I actually think its a decent idea, and I will probably go scurry off and buy a ChromeOS netbook (or Tablet!) when they come available. It seems that the netbook market has lost touch with the idea that made it attractive (to me at least), that of very small, light, simple portable computers. Instead they are now somewhat cheap, underpowered, laptops for people not willing to spend a lot on full laptops.
To me the ideal netbook would be the one that has the least bloat, is the smallest (10.1" is too big, and 9" seems to gone the way of the dodo), lightest, and uses the least possible amount of power and storage. Ideally, it would fit in a cargo pocket of my pants, have a battery that lasts 6+ hours, and be light enough to not pull down the previously mentioned pants without a belt on. It would not run some complex OS with tons of features (Windows) by default, saving me the work of having to stick Ubuntu on it, which isn't optimal either (being another hideously complex OS).
My ideal netbook won't have a full, memory and resource heavy, office suite. Google Docs is perfect.
I have a rather powerful PC for the heavy lifting. I have a rather midling old laptop for running around doing weighty tasks on the road (okay, gaming), I'd rather a netbook didn't try to fill these roles. I'd rather it be a cheap, light, energy efficient, simple device that I can take with me to work (or coffee) for light web browsing, and lighter still work.
In short, I want the simplest "information appliance" possible. ChromeOS seems wells suited to this.
Yes, my opinion isn't universal. Yes, other people want other things. But, also, I'm sure I'm not alone in this.
You're really look at it from the perspective of people surrounding the person on life support. Making it easier on everyone else, under the guise of being for the PVS person. This is clear from your lack of sympathy for those that may have been wrongly diagnosed. I understand being selfish, its natural, which is why I'd rather be kept alive. I'm selfish and want every opportunity I can possibly get to resolve the issue some way other than my death, even if its hard on my family.
Putting myself in the shoes of a person in a PVS, I would prefer death, both for my own good, and for that of my family. I could turn your sentiment around and say that I am disturbed by your complete disregard (and lack of empathy) for your family in such a case. To me that also smells like selfishness.
Yes, having some quality time to just sit (lay) and think sounds very nice, until your realize that this quality time will stretch onwards for years and years. Years and years with absolutely stimulus, no interaction with your loved ones, completely under the control of others. You can't even say "enough" when you finally realize just how isolated you actually are, and the huge psychological and financial burden your inflicting on your family.
Remember, you can't eat or drink. And just because your being fed nutrients via IV, your still hungry, your still thirsty. Think of the bed sores, the catheters, the itches you can't scratch, etc...
Also think of the real psychology of humans, while we all want peace and quiet, there is a limit to that. Without meaningful interactions we slowly go insane. People actually need to interact with people. Without this we drift further and further into psychosis and depression. This can happen in as little as a couple months. Now picture this going on for years and years.
Meanwhile your family is going broke, and suffering from psychological anguish. They can never move on, since your inert body is a constant reminder of their loss. Yes, loss, its not like your really there, are you? Unless your family gets the same amount of comfort from your fMRI pictures as they do from your actual presence (if this is the case it doesn't reflect to well on your social skills).
I reiterate, I feel more sympathy for the families and those who can't flee from this living hell, than I do for those who were shown mercy and put out of their misery.
If I was in a permanent vegetative state I would love it if someone disconnected me, especially if I was conscious. Being awake in what is essentially a dead body sounds like a small slice of hell to me.
While it may not have saved Terri I'm pretty sure it will save some others.
Save them from what? A life where they are completely dependent on machines to keep them alive (being nothing more than a burden to their families), a life where they can't communicate or do any of the things that they love? I have a hard time picturing anyone who being forced to be in this state would find this saved. Hell, even if your religious or personal views accept the "alive at any cost" value, you can't change your mind and tell them to shut down the machines.
I feel no sympathy for the people in a permanent vegative state who lost their lives before the advent of this technology, I feel more sorry for the ones who didn't.
Yes, living wills, and informing your loved ones to remove you from life support in such cases are very important. But as the Schivo case proved, it doesn't really matter when religious politics become involved. Your living will is only as valid as the willingness of your relatives to honor it.
Especially given the high risk of flying in the past decade...
Compared to what? Flying is still one of the lowest risk forms of transportation, and one of the safest activities that we regularly participate in. Flying is still much safer than, say, driving a car, especially if we only count your risk of dying of terrorism, and no the normal (and exponentially more common) pilot or mechanical error.
Your odds are still better for being killed by lightening, than being killed by a terrorist.
Yes, we need protection, but we need protection in a degree that matches the actual level of threat. Many people think that this crosses that line. Looking at my grandmother naked doesn't really do much to reduce the actual level of threat, though it might make a few people feel safe, and make the government look like it is trying to keep us all safe, protected babes.
Over-react much? No one can sanely claim that there are no terrorists. The point people are trying to make (with varying degrees of success) is that the terrorist threat is much smaller than we believe, and our counter measures are much harsher than warranted by the actual level of threat. The parents Simpson's "tiger proof rock" analogy was illustrating that our security measures largely exist to make us feel safe, over actually making us safer. This is fine, until the cost of maintaining the illusion of safety becomes to high, and individual rights suffer.
Yes, this scanning thing does improve security by a marginal level, but is that increase worth the costs? Car accidents kill more people than terrorism over just about any time frame. Tigers also (well attacks by animals) probably also kill more people than terrorism. Terrorism is a minor threat, in the grand scheme of things. Yes, we should be protected, by only proportional to the level of actual threat.
Remember, this scanning technology wouldn't have even stopped the 9/11 hijackers (who merely used pointy things to cause a large level of destruction and terror). Terrorists are not idiots, they are aware of the technology and techniques we use to stop them, and are capable of finding ways to circumvent our best efforts. They always will have this ability, being human and just as smart as we are. In the long run we hurt ourselves more than we hinder terrorists.
This is what worries people.
I personally would rather live in a land with a marginal threat of terrorist attack, and a maximal amount of freedom, than one with maximal safety and a minimum of freedom.
If these scanners were universally deployed, and all travelers forced to use them, I would be curious at the actual increase in safety we would enjoy. At the cost of every traveler being, in essence, sti strip p searched under the presumption of guilt. I have a feeling it would be marginal at best, at a very high cost to civil liberties.
Shakespeare... if he was sitting one of these courses, he'd probably fail by the same criteria
Doubtful, since Shakespeare actually knew the language, and could use it. He used slang and nonproper words for literary effect, and not because he didn't know any better. These students don't actually know English, Shakespeare did, the comparison is false.
And don't forget, a lot of the time they are talking (screaming) about things that really have no business being aired in public.
About once a month I get to overhear a fat person screaming about their sex life (and sometimes, better... their VDs) into their little phones. Most of the time they give me dirty looks when I stare at them, as if their conversation is private,
The other 90% of cell-calls are generally "I'm bored, I'm going to talk" types of conversations, where people scream exceedingly banal snippets of their boring lives at other people in the grim hopes that someone cares. "So, I went to the store... aaaand.... bought cheese.... aaaaand... bread... aaaand... the casheir was rude.... aaaaand... the tabloid said that Brad Pitt is cheating on Angie.... aaaand.... now I'm on the bus.... aaaannd.... I think Billy gave me ghonorea..."
What a great way illustrate that anything following that statement is well reasoned, eloquent, and worthy of a great deal of attention. Your language skills awe me, truly.
their are plenty of states with laws on the books that if a mere majority of people in a workplace want to form a union, everybody else either joins up or quits.
This must make unions (or "UNIONS" to follow the GPs scheme) ubiquitous and almost impossible to avoid. With membership at an all time low of 13% (or 7% the statistics vary), I can see how hard it would be to avoid working for a unionized company. Also, with the precipitous decline in union workplaces, I can understand how hard it is to avoid working in a place that suddenly unionizes, against your will.
Unions are truly a great, and growing, threat against workers and there beneficent employers.
Wait... Looking at Canada, I don't see your argument to be correct. Canada is not a country with a static ruling class or great aristocracy, which you state would be inevitable if a country adopted rules such as Canada's. Being that Canada has there rules, and Canada is nothing like you state it should be, I think your theory is off.
Actually Canada's political system looks a bit healthier than the US's, so that might be a bit contrary to your grand theory.
The problem with astronomical sums of money being necessary to play in politics is that it kills the voice and chances of the little guy, you know the person who actually shares some common experience with the other 90% of us. It also guarantees that any elected official we have will have to be in the pocket of some wealthy donor, which generally isn't conductive to a healthy democracy. What we have now is basically a government run by obvious, open faced, bribery.
Why not get a non-UNION JOB then? Contrary to popular belief, no one is forcing you to join a UNION. Yes, often UNION JOBS have better pay and benefits, and yes UNIONs sometimes are dominant in some fields (though there still are non-UNION choices, albeit more marginal), but you still have the choice. If you don't like the UNION, quit. Period.
I'm running Chromium on my Ubuntu box, and Chrome on my Windows box, and I honestly can't tell the difference between them, outside of the fact that Chrome phones home. Also Iron is pretty much a 1:1 Chromium port without the Google nonsense. So you CAN make a port of Chrome/ium, and no ones parents care. Webkit is a bit different, you can port Webkit to your hearts desire, but if you copy Safari's look and feel, your doomed.
I buy an album full of music, the album belongs to me, I bought it (at least I never signed or agreed a license), so I can share it? I bought a DRM free mp3, I own it (at least I never signed or agreed a license), so I can share it? I bought a book, or ebook, the book or ebook belongs to me (at least I never signed or agreed a license), can I share it?
That the problem is a lack of spanking seems like a false attribution. The data backs me up on that one.
I actually haven't seen this conclusive data you speak of. Last time I read an article on it, it did say that spanking was actually effective for conditioning if used sparingly and properly. Used moderately it has no ill, long term, effects, though the caveat is that it is easy to abuse, so not recommended.
I haven't seen, again, any data saying that mild, and infrequent, corporal punishment leads to long term problems. If you know of any reputable studies that contradict this, please pass the links along.
The theory that kids are not facing quite enough of the consequences of their actions might not be a false attribution.
I don't know how you would quantify this for a valid study, to be completely honest. Though I can argue that telling every kid "your bad behavior is beyond your control, take meds to be a better person" is deferring a huge amount of responsibility for ones actions. There are also studies stating that sheltering children DO lead to long term negative effects.
Unlike some of the brainiacs in this thread, I know that blurting out some wild-eyed half-political theory about "kids these days", declaring it to be the true answer, is actually pretty stupid, so I will be happy to wait for the data to come in.
Please go re-read my previous comment; I just said that there is something wrong, and this might be cause to re-evaluate some "proven" wisdom. A lot of the "science" behind juvenile education and child rearing is science is the same flavor of science as behind fad diets, or cosmetic fads. I'm not stating that "spare the rod; spoil the child" is an ideology we should resurrect, nor am I stating that we should allow our children to lie bloody in ditches.
... Humans Rights are a Universal Truth, they come from our human nature, our instincts and the way our brains are wired, and China is a country that is committing gross violations towards it's own Citizens
Go back to those philosophy classes/books, you forgot the bit about evidence and questioning your assumptions. Human rights are not a universal truth, "2+2=4" is a universal truth, beyond that we really don't have any. If human rights were a universal truth, their formulation would be invariant through time, and I could pull out a datum of evidence and wave it in the face of those who disagree.
No, human rights are a social/political formulation at worst, and a bit of prescriptive system building at best.
Our brains are wired to be largely amoral opportunists, we generally only give any empathetic consideration to those in our immediate family or social circle. We evolved this way, we don't give a shit about the species or the larger society, we only really care (innately) for those things that help our reproduction and the health of our offspring. I don't see the chance for a "censorship is bad" characteristic to evolve into our species.
I have never seen a wholly convincing descriptive (innate and universally existant) moral/ethical system, but I have seen a ton of prescriptive systems (thou ought). Prescriptive statements from "hard" philosophy (being that it isn't in the realm of any other science, barring the ineptly named "political science") generally have the same intellectual rigor as those found in classic books such as the Bible (no, coming from me that isn't a compliment).
I agree with you, though, that china over steps their bounds. But until I see a measurement of a universal human right, I will generally pass over all talk of "rights". I read somewhere that rights are those thing which you can convince others you have, and this seems about as apt a description I can find.
Less torture and censorship is better than more torture and censorship. I say this unequivocally, and without any cultural bias. More freedom is also always better than less freedom (as long as an individuals freedom does not impinge on anothers'), no matter what culture you're in, or what government forces itself upon you.
I say this because people should be able to choose what restrictions apply to them, and once you remove that aspect of choice moral arguments become completely irrelevant.
Choice requires information, and choice requires the ability to at least voice dissent. Remove those two abilities and you remove choice, and this remove all moral considerations.
Its like saying that it is okay for some countries to ban women from education and voting. Sure, some of the women may be okay with this, but how can they know any different without education, and how can we know they are okay with this without voting?
Unless someone goes so far as to argue that oppression is fair to the oppressed, if the oppressors say so (after all, they chose to be oppressed!). I doubt anyone could successfully make this argument though.
Moral and cultural relativism is a load of horsecrap. In a relativistic world, how can one make the definitive statement that everything is relative, when their own damn statement would be relative as well. Your culture only tells you that moral/cultural relativism is correct, therefore your belief in moral/cultural relativism is also purely a matter of opinion. Blah. Post modernism is self-defeating.
Actually, in most psychological tests the effectiveness of punishment (in humans) was also linked mostly by time. At a base psychological level, humans really aren't much different than rats.
Calling all forms of corporal punishment "violent" is a bit extreme too. Corporal punishment doesn't have to be, nor should be, actually violent.
Also when you look at how the real world has changed since we decided to be non-violent and overly protective, it forces us to realize that something has gone wrong. While it may not be the fault of us no longer punishing our children, or the fault of us treating our children like stupid fragile pets, it should cause us to at least reevaluate our conclusions.
Whether we as a society treat Aspergers as an incapacity or just a different approach to the world is irrelevant to whether or not it is a real phenomenon. After all, when the APA dropped homosexuality as a category of mental disorder, it didn't mean gay people were just imagining things.
There is currently talk of dropping Aspergers from the next DSM due to over-diagnosis. The drop would force doctors to pick either "autism" or "not-autism". This move would be very nice, since the main problem I have with Aspergers is that is is such a vague thing, and most of the people I know who carry the diagnosis (and oddly tell everyone that they have it) are HIGHLY functional, meaning that there is no apparent hindrance to their ability to work and have a family, even if they exhibit very mild autism-like symptoms. It is a very vague diagnosis, looking at the criteria (http://www.autreat.com/dsm4-aspergers.html) you find that 90% of the people here on/. (nerds and geeks, in other words) are mentally ill.
The problem with Apsergers and ADD is that doctors often ignore the "The disturbance causes clinically significant impairments in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning." clause. Or take that clause in a very "pragmatic" way (i.e. talks in class, hard to control in a class with 40+ students; bored at work; etc...). If you can change the environment and remove the impairment, then there isn't a mental illness.
Hell, going through the diagnostic criteria of the big, growing, diagnosis (ADD/Aspergers), I could easily be diagnosed with them. As could most of the people I know. If Aspergers and autism was the child psychology fad that it is today when I was growing up, I'm sure I'd have one of them as well.
Obesity is a really good counterexample to your own arguments. Like mental health issues, obesity has skyrocketed in the last generation or so, and one in four of us is obese today. But you can see the results waddling down the street. It's clearly not a problem of personal laziness or lack of willpower. Something epidemiological is going on here.
You are correct, but not in the way you think. Obesity is also caused by external forces, and not internal, somatic, ones. There isn't a new virus causing us to become fat, or such. Society changed in a way that is harmful to us. The problem is our interaction to society. In the case of obesity, we need to change both ourselves and society. The same goes for most affective disorders as well. Nothing suddenly changed in us physically, the change was how we interact with society.
Psychological disorders with environmental triggers are not at all farfetched.
No, they are not. But in this case the trigger was boredom. I had a hard time paying attention to things which I already knew, or lessons repeated ad naseum until the dimmest bulb grasped it. At school I bounced around, at home my parents bought me a C-64, some BASIC programming books, and marveled at the fact I could sit there for hours, completely oblivious to the world, completely the opposite as my experience in school. Hell, I would sit in a corner behind a chair and read for a full day without moving. At school I would run around screaming, and being a general terror because no one was teaching to me, I could read at a high school level by 4th grade, but I still had to read "Dick and Jane" for school.
True, but it is psychologically ineffective. Punishment must be temporally linked with the behavior being punished to actually be an effective conditioning technique.
Sure, in some cases there may be a somatic cause to ADD. But sadly proof of a physical cause isn't needed for diagnosis, and a regimen of amphetamines.
I doubt that a disease can go from less than 5% of the young population to 20-30% in less than a generation without some diagnostic wonkyness involved.
Treating people for a disease they don't have is also a VERY bad thing. I would rather not drug my children just because school is boring.
Way to miss the shades of grey. These diseases are over diagnosed, unless you really think there is an outside source causing them to go from being nearly non-existent diseases to affecting a VERY large portion of children in less than a single generation. I knew a couple kids with full autism when I was young (and my girlfriend worked with them in her job), they were VERY distinct. Now when I meet parents of "so-called" autistic kids, I ponder how damn functional these kids are. 10 years ago, these kids would be called "shy", or "loners", but somehow magically they are all now mentally ill. ADD ios the same. As a kid, me and my friend were nerds. I got bored in school and caused stimulus, he got bored in school and got introverted and quiet. I was diagnosed with ADD, and he got into gifted classes (lucky this is before the advent of widespread autism). I got held back years for it, he got to college at 16. One day, my dad took me hiking, and "forgot" the amphetamines. Ever after I was fine, as long as my parents gave me lots of books to read. Did I really have ADD? Odd disease, being that it never effected me except in school. It must be the first disease ever to ONLY strike at one location, and only during a certain set of time during the day.
My parents would have pulled the meds earlier, but I would have been kicked out of school, and CPS would have been called.
I am sure that there is a small portion of people with ADD who actually have a somatic disorder, but being that diagnosis does not require any proof of an underlying physical condition, we will never know. I really doubt though that 20-30% of the children in the US are mentally abnormal all of a sudden (30% of the population is still within the "fat" part of a normal distribution, btw). I think they our culture is abnormal now, and we are still normal. Normal kids run around screaming and questioning authority, and abnormal culture doesn't find an outlet for this.
We, at some point, have decided that people must match society, and not society must match individual psychology. Society is sick, our children are healthy.
Aspergers, though, is fake. 100% completely fake. Autism is a spectrum disorder, meaning there can be mild cases, and the symptoms vary between individuals within the spectrum. No one, though, actually knows a somatic cause to autism, it is a mystery. You can't diagnose autism with a MRI, or with blood work. But when we admit highly functioning autism into the mix, we don't have autism. Notice the term "DIS-order", if you can life a normal life, you can't have a "disorder". Also, go read the diagnostic criteria for Aspergers, I'm guessing you, and everyone you know, will have a significant portion of the symptoms. Pretty good for a disease that has only existed since 1980, no? Before 1980, what we called aspergers we would have called a nerd, an introvert, or a late-bloomer. Obvious these people were mentally disabled, and in need of medication.
I'm sorry you can't sleep. Perhaps you have stress, perhaps your life is incredibly boring. Perhaps your brain is telling you to change your environment since it isn't healthy for human psychology. Perhaps you are one of the few people with actual ADD (doubtful, since adults couldn't have ADD until 2000)
But then again, its the DSM, so all of your "real" diagnosis are voted on by a committee, with no need of empirical evidence or physical cause. I myself prefer the 1980's DSM, so gay people can be diagnosed as mentally ill... oh wait.
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I actually think its a decent idea, and I will probably go scurry off and buy a ChromeOS netbook (or Tablet!) when they come available. It seems that the netbook market has lost touch with the idea that made it attractive (to me at least), that of very small, light, simple portable computers. Instead they are now somewhat cheap, underpowered, laptops for people not willing to spend a lot on full laptops.
To me the ideal netbook would be the one that has the least bloat, is the smallest (10.1" is too big, and 9" seems to gone the way of the dodo), lightest, and uses the least possible amount of power and storage. Ideally, it would fit in a cargo pocket of my pants, have a battery that lasts 6+ hours, and be light enough to not pull down the previously mentioned pants without a belt on. It would not run some complex OS with tons of features (Windows) by default, saving me the work of having to stick Ubuntu on it, which isn't optimal either (being another hideously complex OS).
My ideal netbook won't have a full, memory and resource heavy, office suite. Google Docs is perfect.
I have a rather powerful PC for the heavy lifting. I have a rather midling old laptop for running around doing weighty tasks on the road (okay, gaming), I'd rather a netbook didn't try to fill these roles. I'd rather it be a cheap, light, energy efficient, simple device that I can take with me to work (or coffee) for light web browsing, and lighter still work.
In short, I want the simplest "information appliance" possible. ChromeOS seems wells suited to this.
Yes, my opinion isn't universal. Yes, other people want other things. But, also, I'm sure I'm not alone in this.
And that is your choice...
Though what happens when the money runs out?
I ask out of genuine curiosity.
You're really look at it from the perspective of people surrounding the person on life support. Making it easier on everyone else, under the guise of being for the PVS person. This is clear from your lack of sympathy for those that may have been wrongly diagnosed. I understand being selfish, its natural, which is why I'd rather be kept alive. I'm selfish and want every opportunity I can possibly get to resolve the issue some way other than my death, even if its hard on my family.
Putting myself in the shoes of a person in a PVS, I would prefer death, both for my own good, and for that of my family. I could turn your sentiment around and say that I am disturbed by your complete disregard (and lack of empathy) for your family in such a case. To me that also smells like selfishness.
Yes, having some quality time to just sit (lay) and think sounds very nice, until your realize that this quality time will stretch onwards for years and years. Years and years with absolutely stimulus, no interaction with your loved ones, completely under the control of others. You can't even say "enough" when you finally realize just how isolated you actually are, and the huge psychological and financial burden your inflicting on your family.
Remember, you can't eat or drink. And just because your being fed nutrients via IV, your still hungry, your still thirsty. Think of the bed sores, the catheters, the itches you can't scratch, etc...
Also think of the real psychology of humans, while we all want peace and quiet, there is a limit to that. Without meaningful interactions we slowly go insane. People actually need to interact with people. Without this we drift further and further into psychosis and depression. This can happen in as little as a couple months. Now picture this going on for years and years.
Meanwhile your family is going broke, and suffering from psychological anguish. They can never move on, since your inert body is a constant reminder of their loss. Yes, loss, its not like your really there, are you? Unless your family gets the same amount of comfort from your fMRI pictures as they do from your actual presence (if this is the case it doesn't reflect to well on your social skills).
I reiterate, I feel more sympathy for the families and those who can't flee from this living hell, than I do for those who were shown mercy and put out of their misery.
If I was in a permanent vegetative state I would love it if someone disconnected me, especially if I was conscious. Being awake in what is essentially a dead body sounds like a small slice of hell to me.
While it may not have saved Terri I'm pretty sure it will save some others.
Save them from what? A life where they are completely dependent on machines to keep them alive (being nothing more than a burden to their families), a life where they can't communicate or do any of the things that they love? I have a hard time picturing anyone who being forced to be in this state would find this saved. Hell, even if your religious or personal views accept the "alive at any cost" value, you can't change your mind and tell them to shut down the machines.
I feel no sympathy for the people in a permanent vegative state who lost their lives before the advent of this technology, I feel more sorry for the ones who didn't.
Yes, living wills, and informing your loved ones to remove you from life support in such cases are very important. But as the Schivo case proved, it doesn't really matter when religious politics become involved. Your living will is only as valid as the willingness of your relatives to honor it.
Especially given the high risk of flying in the past decade...
Compared to what? Flying is still one of the lowest risk forms of transportation, and one of the safest activities that we regularly participate in. Flying is still much safer than, say, driving a car, especially if we only count your risk of dying of terrorism, and no the normal (and exponentially more common) pilot or mechanical error.
Your odds are still better for being killed by lightening, than being killed by a terrorist.
Yes, we need protection, but we need protection in a degree that matches the actual level of threat. Many people think that this crosses that line. Looking at my grandmother naked doesn't really do much to reduce the actual level of threat, though it might make a few people feel safe, and make the government look like it is trying to keep us all safe, protected babes.
Over-react much? No one can sanely claim that there are no terrorists. The point people are trying to make (with varying degrees of success) is that the terrorist threat is much smaller than we believe, and our counter measures are much harsher than warranted by the actual level of threat. The parents Simpson's "tiger proof rock" analogy was illustrating that our security measures largely exist to make us feel safe, over actually making us safer. This is fine, until the cost of maintaining the illusion of safety becomes to high, and individual rights suffer.
Yes, this scanning thing does improve security by a marginal level, but is that increase worth the costs? Car accidents kill more people than terrorism over just about any time frame. Tigers also (well attacks by animals) probably also kill more people than terrorism. Terrorism is a minor threat, in the grand scheme of things. Yes, we should be protected, by only proportional to the level of actual threat.
Remember, this scanning technology wouldn't have even stopped the 9/11 hijackers (who merely used pointy things to cause a large level of destruction and terror). Terrorists are not idiots, they are aware of the technology and techniques we use to stop them, and are capable of finding ways to circumvent our best efforts. They always will have this ability, being human and just as smart as we are. In the long run we hurt ourselves more than we hinder terrorists.
This is what worries people.
I personally would rather live in a land with a marginal threat of terrorist attack, and a maximal amount of freedom, than one with maximal safety and a minimum of freedom.
If these scanners were universally deployed, and all travelers forced to use them, I would be curious at the actual increase in safety we would enjoy. At the cost of every traveler being, in essence, sti strip p searched under the presumption of guilt. I have a feeling it would be marginal at best, at a very high cost to civil liberties.
Shakespeare... if he was sitting one of these courses, he'd probably fail by the same criteria
Doubtful, since Shakespeare actually knew the language, and could use it. He used slang and nonproper words for literary effect, and not because he didn't know any better. These students don't actually know English, Shakespeare did, the comparison is false.
Personally, I like option 3 the best. And only Apple (and possibly Google, eventually) are backing this horse.
Meaning there is a pretty damn good chance of this happening.
And don't forget, a lot of the time they are talking (screaming) about things that really have no business being aired in public.
About once a month I get to overhear a fat person screaming about their sex life (and sometimes, better... their VDs) into their little phones. Most of the time they give me dirty looks when I stare at them, as if their conversation is private,
The other 90% of cell-calls are generally "I'm bored, I'm going to talk" types of conversations, where people scream exceedingly banal snippets of their boring lives at other people in the grim hopes that someone cares. "So, I went to the store... aaaand.... bought cheese.... aaaaand... bread... aaaand... the casheir was rude.... aaaaand... the tabloid said that Brad Pitt is cheating on Angie.... aaaand.... now I'm on the bus.... aaaannd.... I think Billy gave me ghonorea..."
Actually shit for brains...
What a great way illustrate that anything following that statement is well reasoned, eloquent, and worthy of a great deal of attention. Your language skills awe me, truly.
their are plenty of states with laws on the books that if a mere majority of people in a workplace want to form a union, everybody else either joins up or quits.
This must make unions (or "UNIONS" to follow the GPs scheme) ubiquitous and almost impossible to avoid. With membership at an all time low of 13% (or 7% the statistics vary), I can see how hard it would be to avoid working for a unionized company. Also, with the precipitous decline in union workplaces, I can understand how hard it is to avoid working in a place that suddenly unionizes, against your will.
Unions are truly a great, and growing, threat against workers and there beneficent employers.
Wait... Looking at Canada, I don't see your argument to be correct. Canada is not a country with a static ruling class or great aristocracy, which you state would be inevitable if a country adopted rules such as Canada's. Being that Canada has there rules, and Canada is nothing like you state it should be, I think your theory is off.
Actually Canada's political system looks a bit healthier than the US's, so that might be a bit contrary to your grand theory.
The problem with astronomical sums of money being necessary to play in politics is that it kills the voice and chances of the little guy, you know the person who actually shares some common experience with the other 90% of us. It also guarantees that any elected official we have will have to be in the pocket of some wealthy donor, which generally isn't conductive to a healthy democracy. What we have now is basically a government run by obvious, open faced, bribery.
Why not get a non-UNION JOB then? Contrary to popular belief, no one is forcing you to join a UNION. Yes, often UNION JOBS have better pay and benefits, and yes UNIONs sometimes are dominant in some fields (though there still are non-UNION choices, albeit more marginal), but you still have the choice. If you don't like the UNION, quit. Period.
Why are we capitalizing UNION again?
I'm running Chromium on my Ubuntu box, and Chrome on my Windows box, and I honestly can't tell the difference between them, outside of the fact that Chrome phones home. Also Iron is pretty much a 1:1 Chromium port without the Google nonsense. So you CAN make a port of Chrome/ium, and no ones parents care. Webkit is a bit different, you can port Webkit to your hearts desire, but if you copy Safari's look and feel, your doomed.
Sharing things that belong to other people = evil
I buy an album full of music, the album belongs to me, I bought it (at least I never signed or agreed a license), so I can share it? I bought a DRM free mp3, I own it (at least I never signed or agreed a license), so I can share it? I bought a book, or ebook, the book or ebook belongs to me (at least I never signed or agreed a license), can I share it?
That the problem is a lack of spanking seems like a false attribution. The data backs me up on that one.
I actually haven't seen this conclusive data you speak of. Last time I read an article on it, it did say that spanking was actually effective for conditioning if used sparingly and properly. Used moderately it has no ill, long term, effects, though the caveat is that it is easy to abuse, so not recommended.
I haven't seen, again, any data saying that mild, and infrequent, corporal punishment leads to long term problems. If you know of any reputable studies that contradict this, please pass the links along.
The theory that kids are not facing quite enough of the consequences of their actions might not be a false attribution.
I don't know how you would quantify this for a valid study, to be completely honest. Though I can argue that telling every kid "your bad behavior is beyond your control, take meds to be a better person" is deferring a huge amount of responsibility for ones actions. There are also studies stating that sheltering children DO lead to long term negative effects.
Unlike some of the brainiacs in this thread, I know that blurting out some wild-eyed half-political theory about "kids these days", declaring it to be the true answer, is actually pretty stupid, so I will be happy to wait for the data to come in.
Please go re-read my previous comment; I just said that there is something wrong, and this might be cause to re-evaluate some "proven" wisdom. A lot of the "science" behind juvenile education and child rearing is science is the same flavor of science as behind fad diets, or cosmetic fads. I'm not stating that "spare the rod; spoil the child" is an ideology we should resurrect, nor am I stating that we should allow our children to lie bloody in ditches.
... Humans Rights are a Universal Truth, they come from our human nature, our instincts and the way our brains are wired, and China is a country that is committing gross violations towards it's own Citizens
Go back to those philosophy classes/books, you forgot the bit about evidence and questioning your assumptions. Human rights are not a universal truth, "2+2=4" is a universal truth, beyond that we really don't have any. If human rights were a universal truth, their formulation would be invariant through time, and I could pull out a datum of evidence and wave it in the face of those who disagree.
No, human rights are a social/political formulation at worst, and a bit of prescriptive system building at best.
Our brains are wired to be largely amoral opportunists, we generally only give any empathetic consideration to those in our immediate family or social circle. We evolved this way, we don't give a shit about the species or the larger society, we only really care (innately) for those things that help our reproduction and the health of our offspring. I don't see the chance for a "censorship is bad" characteristic to evolve into our species.
I have never seen a wholly convincing descriptive (innate and universally existant) moral/ethical system, but I have seen a ton of prescriptive systems (thou ought). Prescriptive statements from "hard" philosophy (being that it isn't in the realm of any other science, barring the ineptly named "political science") generally have the same intellectual rigor as those found in classic books such as the Bible (no, coming from me that isn't a compliment).
I agree with you, though, that china over steps their bounds. But until I see a measurement of a universal human right, I will generally pass over all talk of "rights". I read somewhere that rights are those thing which you can convince others you have, and this seems about as apt a description I can find.
Less torture and censorship is better than more torture and censorship. I say this unequivocally, and without any cultural bias. More freedom is also always better than less freedom (as long as an individuals freedom does not impinge on anothers'), no matter what culture you're in, or what government forces itself upon you.
I say this because people should be able to choose what restrictions apply to them, and once you remove that aspect of choice moral arguments become completely irrelevant.
Choice requires information, and choice requires the ability to at least voice dissent. Remove those two abilities and you remove choice, and this remove all moral considerations.
Its like saying that it is okay for some countries to ban women from education and voting. Sure, some of the women may be okay with this, but how can they know any different without education, and how can we know they are okay with this without voting?
Unless someone goes so far as to argue that oppression is fair to the oppressed, if the oppressors say so (after all, they chose to be oppressed!). I doubt anyone could successfully make this argument though.
Moral and cultural relativism is a load of horsecrap. In a relativistic world, how can one make the definitive statement that everything is relative, when their own damn statement would be relative as well. Your culture only tells you that moral/cultural relativism is correct, therefore your belief in moral/cultural relativism is also purely a matter of opinion. Blah. Post modernism is self-defeating.
Actually, in most psychological tests the effectiveness of punishment (in humans) was also linked mostly by time. At a base psychological level, humans really aren't much different than rats.
Calling all forms of corporal punishment "violent" is a bit extreme too. Corporal punishment doesn't have to be, nor should be, actually violent.
Also when you look at how the real world has changed since we decided to be non-violent and overly protective, it forces us to realize that something has gone wrong. While it may not be the fault of us no longer punishing our children, or the fault of us treating our children like stupid fragile pets, it should cause us to at least reevaluate our conclusions.
So can you still read this comments page?
No.
Taking it a bit far, no?
I'm just saying the detrimental effects might be a bit overstated.
Whether we as a society treat Aspergers as an incapacity or just a different approach to the world is irrelevant to whether or not it is a real phenomenon. After all, when the APA dropped homosexuality as a category of mental disorder, it didn't mean gay people were just imagining things.
There is currently talk of dropping Aspergers from the next DSM due to over-diagnosis. The drop would force doctors to pick either "autism" or "not-autism". This move would be very nice, since the main problem I have with Aspergers is that is is such a vague thing, and most of the people I know who carry the diagnosis (and oddly tell everyone that they have it) are HIGHLY functional, meaning that there is no apparent hindrance to their ability to work and have a family, even if they exhibit very mild autism-like symptoms. It is a very vague diagnosis, looking at the criteria (http://www.autreat.com/dsm4-aspergers.html) you find that 90% of the people here on /. (nerds and geeks, in other words) are mentally ill.
The problem with Apsergers and ADD is that doctors often ignore the "The disturbance causes clinically significant impairments in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning." clause. Or take that clause in a very "pragmatic" way (i.e. talks in class, hard to control in a class with 40+ students; bored at work; etc...). If you can change the environment and remove the impairment, then there isn't a mental illness.
Hell, going through the diagnostic criteria of the big, growing, diagnosis (ADD/Aspergers), I could easily be diagnosed with them. As could most of the people I know. If Aspergers and autism was the child psychology fad that it is today when I was growing up, I'm sure I'd have one of them as well.
Obesity is a really good counterexample to your own arguments. Like mental health issues, obesity has skyrocketed in the last generation or so, and one in four of us is obese today. But you can see the results waddling down the street. It's clearly not a problem of personal laziness or lack of willpower. Something epidemiological is going on here.
You are correct, but not in the way you think. Obesity is also caused by external forces, and not internal, somatic, ones. There isn't a new virus causing us to become fat, or such. Society changed in a way that is harmful to us. The problem is our interaction to society. In the case of obesity, we need to change both ourselves and society. The same goes for most affective disorders as well. Nothing suddenly changed in us physically, the change was how we interact with society.
Psychological disorders with environmental triggers are not at all farfetched.
No, they are not. But in this case the trigger was boredom. I had a hard time paying attention to things which I already knew, or lessons repeated ad naseum until the dimmest bulb grasped it. At school I bounced around, at home my parents bought me a C-64, some BASIC programming books, and marveled at the fact I could sit there for hours, completely oblivious to the world, completely the opposite as my experience in school. Hell, I would sit in a corner behind a chair and read for a full day without moving. At school I would run around screaming, and being a general terror because no one was teaching to me, I could read at a high school level by 4th grade, but I still had to read "Dick and Jane" for school.
Boredom is not a mental illness.
True, but it is psychologically ineffective. Punishment must be temporally linked with the behavior being punished to actually be an effective conditioning technique.
Sure, in some cases there may be a somatic cause to ADD. But sadly proof of a physical cause isn't needed for diagnosis, and a regimen of amphetamines.
I doubt that a disease can go from less than 5% of the young population to 20-30% in less than a generation without some diagnostic wonkyness involved.
Treating people for a disease they don't have is also a VERY bad thing. I would rather not drug my children just because school is boring.
Way to miss the shades of grey. These diseases are over diagnosed, unless you really think there is an outside source causing them to go from being nearly non-existent diseases to affecting a VERY large portion of children in less than a single generation. I knew a couple kids with full autism when I was young (and my girlfriend worked with them in her job), they were VERY distinct. Now when I meet parents of "so-called" autistic kids, I ponder how damn functional these kids are. 10 years ago, these kids would be called "shy", or "loners", but somehow magically they are all now mentally ill. ADD ios the same. As a kid, me and my friend were nerds. I got bored in school and caused stimulus, he got bored in school and got introverted and quiet. I was diagnosed with ADD, and he got into gifted classes (lucky this is before the advent of widespread autism). I got held back years for it, he got to college at 16. One day, my dad took me hiking, and "forgot" the amphetamines. Ever after I was fine, as long as my parents gave me lots of books to read. Did I really have ADD? Odd disease, being that it never effected me except in school. It must be the first disease ever to ONLY strike at one location, and only during a certain set of time during the day.
My parents would have pulled the meds earlier, but I would have been kicked out of school, and CPS would have been called.
I am sure that there is a small portion of people with ADD who actually have a somatic disorder, but being that diagnosis does not require any proof of an underlying physical condition, we will never know. I really doubt though that 20-30% of the children in the US are mentally abnormal all of a sudden (30% of the population is still within the "fat" part of a normal distribution, btw). I think they our culture is abnormal now, and we are still normal. Normal kids run around screaming and questioning authority, and abnormal culture doesn't find an outlet for this.
We, at some point, have decided that people must match society, and not society must match individual psychology. Society is sick, our children are healthy.
Aspergers, though, is fake. 100% completely fake. Autism is a spectrum disorder, meaning there can be mild cases, and the symptoms vary between individuals within the spectrum. No one, though, actually knows a somatic cause to autism, it is a mystery. You can't diagnose autism with a MRI, or with blood work. But when we admit highly functioning autism into the mix, we don't have autism. Notice the term "DIS-order", if you can life a normal life, you can't have a "disorder". Also, go read the diagnostic criteria for Aspergers, I'm guessing you, and everyone you know, will have a significant portion of the symptoms. Pretty good for a disease that has only existed since 1980, no? Before 1980, what we called aspergers we would have called a nerd, an introvert, or a late-bloomer. Obvious these people were mentally disabled, and in need of medication.
I'm sorry you can't sleep. Perhaps you have stress, perhaps your life is incredibly boring. Perhaps your brain is telling you to change your environment since it isn't healthy for human psychology. Perhaps you are one of the few people with actual ADD (doubtful, since adults couldn't have ADD until 2000)
But then again, its the DSM, so all of your "real" diagnosis are voted on by a committee, with no need of empirical evidence or physical cause. I myself prefer the 1980's DSM, so gay people can be diagnosed as mentally ill... oh wait.