Come on all you natural philosphers. What do you say?
The best words on this issue have already been spoken. Charles Williams Beebe says:
"The beauty and genius of a work of art may be reconceived though its first material expression be destroyed. A vanished harmony may yet again inspire the composer, but when the last individual of a race of living beings breathes no more, another heaven and earth must pass before such a one can be again."
Yes, run away little cultural warrior. Your plastic sword and shield can't stand the heat of inquiry. Run back into your little reality bubble where your certainty is assured. You can be free from the disorder and uncertainty of real life there. You will ask yourself no questions and all of life will be as you wish it to be.
I'm a troll? I've brought plenty of facts to this debate that you just seem to want to ignore or wish away with your fingers in your ears, and somehow I'm the troll? You truly are delusional. I'm actually just driving a wedge into you to pry open and expose your hypocrisy. Thanks for cooperating.
"We" is meant to include the public will, as currently implemented by the government. You seem to believe that excludes you.
Let me explain something to you that you must have missed in school: This is a democracy, not a dictatorship! 50.7% of the people who voted in the last presidential election voted for the current president. That's a very slim plurality of the 60.0% of the eligible voters who actually showed up to vote. If my math is correct that means that only about 30% of eligible voters actually voted for the current president and 70% did not. Now, you want those 30% to dictate to the other 70% as to what is culturally correct and what is not? Yes, I absolutely believe that I am excluded from being compelled to think the way some clique of "culturally correct" zealots deems appropriate -- as is everyone else in a free country. You apparently believe there is only one correct culture in this country (yours, naturally) and everyone else should move away. That's just straight-up totalitarianism and there's no way you can weasel your position to claim otherwise.
Listening to specialists in general gets the public in trouble, because they do not take a wide enough view of society.
Can you not understand the natural consequences of ignoring experts? Who is left to listen to if we ignore experts? Demagogues and ideologues, that's who. What society can we think of that lost touch with reality and followed a charismatic speaker? Of course facts must be biased against you so that's why experts are a problem. Those darn pesky facts just get in the way of a good ideology, don't they? Let's ignore facts and faithfully follow a charismatic leader. What could possibly go wrong? Bear this in mind, though, my deranged little cultural warrior: reality has a uniquely ungentle way of insinuating itself on even the most firmly-believed ideologies. Hold on fast because when it comes, it comes with a roar.
I firmly believe that most of our country disagrees with you - that most of us would rather have electricity at the cost of a few mountains.
Well, you'd be wrong. And your "beliefs" are irrelevant, anyway. The people have already spoken on this issue. The peoples' wishes were even codified into two relevant laws: The Clean Water Act and the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act. The Clean Water Act says that a stream may not be degraded unless a positive benefit is derived for which there is no way to avoid the degradation. Courts have ruled that the disposal of mining waste into streams is not a positive benefit to the community so burying hundreds of miles of streams under billions of tons of mining waste is illegal, period. The SMCRA states that a surface mine must restore the disturbed land to its "approximate original contour" following the extraction of coal. It also states that mining operations maintain a buffer zone around streams so that they are not disturbed. Blasting off a mountaintop and shoving it into the valley below violates both of those rules. No matter what the results of the last election were, even if it had been a unanimous vote, no one is above the law of the land. You seem to believe that it's all good and proper for the people in charge to violate the law, or that they aren't subject to the law. I'm guessing that would only apply as long as they're your people -- the "culturally correct" people. (See, I just brought more facts to the debate. Where are yours?)
So, what is your feeling on menenites(SP)?
I believe they are good people who have chosen to opt out of our societ
The majority of your post is a mass of unfounded hyperbole with no relation to anything I've ever said..."
Even though I quoted back your exact words before my comments? Way to have courage and stand behind your words, dude. Let me know when you want your spine back.
Unfortunately, all this shows is that you are an extremist by the measures we use in society.
Who is this self-proclaimed "we?" You act as if you and your imaginary "we" have a monopoly on the definition of extremism. That's pure totalitarian thinking -- as if your thinking is pure and therefore uniquely qualified to make this determination. I call that cultural correctness.
Probably those around you are also extremists, so you do not have any external perspective. One of the most important lessons to learn in life is to listen to those that you disagree with - you cannot learn by listening to those that you agree with.
You just used your teacher's voice to speak down to me and incorrectly assumed I've insulated myself from differing opinions. What's funny is that you said that to a daily Rush listener. I can listen to him all day and not shift my position an inch because I understand the linguistic jujitsu he's using. Yours is a different kind, more like Dick Cheney's "voice of reason"-type of condescension.
Yes, and look at what that got us!
What do you mean, "Look at what that got us???" The post-war years were the most productive in our nation's history. We became the world's technology leader, the wealthiest by far, and the world's first global hyper-power. It always amazes me how half the people of this country have been convinced that the system that created our huge success is somehow broken and needs completely plowed under in the name of corporate power. It's the greatest PR coup in history and you seem to be completely under its spell.
Scientists make very poor policy makers...
See what you did right there? You lectured me for not listening to what others are saying and then you completely lost the meaning of my statement about scientific panels reporting their findings to congress so that our representatives can make the policies. That was very dishonest.
There are no people known to be in power that would trade a poisoned lake for an airplane - as soon as they are found out they are removed... Holy cow. You are extremely naive if you believe that. Our president, the secretary of the interior, and all the way down the policy line always side on the rights of industry over the rights of the people to a clean environment. In fact, that's what's holding up the current energy bill. DeLay wants to include immunity for gasoline refiners who polluted our groundwater with MTBE. Do you think Bush won't sign that if it gets through? Do you think they'll be removed from office for it? (DeLay might be removed but not for that.) You can see theirhandiwork in the complete obliteration of mountains, valleys, and mountain streams for coal(this is clearly illegal in at least three ways but our corporate-owned government keeps bending the rules to allow it to continue.) Chief US District Judge Charles Haden II(Nixon-appointed) chastised state and federal bureaucrats who allowed the practice to continue:
"Agency warnings have no more effect than a wink and a nod, a deadline is just an arbitrary date on the calendar, and once passed, not to be mentioned again." "Financial benefits accrue to the owners and operators who were not required to incur the statutory burden and costs attendant to surface mining: political benefits accrue to the state executive and legislators who escape accountability while the mining industry gets a free pass."
Now who's unaware of the other side of the argument, again?
the same as with someone that wanted to eliminate technology... As if those people even existed. They're just straw men, invented by corporate PR firms so they'll have a bogey man to scare people like you with.
There are people who feel that the propper balance is to have no technology higher than domesticated animals. There are others that believe that poisoning a lake is a fair trade for jet aircraft.
And those people would be classified as extremists. I love to hear people toss that crap out there -- a little misdirection to conflate environmentalists with Luddites. The people who want to poison the lakes seem to be in charge, though.
There is a question how much value "nature" presents.... The truely difficult part of this is to determine the value (as in profit) of a healthy environment.
I like the way you put the word nature in quotes -- as if it were some kind of debatable concept that may or may not exist. Nice spin. Aside from that, your economic education is somewhat incomplete. Before we can debate this issue you'll need to get up to date.
The way we solve things in this country is to go with public opinion, weighted by corporate interests (how much weight this is believed to be given varies between individuals).
Yeah, they do work like that but it's a recent development. In the post-war years we traditionally relied on scientific studies to make these decisions. A panel of scientists would be commissioned, make it's recommendations to congress and congress (under the peoples' authority) would debate and decide based on the science, not public opinion nor corporate opinion. Corporations love the new system because they get complete control of the process. They own the politicians and they control public opinion by managing the peoples' perception of the issues through their vast wealth, PR firms, "think tanks," and corporate-controlled media outlets. That's not democracy. Corporations should have ZERO weight in government decisions. The last time I read The Constitution it started out "We, the people..." not "We, the people and corporations..." Corporations have neither morals nor conscience and are incapable of making rational decisions. They are essentially ultra-wealthy sociopaths with nothing but profit on their agenda. If you can show me in The Constitution where we are supposed to weigh how much corporate interest to mix in with the peoples' interest I'll concede this point. Otherwise, you're just a corporate tool working to take the peoples' power and hand it over to sociopathic corporations.
If you don't like this, complain to your government... Ha. Good one. If you don't like the way the hen house is run then complain to the fox. ...(or move to Europe, they do thing differently there). Which is just a barely polite way to say, "Get out if you don't like it, Commie!"
The method we have works - we tend to pacify the majority of the people, while not allowing the extremists on either side to take charge.
So you think the system is working if government is keeping people pacified? What an arrogant and condescending attitude you have toward democracy! We need people to be active and participatory for democracy to work. And your assertion that we're "not allowing the extremists on either side to take charge" is completely false. The extremists on one side have taken charge.
I'm sorry that you feel persecuted because you can't understand what I'm saying, but don't take it personally.
The arrogance of the wealthy elite is sometimes quite enlightening. I think you're revealing more about yourself than you realize.
Anyway, as to your point: nothing is "sustainable".
Then why is that word in the English language?
It's a fact of the universe. Living your life with minimal impact on the world is nice and Zen and all, but that's the strategy of "delaying the inevitable", not anything I've ever talked about. You can keep on being "sustainable" right up to the (inevitable, as far as you or I know at the moment) heat death of the universe, but your standard of living will go to shit in the meantime.
Now that's hypocrisy at it's finest. You accuse me of being "Zen and all," and then ramp your argument up to the cosmic scale to prove that even the universe is unsustainable. Excuse me for not living my life on a cosmic scale. I prefer to live my life on a human scale. On that scale, things can be sustainable. If entropy is your mantra, why not just start smashing things to bits right now? And if you think environmentalism will reduce our standard of living to "shit," let's visit a landfill or a petroleum refinery and then we'll talk about where consumerism is taking us.
Or, you can go about your life optimizing what you get out of the universe and what you put in, changing it, to your benefit as well as you can.
Ah, the old "greed is good" argument. The reason not to do only what's to my benefit is that it causes others to suffer. You may not mind causing suffering to others but I happen to have a conscience. It even goes against human evolution which has optimized us for group benefit rather than individual gain.
Both you and the universe will be around for a finite amount of time, so you might as well make that time interesting, creative, productive, profitable, or whatever you want.
I choose to make my life productive by exposing the moral bankruptcy of self-serving economic totalitarians who would destroy to world to gain a little gold.
..."environmentalism" as a philosophy is the polar opposite of "living".
Oh, so for billions of years the flora and fauna that evolved to live within the bounds of their environment weren't really "living?" I guess you mean they never caught a show in Vegas or took their power boat out for a spin on lake Powell.
Of course. I'm not saying "let's go destroy us some environment"; merely that I should preserve and improve the environment for my benefit (because I'm a part of it), not to my detriment.
Maybe you could expand on the idea that preserving the environment could work to your detriment. You know your lifestyle in unsustainable. Why keep delaying the inevitable and further reducing our options? Either we adjust willingly or we have reality thrust upon us in incredibly painful ways. Your anti-environmentalist campaigning is what is actually working to your detriment. The "environmentalists are dangerous" meme comes straight from the corporate-funded "think tanks" and PR firms. Do you think they have your best interests in mind or their profits?
The fundamental philosophy of the most vocal group of "environmentalists" is that I should treat the planet (or something) as being more important than human life.
And you're expressing the fundamental philosophy of the most vocal corporate public relations departments -- that human life is somehow separate and independent of the global environment. We can't thrive without a healthy environment. We can't exist without a reasonably functional environment.
It's easy to keep quiet when you can just turn your dogs loose and let them do the shouting for you. That's PR-101, dude, and you fall for it like a sheep. Stay above the fray and look presidential while the wolf pack does your hunting for you. Also, there are two kinds of protesting losers -- whiny losers and fuming, spitting, tantrum-throwing losers. I'll take the whiners any day. Want to see the fuming, spitting, tantrum throwers?
Ooops. We wiped out that plant's habitat to build a highway. Ooops...Football stadium. Ooops...McMansions. Nothing left to see here. Move along and look for another miracle plant.
That's what I said. UnitedLinux and the LSB were both attempting to be a standard base of installed code from which to build distros. Neither succeeded so neither became standard.
UnitedLinux is what killed the LSB. Distro maintainers were presented with two standards to choose from: UnitedLinux or the LSB. Two standards is no standard. Then SCO killed UnitedLinux and no one was interested anymore.
Man, if ever there was anyone in need of a course in logic... Your arguments are all non sequiturs. Slashdotters, grannies, truck drivers, whoever -- use FOSS because they prefer their software with a side of liberty, not because it comes without monetary cost. And using Windows doesn't preclude one from using FOSS. Last I checked, Firefox was available for the Win32 API. Check the post I replied to if you want to get your arguments back into context. You're just making pointless argument -- caviling, as it were.
The big point is that if people had to go to the store and buy a web browser and IE cost $25, and Firefox cost $25, most people would buy IE. Period.
Once, again... non sequitur -- because the argument was about FOSS users' reasons for choosing FOSS, not about pricing and marketing. That's also a mighty big "if." As it is now, both browsers are free (as in beer) yet people still download and install Firefox -- even on Windows. Seems to me those users are choosing FOSS over proprietary even given that the cost is the same. One could even argue that Firefox is more expensive given that the user has to spend time and bandwidth downloading and installing it. Yet many users still choose to use Firefox. Could it be that these users appreciate the liberty of a secure browser whose source code is available and that runs on the OS of their choice? I think that shows that your argument is not only a non sequitur, it's also demonstrably untrue.
Most slashdotters run Windows. And yes, if Linux had to compete on price it wouldn't be able to.
So? My point was that those who use FOSS do so, not because it is free (gratis), but because it is free (libre). Claiming that we're just looking for free-beer software is a lie, because we're capable of obtaining just about any software we want for free but we choose to use FOSS. Your post does not address that issue.
Most users care much more about the "free as in beer" part (or at least cheap) than about the "free as in speech" part.
That's just pure crap. How many Slashdotters do you think are incapable of obtaining free (as in beer) warez? It's not that difficult, you know. It's the other freedom (libre) that gets us on board the FOSS train.
You just dedicated a hundred words to arguing with me over semantics, and I'm the one playing word games?
That's not semantics. That's a straight lie designed specifically to deceive. The fact that you don't know the difference explains why you fall for the blizzard of propaganda coming from the right these days.
It's a standard technique for avoiding my father's state's absurd death taxes.
Sorry, no state has any such thing as "death taxes." To prove this point, imagine a person, through his will for example, requested that all his corporate stock certificates and cash be buried (or cremated) with him. How much does that dead person owe in "death taxes?" Zero. It is only through inheritance that taxing takes place. Everyone else's income is taxed so why should inherited income be any different? Please stop your Luntzian word games. Neither death nor the dead are being taxed.
But my point was that you are not qualified to determine whether the model is valid or not. You have no idea because you are not a climatologist. You just want to sit in the peanut gallery and throw mud at people because you don't like what they are saying. You get your talking points from reactionaries and zealots and then throw them into the debate simply to muddy the water of an already complex issue. These scientists have worked very hard to ensure their model is accurate. If you have some kind of particular knowledge of their model that proves that they have made a mistake in their calculations then, by all means, please write your rebuttal and publish it. You will be revered by reactionaries and zealots world-wide. Otherwise your post is just the same old blah blah of the know-nothings who just want to poke their finger in the eye of those know-it-all scientists.
I don't see people disputing global warming here, they're disputing the validity of the model.
...in order to cast unsubstatiated doubt on the science behind the model. Stop playing semantic games and deal with the fact that you are losing the debate. If you have a background in climate science then write your own paper, create your own model, do your own science and use it to confirm or disprove what these scientists have done. If you don't have a background in climate science then kindly STFU.
All organisms are genetically modified in one fashion or another. Humans have been selectively breeding crops for growth rate, productivity and so on for thousands of years. So should we only eat wild plants?
Sorry, that's a conflation. You're conflating human-bred plants with wild plants. They are not the same.
Plus, natural hybridization is responsible for gene exchange in wild plants, while gene uptake from other organisms such as viruses is responsible for foreign DNA getting into plants. That's been going on for hundreds of millions of years.
You're talking about natural processes that have been vetted by nature for natural viability. Inserting humans in place of the forces of nature is a much different proposal.
To an evolutionary biologist, the idea of keeping the genes pure is nonsense.
No one is talking about keeping genes "pure" (whatever that means) -- just keeping the ones that interact with the environment safe. And by "safe", I mean vetted by nature's breeding methods.
You have the nucleic acid sequence actgtagccgat in a plant. So it's automatically safe and OK and doesn't need testing if it got inserted naturally from a virus or mutation, but it's automatically dangerous and not-OK if humans put it there?
No. It's automatically suspect if humans put it there by bypassing natural breeding methods.
It's all a question of carefully weighing the risks against the rewards.
Agreed. But where is the careful weighing of the risks? I don't see any of that happening. We have to be aware that we're treading on new ground here and not just wave our hands and claim that gene splicing is functionally equivalent to natural and human-induced breeding. It's not. Directly tinkering with the genetic sequence of self-replicating organisms and then releasing these organisms into the natural environment we depend on for our survival without knowledge of how they'll affect it is beyond reckless. We pulled the trigger again by releasing this one. How many times can we pull the trigger before we hear the bang?
We seem to have a kind of blind hubris going on where we think our knowledge has reached some kind of pinnacle where we can just do as we will because we know we can't go wrong. This is just arrogance. History is littered with the corpses of dead societies who's knowledge and hubris outstripped their wisdom. We're sitting in the waiting room with our numbered ticket in our collective hand waiting for "Next" to be called.
I think that I'll stick to getting my zero gravity thrills on a roller coaster, thanks!
This basically amounts to a $3750 roller coaster ride. It's a really nice roller coaster, but how many different ground-anchored roller coaster experiences could you buy for $3750!! It's not even close to worth it.
Slashdot Mirror
Come on all you natural philosphers. What do you say?
The best words on this issue have already been spoken. Charles Williams Beebe says:
"The beauty and genius of a work of art may be reconceived though its first material expression be destroyed. A vanished harmony may yet again inspire the composer, but when the last individual of a race of living beings breathes no more, another heaven and earth must pass before such a one can be again."
Yes, run away little cultural warrior. Your plastic sword and shield can't stand the heat of inquiry. Run back into your little reality bubble where your certainty is assured. You can be free from the disorder and uncertainty of real life there. You will ask yourself no questions and all of life will be as you wish it to be.
Your probably are a troll, but just in case...
I'm a troll? I've brought plenty of facts to this debate that you just seem to want to ignore or wish away with your fingers in your ears, and somehow I'm the troll? You truly are delusional.
I'm actually just driving a wedge into you to pry open and expose your hypocrisy. Thanks for cooperating.
"We" is meant to include the public will, as currently implemented by the government. You seem to believe that excludes you.
Let me explain something to you that you must have missed in school: This is a democracy, not a dictatorship! 50.7% of the people who voted in the last presidential election voted for the current president. That's a very slim plurality of the 60.0% of the eligible voters who actually showed up to vote. If my math is correct that means that only about 30% of eligible voters actually voted for the current president and 70% did not. Now, you want those 30% to dictate to the other 70% as to what is culturally correct and what is not?
Yes, I absolutely believe that I am excluded from being compelled to think the way some clique of "culturally correct" zealots deems appropriate -- as is everyone else in a free country. You apparently believe there is only one correct culture in this country (yours, naturally) and everyone else should move away. That's just straight-up totalitarianism and there's no way you can weasel your position to claim otherwise.
Listening to specialists in general gets the public in trouble, because they do not take a wide enough view of society.
Can you not understand the natural consequences of ignoring experts? Who is left to listen to if we ignore experts? Demagogues and ideologues, that's who. What society can we think of that lost touch with reality and followed a charismatic speaker? Of course facts must be biased against you so that's why experts are a problem. Those darn pesky facts just get in the way of a good ideology, don't they? Let's ignore facts and faithfully follow a charismatic leader. What could possibly go wrong?
Bear this in mind, though, my deranged little cultural warrior: reality has a uniquely ungentle way of insinuating itself on even the most firmly-believed ideologies. Hold on fast because when it comes, it comes with a roar.
I firmly believe that most of our country disagrees with you - that most of us would rather have electricity at the cost of a few mountains.
Well, you'd be wrong. And your "beliefs" are irrelevant, anyway. The people have already spoken on this issue. The peoples' wishes were even codified into two relevant laws: The Clean Water Act and the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act.
The Clean Water Act says that a stream may not be degraded unless a positive benefit is derived for which there is no way to avoid the degradation. Courts have ruled that the disposal of mining waste into streams is not a positive benefit to the community so burying hundreds of miles of streams under billions of tons of mining waste is illegal, period.
The SMCRA states that a surface mine must restore the disturbed land to its "approximate original contour" following the extraction of coal. It also states that mining operations maintain a buffer zone around streams so that they are not disturbed. Blasting off a mountaintop and shoving it into the valley below violates both of those rules.
No matter what the results of the last election were, even if it had been a unanimous vote, no one is above the law of the land. You seem to believe that it's all good and proper for the people in charge to violate the law, or that they aren't subject to the law. I'm guessing that would only apply as long as they're your people -- the "culturally correct" people. (See, I just brought more facts to the debate. Where are yours?)
So, what is your feeling on menenites(SP)?
I believe they are good people who have chosen to opt out of our societ
The majority of your post is a mass of unfounded hyperbole with no relation to anything I've ever said..."
Even though I quoted back your exact words before my comments? Way to have courage and stand behind your words, dude. Let me know when you want your spine back.
Unfortunately, all this shows is that you are an extremist by the measures we use in society.
Who is this self-proclaimed "we?" You act as if you and your imaginary "we" have a monopoly on the definition of extremism. That's pure totalitarian thinking -- as if your thinking is pure and therefore uniquely qualified to make this determination. I call that cultural correctness.
Probably those around you are also extremists, so you do not have any external perspective. One of the most important lessons to learn in life is to listen to those that you disagree with - you cannot learn by listening to those that you agree with.
You just used your teacher's voice to speak down to me and incorrectly assumed I've insulated myself from differing opinions. What's funny is that you said that to a daily Rush listener. I can listen to him all day and not shift my position an inch because I understand the linguistic jujitsu he's using. Yours is a different kind, more like Dick Cheney's "voice of reason"-type of condescension.
Yes, and look at what that got us!
What do you mean, "Look at what that got us???" The post-war years were the most productive in our nation's history. We became the world's technology leader, the wealthiest by far, and the world's first global hyper-power. It always amazes me how half the people of this country have been convinced that the system that created our huge success is somehow broken and needs completely plowed under in the name of corporate power. It's the greatest PR coup in history and you seem to be completely under its spell.
Scientists make very poor policy makers...
See what you did right there? You lectured me for not listening to what others are saying and then you completely lost the meaning of my statement about scientific panels reporting their findings to congress so that our representatives can make the policies. That was very dishonest.
There are no people known to be in power that would trade a poisoned lake for an airplane - as soon as they are found out they are removed...
Holy cow. You are extremely naive if you believe that. Our president, the secretary of the interior, and all the way down the policy line always side on the rights of industry over the rights of the people to a clean environment. In fact, that's what's holding up the current energy bill. DeLay wants to include immunity for gasoline refiners who polluted our groundwater with MTBE. Do you think Bush won't sign that if it gets through? Do you think they'll be removed from office for it? (DeLay might be removed but not for that.)
You can see their handiwork in the complete obliteration of mountains, valleys, and mountain streams for coal(this is clearly illegal in at least three ways but our corporate-owned government keeps bending the rules to allow it to continue.) Chief US District Judge Charles Haden II(Nixon-appointed) chastised state and federal bureaucrats who allowed the practice to continue:
Now who's unaware of the other side of the argument, again?
the same as with someone that wanted to eliminate technology...
As if those people even existed. They're just straw men, invented by corporate PR firms so they'll have a bogey man to scare people like you with.
There are people who feel that the propper balance is to have no technology higher than domesticated animals. There are others that believe that poisoning a lake is a fair trade for jet aircraft.
And those people would be classified as extremists. I love to hear people toss that crap out there -- a little misdirection to conflate environmentalists with Luddites. The people who want to poison the lakes seem to be in charge, though.
There is a question how much value "nature" presents.
The truely difficult part of this is to determine the value (as in profit) of a healthy environment.
I like the way you put the word nature in quotes -- as if it were some kind of debatable concept that may or may not exist. Nice spin. Aside from that, your economic education is somewhat incomplete. Before we can debate this issue you'll need to get up to date.
The way we solve things in this country is to go with public opinion, weighted by corporate interests (how much weight this is believed to be given varies between individuals).
Yeah, they do work like that but it's a recent development. In the post-war years we traditionally relied on scientific studies to make these decisions. A panel of scientists would be commissioned, make it's recommendations to congress and congress (under the peoples' authority) would debate and decide based on the science, not public opinion nor corporate opinion. Corporations love the new system because they get complete control of the process. They own the politicians and they control public opinion by managing the peoples' perception of the issues through their vast wealth, PR firms, "think tanks," and corporate-controlled media outlets. That's not democracy. Corporations should have ZERO weight in government decisions. The last time I read The Constitution it started out "We, the people..." not "We, the people and corporations..." Corporations have neither morals nor conscience and are incapable of making rational decisions. They are essentially ultra-wealthy sociopaths with nothing but profit on their agenda. If you can show me in The Constitution where we are supposed to weigh how much corporate interest to mix in with the peoples' interest I'll concede this point. Otherwise, you're just a corporate tool working to take the peoples' power and hand it over to sociopathic corporations.
If you don't like this, complain to your government...
Ha. Good one. If you don't like the way the hen house is run then complain to the fox.
Which is just a barely polite way to say, "Get out if you don't like it, Commie!"
The method we have works - we tend to pacify the majority of the people, while not allowing the extremists on either side to take charge.
So you think the system is working if government is keeping people pacified? What an arrogant and condescending attitude you have toward democracy! We need people to be active and participatory for democracy to work. And your assertion that we're "not allowing the extremists on either side to take charge" is completely false. The extremists on one side have taken charge.
I'm sorry that you feel persecuted because you can't understand what I'm saying, but don't take it personally.
The arrogance of the wealthy elite is sometimes quite enlightening. I think you're revealing more about yourself than you realize.
Anyway, as to your point: nothing is "sustainable".
Then why is that word in the English language?
It's a fact of the universe. Living your life with minimal impact on the world is nice and Zen and all, but that's the strategy of "delaying the inevitable", not anything I've ever talked about. You can keep on being "sustainable" right up to the (inevitable, as far as you or I know at the moment) heat death of the universe, but your standard of living will go to shit in the meantime.
Now that's hypocrisy at it's finest. You accuse me of being "Zen and all," and then ramp your argument up to the cosmic scale to prove that even the universe is unsustainable. Excuse me for not living my life on a cosmic scale. I prefer to live my life on a human scale. On that scale, things can be sustainable. If entropy is your mantra, why not just start smashing things to bits right now?
And if you think environmentalism will reduce our standard of living to "shit," let's visit a landfill or a petroleum refinery and then we'll talk about where consumerism is taking us.
Or, you can go about your life optimizing what you get out of the universe and what you put in, changing it, to your benefit as well as you can.
Ah, the old "greed is good" argument. The reason not to do only what's to my benefit is that it causes others to suffer. You may not mind causing suffering to others but I happen to have a conscience. It even goes against human evolution which has optimized us for group benefit rather than individual gain.
Both you and the universe will be around for a finite amount of time, so you might as well make that time interesting, creative, productive, profitable, or whatever you want.
I choose to make my life productive by exposing the moral bankruptcy of self-serving economic totalitarians who would destroy to world to gain a little gold.
Oh, so for billions of years the flora and fauna that evolved to live within the bounds of their environment weren't really "living?" I guess you mean they never caught a show in Vegas or took their power boat out for a spin on lake Powell.
Of course. I'm not saying "let's go destroy us some environment"; merely that I should preserve and improve the environment for my benefit (because I'm a part of it), not to my detriment.
Maybe you could expand on the idea that preserving the environment could work to your detriment. You know your lifestyle in unsustainable. Why keep delaying the inevitable and further reducing our options? Either we adjust willingly or we have reality thrust upon us in incredibly painful ways. Your anti-environmentalist campaigning is what is actually working to your detriment. The "environmentalists are dangerous" meme comes straight from the corporate-funded "think tanks" and PR firms. Do you think they have your best interests in mind or their profits?
The fundamental philosophy of the most vocal group of "environmentalists" is that I should treat the planet (or something) as being more important than human life.
And you're expressing the fundamental philosophy of the most vocal corporate public relations departments -- that human life is somehow separate and independent of the global environment. We can't thrive without a healthy environment. We can't exist without a reasonably functional environment.
It's easy to keep quiet when you can just turn your dogs loose and let them do the shouting for you. That's PR-101, dude, and you fall for it like a sheep. Stay above the fray and look presidential while the wolf pack does your hunting for you.
Also, there are two kinds of protesting losers -- whiny losers and fuming, spitting, tantrum-throwing losers. I'll take the whiners any day.
Want to see the fuming, spitting, tantrum throwers?
Ooops. We wiped out that plant's habitat to build a highway.
Ooops...Football stadium.
Ooops...McMansions.
Nothing left to see here. Move along and look for another miracle plant.
AFAIK UnitedLinux was never a standard,...
That's what I said. UnitedLinux and the LSB were both attempting to be a standard base of installed code from which to build distros. Neither succeeded so neither became standard.
Duh. I never said it was.
Like the LSB.
UnitedLinux is what killed the LSB.
Distro maintainers were presented with two standards to choose from: UnitedLinux or the LSB. Two standards is no standard.
Then SCO killed UnitedLinux and no one was interested anymore.
Man, if ever there was anyone in need of a course in logic...
Your arguments are all non sequiturs.
Slashdotters, grannies, truck drivers, whoever -- use FOSS because they prefer their software with a side of liberty, not because it comes without monetary cost. And using Windows doesn't preclude one from using FOSS. Last I checked, Firefox was available for the Win32 API. Check the post I replied to if you want to get your arguments back into context. You're just making pointless argument -- caviling, as it were.
The big point is that if people had to go to the store and buy a web browser and IE cost $25, and Firefox cost $25, most people would buy IE. Period.
Once, again
Most slashdotters run Windows. And yes, if Linux had to compete on price it wouldn't be able to.
So? My point was that those who use FOSS do so, not because it is free (gratis), but because it is free (libre). Claiming that we're just looking for free-beer software is a lie, because we're capable of obtaining just about any software we want for free but we choose to use FOSS. Your post does not address that issue.
Most users care much more about the "free as in beer" part (or at least cheap) than about the "free as in speech" part.
That's just pure crap. How many Slashdotters do you think are incapable of obtaining free (as in beer) warez? It's not that difficult, you know. It's the other freedom (libre) that gets us on board the FOSS train.
You just dedicated a hundred words to arguing with me over semantics, and I'm the one playing word games?
That's not semantics. That's a straight lie designed specifically to deceive.
The fact that you don't know the difference explains why you fall for the blizzard of propaganda coming from the right these days.
It's a standard technique for avoiding my father's state's absurd death taxes.
Sorry, no state has any such thing as "death taxes." To prove this point, imagine a person, through his will for example, requested that all his corporate stock certificates and cash be buried (or cremated) with him. How much does that dead person owe in "death taxes?" Zero.
It is only through inheritance that taxing takes place. Everyone else's income is taxed so why should inherited income be any different?
Please stop your Luntzian word games. Neither death nor the dead are being taxed.
But my point was that you are not qualified to determine whether the model is valid or not. You have no idea because you are not a climatologist. You just want to sit in the peanut gallery and throw mud at people because you don't like what they are saying. You get your talking points from reactionaries and zealots and then throw them into the debate simply to muddy the water of an already complex issue.
These scientists have worked very hard to ensure their model is accurate. If you have some kind of particular knowledge of their model that proves that they have made a mistake in their calculations then, by all means, please write your rebuttal and publish it. You will be revered by reactionaries and zealots world-wide. Otherwise your post is just the same old blah blah of the know-nothings who just want to poke their finger in the eye of those know-it-all scientists.
I don't see people disputing global warming here, they're disputing the validity of the model.
...in order to cast unsubstatiated doubt on the science behind the model. Stop playing semantic games and deal with the fact that you are losing the debate. If you have a background in climate science then write your own paper, create your own model, do your own science and use it to confirm or disprove what these scientists have done.
If you don't have a background in climate science then kindly STFU.
Michael Chrichton is a competent writer of fiction.
All organisms are genetically modified in one fashion or another. Humans have been selectively breeding crops for growth rate, productivity and so on for thousands of years. So should we only eat wild plants?
Sorry, that's a conflation. You're conflating human-bred plants with wild plants. They are not the same.
Plus, natural hybridization is responsible for gene exchange in wild plants, while gene uptake from other organisms such as viruses is responsible for foreign DNA getting into plants. That's been going on for hundreds of millions of years.
You're talking about natural processes that have been vetted by nature for natural viability. Inserting humans in place of the forces of nature is a much different proposal.
To an evolutionary biologist, the idea of keeping the genes pure is nonsense.
No one is talking about keeping genes "pure" (whatever that means) -- just keeping the ones that interact with the environment safe. And by "safe", I mean vetted by nature's breeding methods.
You have the nucleic acid sequence actgtagccgat in a plant. So it's automatically safe and OK and doesn't need testing if it got inserted naturally from a virus or mutation, but it's automatically dangerous and not-OK if humans put it there?
No. It's automatically suspect if humans put it there by bypassing natural breeding methods.
It's all a question of carefully weighing the risks against the rewards.
Agreed. But where is the careful weighing of the risks? I don't see any of that happening. We have to be aware that we're treading on new ground here and not just wave our hands and claim that gene splicing is functionally equivalent to natural and human-induced breeding. It's not. Directly tinkering with the genetic sequence of self-replicating organisms and then releasing these organisms into the natural environment we depend on for our survival without knowledge of how they'll affect it is beyond reckless. We pulled the trigger again by releasing this one. How many times can we pull the trigger before we hear the bang?
We seem to have a kind of blind hubris going on where we think our knowledge has reached some kind of pinnacle where we can just do as we will because we know we can't go wrong. This is just arrogance. History is littered with the corpses of dead societies who's knowledge and hubris outstripped their wisdom. We're sitting in the waiting room with our numbered ticket in our collective hand waiting for "Next" to be called.
That's a user fee.
Pay-per-mile highways.
...it's small-time criminals moochin' in on their racket.
I think that I'll stick to getting my zero gravity thrills on a roller coaster, thanks!
This basically amounts to a $3750 roller coaster ride. It's a really nice roller coaster, but how many different ground-anchored roller coaster experiences could you buy for $3750!! It's not even close to worth it.