I didn't mean to sound quite so cynical (and who can turn down spouting the Who lyrics?). I still vote, I keep up on the news, I try to keep my opinions somewhat accurate with continuing education, and try to get into lively arguments with people who believe other things than me as to either convince them, or learn something new. I think the new boss is somewhat better than the old boss, not that that takes much effort, he might, if he lives up to his words, and we get out of this nasty economy, be better than any president (just on speaches) that we've had in some time.
There always is a chance for real improvement, though politics are always slow to follow. We the people are where all the changes come from, and politicians are generally left scrambling to catch up. I'm cynical about those in power, but have guarded hope for the American people, and people in general. Every once in awhile this fails completely, but its generally true.
I think the American people are getting rather sick of the petty party politics right now. Obama was the first wave of trying to change things, and if he fails their going to move towards more interesting options. Sadly the media hides this by giving unwarrented due to the lunatic fringe on both sides of the isle, but these are shrinking minorities, even if they are becoming more rabid.
I look at Howard Roark and really don't see where there could be any controversy; isn't this exactly the American Hero type we have always loved in so many other contexts? Fountainhead was just more technical and dry (just what I love).
Not getting into that debate.:) Roark is very much an "American Hero" type, though, as you put it. Which can mean many things to many people, though, and hardly makes any argument persuasive. I'm not the largest fan, and I do think that people can take her a bit far, buying into some idea of "uber greed = communal good" thing, which is somewhat convenient magical thinking.
The new boss is the same as the old boss. Its always been this way, it always will be that way. Even if we elected Ron Paul there would be a new crisis, since the ball doesn't fall only into the pols court. The media NEEDs crises, as much as the powers that be do. I think we the people need them too, just to keep us feeling warm, fuzzy, and indignant too.
I don't think geeks are becoming more "welfare state" oriented, I just think that we're becoming more polarized, and more vehement in our opinions. The liberals are getting more liberal, the conservatives more conservative, the libertarians... you get the point. Partly because everyone is feeling threatened right now, I think. Liberals (and social libertarians) are scared of what Bush could do to our civil liberties, and how everyone with an (R) after their name jumped on a big tyrannical bandwagon just for partisan power, while Obama is doing nothing to fix our rights problems. The few remaining fiscal conservatives are scared because Obama is throwing around money like a teen at a strip club, and is shaping up to be as easy to give a buck as the previous administration. The religious right is scared because they lost all their spokesmen, and the ones that they've had since Reagan were nothing but tin gods granting them lip service for votes. Libertarians share the same problems as social libertarians and fiscal conservatives.
Add to this the "Democrats = socialist" meme, and the "republicans = anti-rational, war mongering, knuckledragger" meme...
Basically we're all circling the wagons, because we're scared.
You proved the parents point I think, unless of course your more conservative than not.
Slashdot always is on the whole for things that you vehemently disagree with. I've been noticing/. become pro-religion, anti-science, and even more towards the libertarian fringe of late. But then again if I was a pro-science, anti-science, libertarian I would probably think that the atheistic pinkos were taking over.
Which still doesn't change the fact that one is an open standard, and the other is merely a proprietary format. Open standards are agreed upon, and should grant interoperability by definition. When one company decides to break an open standard it is a big deal.
This sort of change has nothing to do with end users, they don't even know there is a format "war", they generally don't even know what a format IS. This exists because some interoperability is a good thing, and it keeps MSFT from leveraging their popular format to further their monopoly.
Its like if one company came and mucked up HTML (and open format)for their own benefit, dramatically hurting peoples ability to compete...
Maybe this is the same sort of thing as the string theory people mean when they talk about extra "rolled up" dimensions, or how the surface of a sheet of paper and the surface of a paper towel tube are both two dimensional even though there are a lot less discrete positions going around the circumference of the tube?
I doubt it, the string theorists are talking about SPATIAL dimensions, while this is talking of axis of data stored (the terms fail me, someone earlier had them correct, but my brain failed). If you plotted the storage parameters, it would require 5 axis of information. This is different than storing things in a direction orthogonal from those which we are familiar with.
Not to comment on you in particular, but to/. as a whole; but how can a bunch of so called nerds not know the difference between this use of the term.
On a quick google, this is a "vector" dimension, or somesuch.
they have no proof that there is no god...after all, what could possibly constitute such proof?
I have no proof that there isn't an invisible fairy floating three feet from my left hand. There is no way I could ever prove it either, since she has no mass, gives off no scent, heat, or has any other visible effect on the universe. By your logic, you must also be an invisible fairy agnostic, since you can never disprove it by how I constructed my argument. \
You must also be an FSM agnostic, a Shiva angostic, a Scientology agnostic, etc...
So... that nitpick out of the way...
if the proposition of God is unprovable, then it isn't a proposition. There, then, isn't anything to believe or disbelieve. If there is no physical manifestation which can carry a truth value, then its existence is completely superfluous. This is why I consider myself an atheist, if God existed, he wouldn't matter one bit, since there isn't any evidence (and thus effect) that could sustain his presence in the actual universe. If there was, he would become the realm of proofs, and thus would be disprovable.
Without some timeless being which created everything, there is no absolute truth
There might not be a basis to absolute ethics/morals, but there still would be absolute truth. 2+2=4 is an absolute truth, as is the basic logical "laws of thought", and by extension basic math and logic.
When we get to ethics and morals though, which is your point, you may also be wrong. Ethics and morals may be an evolved property of our species to increase our ability to survive, breed, and prosper. It isn't hard to picture two groups of early human ancestors, one a group of opertunistic sociopaths, and the other with some loose "moral" code. Which would be more able to survive? This can be seen as being akin to the evolution of our particular brand of primate ancestors being social animals, and not primarily solitary.
If living in a group is useful, then a set of rules allowing groups to run smoothly would also be useful.
If we accept the above, then it wouldn't be impossible to describe these "descriptive" ethics in which we live. This could probably be boiled down to the "if p, then q" syllogism. My personal take (taken with a HUGE grain of salt, like a boulder of salt) is that if we accept the subject as human (i.e. like us), we then accord them as being like us, empathy. The difference between human morals is who we accept as being fellow humans at any given time, but the respect given to those in the exclusive "human" club remains the same.
What your taking about is that God allows us to have "normative" ethics, or "prescriptive" ethics (in the "thou ought" form), which may be true. But saying that this can be the only source is wrong. Normative ethics existed long before God, and never was the sole domain of various supernatural sources. If God is a prerequisite for normative ethics, then Kant must be God, since he belched out the Categorical Imperative using nothing but logical authority, not divine.
As an amusing side note, if my salt-laden idea is right, then the Ten Commandments of the Judeo-Christian realm would be a good illustration. When it says "Thou Shall Not Kill" (or "Murder" more literally) it never meant that as a universal clause, it meant it as "Though Shall Not Kill Your Fellow Jews, Unless They Wander From Your Definition of What Being Jewish Is". "Thou Shall Not Covet Your Neighbors Wife" turns into "Though Shall not Covet a Fellow Jew's Wife, but Those Slave Chicks Who May or May Not Be Married to Infidels Are Fine". Even now we have a hard time actually making these commandments actually followable, we expanded them a bit, but "Though Shall Not Murder" has turned into "Though Shall Not Murder, Unless You Have a Good Reason, or the State Says its Fine".
I love how the number of Google results is suppose to lend some sort of credence to arguments...
This Socially Margarine must also be pretty relavent, with its 600,00 hits.
The quantity of Google hits to a term is less credible than a Wikipedia entry.
That said, yes, pot heads shouldn't be in jail. But... Get to drugs much harder than that and they should be. Harder, more addictive, drugs add to crime, and not just drug crimes. Hard drug users are a deeper social problem than the mere moral crime of marijuana use.
was getting upset at reading the arguments being made, and in particular the very rough moderation bias against anyone that even suggested that maybe people should have the right to choose what they want to support and how rather than giving legislative power to the executive branch of government.
Welcome to/., you must be new here.
That out of the way;/. swings to the far opposite side of the spectrum much more often, where even the mild word "intervention", on any level, would get you modded down by rabid libertarians and burgeoning Ayn Randian ubermenchen. Lately, though, the "let the government use money as social engineering" people have stepped out of the woodwork, perhaps empowered by Bush/Obama's fiscal policies.
I'm of a split opinion of this whole issue. On one hand I absolutely HATE it when our politicians decide that they must act for our interests, because we are too stupid to. Anyone who "knows better", or states "for your own good" should be barred from public office. On the other hand I see the issue at hand as a genuine problem, and as a whole us Americans are rather ignorant about the whole issue, and its complexities. As evident in some of the discussions in this topic, where driving a Hummer has become a political statement, and in some cases, an almost religious one. While I won't disagree with your right to buy one, I can state that the owners in the cases above are ignorant. Expanding that, we can say that, if we agree that we are on the wrong course, something must be done, something must be fixed. Sadly, our education system has been gutted to the point to inhibit our critical abilities, and our media has failed to inform us of the world. So in a sense, people DO know better. I don't believe in the right to be ignorant (to be cute, the right to be wrong). This verges on tangential, but you can see that it makes the issue more interesting.
Taxes are the easiest answer to pop into mind. Let the government handle it. Raise the cost, make it less desirable. Like all quick fixes, its rife with more fundamental problems. Hell, we tax tobacco because smoking is bad, then we throw some more taxes onto it, because, well, smoking is REALLY bad (and we need the money). We tax alcohol, because we'd rather it not be cheap. We just read about NY wanting to tax junk food, DVDs, and video games, because being an obese sofa-sloth is bad (and we need the money).
The bad thing, that we forget, is that taxes on goods hit the poor first, and harder. For example. But then again, more complex solutions are... difficult to find, and generally enters a long "elitist" debate between people with different views of the issues. In short, it doesn't look as good on TV, and makes it harder to win an election again someone who just said "tax 'em".
I'd say that the economic schools have grounded objectively
I generally lump economics in with sociology (with a side of math, though). The only objectivity it can have is history, which makes it a mess since there really never is a single foil, or factor in economics, or the real world.
Oh yeah, and fuck using taxes as moral regulatory tool. What, you run out of Bibles to choke people to death with?
I agree. Though, the GP never put forth a moral argument, much less a religious one.
A gas tax would force fuel efficiency, and maybe, just maybe, help to kill spawl and push public transportation (especially in the US West), maybe help quash CO2 (if you see it as a problem, which is different debate). These aren't moral issues, but practical goals.
That stated, a dramatic artificial rise in gas taxes is dumb, for other reasons. It does punish the poor, it would hurt food prices, etc... I prefer positive incentives towards these goals, like tax credits, and further investment in alternative energy vehicles (which would, obviously, be exempt from any and all current fuel taxes).
The only negative enforcement I really like is charging for emissions. But that is a different issue.
I'm glad you have your favorite theory of economics, but that, sadly, doesn't make it the "true" school, nor subtract any relevance from other theories which are just as grounded (weakly) in objective reality. Your treating brands of economic theory like religion, which is kind of funny considering.
The term "beta" is becoming more and more worthless. We live in the age of the perpetual beta, which is generally completely open, and treated by all like an actual release, with none of the hassle of actually finishing it, or closing the large obvious bugs, at worst it is treated like a general release with relaxed liability for your own bad coding.
When you have a large distribution, and have been in beta for more than three years or so, I don't think your software should really be considered a beta anymore.
also very mature of u to click on google ads so they lose money.
Very mature of you to avoid having to reach for that inconvenient "shift" key, and saving all that effort of typing "y", and "o". Really "y", "o", and "u" are all withing FOUR characters of each other, the fingers almost stumble upon them like some miraculous accident. I can understand eschewing that pesky "shift" key though, you mustered the effort to hit it once, and once should always be enough. Overuse of anything can lead to problems, the "shift" key, I am sure, is no exception.
When questioning maturity, always take pains to make sure you at least appear more mature than those who you are criticizing.
There is that whole doctrine of free-will thing in Christianity. God gave you the ability to CHOOSE to believe in him, then seeded evidence of his existence. You choose not to, since God refuses to make you believe.
A Christian, strictly speaking, is a follower of Christ. There's no requirement to believe that all scripture is to be read literally.
Except the only knowledge we have of this Christ guy is scripture, so we must take his existence at least literally, and probably much of what he said. It would be rather nonsensical to deny the new testament as a Christian, since then all we would have is "I have faith that some guy named Jesus existed, and may or may not have said some things", which, even as far as faith goes, is rather weak.
As for the Old Testament, it also cannot be really denied, since Jesus, himself, was aware of it, and based his words, and own religion, on it. He believed it as true, and therefore to accept Jesus as infallible, Christians must accept it as true.
Granted no Christian hold any stake in the old testament, EXCEPT when it comes to strange socially repressive morals, and creation history, it seems. Actually most Christians, in my experience, are rather anti-christian. I doubt Christ would have looked on bankers positively, for example, if he existed.
But then again I'm applying logical rules to one of the most irrational things in human existence. Shame on me.
Then I realized I was just trying to make my old beliefs fit in with reality, as if they were a security blanket. Over time, I let go of those beliefs and accepted I am an atheist.
That would be somewhat problematic to mix with normal Christian dogma. All of the "in His image" bits would be problematic. And if we accept that we are some deities "children" or creation, then we must accept that ALL life is held in equal esteem since all life sprung from that common created ancestor. If you still hold that humans are somehow special in the eyes of your diety of choice, then you must hold that evolution has stopped, and we are the culmination of... random mutations (if that even makes sense). If we are still under the process of evolution, then our deity is guiding us (or such) to some final goal, of which we are as then as inconsequential in said deities eyes as our previous evolutionary ancestors, since we too would be nothing but a transitional form (as is everything else).
And still, if there is a diety, why the hell would WE be the special ones, and not orangutans, chihuahuas, or e. coli bacteria instead?
Its still early in the game, it has bugs. I'm sure these will be worked out in time, and things will get more accurate. It still be better than Wikipedia when it comes to single facts, especially if it uses sources like the CIA Factbook, I trust most information on Wikipedia very very slightly too. It also is just another online resource, and is only as good as its source material which hopefully exists in the real world, or in a peer reviewed journal.
That said, when I want to know the population and GDP of Korea, I generally don't really care one bit about their culture, history, or political system. I want JUST those two bits of information, nothing more. This is the tool for that sort of thing. When I want to know about Korea, Wikipedia is probably the place to go.
I don't know, watching the into video has me somewhat intrigued and excited. It seems like a nice tool for finding specific bits of information that would be a page-digging pain.
"...that seems unethical from the standpoint of the fact you're dealing with human beings, not just "cultures"." Taken with: "...why the hell shouldn't donors be paid for essentially providing their family's information?" causes a contradiction. This microscopic collection of cells is a human, but property of the genetic donors. These two ideas don't mesh very well. Property cannot be human anymore, so if stem cells are property we accept them as a pile of random cells; but if we accept them as human, then they can't be the property of the "parents", and thus not subject to royalties.
If I have a child, my parents can't claim control, or royalties, on that child just because they have a roughly 50% (rather.25*2) genetic stake in my child. These little blobs of undifferenciated cells share 50% of each parents DNA, but this doesn't give them property rights.
Personally I'm out on the issue. I don't buy the whole "soul" aspect of the debate, and think that part should be stricken. Just because on religion claims it, others don't, so who decides what religion is objectively right. The "potential human" issue is more pressing, but still manages to never exit an ethical gray zone, especially when we take into account that these embryos were generally slated for destruction anyways. Is it better to utilize a potential human for the good of man, or better to incinerate them? I don't have a hard time, ehtically, on this issue. Yes, there are those on the extreme religious fringe who wants to implant ALL of them, and bring them to term, but I don't give them any credibility since they don't actually seem mindful of the consequences of this.
If you can read this, thank a teacher. Since it's in English, thank a US soldier.
If I'm not in the US, should I thank the British army or East India Company?
I'm sick of political astroturf, stop it. This is not a left/right issue, both "sides" are out to protect people who give them money to be in power. The right has NEVER been known to be unfriendly to corporate interests. The left is always slandered as being a bunch of anti-freemarket-communists, but now you state that their acting against the people in interest of companies. Newthink much?
But classical music is different from pop music in that the particular performance of pop music is paramount. OTOH, someone wanting to hear Brahms Symphony will enjoy it whether it's the Vienna Phil, Berlin Phil, Chicago Symphony, etc. because it's the MUSIC they like. If U2 does an Elvis song, it's not simply an Elvis song any longer. It's U2's version of the Elvis song.
How do we know if Classical music is much different than Pop music if one is completely restricted to copyright, and one just happened to be created before the perpetual copyright? This isn't a limitation that depends on the type of music or composition, but is only a mere function of law.
A lot of jazz and blues songs follow the classical theme you lay out, where to a certain point it doesn't matter whose performing it, just that its performed well. I can be a fan of a particular symphonies rendition of an orchestra, just as I can be a fan of one moderns band cover of a song (for instance the song "Milk Cow Blues", I prefer the Arrowsmith version over Arnold's version or Elvis' version, though the Kink's or Willie Nelson's version come close). The song remains the same, though, all the individual artist adds is a bit of flare, just like any orchestra adds to a composition. Listening to Beethoven performed by the Vienna Philharmonic will be a different experience than listening to the same composition by the Boston Philharmonic, or your local high school's orchestra. I cans state baldly that I prefer the Royal Philharmonic to the Boston Philharmonic in the performance of the 9th Symphony.
I use spamgourmet for pretty much the same purpose, that and it limits the amount of crap I have to get after a certain point. Though at some point I must have slipped since I get around 10 messages of spam a day now on my Gmail account, something that only happened in the last year.
And this is where you lose me. Generalizing all media providers as "giant faceless corporations" is a poor argument.
I wasn't trying to generalize. I generally don't pirate music from bands who receive any amount of money from my purchase, especially ones actively making music. I tried to draw the line there. Piracy is wrong when it goes against the spirit of copyright drawn in the Constitution (not the current law). Most of the music I listen to is either self-released, or on small labels, so I'm a firm believer in giving them money. I have pirated some of their releases, only to buy it from them personally at concerts (mostly because its a pain to find some of their albums online), but then I buy the album, the ticket, and generally a shirt. Though generally most independent music is well represented on Amazon, iTunes, or eMusic, so its pretty rare that I feel the need to do this.
This isn't the problem, people who take money from actual content producers are morally reprehensible.
There is some caveats, of course. I refuse to buy Beatles CDs (and I'm not sure if McCartney and Ringo actually make royalties off of half of it) since they've already got my money, several times over, and neither of them are actually IN the Beatles anymore, so I'm not encouraging that band to make more releases. Not saying I have pirated them, as I stated they've already got my money, but there could be a case for ethically doing so.
Also, once the members of a band are dead, or an author, I stop caring about piracy. There is no reason that August Derelith's estate should be making money off of the later writings of HP Lovecraft, or Philip Dick's ex-wife or daughters should be making money off of his catalog, or that Capital Records (or whoever) should be making money off of Louis Armstrong's recording. This is outside the constitutional spirit of copyright. Yes, this bit is somewhat a gray area, and very much up for debate.
Slashdot Mirror
I didn't mean to sound quite so cynical (and who can turn down spouting the Who lyrics?). I still vote, I keep up on the news, I try to keep my opinions somewhat accurate with continuing education, and try to get into lively arguments with people who believe other things than me as to either convince them, or learn something new. I think the new boss is somewhat better than the old boss, not that that takes much effort, he might, if he lives up to his words, and we get out of this nasty economy, be better than any president (just on speaches) that we've had in some time.
There always is a chance for real improvement, though politics are always slow to follow. We the people are where all the changes come from, and politicians are generally left scrambling to catch up. I'm cynical about those in power, but have guarded hope for the American people, and people in general. Every once in awhile this fails completely, but its generally true.
I think the American people are getting rather sick of the petty party politics right now. Obama was the first wave of trying to change things, and if he fails their going to move towards more interesting options. Sadly the media hides this by giving unwarrented due to the lunatic fringe on both sides of the isle, but these are shrinking minorities, even if they are becoming more rabid.
I look at Howard Roark and really don't see where there could be any controversy; isn't this exactly the American Hero type we have always loved in so many other contexts? Fountainhead was just more technical and dry (just what I love).
Not getting into that debate. :) Roark is very much an "American Hero" type, though, as you put it. Which can mean many things to many people, though, and hardly makes any argument persuasive. I'm not the largest fan, and I do think that people can take her a bit far, buying into some idea of "uber greed = communal good" thing, which is somewhat convenient magical thinking.
The new boss is the same as the old boss. Its always been this way, it always will be that way. Even if we elected Ron Paul there would be a new crisis, since the ball doesn't fall only into the pols court. The media NEEDs crises, as much as the powers that be do. I think we the people need them too, just to keep us feeling warm, fuzzy, and indignant too.
I don't think geeks are becoming more "welfare state" oriented, I just think that we're becoming more polarized, and more vehement in our opinions. The liberals are getting more liberal, the conservatives more conservative, the libertarians... you get the point. Partly because everyone is feeling threatened right now, I think. Liberals (and social libertarians) are scared of what Bush could do to our civil liberties, and how everyone with an (R) after their name jumped on a big tyrannical bandwagon just for partisan power, while Obama is doing nothing to fix our rights problems. The few remaining fiscal conservatives are scared because Obama is throwing around money like a teen at a strip club, and is shaping up to be as easy to give a buck as the previous administration. The religious right is scared because they lost all their spokesmen, and the ones that they've had since Reagan were nothing but tin gods granting them lip service for votes. Libertarians share the same problems as social libertarians and fiscal conservatives.
Add to this the "Democrats = socialist" meme, and the "republicans = anti-rational, war mongering, knuckledragger" meme...
Basically we're all circling the wagons, because we're scared.
touche!
You proved the parents point I think, unless of course your more conservative than not.
Slashdot always is on the whole for things that you vehemently disagree with. I've been noticing /. become pro-religion, anti-science, and even more towards the libertarian fringe of late. But then again if I was a pro-science, anti-science, libertarian I would probably think that the atheistic pinkos were taking over.
Which still doesn't change the fact that one is an open standard, and the other is merely a proprietary format. Open standards are agreed upon, and should grant interoperability by definition. When one company decides to break an open standard it is a big deal.
This sort of change has nothing to do with end users, they don't even know there is a format "war", they generally don't even know what a format IS. This exists because some interoperability is a good thing, and it keeps MSFT from leveraging their popular format to further their monopoly.
Its like if one company came and mucked up HTML (and open format)for their own benefit, dramatically hurting peoples ability to compete...
Oh wait.
Maybe this is the same sort of thing as the string theory people mean when they talk about extra "rolled up" dimensions, or how the surface of a sheet of paper and the surface of a paper towel tube are both two dimensional even though there are a lot less discrete positions going around the circumference of the tube?
I doubt it, the string theorists are talking about SPATIAL dimensions, while this is talking of axis of data stored (the terms fail me, someone earlier had them correct, but my brain failed). If you plotted the storage parameters, it would require 5 axis of information. This is different than storing things in a direction orthogonal from those which we are familiar with.
Not to comment on you in particular, but to /. as a whole; but how can a bunch of so called nerds not know the difference between this use of the term.
On a quick google, this is a "vector" dimension, or somesuch.
But then why did Jesus, himself, claim that the old laws still applied? Jesus was a jew, in more than just the ethnic sense.
It took Paul to go muck it up to sell it to the infidels.
they have no proof that there is no god...after all, what could possibly constitute such proof?
I have no proof that there isn't an invisible fairy floating three feet from my left hand. There is no way I could ever prove it either, since she has no mass, gives off no scent, heat, or has any other visible effect on the universe. By your logic, you must also be an invisible fairy agnostic, since you can never disprove it by how I constructed my argument. \
You must also be an FSM agnostic, a Shiva angostic, a Scientology agnostic, etc...
So... that nitpick out of the way...
if the proposition of God is unprovable, then it isn't a proposition. There, then, isn't anything to believe or disbelieve. If there is no physical manifestation which can carry a truth value, then its existence is completely superfluous. This is why I consider myself an atheist, if God existed, he wouldn't matter one bit, since there isn't any evidence (and thus effect) that could sustain his presence in the actual universe. If there was, he would become the realm of proofs, and thus would be disprovable.
Read up on falsifiability.
Without some timeless being which created everything, there is no absolute truth
There might not be a basis to absolute ethics/morals, but there still would be absolute truth. 2+2=4 is an absolute truth, as is the basic logical "laws of thought", and by extension basic math and logic.
When we get to ethics and morals though, which is your point, you may also be wrong. Ethics and morals may be an evolved property of our species to increase our ability to survive, breed, and prosper. It isn't hard to picture two groups of early human ancestors, one a group of opertunistic sociopaths, and the other with some loose "moral" code. Which would be more able to survive? This can be seen as being akin to the evolution of our particular brand of primate ancestors being social animals, and not primarily solitary.
If living in a group is useful, then a set of rules allowing groups to run smoothly would also be useful.
If we accept the above, then it wouldn't be impossible to describe these "descriptive" ethics in which we live. This could probably be boiled down to the "if p, then q" syllogism. My personal take (taken with a HUGE grain of salt, like a boulder of salt) is that if we accept the subject as human (i.e. like us), we then accord them as being like us, empathy. The difference between human morals is who we accept as being fellow humans at any given time, but the respect given to those in the exclusive "human" club remains the same.
What your taking about is that God allows us to have "normative" ethics, or "prescriptive" ethics (in the "thou ought" form), which may be true. But saying that this can be the only source is wrong. Normative ethics existed long before God, and never was the sole domain of various supernatural sources. If God is a prerequisite for normative ethics, then Kant must be God, since he belched out the Categorical Imperative using nothing but logical authority, not divine.
As an amusing side note, if my salt-laden idea is right, then the Ten Commandments of the Judeo-Christian realm would be a good illustration. When it says "Thou Shall Not Kill" (or "Murder" more literally) it never meant that as a universal clause, it meant it as "Though Shall Not Kill Your Fellow Jews, Unless They Wander From Your Definition of What Being Jewish Is". "Thou Shall Not Covet Your Neighbors Wife" turns into "Though Shall not Covet a Fellow Jew's Wife, but Those Slave Chicks Who May or May Not Be Married to Infidels Are Fine". Even now we have a hard time actually making these commandments actually followable, we expanded them a bit, but "Though Shall Not Murder" has turned into "Though Shall Not Murder, Unless You Have a Good Reason, or the State Says its Fine".
I love how the number of Google results is suppose to lend some sort of credence to arguments...
This Socially Margarine must also be pretty relavent, with its 600,00 hits.
The quantity of Google hits to a term is less credible than a Wikipedia entry.
That said, yes, pot heads shouldn't be in jail. But... Get to drugs much harder than that and they should be. Harder, more addictive, drugs add to crime, and not just drug crimes. Hard drug users are a deeper social problem than the mere moral crime of marijuana use.
was getting upset at reading the arguments being made, and in particular the very rough moderation bias against anyone that even suggested that maybe people should have the right to choose what they want to support and how rather than giving legislative power to the executive branch of government.
Welcome to /., you must be new here.
That out of the way; /. swings to the far opposite side of the spectrum much more often, where even the mild word "intervention", on any level, would get you modded down by rabid libertarians and burgeoning Ayn Randian ubermenchen. Lately, though, the "let the government use money as social engineering" people have stepped out of the woodwork, perhaps empowered by Bush/Obama's fiscal policies.
I'm of a split opinion of this whole issue. On one hand I absolutely HATE it when our politicians decide that they must act for our interests, because we are too stupid to. Anyone who "knows better", or states "for your own good" should be barred from public office. On the other hand I see the issue at hand as a genuine problem, and as a whole us Americans are rather ignorant about the whole issue, and its complexities. As evident in some of the discussions in this topic, where driving a Hummer has become a political statement, and in some cases, an almost religious one. While I won't disagree with your right to buy one, I can state that the owners in the cases above are ignorant. Expanding that, we can say that, if we agree that we are on the wrong course, something must be done, something must be fixed. Sadly, our education system has been gutted to the point to inhibit our critical abilities, and our media has failed to inform us of the world. So in a sense, people DO know better. I don't believe in the right to be ignorant (to be cute, the right to be wrong). This verges on tangential, but you can see that it makes the issue more interesting.
Taxes are the easiest answer to pop into mind. Let the government handle it. Raise the cost, make it less desirable. Like all quick fixes, its rife with more fundamental problems. Hell, we tax tobacco because smoking is bad, then we throw some more taxes onto it, because, well, smoking is REALLY bad (and we need the money). We tax alcohol, because we'd rather it not be cheap. We just read about NY wanting to tax junk food, DVDs, and video games, because being an obese sofa-sloth is bad (and we need the money).
The bad thing, that we forget, is that taxes on goods hit the poor first, and harder. For example. But then again, more complex solutions are... difficult to find, and generally enters a long "elitist" debate between people with different views of the issues. In short, it doesn't look as good on TV, and makes it harder to win an election again someone who just said "tax 'em".
I'd say that the economic schools have grounded objectively
I generally lump economics in with sociology (with a side of math, though). The only objectivity it can have is history, which makes it a mess since there really never is a single foil, or factor in economics, or the real world.
Oh yeah, and fuck using taxes as moral regulatory tool. What, you run out of Bibles to choke people to death with?
I agree. Though, the GP never put forth a moral argument, much less a religious one.
A gas tax would force fuel efficiency, and maybe, just maybe, help to kill spawl and push public transportation (especially in the US West), maybe help quash CO2 (if you see it as a problem, which is different debate). These aren't moral issues, but practical goals.
That stated, a dramatic artificial rise in gas taxes is dumb, for other reasons. It does punish the poor, it would hurt food prices, etc... I prefer positive incentives towards these goals, like tax credits, and further investment in alternative energy vehicles (which would, obviously, be exempt from any and all current fuel taxes).
The only negative enforcement I really like is charging for emissions. But that is a different issue.
I'm glad you have your favorite theory of economics, but that, sadly, doesn't make it the "true" school, nor subtract any relevance from other theories which are just as grounded (weakly) in objective reality. Your treating brands of economic theory like religion, which is kind of funny considering.
It looses my data upon the world like Godzilla?
The term "beta" is becoming more and more worthless. We live in the age of the perpetual beta, which is generally completely open, and treated by all like an actual release, with none of the hassle of actually finishing it, or closing the large obvious bugs, at worst it is treated like a general release with relaxed liability for your own bad coding.
When you have a large distribution, and have been in beta for more than three years or so, I don't think your software should really be considered a beta anymore.
also very mature of u to click on google ads so they lose money.
Very mature of you to avoid having to reach for that inconvenient "shift" key, and saving all that effort of typing "y", and "o". Really "y", "o", and "u" are all withing FOUR characters of each other, the fingers almost stumble upon them like some miraculous accident. I can understand eschewing that pesky "shift" key though, you mustered the effort to hit it once, and once should always be enough. Overuse of anything can lead to problems, the "shift" key, I am sure, is no exception.
When questioning maturity, always take pains to make sure you at least appear more mature than those who you are criticizing.
Okay, now draw me a vetted, empirical, divide between how much of the discrepancy is genetic (evolved), and how much of it is social?
Or...
There is that whole doctrine of free-will thing in Christianity. God gave you the ability to CHOOSE to believe in him, then seeded evidence of his existence. You choose not to, since God refuses to make you believe.
I'm not a Christian, but that is the doctrine.
A Christian, strictly speaking, is a follower of Christ. There's no requirement to believe that all scripture is to be read literally.
Except the only knowledge we have of this Christ guy is scripture, so we must take his existence at least literally, and probably much of what he said. It would be rather nonsensical to deny the new testament as a Christian, since then all we would have is "I have faith that some guy named Jesus existed, and may or may not have said some things", which, even as far as faith goes, is rather weak.
As for the Old Testament, it also cannot be really denied, since Jesus, himself, was aware of it, and based his words, and own religion, on it. He believed it as true, and therefore to accept Jesus as infallible, Christians must accept it as true.
Granted no Christian hold any stake in the old testament, EXCEPT when it comes to strange socially repressive morals, and creation history, it seems. Actually most Christians, in my experience, are rather anti-christian. I doubt Christ would have looked on bankers positively, for example, if he existed.
But then again I'm applying logical rules to one of the most irrational things in human existence. Shame on me.
Then I realized I was just trying to make my old beliefs fit in with reality, as if they were a security blanket. Over time, I let go of those beliefs and accepted I am an atheist.
Good for you. Welcome to the party.
That would be somewhat problematic to mix with normal Christian dogma. All of the "in His image" bits would be problematic. And if we accept that we are some deities "children" or creation, then we must accept that ALL life is held in equal esteem since all life sprung from that common created ancestor. If you still hold that humans are somehow special in the eyes of your diety of choice, then you must hold that evolution has stopped, and we are the culmination of... random mutations (if that even makes sense). If we are still under the process of evolution, then our deity is guiding us (or such) to some final goal, of which we are as then as inconsequential in said deities eyes as our previous evolutionary ancestors, since we too would be nothing but a transitional form (as is everything else).
And still, if there is a diety, why the hell would WE be the special ones, and not orangutans, chihuahuas, or e. coli bacteria instead?
Its still early in the game, it has bugs. I'm sure these will be worked out in time, and things will get more accurate. It still be better than Wikipedia when it comes to single facts, especially if it uses sources like the CIA Factbook, I trust most information on Wikipedia very very slightly too. It also is just another online resource, and is only as good as its source material which hopefully exists in the real world, or in a peer reviewed journal.
That said, when I want to know the population and GDP of Korea, I generally don't really care one bit about their culture, history, or political system. I want JUST those two bits of information, nothing more. This is the tool for that sort of thing. When I want to know about Korea, Wikipedia is probably the place to go.
I don't know, watching the into video has me somewhat intrigued and excited. It seems like a nice tool for finding specific bits of information that would be a page-digging pain.
"...that seems unethical from the standpoint of the fact you're dealing with human beings, not just "cultures"." Taken with: "...why the hell shouldn't donors be paid for essentially providing their family's information?" causes a contradiction. This microscopic collection of cells is a human, but property of the genetic donors. These two ideas don't mesh very well. Property cannot be human anymore, so if stem cells are property we accept them as a pile of random cells; but if we accept them as human, then they can't be the property of the "parents", and thus not subject to royalties.
If I have a child, my parents can't claim control, or royalties, on that child just because they have a roughly 50% (rather .25*2) genetic stake in my child. These little blobs of undifferenciated cells share 50% of each parents DNA, but this doesn't give them property rights.
Personally I'm out on the issue. I don't buy the whole "soul" aspect of the debate, and think that part should be stricken. Just because on religion claims it, others don't, so who decides what religion is objectively right. The "potential human" issue is more pressing, but still manages to never exit an ethical gray zone, especially when we take into account that these embryos were generally slated for destruction anyways. Is it better to utilize a potential human for the good of man, or better to incinerate them? I don't have a hard time, ehtically, on this issue. Yes, there are those on the extreme religious fringe who wants to implant ALL of them, and bring them to term, but I don't give them any credibility since they don't actually seem mindful of the consequences of this.
If you can read this, thank a teacher. Since it's in English, thank a US soldier.
If I'm not in the US, should I thank the British army or East India Company?
I'm sick of political astroturf, stop it. This is not a left/right issue, both "sides" are out to protect people who give them money to be in power. The right has NEVER been known to be unfriendly to corporate interests. The left is always slandered as being a bunch of anti-freemarket-communists, but now you state that their acting against the people in interest of companies. Newthink much?
But classical music is different from pop music in that the particular performance of pop music is paramount. OTOH, someone wanting to hear Brahms Symphony will enjoy it whether it's the Vienna Phil, Berlin Phil, Chicago Symphony, etc. because it's the MUSIC they like. If U2 does an Elvis song, it's not simply an Elvis song any longer. It's U2's version of the Elvis song.
How do we know if Classical music is much different than Pop music if one is completely restricted to copyright, and one just happened to be created before the perpetual copyright? This isn't a limitation that depends on the type of music or composition, but is only a mere function of law.
A lot of jazz and blues songs follow the classical theme you lay out, where to a certain point it doesn't matter whose performing it, just that its performed well. I can be a fan of a particular symphonies rendition of an orchestra, just as I can be a fan of one moderns band cover of a song (for instance the song "Milk Cow Blues", I prefer the Arrowsmith version over Arnold's version or Elvis' version, though the Kink's or Willie Nelson's version come close). The song remains the same, though, all the individual artist adds is a bit of flare, just like any orchestra adds to a composition. Listening to Beethoven performed by the Vienna Philharmonic will be a different experience than listening to the same composition by the Boston Philharmonic, or your local high school's orchestra. I cans state baldly that I prefer the Royal Philharmonic to the Boston Philharmonic in the performance of the 9th Symphony.
I use spamgourmet for pretty much the same purpose, that and it limits the amount of crap I have to get after a certain point. Though at some point I must have slipped since I get around 10 messages of spam a day now on my Gmail account, something that only happened in the last year.
And this is where you lose me. Generalizing all media providers as "giant faceless corporations" is a poor argument.
I wasn't trying to generalize. I generally don't pirate music from bands who receive any amount of money from my purchase, especially ones actively making music. I tried to draw the line there. Piracy is wrong when it goes against the spirit of copyright drawn in the Constitution (not the current law). Most of the music I listen to is either self-released, or on small labels, so I'm a firm believer in giving them money. I have pirated some of their releases, only to buy it from them personally at concerts (mostly because its a pain to find some of their albums online), but then I buy the album, the ticket, and generally a shirt. Though generally most independent music is well represented on Amazon, iTunes, or eMusic, so its pretty rare that I feel the need to do this.
This isn't the problem, people who take money from actual content producers are morally reprehensible.
There is some caveats, of course. I refuse to buy Beatles CDs (and I'm not sure if McCartney and Ringo actually make royalties off of half of it) since they've already got my money, several times over, and neither of them are actually IN the Beatles anymore, so I'm not encouraging that band to make more releases. Not saying I have pirated them, as I stated they've already got my money, but there could be a case for ethically doing so.
Also, once the members of a band are dead, or an author, I stop caring about piracy. There is no reason that August Derelith's estate should be making money off of the later writings of HP Lovecraft, or Philip Dick's ex-wife or daughters should be making money off of his catalog, or that Capital Records (or whoever) should be making money off of Louis Armstrong's recording. This is outside the constitutional spirit of copyright. Yes, this bit is somewhat a gray area, and very much up for debate.