This is how Obama got elected. People who have absolutely no clue how the economy works voting.
This would obviously have to be true for every American president in recent history then, right? What did either Bush do for our economy? Clinton managed to turn a deficit into a surplus, but it can be argued that his antagonism against blue collar American workers helped our current problems. Then we add the fact that there is much more to life than mere economics, and the fact that no one really understands how the economy actually works (last I checked there wasn't any consensus on this).
And some people voted for Obama because McCain would just be more "supply side" bull, which even though it is pretty much proven to be a pile of crap, Goldwater republicans somehow think that if they push it enough it will magically become viable, even if it never has been. Sadly Obama isn't much better, since he also follows the whole "make the uber rich (top 3%) happy, screw any actual creation of wealth" model, just like Reagan, Bush, Clinton, and Bush.
For example, do I want people making derivative works of my copyrights (my novels)? No. That's my CHOICE.
So we can do whatever we want with it after you die? There is no you anymore, so your choice is irrelevant. What happens when you give it to someone else, then it is no longer yours and you have no choice.
In my dream world copyright would last for 10 years, life with extension, and would be completely nontransferable. Yes, your children and shareholders will have to get a job, just like the rest of us. Doing business with a creative type, or being related to one, shouldn't give you special privileges.
You haven't been at your wits end, have you? I've been in a mentally abusing relationship as a young woman. No-one held a gun at my head, but I could not leave. The point is this: sometimes you do things you don't want to, because you think you have no options.
To belay the fact that I'm not some inhuman troll, I agree with this. But, legislating from this is a slippery slope type problem. Tragedy happens, but I don't think its the place of government to legislate it away. It, to use a weak, non-car-based analogy, is like trying to ban alcohol because we know that some people can't handle it; or banning video games because a small bunch of kids have problems distinguishing reality from fantasy. I can understand the human part of this, but I have something against attacking people for the sake of the lowest common denominator.
We must watch out for hurting the majority for a minority.
As I stated before, we should be providing opportunities for these people, and not taking away anything. If your stuck in the bottom, we should provide escape, and not carpet bomb the bottom. Yes, I'm mangling metaphors, I need more coffee.
I went to college in a rather small town, so small it only had one strip club. Most of the strippers were college students trying to pay their way through school. Some of these girls were demeaned by their jobs, heavily so. I knew a couple though who LOVED it, and this isn't hyperbole.
I'm sure we could read deeper into this, I personally think there is something strange about people who like heavy torture sex, find bodily fluids a turn on. I think these spring from deeper psychological problems. But this should have no bearing on the practice being allowed or not. The sexual quirks are a symptom of a deeper issue, we must address that before we can address anything else.
Sorry for jumping on you, I'm sick of people legislating morality, or people who use the term "know better". My girlfriend has lesbian neighbors, and I always want to invite our more conservative friends over, and tell them that there are gay people doing gay things next door, and the world hasn't collapsed yet.
And btw, how do you know that what _I_ do in my bedroom doesn't shock you?
I'm sure it might, especially if there is battery clamps involved. Seriously, though, as long as its in your bedroom, I don't much care what you do, or do to whom. And I think we need to watch out, because there are people who do, and we don't want to give them more power to restrict this. I'm sure it might.
one of the actresses were forced to have anal sex with 10 men.
So there was a gun to her head? Someone was physically keeping her from walking off set? If the answer to those questions is "no", then this isn't an issue, as there was no force involved.
Other films have had women performing felatio while being hit in the face and humiliated, and many even threw up. Other films again had women drink vomit and other bodily fluids. This is some sick stuff!
Again; gun? physical force? No? No issue still.
Some people actually enjoy this stuff. Sure, I find it disturbing, but that's my business, just as what gets other off is theirs, and only theirs (as long as it consensual between all parties). I have a couple friends who are into "swinging", and bondage. I don't personally agree with either of these things, but it is wholly their business. It doesn't affect me in the slightest. Some people like rough sex, and copraphilia, this is also fine, it doesn't affect me in the slightest.
You might be suprised at what the people around you are actually into, and what they fantasize about. There is actually an successful industry based around women degrading powerful men, the men ENJOY it apparently. A lot of porn is bizarre, because that is what we want. We are bizarre.
I don't think it's the sex part they were taken in for, but the repugnant degradation of a human being.
But what if that is what they want? Have they actually proven that these actresses were forced to act this way? That they didn't enjoy it? That it was rape?
But I must say, these two people were into some sick stuff, and from what I read about them, there weren't always _consenting_ adults around... Sick, sick, sick.
[citation needed]
Whatever your neighbors do in their bedroom might shock the hell out of you, if you knew.
Does that mean it's okay to intentionally coerce her into doing something she doesn't want to do through a combination of false pretenses and other lies?
So we can ban advertising now? Last I checked a huge part of our economy works on the same principles.
Bullshit. Now we all get to live with the consequences. We're all on this planet together.
The second someone tries to protect me from making stupid decisions, is the second I bash them in the face. I say this because its based on your idea of what a stupid decision is, and not some universal, a priori truth of what actually consists of a stupid decision. YOU are not the arbiter of morality, common sense, or anything else, there is nothing that elevates you to this position. You are just as dumb as the rest of us. Your version of morality is no better than mine, and your common sense is just as oxymoronical as mine.
This is what pisses me off, self righteous morons trying to tell me how to live.
Sure, its a sad story, thats fine. We all have those, even if they aren't as dramatic. But the lady made her own choices.
Banning and censoring things is a negative action, since we remove freedoms from people. This is wrong, unless you can prove the basis of your higher authority. What is needed is POSITIVE action, meaning equipping people with the proper tools to make "proper" choices, this means knowledge and education, not telling them arbitrarily what they may or may not do, or what they may or may not enjoy.
I'm sure you have some foible I find absolutely idiotic, would you mind stopping it? No? Then you wouldn't mind if I passed laws legislating my opinions, forcing them on you? Right?
Also, since most "broadband" connections are only fast on download, and Battle.net will require all game data to be uploaded once for every person playing at a LAN party, ADSL is likely to be too slow for more than two or three players.
What if they treated online gameplay like WoW, with the content on centralized servers, with only the maps and graphics on the local machine? I'm guessing this is what they are doing, since they removed LAN play, treating the hosts computer like a mini-server doesn't make that much sense.
Actually, this is what their online play model has always been.
Get through the newb zone, run to Orgrimmar (about five minutes), take the Zeppelin to Undercity, take the port to Silvermoon, run to Ghostlands. This will take you less than 15 minutes, and you won't run into a single hostile mob the whole run. The Horde is not the Alliance, pretty much every race can travel to any early zone in 15 minutes (30, for the poor Tauren). Its nothing like getting a Night Elf to Goldshire.
You will admit that the very concept of global warming is an emotional issue.
Yes, I do. But it is a concept with an empirical component, and this scientific by nature. Is the Earth warming or not? Its that simple, and emotions play no role in deciding this. This, excluding the baggage, is about as simple as any other scientific question.
The waters are muddied by special interests on both sides, obviously. The blind capitalists, and people invested in the future of certain energy souces, are publishing thousands of empty studies to their ends, as are the "green" crowd. So the real task becomes seperating the wheat from the chafe, at least for us lay people.
As for the slashdot crowd, I've yet to see someone step forth offering anything other than an opinion, please point to an expert in a related field, with some experience in the related issues, posting please. Slashdot has NEVER been a good place to go if you want to draw an informed opinion on most matters. Actually, I'd rather you form your opinion from Fox News, or MSNBC, than Slashdot (the official home to the lunatic fringe).
Obviously the computer models haven't taken EVERY factor into account, this is impossible, and will remain so for the foreseeable future. No computer model, in any field, even non-charged ones, can take all of the variables into question, hence the word "model", this is not enough to invalidate them, though. They are the best tool we have, and if we only accept perfection as a criteria, pretty much all of science is useless, which is obviously false.
Personally, and I state this as far from ideology as possible, I'm convinced that there is "global warming", the body of science (not the consensus of scientists, mind) seems pretty strong.. I am, however, unconvinced of the "anthropogenic" part of the equation, this isn't saying I think its wrong, just that there isn't sufficient proof (for my liking) of the idea. I am a anthropogenic warming agnostic, to put this into the religious context.
Using the arguments presented by people who oppose the concept, and those who rabidly accept it, I also accept the fact that neither side is 100% sure of the anthropogenic bit, and if they claim to be sure, in either direction, they are lying. there, in other words, is not strong proof pointing either way.
Thus, I prescribe a "Pascal's Wager" solution. Basically, better safe than sorry. This, obviously, is to be balanced with the human effects of any solution. Personally, anyone suggesting we quit carbon producing fuels cold-turkey is a blind idealist (though I accept the status-quo, or "drill baby drills" folk as equally blind and idealistic).
The fun part, for people like me who are interested in the philosophy of science, is that science loses utility as a function of how contemporaneous its results are, modified by a function of the impact said results are. Basically science is more useful on influential matters over longer periods of time. We not only see this with the warming debate, but with the never dying evolution debate.
Once again, I'll compare mankind's current reaction to global warming to religion. Believe, or be branded a heretic.
Sorry for the digressions. This is somewhat true, and you are somewhat correct. But... The one thing the consensus argument is good for is allocating burdens of proof. The community pretty much accepts the global warming hypothesis, and thus the the burden false on the fringes. If you can't disprove it, your argument is weak enough to disregard, at this point, the same goes for creationists, and young earth people. It is to the opposition to find "theory breaking" contradictions, at this point.
I personally agree with ignoring people until they have something meaningful to contribute.
To make an overlong reply even longer, I don't think there is a conspiracy here. There are too many actors who agree with the theory, to be able to completely dismiss it as an emotion conclusion.
Correct me if I'm wrong - but hasn't global warming become a political issue? And, aren't politicians and political groups actively trying to muzzle and discredit any scientist who disagrees with their political agenda?
Not going to correct you, it has, tragically, entered into politics. This really has nothing to do with it though, since my main argument was against you dismissively calling "consensus" collectivism, and then somehow accepting the fact that we all a priori will find this to be a refutation. I'm guessing, correct me if I am wrong, that your using this as some political, and Ayn Randian slander, which is a political argument not a scientifi or epistemological one. I say this because your equating this to communism.
This would be equating politics with science. Science doesn't give a rats ass how you distribute wealth or secular power, or at least it shouldn't. This goes for capitalism as well as any forms of socialism, the laws of physics precede, and are independent of these. The only thing that matters is the facts. Whether politicians want to act on them, or that any of us think we should, is a different debate.
Yes, global warming is being misused by every political ideology at the moment (just like abortion, and issues about "the gay"). But unlike abortion or gay rights, this is an objective empirical debate. Ideologies don't matter. And when they do, it always boils down to wishful thinking, which is just stupid.
As for the consensus issue... Its very hard to judge the worthiness of any modern scientific theory without this concept, since theories really only start being vindicated tens (or hundreds) of years after their conception. In contemporaneous issues we need some method of weeding out the fringe, and biased, and consensus is about as good as we can get. I say this because EVERY theory, no matter how supported, has a lunatic fringe that disagrees, if we always tried to take all sides on equal grounds we would be lost in a sea of meaningless noise.
So, we must accept that the best (most scientifically rigorous) argument has the most convincing power, and thus has a higher likelihood of being correct. Obviously this is somewhat flawed, but there really is no better method of short-term discrimination between a good fit with the truth, and pure mumbo-jumbo.
That was to keep us from confusing him with his relative, John Adams. Same for George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush. I'm not aware of any case of being able to confuse Barack Obama with any other Barack Obama we've had in the White House.
That and the conservative lunatic fringe dragged out his middle name as if it meant something sinister, or had anything whatsoever to do with the man himself. After that it has become some form of code-word for the lunatic fringe, and thus associated with them. Thus when someone chooses to use it, odds are they don't have anything interesting to say. Its like stating "new world order", anything following it is probably not going to be read, because you just gave yourself a 90% chance of being a whackjob or wingnut.
I have the same reaction with people saying "democrat party", or using "socialist" as some be-all-end-all dismissive (its like the old practice of dismissing anyone who disagrees with Israel as a "anti-semite" as a means for quashing meaningful arguments).
while going along with the herd mentality will raise you to +5 nirvana?
Which herd? Slashdot is much more diverse than anyone wants to give it credit for. Look at this single topic for example, you have all the anti-warming folk running around claiming to be a minority, and getting bad mods, but a quick count of comments shows that they are around 50% of the population posting, and thus not a minority in any sense.
We often like to blame down mods on the moderators, because of course our own statements could never be vapid, empty, or trollish, obviously.
I don't think there is any clear consensus here on/., about ANYTHING. We just like to be in the minority with the deluded majority against us, always.
And, you think that you'll convince me that your view is right, by talking to me like an ass? Sorry, that doesn't work either.
Actually, I think a larger point here is that there is no possible way to ever convince you. You have faith that your correct for whatever reasons, and no amount of evidence will ever convince you that you are wrong. Even when all the data says that there is global warming (I'm on the fence about the anthropogenic bit, even), you will find the one bit that contradicts this, when that is addressed by your opposition (the prevailing view with the most consistent science behind it) you will pick another single bit of theory that agrees with you and use it as a disproof.
This is the same process as religion. It is "god of the gaps" thinking, and is not a valid scientific mode.
Consensus. Another word for collectivism, which is yet another word for communism, from which we took "politically correct".
This is an inchoate rant to support your POLITICAL opinions. This has nothing to do with reality. The universe, or climate, or whatnot, DOES not care about your political ideology. If you read Atlas Shrugged nice billion times, the universe will remain uncaring, as will any true scientific community. I AM a socialist, and I think that 1+1=2, therefore basic addition is socialist math. This is a fallacy. In science the consensus, or operational truth, or whatnot, goes to those whose theories best connect the observable facts, regardless of their moronic political ideologies (this includes all political ideologies, as a rule).
I love the "collectivism" and "communism" slanders. Its like by some stange force of magic you can destroy any argument by calling it a"socialist" one. Karl Marx once observed the sky is blue, therefore this is a "socialist" observation, therefore it is false. I see no problem with certain aspects of socialism, as I see no problems with aspects of any other political opinion, though it, in its pure form, is moronic, as is any other proper-nouned political opinion. Thus calling a scientific proposition "libertarian" is just as vapid as calling it "socialist", and reflects much more on the speakers wishful thinking, than on the proposition itself.
Also, without some form of consensus, then we enter the world of pure relativism. I can find some nut-job who disagrees with any proposition, no matter how accepted or supported by facts.
As I said earlier, if those parents didn't plan to extort money and were truly concerned for their children, they wouldn't have settled.
Not really true. If they doubted they could fight against someone that rich, who could afford awesome lawyers, etc... they would have settled. Hell, if someone offers you 20 million, I probably would snatch it up, I wouldn't want to risk getting substantially less.
Its like settling with the RIAA. Sure, you could fight it, but you might end up oweing 1.7 million, instead of the couple thousand they wanted you to settle for.
It matters to me because I tried to watch television news yesterday. Iran was solved, we no longer are in Iraq, no republicans are cheating on their wives, all of our privacy and rights problems were solved, though... At least as far as the news reported yesterday.
How the hell is a pop singer dying (somewhat predictably) more important than... well... anything else?
Its like when Reagan died, and someone much more important and interesting died the next day. Never heard about the person I care about, but got to hear about some crooked, annoying, washed up politician instead.
Granted, all of this is quite subjective, but he really didn't do much music, outside of singing (in falsetto). Like all pop music, they leave the background music to a machine, or anonymous strangers hiding in the background. Half of his lyrics were written by others too, so we really can't give him much there either.
He was the first black superstar of the music video age
To me this is completely irrelevant. I doubt many black people see him as a roll model (his lifestyle killed his role model, IMHO, as well). As for being of the music video age, this is completely arbitrary, there were plenty of black musicians who were there first, even if they weren't "pop". If anything, the Jackson Five gets more respect than Micheal.
This is largely taste, still. There probably a heavy dose of "I don't get it" here, since I genuinely don't, and never did. Back when he was at his peak of popularity (early-mid 80's), I was listening to Guns N' Roses, oldies, Boston, and classical music.
I suppose maximizing or minimizing his accomplishments is largly about what we value. I couldn't give a damn if his record sold 9 billion copies, or 750 million, it isn't an important metric to me. And somewhat meaningless, I'm glad he had an awesome publicist, and salesmen behind him.
Elvis and the Beetles did more than Jackson. Elvis translated blues, and other older musical traditions, to suburban white kids. I don't personally think he was any good, but we do owe basically EVERY modern genre of music to him. The Beetles were only good after they stopped being pop, and mostly rested on the fact that they had genuine talent, and were willing to try new things (the Beetles are the true birth of prog rock)
Yes, his videos were big. But again, this isn't something I really care about.
That thing with the molestation/extortion? Look at his interview with that reporter - MJ honest to god didn't think there was anything wrong with sleeping in a bed with kid(s). He looked at that reporter like a dear-in-headlights and couldn't figure out why the reporter was making an issue of it. MJ was naive: that doesn't make him bad, it makes him a target.
No, the fact he obsessed with children, and wanted them to share a bed with him made him bad. Just because you don't know something is wrong, doesn't make it right.
That and, why the hell is some washed up, potentially pedophile, pop-star dying more important than anything else in the world right now? Does anyone actually CARE that much? Who the hell are these people? I've gone the last 20 years of my life never even thinking of the man (outside of some off-color jokes in the 90s), and my life will remain exactly the same without him. I WON'T miss him. I really don't care about him, and am perplexed by the people who are now jumping around saying how awesome he was, even though no one I know admit to ever liking him when we was actually doing something.
Not that he really did anything. He didn't change music, he wasn't particularly good at it. He was just a celebrity. This is like the strange frenzy around that Anna Nicole chick, or the "Princess" Diana chick, where no one can actually say WHY this matters, or matters enough to suspent 48 hours of our lives and news to nothing but coverage over them. Who the hell obsesses with celebrity? I'm genuinely confused.
Freedom is the right to say what you want to say and do what you want to do so long as it has *some* ethical justification. Downloading stuff isn't that.
I could probably come up with some ethical justification for anything, no matter how heinous, and I'm sure some large percentage of the population actually believes their ethical justifications for strange things.
I personally have nothing against piracy anymore. I used to have some qualms, but I worked them out. A significant percentage of people still pay, and will continue to pay for crap. Its really hard to say that this ratio will change, since most pirates are young and tech savvy, and piracy is about as easy as it can get (give me 5 minutes, I'll find you a free copy of ANYTHING you want) right now. Distributing media is still VERY profitable, even with piracy.
Until the various industries move into the digitial age, piracy will be around at roughly the same level it is at now. By "move into the digital age" I mean COMPETE with the various mediums that allow piracy. Before we say that it is impossible to compete with free, I'd like to point to services such as Hulu, iTunes, and Amazon, as well as concerts, and self-distribution. How much money did Trent Reznor make off of his various free (in every sense) offering? A ton, buy adding priced options that contains value-added features that can't be pirated. Sure small artists can't do this as well, but, small artists are also the ones who make the least amount of cash from giant labels, and thus are hurt the least by piracy (and probably gain the most, since the name of the game at that size is to grow a fan base).
I owe nothing to record labels. It is not my job to support their business model, or give them money when I don't have to.
You have it backwards. Most of Slashdot hates Apple, and Apple products. Most of them think that Apple products are vastly inferior to more geek friendly products because they are shiny and put user friendliness above pure utility and complexity. To rectify Apple's success over more nerdly products, we must put the success outside of the product, and thus the only reason people like Apple products is because of Steve Jobs, or they want to show off in coffee shops.
Obviously this point of view is rather stupid, but thats how psychology works.
It is business as usual but if different people get together to fight for or against something I'd say it was a conspiracy. Not that one has to be bad.
I was thinking of the more grand, tinfoil hat definition of conspiracy. Yes, there could be a "technical" conspiracy, but probably not a dramatic one, like the Illuminati.
According to the article "Rebuilding the Power Grid [technologyreview.com]" in MIT's Tech Review "grid-related power outages and problems with power quality reportedly cost the nation $80 billion to $188 billion per year." I's say that was costly too.
I agree. But this is pretty arcane where it matters. Four dollar a gallon gas is scary to us, costly aging infrastructure is not. Look at how seriously we take the possible threat of global warming (not advocating or denying it). Its a serious looking boogey man lurking in some indeterminate future. a brief, momentary rise in gas prices did more for the "green" movement, than the more dramatic spectre of global warming.
Basically this is more a matter of psychology than of reality.
If you need an example of where real conservatives and today's Republicans differ
Nice word game, and example of the No True Scotsman fallacy.
All nice job at partisan baiting. Attribute all positives to the side you identify with, and all negatives to your mythical "liberal" enemies.
I'm getting really sick of these silly dogmatic partisan statements. 100% of conservatives, liberals, libertarians, socialists, and whatever stupid ideology people identify with are wrong. Some small amount of their greater ideology might not be wrong, but the larger corpus of ideals is always wrong. Anyone who identifies themselves within a pure ideology, probably completely divorced from reality, or at least very uninformed. Ideology blinds us to what politics is about, and should be about, PEOPLE, and more so, people in the real world, not some ideologically pure fantasy land.
The truly rich have a lower propensity to spend and a higher propensity to invest
Minor quibble, investing is spending, unless their burying their cash in their backyard. Invested money is still doing something, as is all the savings that people have, which actually just a hidden investment where someone else gets the profit.
The problem isn't investing, or spending, its playing financial three card monte, where all these invested funds shuffled to strange services that don't actually DO anything besides shuffle money to other strange companies, whose soul purpose is shuffling money to other strange services. We lost the base of any functional or stable economy, industry and manufacturing. Without that, our economy is largely baseless and unsustainable, no matter what anyone is doing with their money.
Except Rothschild is Jewish and was in oil. Rothschild Investment Trust [zimbio.com] controls Royal Dutch Shell Oil.
Yes, but I still doubt there is a conspiracy involved, outside of the usual capitalist "money-making" type. I'm sure these companies are looking out for their best interests, and probably don't want alternative fuels to compete with their product. This is normal business practices. But I'm guessing there isn't some huge, organized, push to quash all such technologies across the whole globe.
As much as a pick on the Libertarians here, I do believe that if there was a miracle fuel out there, someone would develop it and sell it, and from there it would be very hard for a corporation or syndicate to crush it if it is truly cheaper and better. Unless they control every government to the point of being able to legally block this technology.
I'm guessing that most of these miracle technologies are so miraculous because someone want venture capital and investors, not because they are actually miracles. That is the conspiracy, people who want money in a hot market, with a hot buzz-word attached to it, will talk big talk to get money for products that aren't really all that hot.
Its like the whole tech boom all over again.
Agreed but I'd add one thing, "Rebuilding the Power Grid [technologyreview.com]. Not only build a long distance High Voltage Direct Current infrastructure but make the grid smart [economist.com].
Agreed. Right now there are some generally good ideas for making our national power scheme better. The problem remains cost, and the fact that what we have right now works good enough for most people. With the price of oil back down to slightly less insane levels, the problem has drifted back into the wood work. The body politic has the attention span of a gnat, and doesn't care about anything that happens outside of a decade window.
it's cheaper to use fossil fuel energy, at least as long as CO2 emissions remain an externality.
I was talking about some hypothetical time where we actually wanted to become a bit more ecologically friendly with energy (I hate the term "green", people ruined it). This probably won't happen for some time both because the economic reasons you state, and because people are generally complacent and apathetic about anything that doesn't happen in the immediate future.
Slashdot Mirror
This is how Obama got elected. People who have absolutely no clue how the economy works voting.
This would obviously have to be true for every American president in recent history then, right? What did either Bush do for our economy? Clinton managed to turn a deficit into a surplus, but it can be argued that his antagonism against blue collar American workers helped our current problems. Then we add the fact that there is much more to life than mere economics, and the fact that no one really understands how the economy actually works (last I checked there wasn't any consensus on this).
And some people voted for Obama because McCain would just be more "supply side" bull, which even though it is pretty much proven to be a pile of crap, Goldwater republicans somehow think that if they push it enough it will magically become viable, even if it never has been. Sadly Obama isn't much better, since he also follows the whole "make the uber rich (top 3%) happy, screw any actual creation of wealth" model, just like Reagan, Bush, Clinton, and Bush.
Relax, he hates me too inexplicable.
I take it as a badge to my uniqueness as a human being. Really, how many of the 6 billion other bald monkeys on this planet share this distinction?
We are snowflakes, thanks to sexconker.
The world is covered in far too fucking many adverts as it is.
Where you see "free", I see "opportunity"
For example, do I want people making derivative works of my copyrights (my novels)? No. That's my CHOICE.
So we can do whatever we want with it after you die? There is no you anymore, so your choice is irrelevant. What happens when you give it to someone else, then it is no longer yours and you have no choice.
In my dream world copyright would last for 10 years, life with extension, and would be completely nontransferable. Yes, your children and shareholders will have to get a job, just like the rest of us. Doing business with a creative type, or being related to one, shouldn't give you special privileges.
You haven't been at your wits end, have you? I've been in a mentally abusing relationship as a young woman. No-one held a gun at my head, but I could not leave. The point is this: sometimes you do things you don't want to, because you think you have no options.
To belay the fact that I'm not some inhuman troll, I agree with this. But, legislating from this is a slippery slope type problem. Tragedy happens, but I don't think its the place of government to legislate it away. It, to use a weak, non-car-based analogy, is like trying to ban alcohol because we know that some people can't handle it; or banning video games because a small bunch of kids have problems distinguishing reality from fantasy. I can understand the human part of this, but I have something against attacking people for the sake of the lowest common denominator.
We must watch out for hurting the majority for a minority.
As I stated before, we should be providing opportunities for these people, and not taking away anything. If your stuck in the bottom, we should provide escape, and not carpet bomb the bottom. Yes, I'm mangling metaphors, I need more coffee.
I went to college in a rather small town, so small it only had one strip club. Most of the strippers were college students trying to pay their way through school. Some of these girls were demeaned by their jobs, heavily so. I knew a couple though who LOVED it, and this isn't hyperbole.
I'm sure we could read deeper into this, I personally think there is something strange about people who like heavy torture sex, find bodily fluids a turn on. I think these spring from deeper psychological problems. But this should have no bearing on the practice being allowed or not. The sexual quirks are a symptom of a deeper issue, we must address that before we can address anything else.
Sorry for jumping on you, I'm sick of people legislating morality, or people who use the term "know better". My girlfriend has lesbian neighbors, and I always want to invite our more conservative friends over, and tell them that there are gay people doing gay things next door, and the world hasn't collapsed yet.
And btw, how do you know that what _I_ do in my bedroom doesn't shock you?
I'm sure it might, especially if there is battery clamps involved. Seriously, though, as long as its in your bedroom, I don't much care what you do, or do to whom. And I think we need to watch out, because there are people who do, and we don't want to give them more power to restrict this.
I'm sure it might.
one of the actresses were forced to have anal sex with 10 men.
So there was a gun to her head? Someone was physically keeping her from walking off set? If the answer to those questions is "no", then this isn't an issue, as there was no force involved.
Other films have had women performing felatio while being hit in the face and humiliated, and many even threw up. Other films again had women drink vomit and other bodily fluids. This is some sick stuff!
Again; gun? physical force? No? No issue still.
Some people actually enjoy this stuff. Sure, I find it disturbing, but that's my business, just as what gets other off is theirs, and only theirs (as long as it consensual between all parties). I have a couple friends who are into "swinging", and bondage. I don't personally agree with either of these things, but it is wholly their business. It doesn't affect me in the slightest. Some people like rough sex, and copraphilia, this is also fine, it doesn't affect me in the slightest.
You might be suprised at what the people around you are actually into, and what they fantasize about. There is actually an successful industry based around women degrading powerful men, the men ENJOY it apparently. A lot of porn is bizarre, because that is what we want. We are bizarre.
I don't think it's the sex part they were taken in for, but the repugnant degradation of a human being.
But what if that is what they want? Have they actually proven that these actresses were forced to act this way? That they didn't enjoy it? That it was rape?
But I must say, these two people were into some sick stuff, and from what I read about them, there weren't always _consenting_ adults around... Sick, sick, sick.
[citation needed]
Whatever your neighbors do in their bedroom might shock the hell out of you, if you knew.
Does that mean it's okay to intentionally coerce her into doing something she doesn't want to do through a combination of false pretenses and other lies?
So we can ban advertising now? Last I checked a huge part of our economy works on the same principles.
Bullshit. Now we all get to live with the consequences. We're all on this planet together.
The second someone tries to protect me from making stupid decisions, is the second I bash them in the face. I say this because its based on your idea of what a stupid decision is, and not some universal, a priori truth of what actually consists of a stupid decision. YOU are not the arbiter of morality, common sense, or anything else, there is nothing that elevates you to this position. You are just as dumb as the rest of us. Your version of morality is no better than mine, and your common sense is just as oxymoronical as mine.
This is what pisses me off, self righteous morons trying to tell me how to live.
Sure, its a sad story, thats fine. We all have those, even if they aren't as dramatic. But the lady made her own choices.
Banning and censoring things is a negative action, since we remove freedoms from people. This is wrong, unless you can prove the basis of your higher authority. What is needed is POSITIVE action, meaning equipping people with the proper tools to make "proper" choices, this means knowledge and education, not telling them arbitrarily what they may or may not do, or what they may or may not enjoy.
I'm sure you have some foible I find absolutely idiotic, would you mind stopping it? No? Then you wouldn't mind if I passed laws legislating my opinions, forcing them on you? Right?
Also, since most "broadband" connections are only fast on download, and Battle.net will require all game data to be uploaded once for every person playing at a LAN party, ADSL is likely to be too slow for more than two or three players.
What if they treated online gameplay like WoW, with the content on centralized servers, with only the maps and graphics on the local machine? I'm guessing this is what they are doing, since they removed LAN play, treating the hosts computer like a mini-server doesn't make that much sense.
Actually, this is what their online play model has always been.
Huh?
Get through the newb zone, run to Orgrimmar (about five minutes), take the Zeppelin to Undercity, take the port to Silvermoon, run to Ghostlands. This will take you less than 15 minutes, and you won't run into a single hostile mob the whole run. The Horde is not the Alliance, pretty much every race can travel to any early zone in 15 minutes (30, for the poor Tauren). Its nothing like getting a Night Elf to Goldshire.
You will admit that the very concept of global warming is an emotional issue.
Yes, I do. But it is a concept with an empirical component, and this scientific by nature. Is the Earth warming or not? Its that simple, and emotions play no role in deciding this. This, excluding the baggage, is about as simple as any other scientific question.
The waters are muddied by special interests on both sides, obviously. The blind capitalists, and people invested in the future of certain energy souces, are publishing thousands of empty studies to their ends, as are the "green" crowd. So the real task becomes seperating the wheat from the chafe, at least for us lay people.
As for the slashdot crowd, I've yet to see someone step forth offering anything other than an opinion, please point to an expert in a related field, with some experience in the related issues, posting please. Slashdot has NEVER been a good place to go if you want to draw an informed opinion on most matters. Actually, I'd rather you form your opinion from Fox News, or MSNBC, than Slashdot (the official home to the lunatic fringe).
Obviously the computer models haven't taken EVERY factor into account, this is impossible, and will remain so for the foreseeable future. No computer model, in any field, even non-charged ones, can take all of the variables into question, hence the word "model", this is not enough to invalidate them, though. They are the best tool we have, and if we only accept perfection as a criteria, pretty much all of science is useless, which is obviously false.
Personally, and I state this as far from ideology as possible, I'm convinced that there is "global warming", the body of science (not the consensus of scientists, mind) seems pretty strong.. I am, however, unconvinced of the "anthropogenic" part of the equation, this isn't saying I think its wrong, just that there isn't sufficient proof (for my liking) of the idea. I am a anthropogenic warming agnostic, to put this into the religious context.
Using the arguments presented by people who oppose the concept, and those who rabidly accept it, I also accept the fact that neither side is 100% sure of the anthropogenic bit, and if they claim to be sure, in either direction, they are lying. there, in other words, is not strong proof pointing either way.
Thus, I prescribe a "Pascal's Wager" solution. Basically, better safe than sorry. This, obviously, is to be balanced with the human effects of any solution. Personally, anyone suggesting we quit carbon producing fuels cold-turkey is a blind idealist (though I accept the status-quo, or "drill baby drills" folk as equally blind and idealistic).
The fun part, for people like me who are interested in the philosophy of science, is that science loses utility as a function of how contemporaneous its results are, modified by a function of the impact said results are. Basically science is more useful on influential matters over longer periods of time. We not only see this with the warming debate, but with the never dying evolution debate.
Once again, I'll compare mankind's current reaction to global warming to religion. Believe, or be branded a heretic.
Sorry for the digressions. This is somewhat true, and you are somewhat correct. But... The one thing the consensus argument is good for is allocating burdens of proof. The community pretty much accepts the global warming hypothesis, and thus the the burden false on the fringes. If you can't disprove it, your argument is weak enough to disregard, at this point, the same goes for creationists, and young earth people. It is to the opposition to find "theory breaking" contradictions, at this point.
I personally agree with ignoring people until they have something meaningful to contribute.
To make an overlong reply even longer, I don't think there is a conspiracy here. There are too many actors who agree with the theory, to be able to completely dismiss it as an emotion conclusion.
We also must be care
Correct me if I'm wrong - but hasn't global warming become a political issue? And, aren't politicians and political groups actively trying to muzzle and discredit any scientist who disagrees with their political agenda?
Not going to correct you, it has, tragically, entered into politics. This really has nothing to do with it though, since my main argument was against you dismissively calling "consensus" collectivism, and then somehow accepting the fact that we all a priori will find this to be a refutation. I'm guessing, correct me if I am wrong, that your using this as some political, and Ayn Randian slander, which is a political argument not a scientifi or epistemological one. I say this because your equating this to communism.
This would be equating politics with science. Science doesn't give a rats ass how you distribute wealth or secular power, or at least it shouldn't. This goes for capitalism as well as any forms of socialism, the laws of physics precede, and are independent of these. The only thing that matters is the facts. Whether politicians want to act on them, or that any of us think we should, is a different debate.
Yes, global warming is being misused by every political ideology at the moment (just like abortion, and issues about "the gay"). But unlike abortion or gay rights, this is an objective empirical debate. Ideologies don't matter. And when they do, it always boils down to wishful thinking, which is just stupid.
As for the consensus issue... Its very hard to judge the worthiness of any modern scientific theory without this concept, since theories really only start being vindicated tens (or hundreds) of years after their conception. In contemporaneous issues we need some method of weeding out the fringe, and biased, and consensus is about as good as we can get. I say this because EVERY theory, no matter how supported, has a lunatic fringe that disagrees, if we always tried to take all sides on equal grounds we would be lost in a sea of meaningless noise.
So, we must accept that the best (most scientifically rigorous) argument has the most convincing power, and thus has a higher likelihood of being correct. Obviously this is somewhat flawed, but there really is no better method of short-term discrimination between a good fit with the truth, and pure mumbo-jumbo.
That was to keep us from confusing him with his relative, John Adams. Same for George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush. I'm not aware of any case of being able to confuse Barack Obama with any other Barack Obama we've had in the White House.
That and the conservative lunatic fringe dragged out his middle name as if it meant something sinister, or had anything whatsoever to do with the man himself. After that it has become some form of code-word for the lunatic fringe, and thus associated with them. Thus when someone chooses to use it, odds are they don't have anything interesting to say. Its like stating "new world order", anything following it is probably not going to be read, because you just gave yourself a 90% chance of being a whackjob or wingnut.
I have the same reaction with people saying "democrat party", or using "socialist" as some be-all-end-all dismissive (its like the old practice of dismissing anyone who disagrees with Israel as a "anti-semite" as a means for quashing meaningful arguments).
while going along with the herd mentality will raise you to +5 nirvana?
Which herd? Slashdot is much more diverse than anyone wants to give it credit for. Look at this single topic for example, you have all the anti-warming folk running around claiming to be a minority, and getting bad mods, but a quick count of comments shows that they are around 50% of the population posting, and thus not a minority in any sense.
We often like to blame down mods on the moderators, because of course our own statements could never be vapid, empty, or trollish, obviously.
I don't think there is any clear consensus here on /., about ANYTHING. We just like to be in the minority with the deluded majority against us, always.
And, you think that you'll convince me that your view is right, by talking to me like an ass? Sorry, that doesn't work either.
Actually, I think a larger point here is that there is no possible way to ever convince you. You have faith that your correct for whatever reasons, and no amount of evidence will ever convince you that you are wrong. Even when all the data says that there is global warming (I'm on the fence about the anthropogenic bit, even), you will find the one bit that contradicts this, when that is addressed by your opposition (the prevailing view with the most consistent science behind it) you will pick another single bit of theory that agrees with you and use it as a disproof.
This is the same process as religion. It is "god of the gaps" thinking, and is not a valid scientific mode.
Consensus. Another word for collectivism, which is yet another word for communism, from which we took "politically correct".
This is an inchoate rant to support your POLITICAL opinions. This has nothing to do with reality. The universe, or climate, or whatnot, DOES not care about your political ideology. If you read Atlas Shrugged nice billion times, the universe will remain uncaring, as will any true scientific community. I AM a socialist, and I think that 1+1=2, therefore basic addition is socialist math. This is a fallacy. In science the consensus, or operational truth, or whatnot, goes to those whose theories best connect the observable facts, regardless of their moronic political ideologies (this includes all political ideologies, as a rule).
I love the "collectivism" and "communism" slanders. Its like by some stange force of magic you can destroy any argument by calling it a"socialist" one. Karl Marx once observed the sky is blue, therefore this is a "socialist" observation, therefore it is false. I see no problem with certain aspects of socialism, as I see no problems with aspects of any other political opinion, though it, in its pure form, is moronic, as is any other proper-nouned political opinion. Thus calling a scientific proposition "libertarian" is just as vapid as calling it "socialist", and reflects much more on the speakers wishful thinking, than on the proposition itself.
Also, without some form of consensus, then we enter the world of pure relativism. I can find some nut-job who disagrees with any proposition, no matter how accepted or supported by facts.
As I said earlier, if those parents didn't plan to extort money and were truly concerned for their children, they wouldn't have settled.
Not really true. If they doubted they could fight against someone that rich, who could afford awesome lawyers, etc... they would have settled. Hell, if someone offers you 20 million, I probably would snatch it up, I wouldn't want to risk getting substantially less.
Its like settling with the RIAA. Sure, you could fight it, but you might end up oweing 1.7 million, instead of the couple thousand they wanted you to settle for.
What does it matter to you? Just asking.
It matters to me because I tried to watch television news yesterday. Iran was solved, we no longer are in Iraq, no republicans are cheating on their wives, all of our privacy and rights problems were solved, though... At least as far as the news reported yesterday.
How the hell is a pop singer dying (somewhat predictably) more important than... well... anything else?
Its like when Reagan died, and someone much more important and interesting died the next day. Never heard about the person I care about, but got to hear about some crooked, annoying, washed up politician instead.
That, at least, is quite false.
Granted, all of this is quite subjective, but he really didn't do much music, outside of singing (in falsetto). Like all pop music, they leave the background music to a machine, or anonymous strangers hiding in the background. Half of his lyrics were written by others too, so we really can't give him much there either.
He was the first black superstar of the music video age
To me this is completely irrelevant. I doubt many black people see him as a roll model (his lifestyle killed his role model, IMHO, as well). As for being of the music video age, this is completely arbitrary, there were plenty of black musicians who were there first, even if they weren't "pop". If anything, the Jackson Five gets more respect than Micheal.
This is largely taste, still. There probably a heavy dose of "I don't get it" here, since I genuinely don't, and never did. Back when he was at his peak of popularity (early-mid 80's), I was listening to Guns N' Roses, oldies, Boston, and classical music.
I suppose maximizing or minimizing his accomplishments is largly about what we value. I couldn't give a damn if his record sold 9 billion copies, or 750 million, it isn't an important metric to me. And somewhat meaningless, I'm glad he had an awesome publicist, and salesmen behind him.
Elvis and the Beetles did more than Jackson. Elvis translated blues, and other older musical traditions, to suburban white kids. I don't personally think he was any good, but we do owe basically EVERY modern genre of music to him. The Beetles were only good after they stopped being pop, and mostly rested on the fact that they had genuine talent, and were willing to try new things (the Beetles are the true birth of prog rock)
Yes, his videos were big. But again, this isn't something I really care about.
That thing with the molestation/extortion? Look at his interview with that reporter - MJ honest to god didn't think there was anything wrong with sleeping in a bed with kid(s). He looked at that reporter like a dear-in-headlights and couldn't figure out why the reporter was making an issue of it. MJ was naive: that doesn't make him bad, it makes him a target.
No, the fact he obsessed with children, and wanted them to share a bed with him made him bad. Just because you don't know something is wrong, doesn't make it right.
That and, why the hell is some washed up, potentially pedophile, pop-star dying more important than anything else in the world right now? Does anyone actually CARE that much? Who the hell are these people? I've gone the last 20 years of my life never even thinking of the man (outside of some off-color jokes in the 90s), and my life will remain exactly the same without him. I WON'T miss him. I really don't care about him, and am perplexed by the people who are now jumping around saying how awesome he was, even though no one I know admit to ever liking him when we was actually doing something.
Not that he really did anything. He didn't change music, he wasn't particularly good at it. He was just a celebrity. This is like the strange frenzy around that Anna Nicole chick, or the "Princess" Diana chick, where no one can actually say WHY this matters, or matters enough to suspent 48 hours of our lives and news to nothing but coverage over them. Who the hell obsesses with celebrity? I'm genuinely confused.
Freedom is the right to say what you want to say and do what you want to do so long as it has *some* ethical justification. Downloading stuff isn't that.
I could probably come up with some ethical justification for anything, no matter how heinous, and I'm sure some large percentage of the population actually believes their ethical justifications for strange things.
I personally have nothing against piracy anymore. I used to have some qualms, but I worked them out. A significant percentage of people still pay, and will continue to pay for crap. Its really hard to say that this ratio will change, since most pirates are young and tech savvy, and piracy is about as easy as it can get (give me 5 minutes, I'll find you a free copy of ANYTHING you want) right now. Distributing media is still VERY profitable, even with piracy.
Until the various industries move into the digitial age, piracy will be around at roughly the same level it is at now. By "move into the digital age" I mean COMPETE with the various mediums that allow piracy. Before we say that it is impossible to compete with free, I'd like to point to services such as Hulu, iTunes, and Amazon, as well as concerts, and self-distribution. How much money did Trent Reznor make off of his various free (in every sense) offering? A ton, buy adding priced options that contains value-added features that can't be pirated. Sure small artists can't do this as well, but, small artists are also the ones who make the least amount of cash from giant labels, and thus are hurt the least by piracy (and probably gain the most, since the name of the game at that size is to grow a fan base).
I owe nothing to record labels. It is not my job to support their business model, or give them money when I don't have to.
You have it backwards. Most of Slashdot hates Apple, and Apple products. Most of them think that Apple products are vastly inferior to more geek friendly products because they are shiny and put user friendliness above pure utility and complexity. To rectify Apple's success over more nerdly products, we must put the success outside of the product, and thus the only reason people like Apple products is because of Steve Jobs, or they want to show off in coffee shops.
Obviously this point of view is rather stupid, but thats how psychology works.
It is business as usual but if different people get together to fight for or against something I'd say it was a conspiracy. Not that one has to be bad.
I was thinking of the more grand, tinfoil hat definition of conspiracy. Yes, there could be a "technical" conspiracy, but probably not a dramatic one, like the Illuminati.
According to the article "Rebuilding the Power Grid [technologyreview.com]" in MIT's Tech Review "grid-related power outages and problems with power quality reportedly cost the nation $80 billion to $188 billion per year." I's say that was costly too.
I agree. But this is pretty arcane where it matters. Four dollar a gallon gas is scary to us, costly aging infrastructure is not. Look at how seriously we take the possible threat of global warming (not advocating or denying it). Its a serious looking boogey man lurking in some indeterminate future. a brief, momentary rise in gas prices did more for the "green" movement, than the more dramatic spectre of global warming.
Basically this is more a matter of psychology than of reality.
If you need an example of where real conservatives and today's Republicans differ
Nice word game, and example of the No True Scotsman fallacy.
All nice job at partisan baiting. Attribute all positives to the side you identify with, and all negatives to your mythical "liberal" enemies.
I'm getting really sick of these silly dogmatic partisan statements. 100% of conservatives, liberals, libertarians, socialists, and whatever stupid ideology people identify with are wrong. Some small amount of their greater ideology might not be wrong, but the larger corpus of ideals is always wrong. Anyone who identifies themselves within a pure ideology, probably completely divorced from reality, or at least very uninformed. Ideology blinds us to what politics is about, and should be about, PEOPLE, and more so, people in the real world, not some ideologically pure fantasy land.
The truly rich have a lower propensity to spend and a higher propensity to invest
Minor quibble, investing is spending, unless their burying their cash in their backyard. Invested money is still doing something, as is all the savings that people have, which actually just a hidden investment where someone else gets the profit.
The problem isn't investing, or spending, its playing financial three card monte, where all these invested funds shuffled to strange services that don't actually DO anything besides shuffle money to other strange companies, whose soul purpose is shuffling money to other strange services. We lost the base of any functional or stable economy, industry and manufacturing. Without that, our economy is largely baseless and unsustainable, no matter what anyone is doing with their money.
Except Rothschild is Jewish and was in oil. Rothschild Investment Trust [zimbio.com] controls Royal Dutch Shell Oil.
Yes, but I still doubt there is a conspiracy involved, outside of the usual capitalist "money-making" type. I'm sure these companies are looking out for their best interests, and probably don't want alternative fuels to compete with their product. This is normal business practices. But I'm guessing there isn't some huge, organized, push to quash all such technologies across the whole globe.
As much as a pick on the Libertarians here, I do believe that if there was a miracle fuel out there, someone would develop it and sell it, and from there it would be very hard for a corporation or syndicate to crush it if it is truly cheaper and better. Unless they control every government to the point of being able to legally block this technology.
I'm guessing that most of these miracle technologies are so miraculous because someone want venture capital and investors, not because they are actually miracles. That is the conspiracy, people who want money in a hot market, with a hot buzz-word attached to it, will talk big talk to get money for products that aren't really all that hot.
Its like the whole tech boom all over again.
Agreed but I'd add one thing, "Rebuilding the Power Grid [technologyreview.com]. Not only build a long distance High Voltage Direct Current infrastructure but make the grid smart [economist.com].
Agreed. Right now there are some generally good ideas for making our national power scheme better. The problem remains cost, and the fact that what we have right now works good enough for most people. With the price of oil back down to slightly less insane levels, the problem has drifted back into the wood work. The body politic has the attention span of a gnat, and doesn't care about anything that happens outside of a decade window.
it's cheaper to use fossil fuel energy, at least as long as CO2 emissions remain an externality.
I was talking about some hypothetical time where we actually wanted to become a bit more ecologically friendly with energy (I hate the term "green", people ruined it). This probably won't happen for some time both because the economic reasons you state, and because people are generally complacent and apathetic about anything that doesn't happen in the immediate future.