lack of education. Or maybe it's not, and candy really does cause violence.
Perhaps this study showed that there is a need for further study? Knowing that there is a correlation is the first step to determining causation.
So with fusion, what we are proposing to do is bottle God. I find that idea strangely compelling.
That, my friend, will be appearing in my yearly top-ten quotable quotes. ...or would, if such a thing existed.
He might be referring to the fact that C# has been winning the language-feature war recently, and Java has been adding not-quite-as-good knockoff features (see generics).
How much is 3 years of missing 16 hours/day of your kids lives worth, versus 20 years of missing 8 hours/day?
1 side brain can't reason without the opposite side.
Americans are so dumb, educated stupid and evil, they have snot for brain.
Believers have snot brain. Educated have snot brain. God worship only needs a snot brain, but it takes Opposite Brain Analysis to know Harmonic Life.
Einstein was singularity stupid, and you are singularity stupid. "Born Cubic, THINK CUBIC", you rotate a 4 corner stage life. Singularity educated humans are not intelligent.