and more importantly aware of the more general issues of self determination and freedom over your own body.
Read the rest of this thread, a large portion of people here think that self-determination and self-freedom are bad things.
Most people will accept freedom as a good thing, but only as long as it applies only to them. Other people need to be controlled, since they are too stupid to make their own choices.
This seems to be the common theme in modern America. We all like Democracy, until the other guy wins. We all like freedom, until someone does something we don't like.
I am in favor of the government banning all vices. Alcohol is a major problem, and probably kills more people each year than smoking (drunk driving, domestic abuse, and heath concerns directly related to it, such as liver failure and diabetes), and thus should be completely banned. While second hand smoke may be bad, drunk drivers are far worse.
Unprotected sex for reasons other than procreation should also be banned. It causes the spread of disease, and a financial burden on those who were unprepared for the consequences.
I'm in favor of strengthening the "War on Drugs", since the illegal drug trade kills thousands each year. All drugs should be banned, since their health, and social, consequences far out way the cost and social consequences of banning them.
I'm in favor of banning pornograhy. I'm in favor of music with violent themes. I'm in favor of banning anything that disparages any minority group. I'm in favor of the government telling me that I must wear a seatbelt. I'm in favor of the government banning swimming, since there is a increased risk of drowning. I'm in favor of the government being able to ban, or incarcerate anyone who doesn't act within what I define as "their own good". etc...
I will accept a "War on Tobacco", only if you accept reinstating prohibition, and the Government cracking down of people who use cell phones while driving, and raising the bar on who to allow behind the wheel in the first place.
I'm in favor of the government being a police state, but only as long as this police state is within line of my ideological views.
But if the Bible IS even in part divinely inspired, then it says one guy's words trump all the rest, Period.
Wouldn't it matter what part is divinely inspired? What if the only divinely inspired part of the Bible is, say, "The Song of Solomon", or "Ecclesiastes"? If the only bits that show some divine hand are the brutal bits with God endorsing genocide, then I'd say it takes away from anything else in the bible, since who would want to worship such a deity. Or are the divinely inspired bits the bits where God admits to polytheism? ("thou shall hold no Gods over me" seems a VERY weak statement of monotheism).
...many who claim to be christian advocate authoritarianism,
Sounds a lot like the "No True Scotsman" fallacy to me. Christianity is defined by its followers, and only by its tenets in how its followers take them up.
Its like saying the Judeo-Christian religions are peaceful because one of the Ten Commandments says "thou shall not murder". Or saying politicians are inherently honest because all of them claim to be truthful.
In the weeks right before 9/11 the media had an absolute glut of shark attack stories. It completely dominated the news. Right after this (actually, interrupting it) 9/11 happened.
Immediately before the London bombings the media started running tons of stories about shark attacks. I told my friends "Sharks are dominating the media, there will be a terrorist attack", sure enough, there was a terrorist attack the next day.
Does this mean that sharks are linked to terrorism? Probably not, but if you go into the news archives for the time immediately before 9/11 and the London bombings, you will find that my story is correct.
Another example, I somewhat "predicted" (in the same vein you "predicted" 9/11) the bombing in Oklahoma City, same thing for Columbine. I did predicted "something terrible" happening in both cases within a day. The answer to this is that something bad ALWAYS happens on April 19th/20th, and I always say that something bad will happen right before these days. Kooks get a little kookier on Hitler's birthday, and by events that were caused by Hitler's birthday (even if oblivious to the Hitler aspect that was the genesis of the event they responding to). Everything nasty on those days are because of Ruby Ridge and Hitler. Am I psychic, or did I pick up on a trend?
You might be correct in your assumptions, but probably you are not. Memory is mostly wishful thinking, and not an accurate portrayal of past events, your actual memory of your predictions could have been flavored by your present circumstances.
To somewhat paraphrase Heidegger; The past informs the present and future, the present informs your future and past, and your (conception) of the future informs your present and past.
There also is a bit of something like selection bias here, lets say you dream of something roughly like the current events in your life (weighty ones, like deaths, career changes, etc...), and when this even comes to pass your brain tweaks the memory of these things to match current events, for the sake of general cohesion, or fit to your world view (which holds some sort of psychic component). In short, you believe in psychic events, therefore your mind will go out of its way to find (or construct) them.
Also, how many "precognitive" dreams have you had that did not come true, compared to the amount that apparently did? Are you paying as much attention to failures as perceived successes?
Unless of course you have an actual, accurate, written record of these dreams which came true, and have a large enough data set of proven predictions to surpass random chance. Then we're in a different ballgame.
Very novel answer to the problem, I don't think I've come across anything like it in my on-and-off readings along these lines.
It does serve to resolve some of the difficulties around the "evil" problem, but the whole presentience, and pre-destination thing still rears its ugly head. God must have known that Satan would present this challenge, and must know the results of it. He also would know where each of us mortals would fall within it.
This brings up one of the variations on the "evil problem" that I forgot; God made Satan, therefore God is responsible for the acts of Satan.
Though, now I'm moving on and just pondering things for the sake of pondering things, an interesting question is whether, or whether not, God can decide to STOP being prescient, and thus omnipotent, even temporarily. Wouldn't this undo the whole ontological argument? God wouldn't be, then, perfect, and thus would be free of one of the largest proofs of His existence.
I fear I moved into the whole "can God make a rock so big he can't move it" nonsense territory. I apologize.
I don't own any firearms. What could I do? I would like to own firearms but it is presently too much of a pain in the ass to get them legally. And further, to practice using them is also a pain in the ass. This is, of course, "by design."
By your own design perhaps. I come from a long line of lefties and liberals, and 90% of us own guns, and use them. Buying a gun isn't that difficult, if you don't mind a small amount of paperwork, less if go to a show, and none if you know people (or have guns floating around in your family). Practicing them is simple as well, membership in a range in rather cheap, and if you live out west, there are vast tracks of wilderness in which to pluck away at tin cans in (free, sans ammo, beer, and gas).
The only restrictions of gun ownership, in most of the US, is cost. Can you afford to buy a gun? If not, tough, the Constitution doesn't guarantee guns being cheap. Do you have a felony record? Tough, you gave up your right to bitch when you broke the social contract. None of those apply? Happy shooting.
To me a 12" screen says "cheap, entry level laptop", and not "netbook". Netbooks are small and underpowered, 12" is large and underpowered. Unless my old 12" iBook suddenly turned into a "netbook", and not just an entry level laptop.
Lastly the touch screen blows away Netbooks. I find your finger touching stuff on the screen to be way more efficient than a mouse.
Yes, a touchscreen is somewhat better than a mouse, though to be honest I'm not even fully conscious of using my mouse anymore so it can't matter too much. But I'd take a keyboard, even a small gimped one, over a touch screen any day. Yes, I know Apple will sell me a keyboard, but at a premium that will probably put this device into the full laptop price point.
Unless the meaning of god is changed beyond all normal range of definitions, no version of god has been shown to exist, so, whatever.
I define "God" to be the orange coffee cup sitting around 6" to my left. This coffee cup obviously exists. Therefore God exists.
But this becomes tricky when I move, or the said "god" moves. A whole field of "philosophy" will be born, millions will be made for publishers.
Therefore all shall bow before the almighty semantic post hoc hedge!
Philosophers can lick my balls, well, provided they are pretty red-heads, but you know what I mean.\
"A very little knowledge can be a very dangerous thing" is as true for philosophy as for any other discipline. I went to school for it, and noticed some phases. When you start, you are full of questions. A bit later you are full of answers. Later still you realize that you know absolutely nothing, and the chances for you knowing anything is pretty slim. After that point you change majors, drop out, or become an alcoholic and eventually end up teaching philosophy.
Yeah, the Buddhists listened to Buddha so well they didn't name their religion after him. Nobody buys your "it's a philosophy" bullshit any more than anyone buys fundie xtianity's "it's not a religion, it's a relationship with Jebus" bullshit.
Name a single core metaphysical tenet of Buddhism? You'll have a very hard time doing this outside of the relatively banal "suffering is.". The rest of Buddhism is relatively personal advice on how to live a better life. No where contained in Buddhism is anything attached to the creation of the universe, what happens when you die, or the dire consequences of eternal torment if you don't follow the Buddha's advice.
A lot of the rubbish people associate with Buddhism has nothing to do with Buddhism itself, but rather with various religions that adopted Buddhist philosophies. People mainly confuse the relgious aspects of Tibetan Buddhism with actual core Buddhism. Buddhism isn't really a religion, since it has nothing to say about religion. You can be a Buddhist Christian, even, since Buddha didn't touch on any metaphysical topics. He didn't endorse ANY religion.
Calling Buddhism a religion is like calling confusism a religion, or calling the various "self-motivational" programs religions. If I write a book of advice on how to live a better life, and you follow some of my advice, am I a prophet, or founding my own religion? If people, at some later date incorporate my friendly advice into their religion, do I suddenly become a religious figure?
I really like Kant's Categorical Imperative, and I try my best to live by it. Therefore Kant is a religious figure. Being that I call myself Kantian, therefore it is further proof that Kant was trying to form a religious group.
And if you want a better explanation for why bad things happen to 'good' people? Easy, everyone has sinned and deserves death. We deserve nothing, but do receive grace.
Which just moves the question out a couple steps, but does nothing to actually answer it. Why create a world where everyone sins, and why doom them for things that you can already see. God is omnipotent (okay, prescient), thus he knows if your going to be damned, so why create you to be damned? Yes, you can say "free will", but free will is incompatible with omnipotence. You can know the future perfectly, and still allow room for people to choose their own futures. Thus you are predestined to be damned, or saved at birth (actually from the creation of the universe). So god made people to suffer damnation. Thus suffering is still a huge problem.
And, to go more cliche, what about dying and suffering babies, who could not have possibly have sinned? The only answer to this is to invoke "original sin", which is a pretty silly concept when looked at objectively. So, your great great great (ad naseum) grandmother told your great great great (ad naseum) grandfather to eat some fruit, therefore you, and the rest of the species, are doomed to suffer unless you accept some guy who came a couple hundred millenia AFTER the fact as being special.
Either that or you can only be saved if your a Jew, and after some point they all get to go to hell, and only people who like some slob named John's marketing of some Jew named Jesus get to go to heaven. And then at some point they all get to go to hell, and only people who like Billy Graham and vote Republican get to go to heaven.
We did. The active ingredient of this brick wall is one broken brick lying somewhere in far eastern China at the moment. The wall you hit your head upon is the memory of it. Hurts, no?
A good example of homeopathic remedy to treat nausea and depressed appetite in chemotherapy patients and for relaxing optic muscles of glaucoma sufferers is good old fashioned marijuana
Perhaps, but the analogy only holds when you talk about the curative powers of a single puff of marijuana smoked by a guy a couple miles way from the person being cured.
I actually wouldn't be surprised if there were more molecules of THC floating around your average city, than there are molecules of active chemicals in your average homeopathic cure.
I'm most most males, period, like porn. You may be an outlier, but I doubt very much that you represent the norm. Men like porn because we like sex, we like sex because we evolved to like it as a trick to get us to continue the species. Men like porn while in monogamous relations because monogamy is not the default relationship status for our species, since we, like chimps, evolved to try to mate with as many women as humanly possible.
Even in modern America (reguardless of religious, or moral stance) monogamy is a merely a pleasant fiction. Around 60% of husbands will cheat on their wives, and our divorce rate is a very very high. Porn is a way to seek release while remaining faithful, and a non-harmful way of acting out fantasies. Porn is the safety valve for monogamy.
Also, it's nice to say that boys should not consume porn,
Why would anyone say that boys should not consume porn? They're learning, and their sexulization is inevitable, I would rather they seek release over an old Playboy (or whatnot) than knock up some girl....when there clearly is one
What problem? You, as a parent, may have a serious problem with it, but a lot of people don't.
Or, sweet Jesus, we can work on actually manufacturing our own crap again. Not that I think we ever would stoop that low. Yes, making our own crap would raise costs, but it also would create jobs which would mean more net money to buy crap. But then again someone would have to settle for mere millions (and the intangible of adding to the long term stability of the US) instead of billions and the joy of being able to play the fiddle while the US collapses into a third world nation.
I'm even more leery. I'm not entirely sure that the type of usage that their basing this on is common, or generalizable to other scenarios.
Anecdotally, I currently have 3 computers running Win7 in my household (and know of several others) and none of them have this problem with normal use. My main computer (Win7 Pro, AMD PhenomII x4 3.4ghz, 6GB RAM) runs around 20% utilization in normal operating conditions, and peaks around 60% for heavy use. I have managed to get above 90% but very rarely, and only while doing tasks that are intrinsically heavy on memory (having 12 images open in photoshop, playing with browsers in ways not intended).
This is probably not a common problem, but only relates to one usage scenario. Once again Slashdot's editors take a specific problem and try to blow it into a huge cloud of FUD.
The headline should be "In Application x, Windows 7 maxes out memory, according to person y's usage."
Add on top of that the "expansions" that will eventually be "required" if someone has all 3, EVERYONE has to have all 3, and you end up being nothing more than a wallet to Blizzard.
According to Blizzard; no. The first game will only contain one campaign, the human one I think, but will contain full multi-player, including all the units and races from the next two expansions. Thus, if you are only interested in multi-player you can completely ignore the two other campaigns.
I somewhat trust Blizzard on this issue for two reasons. the first is that Blizzard doesn't want to piss of the Korean Cult of Competitive Starcraft. The second is that I don't think that Blizzard has completely succumbed to Activision yet. Though I do worry about the rise of boneheaded "microtransactions", but so far they have kept them from conveying an advantage, or becoming necessary to compete.
As for the LAN issue... I really don't get the stink. How many multi-player PC games even have a LAN option for multi-player anymore? Really, how hard is it to just connect to a match making server, set up a private room, and play from there? Hell, everyone can still be in the same room. I think the whole (uh-oh, I'm gonna get a "troll" mod, oh dear!) LAN thing is nothing but a bunch of silly nostalgic niggling, the inclusion, or lack of LAN play does absolutely nothing to add to or hurt the quality of a game.
The lack of "spawn" copies does sort of piss me off though, but not nearly enough to preclude me from coughing up the cash for SCII, and allowing it to suck up a huge portion of my life. And like it.
that the borders should be open to everyone, as if 6 billion more people could fit here, etc.
Actually that bit of lunacy is extremely bipartisan. Liberals love it because of the human rights and cultural idealism aspects (borders are evil, illegal deserve the same chances we have, etc...). Conservatives love it because it keeps wages down, breaks unions, and reduces the costs of operation. and for both parties this issue is very important for wooing the all-important body of Hispanic voters ("screw the country, I want to stay in office at any cost")
For example, I live in Phoenix, Arizona, the center of the illegal immigration maelstrom. Our paper is a rather heavy handed Republican rag, and you can hardly read a single issue without stumbling upon a pro-illegal immigration piece, or an attack piece on our county sheriff for being against it.
Reading our liberal news magazine, "The New Times" one can often forget that it is a heavily liberal biased magazine and not the Republic. Every single story, in every single issue is lambasting people against immigration as racist, nazi, bastards, or attacking our sheriff for being against illegal immigration.
Both of these ignore the fact that most polls find that 65%+ of Arizonans are opposed to illegal immigration, and that in just about every election we pass propositions trying to restrict it.
Hell, look at John McCain, he's one of the most pro-illegal immigration people in national politics, even with his conservative pedigree.
I agree with you, with a caveat. I am a liberal (I don't think I'm stupid, though). I don't think that supporting/opposing vandalism is a divisive partisan political issue. Yes, there are members of the mostly liberal "art" crowd who think graffiti is the next big thing, but they hardly represent the whole spectrum of liberal views.
Actually I'm sick of the whole liberal vs. conservative thing.
I, for example, am a liberal against Obama's healthcare mess (and pretty much everything else he coughs up these days), I believe in fiscal responsibility, I have nothing against guns, etc... My best friend is a conservative who thinks the "tea bag" movement is a tragic joke, Sarah Palin is the worst thing to happen to politics in recent history, and thinks that some degree of socialized medicine in needed.
Thinks aren't black and white, and people aren't cartoons.
Can you really "deface" graffiti? Isn't graffiti just defacement (vandalism) itself, so how can one really deface it? If this Banksy person had permission from the property owners, then his piece isn't graffiti. If he didn't secure their permission, then he should be hunted down and thrown in jail.
Don't mean to sound overly troll-ish, but I'm getting sick of people glorifying graffiti.
Note that gunpal is the official payment processor of http://www.auctionarms.com/ [auctionarms.com] It's not some little fly-by-night company.
As a person who has never heard of "auctionarms.com" until this very moment, I don't understand how this precludes them from being a "fly-by-night" company. And even if working with this somewhat obscure website (at least I have never heard of it) gives it a patina of legitimacy, that still means nothing. Ebay is a VERY large and popular company, meaning (by your logic) Paypal is not a fly-by-night company, but Paypal still sucks and operates in the most ethically dubious of manners.
Sorry for being a bit confrontational. I've always viewed Paypal, and any other company that operates in the same niche as highly dubious. And just having the endorsement of the NRA doesn't cut it. I have nothing against the NRA, but they do, often, attract the lunatic fringe. The association itself, doesn't lend too much credibility.
Not even close. The iPad is overpriced for its extremely limited feature set. It doesn't do most of the things I want a computer to do, such as writing documents (no keyboard, don't want to carry accessories for an external keyboard), and browsing the internet (no Flash). It's tied to the terrible "app" micro-payment model.
Its also probably a bit too fragile for my liking. A laptop/netbook format has intrinsic protection for the most fragile component, the screen. I also don't like the idea of the touchscreen being the primary interface.
All of this, mind you, is a matter of preference. I'm not going to hop into any fan boy war. The iPad might be nice for some, but for me it doesn't quite meet the need for a cheap, simple, netbook.
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and more importantly aware of the more general issues of self determination and freedom over your own body.
Read the rest of this thread, a large portion of people here think that self-determination and self-freedom are bad things.
Most people will accept freedom as a good thing, but only as long as it applies only to them. Other people need to be controlled, since they are too stupid to make their own choices.
This seems to be the common theme in modern America. We all like Democracy, until the other guy wins. We all like freedom, until someone does something we don't like.
I am in favor of the government banning all vices. Alcohol is a major problem, and probably kills more people each year than smoking (drunk driving, domestic abuse, and heath concerns directly related to it, such as liver failure and diabetes), and thus should be completely banned. While second hand smoke may be bad, drunk drivers are far worse.
Unprotected sex for reasons other than procreation should also be banned. It causes the spread of disease, and a financial burden on those who were unprepared for the consequences.
I'm in favor of strengthening the "War on Drugs", since the illegal drug trade kills thousands each year. All drugs should be banned, since their health, and social, consequences far out way the cost and social consequences of banning them.
I'm in favor of banning pornograhy.
I'm in favor of music with violent themes.
I'm in favor of banning anything that disparages any minority group.
I'm in favor of the government telling me that I must wear a seatbelt.
I'm in favor of the government banning swimming, since there is a increased risk of drowning.
I'm in favor of the government being able to ban, or incarcerate anyone who doesn't act within what I define as "their own good".
etc...
I will accept a "War on Tobacco", only if you accept reinstating prohibition, and the Government cracking down of people who use cell phones while driving, and raising the bar on who to allow behind the wheel in the first place.
I'm in favor of the government being a police state, but only as long as this police state is within line of my ideological views.
But if the Bible IS even in part divinely inspired, then it says one guy's words trump all the rest, Period.
Wouldn't it matter what part is divinely inspired? What if the only divinely inspired part of the Bible is, say, "The Song of Solomon", or "Ecclesiastes"? If the only bits that show some divine hand are the brutal bits with God endorsing genocide, then I'd say it takes away from anything else in the bible, since who would want to worship such a deity. Or are the divinely inspired bits the bits where God admits to polytheism? ("thou shall hold no Gods over me" seems a VERY weak statement of monotheism).
...many who claim to be christian advocate authoritarianism,
Sounds a lot like the "No True Scotsman" fallacy to me. Christianity is defined by its followers, and only by its tenets in how its followers take them up.
Its like saying the Judeo-Christian religions are peaceful because one of the Ten Commandments says "thou shall not murder". Or saying politicians are inherently honest because all of them claim to be truthful.
In the weeks right before 9/11 the media had an absolute glut of shark attack stories. It completely dominated the news. Right after this (actually, interrupting it) 9/11 happened.
Immediately before the London bombings the media started running tons of stories about shark attacks. I told my friends "Sharks are dominating the media, there will be a terrorist attack", sure enough, there was a terrorist attack the next day.
Does this mean that sharks are linked to terrorism? Probably not, but if you go into the news archives for the time immediately before 9/11 and the London bombings, you will find that my story is correct.
Another example, I somewhat "predicted" (in the same vein you "predicted" 9/11) the bombing in Oklahoma City, same thing for Columbine. I did predicted "something terrible" happening in both cases within a day. The answer to this is that something bad ALWAYS happens on April 19th/20th, and I always say that something bad will happen right before these days. Kooks get a little kookier on Hitler's birthday, and by events that were caused by Hitler's birthday (even if oblivious to the Hitler aspect that was the genesis of the event they responding to). Everything nasty on those days are because of Ruby Ridge and Hitler. Am I psychic, or did I pick up on a trend?
You might be correct in your assumptions, but probably you are not. Memory is mostly wishful thinking, and not an accurate portrayal of past events, your actual memory of your predictions could have been flavored by your present circumstances.
To somewhat paraphrase Heidegger; The past informs the present and future, the present informs your future and past, and your (conception) of the future informs your present and past.
There also is a bit of something like selection bias here, lets say you dream of something roughly like the current events in your life (weighty ones, like deaths, career changes, etc...), and when this even comes to pass your brain tweaks the memory of these things to match current events, for the sake of general cohesion, or fit to your world view (which holds some sort of psychic component). In short, you believe in psychic events, therefore your mind will go out of its way to find (or construct) them.
Also, how many "precognitive" dreams have you had that did not come true, compared to the amount that apparently did? Are you paying as much attention to failures as perceived successes?
Unless of course you have an actual, accurate, written record of these dreams which came true, and have a large enough data set of proven predictions to surpass random chance. Then we're in a different ballgame.
Very novel answer to the problem, I don't think I've come across anything like it in my on-and-off readings along these lines.
It does serve to resolve some of the difficulties around the "evil" problem, but the whole presentience, and pre-destination thing still rears its ugly head. God must have known that Satan would present this challenge, and must know the results of it. He also would know where each of us mortals would fall within it.
This brings up one of the variations on the "evil problem" that I forgot; God made Satan, therefore God is responsible for the acts of Satan.
Though, now I'm moving on and just pondering things for the sake of pondering things, an interesting question is whether, or whether not, God can decide to STOP being prescient, and thus omnipotent, even temporarily. Wouldn't this undo the whole ontological argument? God wouldn't be, then, perfect, and thus would be free of one of the largest proofs of His existence.
I fear I moved into the whole "can God make a rock so big he can't move it" nonsense territory. I apologize.
I don't own any firearms. What could I do? I would like to own firearms but it is presently too much of a pain in the ass to get them legally. And further, to practice using them is also a pain in the ass. This is, of course, "by design."
By your own design perhaps. I come from a long line of lefties and liberals, and 90% of us own guns, and use them. Buying a gun isn't that difficult, if you don't mind a small amount of paperwork, less if go to a show, and none if you know people (or have guns floating around in your family). Practicing them is simple as well, membership in a range in rather cheap, and if you live out west, there are vast tracks of wilderness in which to pluck away at tin cans in (free, sans ammo, beer, and gas).
The only restrictions of gun ownership, in most of the US, is cost. Can you afford to buy a gun? If not, tough, the Constitution doesn't guarantee guns being cheap. Do you have a felony record? Tough, you gave up your right to bitch when you broke the social contract. None of those apply? Happy shooting.
My mini dell 12 was $500.
To me a 12" screen says "cheap, entry level laptop", and not "netbook". Netbooks are small and underpowered, 12" is large and underpowered. Unless my old 12" iBook suddenly turned into a "netbook", and not just an entry level laptop.
Lastly the touch screen blows away Netbooks. I find your finger touching stuff on the screen to be way more efficient than a mouse.
Yes, a touchscreen is somewhat better than a mouse, though to be honest I'm not even fully conscious of using my mouse anymore so it can't matter too much. But I'd take a keyboard, even a small gimped one, over a touch screen any day. Yes, I know Apple will sell me a keyboard, but at a premium that will probably put this device into the full laptop price point.
Unless the meaning of god is changed beyond all normal range of definitions, no version of god has been shown to exist, so, whatever.
I define "God" to be the orange coffee cup sitting around 6" to my left. This coffee cup obviously exists. Therefore God exists.
But this becomes tricky when I move, or the said "god" moves. A whole field of "philosophy" will be born, millions will be made for publishers.
Therefore all shall bow before the almighty semantic post hoc hedge!
Philosophers can lick my balls, well, provided they are pretty red-heads, but you know what I mean.\
"A very little knowledge can be a very dangerous thing" is as true for philosophy as for any other discipline. I went to school for it, and noticed some phases. When you start, you are full of questions. A bit later you are full of answers. Later still you realize that you know absolutely nothing, and the chances for you knowing anything is pretty slim. After that point you change majors, drop out, or become an alcoholic and eventually end up teaching philosophy.
Write now I am typing this using only my mind (with only a wee bit of assistance from my fingers).
If recommend trying a bit harder.
Agreed. Down with Organisms!
Yeah, the Buddhists listened to Buddha so well they didn't name their religion after him. Nobody buys your "it's a philosophy" bullshit any more than anyone buys fundie xtianity's "it's not a religion, it's a relationship with Jebus" bullshit.
Name a single core metaphysical tenet of Buddhism? You'll have a very hard time doing this outside of the relatively banal "suffering is.". The rest of Buddhism is relatively personal advice on how to live a better life. No where contained in Buddhism is anything attached to the creation of the universe, what happens when you die, or the dire consequences of eternal torment if you don't follow the Buddha's advice.
A lot of the rubbish people associate with Buddhism has nothing to do with Buddhism itself, but rather with various religions that adopted Buddhist philosophies. People mainly confuse the relgious aspects of Tibetan Buddhism with actual core Buddhism. Buddhism isn't really a religion, since it has nothing to say about religion. You can be a Buddhist Christian, even, since Buddha didn't touch on any metaphysical topics. He didn't endorse ANY religion.
Calling Buddhism a religion is like calling confusism a religion, or calling the various "self-motivational" programs religions. If I write a book of advice on how to live a better life, and you follow some of my advice, am I a prophet, or founding my own religion? If people, at some later date incorporate my friendly advice into their religion, do I suddenly become a religious figure?
I really like Kant's Categorical Imperative, and I try my best to live by it. Therefore Kant is a religious figure. Being that I call myself Kantian, therefore it is further proof that Kant was trying to form a religious group.
Just ask Mr. Jew, or Mr. Musli, or John H. Hindu.
And if you want a better explanation for why bad things happen to 'good' people? Easy, everyone has sinned and deserves death. We deserve nothing, but do receive grace.
Which just moves the question out a couple steps, but does nothing to actually answer it. Why create a world where everyone sins, and why doom them for things that you can already see. God is omnipotent (okay, prescient), thus he knows if your going to be damned, so why create you to be damned? Yes, you can say "free will", but free will is incompatible with omnipotence. You can know the future perfectly, and still allow room for people to choose their own futures. Thus you are predestined to be damned, or saved at birth (actually from the creation of the universe). So god made people to suffer damnation. Thus suffering is still a huge problem.
And, to go more cliche, what about dying and suffering babies, who could not have possibly have sinned? The only answer to this is to invoke "original sin", which is a pretty silly concept when looked at objectively. So, your great great great (ad naseum) grandmother told your great great great (ad naseum) grandfather to eat some fruit, therefore you, and the rest of the species, are doomed to suffer unless you accept some guy who came a couple hundred millenia AFTER the fact as being special.
Either that or you can only be saved if your a Jew, and after some point they all get to go to hell, and only people who like some slob named John's marketing of some Jew named Jesus get to go to heaven. And then at some point they all get to go to hell, and only people who like Billy Graham and vote Republican get to go to heaven.
Heaven is a very lonely place.
We did. The active ingredient of this brick wall is one broken brick lying somewhere in far eastern China at the moment. The wall you hit your head upon is the memory of it. Hurts, no?
A good example of homeopathic remedy to treat nausea and depressed appetite in chemotherapy patients and for relaxing optic muscles of glaucoma sufferers is good old fashioned marijuana
Perhaps, but the analogy only holds when you talk about the curative powers of a single puff of marijuana smoked by a guy a couple miles way from the person being cured.
I actually wouldn't be surprised if there were more molecules of THC floating around your average city, than there are molecules of active chemicals in your average homeopathic cure.
I'm most most males, period, like porn. You may be an outlier, but I doubt very much that you represent the norm. Men like porn because we like sex, we like sex because we evolved to like it as a trick to get us to continue the species. Men like porn while in monogamous relations because monogamy is not the default relationship status for our species, since we, like chimps, evolved to try to mate with as many women as humanly possible.
Even in modern America (reguardless of religious, or moral stance) monogamy is a merely a pleasant fiction. Around 60% of husbands will cheat on their wives, and our divorce rate is a very very high. Porn is a way to seek release while remaining faithful, and a non-harmful way of acting out fantasies. Porn is the safety valve for monogamy.
Also, it's nice to say that boys should not consume porn,
Why would anyone say that boys should not consume porn? They're learning, and their sexulization is inevitable, I would rather they seek release over an old Playboy (or whatnot) than knock up some girl. ...when there clearly is one
What problem? You, as a parent, may have a serious problem with it, but a lot of people don't.
Or, sweet Jesus, we can work on actually manufacturing our own crap again. Not that I think we ever would stoop that low. Yes, making our own crap would raise costs, but it also would create jobs which would mean more net money to buy crap. But then again someone would have to settle for mere millions (and the intangible of adding to the long term stability of the US) instead of billions and the joy of being able to play the fiddle while the US collapses into a third world nation.
I'm even more leery. I'm not entirely sure that the type of usage that their basing this on is common, or generalizable to other scenarios.
Anecdotally, I currently have 3 computers running Win7 in my household (and know of several others) and none of them have this problem with normal use. My main computer (Win7 Pro, AMD PhenomII x4 3.4ghz, 6GB RAM) runs around 20% utilization in normal operating conditions, and peaks around 60% for heavy use. I have managed to get above 90% but very rarely, and only while doing tasks that are intrinsically heavy on memory (having 12 images open in photoshop, playing with browsers in ways not intended).
This is probably not a common problem, but only relates to one usage scenario. Once again Slashdot's editors take a specific problem and try to blow it into a huge cloud of FUD.
The headline should be "In Application x, Windows 7 maxes out memory, according to person y's usage."
Add on top of that the "expansions" that will eventually be "required" if someone has all 3, EVERYONE has to have all 3, and you end up being nothing more than a wallet to Blizzard.
According to Blizzard; no. The first game will only contain one campaign, the human one I think, but will contain full multi-player, including all the units and races from the next two expansions. Thus, if you are only interested in multi-player you can completely ignore the two other campaigns.
I somewhat trust Blizzard on this issue for two reasons. the first is that Blizzard doesn't want to piss of the Korean Cult of Competitive Starcraft. The second is that I don't think that Blizzard has completely succumbed to Activision yet. Though I do worry about the rise of boneheaded "microtransactions", but so far they have kept them from conveying an advantage, or becoming necessary to compete.
As for the LAN issue... I really don't get the stink. How many multi-player PC games even have a LAN option for multi-player anymore? Really, how hard is it to just connect to a match making server, set up a private room, and play from there? Hell, everyone can still be in the same room. I think the whole (uh-oh, I'm gonna get a "troll" mod, oh dear!) LAN thing is nothing but a bunch of silly nostalgic niggling, the inclusion, or lack of LAN play does absolutely nothing to add to or hurt the quality of a game.
The lack of "spawn" copies does sort of piss me off though, but not nearly enough to preclude me from coughing up the cash for SCII, and allowing it to suck up a huge portion of my life. And like it.
that the borders should be open to everyone, as if 6 billion more people could fit here, etc.
Actually that bit of lunacy is extremely bipartisan. Liberals love it because of the human rights and cultural idealism aspects (borders are evil, illegal deserve the same chances we have, etc...). Conservatives love it because it keeps wages down, breaks unions, and reduces the costs of operation. and for both parties this issue is very important for wooing the all-important body of Hispanic voters ("screw the country, I want to stay in office at any cost")
For example, I live in Phoenix, Arizona, the center of the illegal immigration maelstrom. Our paper is a rather heavy handed Republican rag, and you can hardly read a single issue without stumbling upon a pro-illegal immigration piece, or an attack piece on our county sheriff for being against it.
Reading our liberal news magazine, "The New Times" one can often forget that it is a heavily liberal biased magazine and not the Republic. Every single story, in every single issue is lambasting people against immigration as racist, nazi, bastards, or attacking our sheriff for being against illegal immigration.
Both of these ignore the fact that most polls find that 65%+ of Arizonans are opposed to illegal immigration, and that in just about every election we pass propositions trying to restrict it.
Hell, look at John McCain, he's one of the most pro-illegal immigration people in national politics, even with his conservative pedigree.
I agree with you, with a caveat. I am a liberal (I don't think I'm stupid, though). I don't think that supporting/opposing vandalism is a divisive partisan political issue. Yes, there are members of the mostly liberal "art" crowd who think graffiti is the next big thing, but they hardly represent the whole spectrum of liberal views.
Actually I'm sick of the whole liberal vs. conservative thing.
I, for example, am a liberal against Obama's healthcare mess (and pretty much everything else he coughs up these days), I believe in fiscal responsibility, I have nothing against guns, etc... My best friend is a conservative who thinks the "tea bag" movement is a tragic joke, Sarah Palin is the worst thing to happen to politics in recent history, and thinks that some degree of socialized medicine in needed.
Thinks aren't black and white, and people aren't cartoons.
Can you really "deface" graffiti? Isn't graffiti just defacement (vandalism) itself, so how can one really deface it? If this Banksy person had permission from the property owners, then his piece isn't graffiti. If he didn't secure their permission, then he should be hunted down and thrown in jail.
Don't mean to sound overly troll-ish, but I'm getting sick of people glorifying graffiti.
Note that gunpal is the official payment processor of http://www.auctionarms.com/ [auctionarms.com] It's not some little fly-by-night company.
As a person who has never heard of "auctionarms.com" until this very moment, I don't understand how this precludes them from being a "fly-by-night" company. And even if working with this somewhat obscure website (at least I have never heard of it) gives it a patina of legitimacy, that still means nothing. Ebay is a VERY large and popular company, meaning (by your logic) Paypal is not a fly-by-night company, but Paypal still sucks and operates in the most ethically dubious of manners.
Sorry for being a bit confrontational. I've always viewed Paypal, and any other company that operates in the same niche as highly dubious. And just having the endorsement of the NRA doesn't cut it. I have nothing against the NRA, but they do, often, attract the lunatic fringe. The association itself, doesn't lend too much credibility.
Not even close. The iPad is overpriced for its extremely limited feature set. It doesn't do most of the things I want a computer to do, such as writing documents (no keyboard, don't want to carry accessories for an external keyboard), and browsing the internet (no Flash). It's tied to the terrible "app" micro-payment model.
Its also probably a bit too fragile for my liking. A laptop/netbook format has intrinsic protection for the most fragile component, the screen. I also don't like the idea of the touchscreen being the primary interface.
All of this, mind you, is a matter of preference. I'm not going to hop into any fan boy war. The iPad might be nice for some, but for me it doesn't quite meet the need for a cheap, simple, netbook.