I didn't mean the last sentence in any serious way, or even as a direct comparison of relative strength. Looking at the position of both camps from the outside, they both represent "fringe" views, and both sides are VERY vocally held by a minority. Both sides suffer some pretty public credibility problems as well.
I admit, it was a bad choice in wording, and a pretty charged statement.
I admit, "scientific consensus" is a pretty dumb idea for judging the truth value of empirical claim. But there really isn't any way of judging scientific claim to a decent level of certainty, outside of waiting very long periods of time, and weighing huge amounts of evidence. AGW is unique in the fact that is (if true) an immediate problem, thus science doesn't have a chance to really work itself out as it generally does.
No society or politician really cares about whether or whether not they find the Higgs boson, or if we really ever really figure out dark matter or quantum gravity. AGW on the other hand...
What other method do we lay people, politicians, and societies, have right now?
This part of the issue is actually a bit more interesting to me, as a student of the philosophy of science, than the actual outcome.
But, if AGW is true and we do nothing, then the consequences would be worse than if AGW is wrong and we do something.
Ignoring AGW, most of the solutions for global warming are also good things on their own, even without the added kick of preventing hypothetical warming.
I personally am on the fence about AGW, though I do see evidence for global warming itself. I just am not sure if humans can be attributed to it. But I am fully in favor of limiting our impact, developing sustainable, weaning ourselves off of fossil fuels, and generally being good stewards of our environment. If this causes the CEO of Exxon-Mobile to cry, sobeit. We have a greater obligation to our planet, and future generations than we do to keeping some rich buggers rich.
Solutions to AGW are good, even if AGW turns out to be wrong.
I would rather have done something than nothing. When dealing with consiquences as grand as those of AGW (if true), then I'd rather opt for the "better safe than sorry" solution. It is, in my opinion, too much to gamble.
Your ideas don't lead to a useful heuristic for us non-scientists to judge scientific statements. The most obvious solution contained in your statement is that we should quickly believe anyone who is on the fringe or a "maverick". This, obviously, is dumb. 99% of the time the fringe elements are wrong, or crazy. Only in the rare "paradigm changing" cases do they prevail, and eventually become well-accepted theories.
The current state of climate science doesn't really have the marks of a Kuhnian revolution. Neither side of the debate are really threatening the currently established scientific paradigm. Note the use of the term "scientific", politics and civil policy has nothing to do with this, at least this aspect. Both sides are using currently accepted models and knowledge to come to conclusion, so regardless of the conclusion the current system stands.
This is just a case of science getting hopelessly tanged in politics and money interests, nothing more.
Basically, the AGW crowd is using data A, and method B.1 to reach conclusion X, whereas the deniers are using data A and method B.2 to reach the conclusion ~X. Nothing terribly revolutionary from a scientific standpoint.
If there wasn't politics and billions of dollars at stake (not to mention fighting against the always entrenched status-quo) this would be a very boring scientific debate like any other, and eventually the opponents would melt into the wood work, unless they managed to dig up some truly spectacular data that proves without a doubt ~X.
This happened in the case you pointed out, Wegener fought like a bastard, and eventually his evidence (not him, his actually data and logic) swayed the majority of geologists.
Back on topic, it is far more useful to judge from the majority of scientists, since they generally are more correct than the fringe most of the time. Just because some people agree with, or find it useful to agree with, the fringe in this case doesn't really change the heuristic.
In this case, as in all like cases, the overwhelming burden of proof is on the minority. They really need to develop a definitive and persuasive (to scientists, us lay people don't matter one bit, nor do out hopes, dreams, and political motivations) data backed argument that contradicts the prevalent theory.
On purely scientific terms, the AGW deniers are in the same boat as young earth creationists.
The OP didn't have any deep ontic insights into the true working of the universe. HE just posted a snarky comment. Hardly worthy of the capital "T".
I'm guessing your using the modern definition of the term "truth", meaning "something that conforms to my beliefs", which is more akin to the term "faith" than the classical meaning of any definition of "truth".
Nope. Only something call Adblock, which has no affiliation with the actual Adblock on Firefox. Also, Adblock on Chrome doesn't actually BLOCK ads, it only hides them, meaning it still downloads them, and runs any scripts attached to them.
Chrome is based on Chromium, Chromium is open source, meaning the code is available to anyone who wants it. So why hasn't anyone massed around with Chromium to kludge together a true ad blocker, which may (or may not) be portable to Google's flavor, Chrome?
There really should be a thrid-party ad-blocker for Chromium by now, or at least some decent documentation on the web on why there isn't, or why it isn't possible. Google doesn't seem to give any evidence, outside of the fact that most users can't tell the difference between Firefox's "true" ad-blocking, and Chrome/Chromium's ad-hiding.
Chrome has 6% of the browser market, about the same as Firefox had a couple years ago. I am guessing the Chrome's user base is mostly geeks. When Firefox was at around 6% there was plenty of people playing with it and making neat extensions. Why isn't this the story with Chrome?
I know that Chrome/Chromium's API doesn't really allow ad-blocking, but it seems odd that someone hasn't found a way around this hurdle yet.
I am an Arizonan, and I am in favor of the new law. That stated, I agree with many of your points. I generally agree with a VERY strict illegal immigration (note the word "illegal") policy, even though some of our leaders are pushing for it for the wrong reasons (racism and xenophobia). I still feel that these laws are a better alternative to what we have now, i.e. nothing.
I am open to better solutions. Better feasible solutions, that is. Hell, if we actually enforced our employer sanction law this new law probably wouldn't be necessary.
Another problem I have with the criticism of this law form people not from the Southwest, is that they really have no clue what it is like here. Phoenix is almost like a Balkan state, with large enclaves of Mexican immigrants (legal and not) who exist autonomously from the rest of the city. Large parts of my city are like Mexican annexes, with no common language, culture, or, increasingly, currency with the rest of the country. Mexico, currently, is a VERY bad place, and by not having any border protection we're importing all of their social, and legal, problems. Arizona is the kidnap capitol of the U.S., because of our wanton importation of Mexican crime. Our hospital and public health systems are being financially crushed due to the burden of non-citizens using their services for free.
Also, for years businesses used illegal immigration to cut down on costs, break unions, and generally force Americans (with their expectations of a higher standard of living) out of the work-force. Our economy has suffered. It is almost impossible to make a living wage as a blue collar laborer now, because you can't complete with the horde of illegal, under-paid, labor.
In the Southwest illegal immigration is a major social problem. Doing nothing isn't really an option.
Watching the pro-illegal-immigration rallies on television is enlightening. Most of the protesters who had flags, carried not the American Flag, but the Mexican flag. There is something fundamentally bizarre about this. Most of our Mexican immigrants would classify themselves as Mexican, and not aspiring Americans. This is somewhat distasteful to me.
I have nothing against most Mexicans, as a matter of fact I grew up in a predominately hispanic neighborhood. Around 60% of my friends have ancestors from Mexico. I am not racist, and I have nothing against Mexicans. But to ignore the fact that the massive tide of illegal immigration causes huge problems is a bit niave.
Yes, this law can open profiling, though the text of it isn't about Mexicans, it is about all illegals. Here, though, the problem is mainly (99%) Mexican, and not Canadian or European.
We'll probably never get rid of ALL of our nukes. I'm a peace-nik hippy, commie, pinko, whatnot, and I even have a problem with completely disarming. In a mythical utopia where everyone else loses their nukes, I would be fully in favor of complete and total disarmament, but this is a naive fantasy. As it stands we do need some of our nuclear capability to keep the peace.
But... Do we need as many nukes as we have now? If we cut our stockpile in half we still have enough nukes to deter attack. There is no reason to have as many as we do now. We're not fighting a super-power like the USSR where deterrence was a quantity game. Having enough firepower to slaughter an enemy 1000 times over is rather silly, when having enough to kill them a mere 500 times is just as sufficient.
Cutting the arsenal is generally a good thing. Remember, this is also cutting their arsenal too, and their arsenal is much less secure than ours. The less nukes they have, the less likely they are to end up in someone more dangerous' hands.
As for your "schizoid defense" theory, I find it somewhat silly. Eschewing violence, and actions that can end in violence leads to less chance of violence. No no chance in violence, but it lessens it. Think with some common sense, if you hang out with violent people your odds of being a victim are higher, if you do actions that are violent, or might coax someone to violence, your odds of being a victim are higher than if you tried to be peaceful and level headed.
When you act violently, or posture as such, at someone, you greatly increase the chances of violence towards you.
Why do you think iPhone buyers were so upset when the price of the phone dropped from $600 to $400 [macnn.com]? Because more people could afford to join the fashionista club.
Lowering the in-group bar might be why some people were angry, but I really doubt it was the main motivation for the anger. Even in the article you linked it states that people were pissed because they thought Apple was gouging the loyalists with an artificially high initial price, then lowering it to hook in the normal customers. This is a valid concern, and a valid reason for some indigence.
Another possible driving factor that is stronger than your reason, is normal anger of a price drop immediately after you bought an item. If I bought a widget for $1000 then a week later, with no warning, the widget went down to $500, I would be rather pissed myself. If I had know, I would have waited the extra week and got it at the reduced price. This, too, is a valid source of anger.
I'm sure some Apple snob-types got pissed because their exclusive club got a bit less exclusive, but I doubt it was a main factor in the anger, it probably wasn't even a massive contributor to it.
My favorite question of that type was;
"Would you rather sit a desk answering phones, or draw pictures"
I answered the latter because I thought no one would ever honestly answer the former, I thought it was a check for honesty, and not a check for being willing to lie for money.
And I just find it absolutely retarded when people try and spout politically correct moral equivalency crap about how because a handful of abortion doctors were murdered and Christianity waged religious wars a thousand years ago it's just as bad.
I agree with this. Though I think many people pull the "oh yeah, Christians did bad things too" card to highlight the fact that Christians aren't innately special, to keep some Christians from becoming too big for their britches.
Obviously there isn't much equivalence between 9/11 (for example) and killing an abortion doctor, outside of the obvious element of zealotry and murder for mere subjective ideals. One is clearly worse than the other, but both are still heinous and inexcusable. People bring up the connection to show that Christian are still capable of being evil, so they shouldn't be too quick to judge (or be, pardon the expression,be holier than thou).
All groups should realize that the tendency to evil isn't hidden that deep, and just because you apply a certain label to yourself, you are not inoculated against senseless violence and intolerance.
That said, a majority of Muslims are not violent, and a majority of Christians frown upon killing abortion doctors. As is always the case, the vocal, and violent, minority is over-represented in our awareness. There still is a sizable Muslim population endorsing peace, and the majority of them (like the majority of all large cultural groups) are too busy trying to survive and support their families to care much.
...it starts out smooth and then gradually gets slower and sloooower until you fork out another $300 for another GFX card and/or CPU/mainboard combo.
Keeping my PC somewhat updated (not cutting edge, by any stretch) costs me around the price of a console every 3-4 years. Most PC games can be run at decent quality with 3+ year old hardware now. The age of companies pushing the "extremes" (Mostly ID, though Crytek got their play too) is pretty much dead. Most PC games are console ports now, meaning you can run them on any hardware that isn't much newer than that in the current generation of consoles.
I actually haven't found a game I can't run at near max settings with my old, $100, ATI 4650.
Basically the WHOLE of the middle ages were all about conquest. Name one religion, ethnicity, or culture, that wasn't trying their damnest to expand and squeeze out all other religions, ethnicities, and cultures at the time.
The Muslim's, though, were on the whole more tolerant than the Christians at the time, though. Yes, being conquered sucks, but afterwards they would often let the conquered people coexist within their cities (albeit as second class citizens), where most of the Christian groups adopted more of a scorched earth policy towards diversity. Hell, the Christians, at that time, wouldn't even tolerate other Christian groups to live among them, for the most part.
Yes, they were being asshats, but they at least were highly educated, philosophical, somewhat tolerant asshats, surrounded by a sea of far greater, ignorant, xenophobic asshats.
Every religion has been responsible for something heinous, and at some point of time was nothing more than aggressive barbarians. Even Buddhism managed to collect a couple atrocities. You can take this either as a statement about the nature of religion, or a statement about human nature.
I find these religious pissing contests to be humorous though. Every religion, culture, or group is capable of equally great atrocities. No religion is really safe from a potential mob-mentality taking over. Every religion has "peace" written somewhere in their scriptures, and every religion has a group of followers who decided to ignore, or reinterpret, that bit.
I find this more a function of time and culture, than of the nature of the religion itself. If circumstances were right, the Christians could easily decent back into violent ignorance again, and the Muslims back into a scholarly faith.
Are you forgetting WWII, the Rape of Nanjing, the Emperor Shinto Cult, Pearl Harbor, etc...? The Japanese definitely had their growing pains, and definitely acted out violently to their neighbors.
I don't agree with the OPs theory, but you probably picked one of the worst examples against it that is possible.
Actually when Christians were running around burning old women and jews in Europe, the Muslims were being scholars, and living in harmony with their Jewish and Christian neighbors. Much of our modern science came from the Muslims, and they basically kept most of the Greek wisdom alive (the stuff the Christians didn't burn) while Christian Europe was a completely illiterate, ignorant hole. the Christians only emerged from it thanks to Muslim trade bringing an influx of lost knowledge and art to Europe.
Its kind of funny, actually, both religions changed places rather recently, in roughly the last 400 years. Much of the Muslim Middle East is exactly where Christian Europe was before the largely Muslim spawned Enlightenment. I wouldn't be surprised if in another 400 years (if indeed there still is much life in the Big 3 monotheisms) they switched places yet again. In modern America you can see the potential seeds for Christians plunging back down the deep hole to ignorance and supreme intolerance.
Personally I see American-style Christianity dying off. Most of Europe is Christian in name only, most of South America is Catholic. The US might be the last of the non-Catholic Christian nations. I don't find this a tragedy.
Why? I insult Christ, the Buddha, and any other deity you want to throw at me. And often I don't do this to be mean, but to illustrate how silly their followers are. I've even known a Catholic priest who would sit around making fun of the Church all day, and telling pretty damn good Jesus jokes ("what is Jesus' number one fear?... Beavers.")
The second you take your self seriously, you deserve all the ridicule in the world.
Not quite true. I just upgraded a crappy MacMini, changing out it Core Duo 1.8Ghz, for a Core 2 Duo 2.6Ghz chip. It was a pain in the butt, and required creative use of paint scrapers, and the avoidance of cheap peices of flying plastic (holding the heat sink to the socket), but it was doable in the matter of 15 minutes or so. The biggest pain was actually finding a chip for the socket, laptop chips are expensive and relatively hard to find. It also made me realize that Phoenix no longer really has decent Mom&Pop PC stores. You used to be able to upgrade older iMacs too (before the Intel switch). As for MacBooks, I'm guessing they are made to be as disposable as my HP laptop, or any other laptop in the world.
I was in the same boat when I upgraded. All I really wanted, or could afford, was the processor and the mobo. I had my list down to a PhenomII x4 (955 Black), or an i7. The AMD setup cost around $650, where the Intel set-up would have been around a grand to replace all my RAM (8Gb) on top of the CPU and mobo. I personally didn't see any reason to switch to DDR3, even if I could stomach the cost, I've never noticed a problem with DDR2.
The i7 was drool worthy, but it wasn't that much better than the Phenom II, I'm not going to pay $400 for an almost unnoticeable performance boost.
But then again I generally find that the bleeding edge is nothing but an utter waste of money. If $100 can get you 95% of the way, is the extra 5% really worth another $100 on top? Perhaps if I was still young, and somehow thought that having the top specs at the time was somehow directly connected to my virility.
Though, to be honest, I hardly notice the difference between the Phenom II x4 3.2Ghz and the Intel Core 2 Duo 2.8Ghz chip it replaced.
Nope. Eventually the big corporations will learn to stop fighting and learn how to cope with "new" technology. If not, then I won't mourn their death. These big corporations elicit zero sympathy from me, they served their purpose, crapped on it, and now are outmoded by technology. Boohoo. Publishing should now be a game with only two players, the artists and the consumers. If your business model requires endless litigation, lawyers, and acts of congress to survive, you are fighting against the inevitable. If your business model requires stomping on the rights of your customers, then you should just die.
As long as there is culture, there will be producers of arts and music, whether or whether not they get to sign to mega-corps, and whether or whether not they are granted eternal protection of a mere idea. Hell, even if every single man, woman, and child in the entire world stopped buying music, music would not die. Musicians (as a whole, discounting the very very large ones) might even benefit from the death of the publishing industry.
I, as a citizen, have no obligation to help you make money. And your profit margin is far less important than my rights.
Currently I have nothing against much of what is considered piracy, it is to a large degree a victim-less crime. Me downloading the full works of Elvis doesn't hurt a single person, nor could Elvis ever benefit from my purchase, so I have a hard time seeing a moral or ethical component behind the restriction from doing so.
You wonder why stores no longer have displays outside on the sidewalk? It is because people would just take stuff, just like they have found they can just take stuff on the Internet. I guess this is the "new business model" that people keep talking about.
Odd, many stores around here still have signs on the sidewalk. The main reason the practice is dwindling is because small business has largely been replaced by giant, mindless, corporations.
If I could walk into a grocery store and make a perfect molecule for molecule copy of a carrot, I would do it without a second thought. The store keeps their carrot, and I get a carrot, seems win win to me.
Your comment and your sig are somewhat contradictory.
Only on the surface. My idea of a country is much greater than any limited set of political ideals. And defense means much more than the threat of violence.
America is a Republic, which operates on democratic principles. A republic is a "representative democracy", quoting Wikipedia quoting James Madison.
Not recommended, and probably not effective. I don't understand the recent rise of violent rhetoric. We are still far from the place where violence will solve anything, or is even necessary. Arizona has voted for bone-heads for a long long time, Arizonans voted for the bone-heads who caused all of our current problems, thus Arizonans pretty much chose this state of affairs, even if I find it repugnant.
Maybe (doubtfully) Arizonans will wake up and stop voting for bone-heads now. Somehow I doubt it.
I'm actually kind of repulsed by how anti-Democratic America is becoming. Just because people voted against your agenda is not call to violence, it is just the system working.
Believe me, if I staged a violent coup, you probably wouldn't like the socialist-wonder-state I'd implement, either, no more than I would love the tea-party folks libertarian wonder-state. Both extremes are alienated, this is probably a good thing.
Clearly, the problem is where the money goes, not lack of it. In fact, it could be argued that too much money is the problem. We ought to support any measure which keeps money out of the hands of the power elite, because common sense tells us that at the very least, they have way, way too much of it.
I'm not a libertarian, nor conservative, I actually am a lefty bordering on socialist, and I somewhat agree with your statement. I live in Arizona, a state that recently decided to close down most of their parks and rest-stops, and gutted their already second worst in the US education system, for lack of money. The state is making less money than it has in years previous, but it still is making more money than it did a long time ago when it had parks, education, and police. This state has always been known for its shitty services, even in good tax years. So it makes me wonder where the hell all this money goes?
And now their are basically blackmailing voters by saying "vote for a 1% sales tax, or we'll take away your cops, firefighters, and universities".
I'm all for the government collecting taxes and putting it into programs that benefit the people, but this doesn't happen. The government collects money and it somehow disappears.
I'd be in favor of very high taxes if our government wasn't run by clowns, and the money actually benefited the public. I don't think most US political fiefdoms are there yet.
yes because everyone on slashdot never broke the law ONCE. We are all corrupt. Just at different levels of the scale.
Breaking the law != corrupt.
Corrupt is working against the people's best interests for some benefit of some 3rd party who is your benefactor. On that level I can safely state that most of Slashdot is not corrupt, because most of us are poor, unwashed, plebes whose only true power is choosing between Coke and Pepsi.
Most of/. might possibly be corrupt if somehow power fell into our laps, but lacking power there is no real opportunity to be corrupt.
Also, breaking the law doesn't always imply a bad thing, since legality doesn't imply morality.
Slashdot Mirror
I do!
I didn't mean the last sentence in any serious way, or even as a direct comparison of relative strength. Looking at the position of both camps from the outside, they both represent "fringe" views, and both sides are VERY vocally held by a minority. Both sides suffer some pretty public credibility problems as well.
I admit, it was a bad choice in wording, and a pretty charged statement.
I admit, "scientific consensus" is a pretty dumb idea for judging the truth value of empirical claim. But there really isn't any way of judging scientific claim to a decent level of certainty, outside of waiting very long periods of time, and weighing huge amounts of evidence. AGW is unique in the fact that is (if true) an immediate problem, thus science doesn't have a chance to really work itself out as it generally does.
No society or politician really cares about whether or whether not they find the Higgs boson, or if we really ever really figure out dark matter or quantum gravity. AGW on the other hand...
What other method do we lay people, politicians, and societies, have right now?
This part of the issue is actually a bit more interesting to me, as a student of the philosophy of science, than the actual outcome.
But, if AGW is true and we do nothing, then the consequences would be worse than if AGW is wrong and we do something.
Ignoring AGW, most of the solutions for global warming are also good things on their own, even without the added kick of preventing hypothetical warming.
I personally am on the fence about AGW, though I do see evidence for global warming itself. I just am not sure if humans can be attributed to it. But I am fully in favor of limiting our impact, developing sustainable, weaning ourselves off of fossil fuels, and generally being good stewards of our environment. If this causes the CEO of Exxon-Mobile to cry, sobeit. We have a greater obligation to our planet, and future generations than we do to keeping some rich buggers rich.
Solutions to AGW are good, even if AGW turns out to be wrong.
I would rather have done something than nothing. When dealing with consiquences as grand as those of AGW (if true), then I'd rather opt for the "better safe than sorry" solution. It is, in my opinion, too much to gamble.
Your ideas don't lead to a useful heuristic for us non-scientists to judge scientific statements. The most obvious solution contained in your statement is that we should quickly believe anyone who is on the fringe or a "maverick". This, obviously, is dumb. 99% of the time the fringe elements are wrong, or crazy. Only in the rare "paradigm changing" cases do they prevail, and eventually become well-accepted theories.
The current state of climate science doesn't really have the marks of a Kuhnian revolution. Neither side of the debate are really threatening the currently established scientific paradigm. Note the use of the term "scientific", politics and civil policy has nothing to do with this, at least this aspect. Both sides are using currently accepted models and knowledge to come to conclusion, so regardless of the conclusion the current system stands.
This is just a case of science getting hopelessly tanged in politics and money interests, nothing more.
Basically, the AGW crowd is using data A, and method B.1 to reach conclusion X, whereas the deniers are using data A and method B.2 to reach the conclusion ~X. Nothing terribly revolutionary from a scientific standpoint.
If there wasn't politics and billions of dollars at stake (not to mention fighting against the always entrenched status-quo) this would be a very boring scientific debate like any other, and eventually the opponents would melt into the wood work, unless they managed to dig up some truly spectacular data that proves without a doubt ~X.
This happened in the case you pointed out, Wegener fought like a bastard, and eventually his evidence (not him, his actually data and logic) swayed the majority of geologists.
Back on topic, it is far more useful to judge from the majority of scientists, since they generally are more correct than the fringe most of the time. Just because some people agree with, or find it useful to agree with, the fringe in this case doesn't really change the heuristic.
In this case, as in all like cases, the overwhelming burden of proof is on the minority. They really need to develop a definitive and persuasive (to scientists, us lay people don't matter one bit, nor do out hopes, dreams, and political motivations) data backed argument that contradicts the prevalent theory.
On purely scientific terms, the AGW deniers are in the same boat as young earth creationists.
Why the hell did you capitalize "truth"?
The OP didn't have any deep ontic insights into the true working of the universe. HE just posted a snarky comment. Hardly worthy of the capital "T".
I'm guessing your using the modern definition of the term "truth", meaning "something that conforms to my beliefs", which is more akin to the term "faith" than the classical meaning of any definition of "truth".
Nope. Only something call Adblock, which has no affiliation with the actual Adblock on Firefox. Also, Adblock on Chrome doesn't actually BLOCK ads, it only hides them, meaning it still downloads them, and runs any scripts attached to them.
Quick question aimed at no one in particular:
Chrome is based on Chromium, Chromium is open source, meaning the code is available to anyone who wants it. So why hasn't anyone massed around with Chromium to kludge together a true ad blocker, which may (or may not) be portable to Google's flavor, Chrome?
There really should be a thrid-party ad-blocker for Chromium by now, or at least some decent documentation on the web on why there isn't, or why it isn't possible. Google doesn't seem to give any evidence, outside of the fact that most users can't tell the difference between Firefox's "true" ad-blocking, and Chrome/Chromium's ad-hiding.
Chrome has 6% of the browser market, about the same as Firefox had a couple years ago. I am guessing the Chrome's user base is mostly geeks. When Firefox was at around 6% there was plenty of people playing with it and making neat extensions. Why isn't this the story with Chrome?
I know that Chrome/Chromium's API doesn't really allow ad-blocking, but it seems odd that someone hasn't found a way around this hurdle yet.
I am an Arizonan, and I am in favor of the new law. That stated, I agree with many of your points. I generally agree with a VERY strict illegal immigration (note the word "illegal") policy, even though some of our leaders are pushing for it for the wrong reasons (racism and xenophobia). I still feel that these laws are a better alternative to what we have now, i.e. nothing.
I am open to better solutions. Better feasible solutions, that is. Hell, if we actually enforced our employer sanction law this new law probably wouldn't be necessary.
Another problem I have with the criticism of this law form people not from the Southwest, is that they really have no clue what it is like here. Phoenix is almost like a Balkan state, with large enclaves of Mexican immigrants (legal and not) who exist autonomously from the rest of the city. Large parts of my city are like Mexican annexes, with no common language, culture, or, increasingly, currency with the rest of the country. Mexico, currently, is a VERY bad place, and by not having any border protection we're importing all of their social, and legal, problems. Arizona is the kidnap capitol of the U.S., because of our wanton importation of Mexican crime. Our hospital and public health systems are being financially crushed due to the burden of non-citizens using their services for free.
Also, for years businesses used illegal immigration to cut down on costs, break unions, and generally force Americans (with their expectations of a higher standard of living) out of the work-force. Our economy has suffered. It is almost impossible to make a living wage as a blue collar laborer now, because you can't complete with the horde of illegal, under-paid, labor.
In the Southwest illegal immigration is a major social problem. Doing nothing isn't really an option.
Watching the pro-illegal-immigration rallies on television is enlightening. Most of the protesters who had flags, carried not the American Flag, but the Mexican flag. There is something fundamentally bizarre about this. Most of our Mexican immigrants would classify themselves as Mexican, and not aspiring Americans. This is somewhat distasteful to me.
I have nothing against most Mexicans, as a matter of fact I grew up in a predominately hispanic neighborhood. Around 60% of my friends have ancestors from Mexico. I am not racist, and I have nothing against Mexicans. But to ignore the fact that the massive tide of illegal immigration causes huge problems is a bit niave.
Yes, this law can open profiling, though the text of it isn't about Mexicans, it is about all illegals. Here, though, the problem is mainly (99%) Mexican, and not Canadian or European.
We'll probably never get rid of ALL of our nukes. I'm a peace-nik hippy, commie, pinko, whatnot, and I even have a problem with completely disarming. In a mythical utopia where everyone else loses their nukes, I would be fully in favor of complete and total disarmament, but this is a naive fantasy. As it stands we do need some of our nuclear capability to keep the peace.
But... Do we need as many nukes as we have now? If we cut our stockpile in half we still have enough nukes to deter attack. There is no reason to have as many as we do now. We're not fighting a super-power like the USSR where deterrence was a quantity game. Having enough firepower to slaughter an enemy 1000 times over is rather silly, when having enough to kill them a mere 500 times is just as sufficient.
Cutting the arsenal is generally a good thing. Remember, this is also cutting their arsenal too, and their arsenal is much less secure than ours. The less nukes they have, the less likely they are to end up in someone more dangerous' hands.
As for your "schizoid defense" theory, I find it somewhat silly. Eschewing violence, and actions that can end in violence leads to less chance of violence. No no chance in violence, but it lessens it. Think with some common sense, if you hang out with violent people your odds of being a victim are higher, if you do actions that are violent, or might coax someone to violence, your odds of being a victim are higher than if you tried to be peaceful and level headed.
When you act violently, or posture as such, at someone, you greatly increase the chances of violence towards you.
Why do you think iPhone buyers were so upset when the price of the phone dropped from $600 to $400 [macnn.com]? Because more people could afford to join the fashionista club.
Lowering the in-group bar might be why some people were angry, but I really doubt it was the main motivation for the anger. Even in the article you linked it states that people were pissed because they thought Apple was gouging the loyalists with an artificially high initial price, then lowering it to hook in the normal customers. This is a valid concern, and a valid reason for some indigence.
Another possible driving factor that is stronger than your reason, is normal anger of a price drop immediately after you bought an item. If I bought a widget for $1000 then a week later, with no warning, the widget went down to $500, I would be rather pissed myself. If I had know, I would have waited the extra week and got it at the reduced price. This, too, is a valid source of anger.
I'm sure some Apple snob-types got pissed because their exclusive club got a bit less exclusive, but I doubt it was a main factor in the anger, it probably wasn't even a massive contributor to it.
My favorite question of that type was;
"Would you rather sit a desk answering phones, or draw pictures"
I answered the latter because I thought no one would ever honestly answer the former, I thought it was a check for honesty, and not a check for being willing to lie for money.
And I just find it absolutely retarded when people try and spout politically correct moral equivalency crap about how because a handful of abortion doctors were murdered and Christianity waged religious wars a thousand years ago it's just as bad.
I agree with this. Though I think many people pull the "oh yeah, Christians did bad things too" card to highlight the fact that Christians aren't innately special, to keep some Christians from becoming too big for their britches.
Obviously there isn't much equivalence between 9/11 (for example) and killing an abortion doctor, outside of the obvious element of zealotry and murder for mere subjective ideals. One is clearly worse than the other, but both are still heinous and inexcusable. People bring up the connection to show that Christian are still capable of being evil, so they shouldn't be too quick to judge (or be, pardon the expression,be holier than thou).
All groups should realize that the tendency to evil isn't hidden that deep, and just because you apply a certain label to yourself, you are not inoculated against senseless violence and intolerance.
That said, a majority of Muslims are not violent, and a majority of Christians frown upon killing abortion doctors. As is always the case, the vocal, and violent, minority is over-represented in our awareness. There still is a sizable Muslim population endorsing peace, and the majority of them (like the majority of all large cultural groups) are too busy trying to survive and support their families to care much.
...it starts out smooth and then gradually gets slower and sloooower until you fork out another $300 for another GFX card and/or CPU/mainboard combo.
Keeping my PC somewhat updated (not cutting edge, by any stretch) costs me around the price of a console every 3-4 years. Most PC games can be run at decent quality with 3+ year old hardware now. The age of companies pushing the "extremes" (Mostly ID, though Crytek got their play too) is pretty much dead. Most PC games are console ports now, meaning you can run them on any hardware that isn't much newer than that in the current generation of consoles.
I actually haven't found a game I can't run at near max settings with my old, $100, ATI 4650.
Basically the WHOLE of the middle ages were all about conquest. Name one religion, ethnicity, or culture, that wasn't trying their damnest to expand and squeeze out all other religions, ethnicities, and cultures at the time.
The Muslim's, though, were on the whole more tolerant than the Christians at the time, though. Yes, being conquered sucks, but afterwards they would often let the conquered people coexist within their cities (albeit as second class citizens), where most of the Christian groups adopted more of a scorched earth policy towards diversity. Hell, the Christians, at that time, wouldn't even tolerate other Christian groups to live among them, for the most part.
Yes, they were being asshats, but they at least were highly educated, philosophical, somewhat tolerant asshats, surrounded by a sea of far greater, ignorant, xenophobic asshats.
Every religion has been responsible for something heinous, and at some point of time was nothing more than aggressive barbarians. Even Buddhism managed to collect a couple atrocities. You can take this either as a statement about the nature of religion, or a statement about human nature.
I find these religious pissing contests to be humorous though. Every religion, culture, or group is capable of equally great atrocities. No religion is really safe from a potential mob-mentality taking over. Every religion has "peace" written somewhere in their scriptures, and every religion has a group of followers who decided to ignore, or reinterpret, that bit.
I find this more a function of time and culture, than of the nature of the religion itself. If circumstances were right, the Christians could easily decent back into violent ignorance again, and the Muslims back into a scholarly faith.
Are you forgetting WWII, the Rape of Nanjing, the Emperor Shinto Cult, Pearl Harbor, etc...? The Japanese definitely had their growing pains, and definitely acted out violently to their neighbors.
I don't agree with the OPs theory, but you probably picked one of the worst examples against it that is possible.
Actually when Christians were running around burning old women and jews in Europe, the Muslims were being scholars, and living in harmony with their Jewish and Christian neighbors. Much of our modern science came from the Muslims, and they basically kept most of the Greek wisdom alive (the stuff the Christians didn't burn) while Christian Europe was a completely illiterate, ignorant hole. the Christians only emerged from it thanks to Muslim trade bringing an influx of lost knowledge and art to Europe.
Its kind of funny, actually, both religions changed places rather recently, in roughly the last 400 years. Much of the Muslim Middle East is exactly where Christian Europe was before the largely Muslim spawned Enlightenment. I wouldn't be surprised if in another 400 years (if indeed there still is much life in the Big 3 monotheisms) they switched places yet again. In modern America you can see the potential seeds for Christians plunging back down the deep hole to ignorance and supreme intolerance.
Personally I see American-style Christianity dying off. Most of Europe is Christian in name only, most of South America is Catholic. The US might be the last of the non-Catholic Christian nations. I don't find this a tragedy.
Why? I insult Christ, the Buddha, and any other deity you want to throw at me. And often I don't do this to be mean, but to illustrate how silly their followers are. I've even known a Catholic priest who would sit around making fun of the Church all day, and telling pretty damn good Jesus jokes ("what is Jesus' number one fear? ... Beavers.")
The second you take your self seriously, you deserve all the ridicule in the world.
Actually its more modern Christianity is based on Catholicism thanks to that Martin Luther guy.
Jesus probably wouldn't recognize or endorse pretty much anything that sells itself as Christianity these days.
Not quite true. I just upgraded a crappy MacMini, changing out it Core Duo 1.8Ghz, for a Core 2 Duo 2.6Ghz chip. It was a pain in the butt, and required creative use of paint scrapers, and the avoidance of cheap peices of flying plastic (holding the heat sink to the socket), but it was doable in the matter of 15 minutes or so. The biggest pain was actually finding a chip for the socket, laptop chips are expensive and relatively hard to find. It also made me realize that Phoenix no longer really has decent Mom&Pop PC stores. You used to be able to upgrade older iMacs too (before the Intel switch). As for MacBooks, I'm guessing they are made to be as disposable as my HP laptop, or any other laptop in the world.
I was in the same boat when I upgraded. All I really wanted, or could afford, was the processor and the mobo. I had my list down to a PhenomII x4 (955 Black), or an i7. The AMD setup cost around $650, where the Intel set-up would have been around a grand to replace all my RAM (8Gb) on top of the CPU and mobo. I personally didn't see any reason to switch to DDR3, even if I could stomach the cost, I've never noticed a problem with DDR2.
The i7 was drool worthy, but it wasn't that much better than the Phenom II, I'm not going to pay $400 for an almost unnoticeable performance boost.
But then again I generally find that the bleeding edge is nothing but an utter waste of money. If $100 can get you 95% of the way, is the extra 5% really worth another $100 on top? Perhaps if I was still young, and somehow thought that having the top specs at the time was somehow directly connected to my virility.
Though, to be honest, I hardly notice the difference between the Phenom II x4 3.2Ghz and the Intel Core 2 Duo 2.8Ghz chip it replaced.
Do you really think things can continue this way?
Nope. Eventually the big corporations will learn to stop fighting and learn how to cope with "new" technology. If not, then I won't mourn their death. These big corporations elicit zero sympathy from me, they served their purpose, crapped on it, and now are outmoded by technology. Boohoo. Publishing should now be a game with only two players, the artists and the consumers. If your business model requires endless litigation, lawyers, and acts of congress to survive, you are fighting against the inevitable. If your business model requires stomping on the rights of your customers, then you should just die.
As long as there is culture, there will be producers of arts and music, whether or whether not they get to sign to mega-corps, and whether or whether not they are granted eternal protection of a mere idea. Hell, even if every single man, woman, and child in the entire world stopped buying music, music would not die. Musicians (as a whole, discounting the very very large ones) might even benefit from the death of the publishing industry.
I, as a citizen, have no obligation to help you make money. And your profit margin is far less important than my rights.
Currently I have nothing against much of what is considered piracy, it is to a large degree a victim-less crime. Me downloading the full works of Elvis doesn't hurt a single person, nor could Elvis ever benefit from my purchase, so I have a hard time seeing a moral or ethical component behind the restriction from doing so.
You wonder why stores no longer have displays outside on the sidewalk? It is because people would just take stuff, just like they have found they can just take stuff on the Internet. I guess this is the "new business model" that people keep talking about.
Odd, many stores around here still have signs on the sidewalk. The main reason the practice is dwindling is because small business has largely been replaced by giant, mindless, corporations.
If I could walk into a grocery store and make a perfect molecule for molecule copy of a carrot, I would do it without a second thought. The store keeps their carrot, and I get a carrot, seems win win to me.
Your comment and your sig are somewhat contradictory.
Only on the surface. My idea of a country is much greater than any limited set of political ideals. And defense means much more than the threat of violence.
America is a Republic, which operates on democratic principles. A republic is a "representative democracy", quoting Wikipedia quoting James Madison.
Not recommended, and probably not effective. I don't understand the recent rise of violent rhetoric. We are still far from the place where violence will solve anything, or is even necessary. Arizona has voted for bone-heads for a long long time, Arizonans voted for the bone-heads who caused all of our current problems, thus Arizonans pretty much chose this state of affairs, even if I find it repugnant.
Maybe (doubtfully) Arizonans will wake up and stop voting for bone-heads now. Somehow I doubt it.
I'm actually kind of repulsed by how anti-Democratic America is becoming. Just because people voted against your agenda is not call to violence, it is just the system working.
Believe me, if I staged a violent coup, you probably wouldn't like the socialist-wonder-state I'd implement, either, no more than I would love the tea-party folks libertarian wonder-state. Both extremes are alienated, this is probably a good thing.
Clearly, the problem is where the money goes, not lack of it. In fact, it could be argued that too much money is the problem. We ought to support any measure which keeps money out of the hands of the power elite, because common sense tells us that at the very least, they have way, way too much of it.
I'm not a libertarian, nor conservative, I actually am a lefty bordering on socialist, and I somewhat agree with your statement. I live in Arizona, a state that recently decided to close down most of their parks and rest-stops, and gutted their already second worst in the US education system, for lack of money. The state is making less money than it has in years previous, but it still is making more money than it did a long time ago when it had parks, education, and police. This state has always been known for its shitty services, even in good tax years. So it makes me wonder where the hell all this money goes?
And now their are basically blackmailing voters by saying "vote for a 1% sales tax, or we'll take away your cops, firefighters, and universities".
I'm all for the government collecting taxes and putting it into programs that benefit the people, but this doesn't happen. The government collects money and it somehow disappears.
I'd be in favor of very high taxes if our government wasn't run by clowns, and the money actually benefited the public. I don't think most US political fiefdoms are there yet.
yes because everyone on slashdot never broke the law ONCE. We are all corrupt. Just at different levels of the scale.
Breaking the law != corrupt.
Corrupt is working against the people's best interests for some benefit of some 3rd party who is your benefactor. On that level I can safely state that most of Slashdot is not corrupt, because most of us are poor, unwashed, plebes whose only true power is choosing between Coke and Pepsi.
Most of /. might possibly be corrupt if somehow power fell into our laps, but lacking power there is no real opportunity to be corrupt.
Also, breaking the law doesn't always imply a bad thing, since legality doesn't imply morality.