Let's explain how selective breeding works, shall we?
Oh, thank you, Oh Wise One, for bestowing your most holy wisdom upon me. Would that I could only SEE how my mind is clouded and yours is clear.:-)
You take a plant. You randomly mutate it through radiation and chemicals. If the result has a property you like, you breed it into the food supply willy-nilly.
What???? That's not like any of the selective breeding I've learned about. Selective breeding involves nothing more than choosing the traits you'd prefer to see in the offspring and then breeding a pair of individuals that posses those traits in the hope that they will be passed on to an improved generation. Using radiation and chemistry in selective breeding is a little "queer." (to use your word)
Now, you might be using "natural" radiation (but many "organic" foods were derived from strains deliberately mutated by human-created radiation) and "natural"ly-occuring mutagenic chemicals (but many "organic" foods were derived from strains deliberately mutated by human-created mutagenic chemicals), but the fact is the process is entirely random.
If that's true (and I'd like to see your sources on that) then I would say that those products are complete shams and are mislabeled, to say the least. I would call that genetic engineering, albeit a clumsy and primitive version.
"Nature" is in quotes above not because of fear, but because it is a basically religious concept.
How do you know what the poster's intent was for using quotes, Kreskin? Once again, you make a statement that has no basis in fact.
On a strictly scientific basis, there's no distiction in the "natural"ness of a dandelion spreading its seed and humans operating a steel mill; both are the actions of "natural" organisms. The declaration of the works of the human brain as somehow non-natural requires a fundamentally religious distinction between body and soul.
No. I call bullshit on that. Industrialism is a deviation from natural processes because it is clearly unsustainable in that it relies on the perpetual consumption of natural resources. If we insist on continuing, eventually, the resources will be consumed and we will cease to exist. Now, you may say that even that is a natural process but then your argument becomes "religion." My argument is purely practical in that it is based on survival. I don't want to die because some lab dork spliced a gene into a strand of DNA somewhere that wiped us all out. The proof of safety should rest solely on the shoulders of those who wish to deviate from natural tradition. As far as I'm concerned, that proof has yet to be provided. I won't comment on the rest of your statements because they're rooted in straw man arguments.
Argument by analogy is not persuasive. And car analogies are the most annoying.
And antiseptic argument by pedantism is even more annoying.
1) You didn't define what and why a certain mode of genetic change is normal. Is it because it's done by nature and not by man? (what's the difference?) Is it because the genetic changes are imprecise? (what about precise changes to DNA that a natural virus causes?)
The reason is that the natural mode of genetic propagation is the mode that created absolutely every living thing that came to be on this planet for millennia. For a fairly clever ape to jump up and say, "Hey, I can make changes in a completely different way -- damn the consequences" is the ultimate in hubris and recklessness.
2) You didn't explain exactly why a natural change in DNA is good, but an artificial one is bad.
That's because I don't know whether the consequences of artificial change will be good or bad or horrendously tragic, and neither do you. That's what makes it so dangerous.
Your example of "plague" is a red herring.
You sound pretty sure of yourself, there, cowboy. Can you really say that a plague won't result from fiddling with something's DNA?
The issue at hand is not about harmful products of genetic change, it's about the mode of the genetic change itself. We've already seen that both natural and artificial genetic changes can arrive at dangerous conclusions, so the argument that artificial genetic changes should be avoided because of that is irrelevant.
Hey, call it faith if you want to, but I'd rather take my chances with the natural forces that my body has evolved to cope with over eons than risk everything on the whim of some DNA hacker in a lab coat.
I'm beginning to believe that you're a paid PR flack for a biotech firm. It's well known that they troll discussion boards to inject corporate propaganda into the stream of consciousness. You're response was just a little too quick and prepared, if you know what I mean.
What is the problem with "genetic engineering"? We've been doing it for ages with breeding, as has "nature."
That's about as insightful as if people started plowing their SUVs though other peoples' yards and living rooms and then saying, "What's the problem with driving? People have been driving cars for a hundred years."
The difference is we've been driving mostly on roads. And we've been breeding plants and animals using natural methods and reproductive techniques and only being selective about which individuals bred with one another. (Oh, btw, I like the way you put "nature" in quotes. You can almost see the sneer on your face when you typed it. What are you afraid of?)
Genetic engineering removes the guardrails and lets the SUVs into the living rooms. Tinkering with the knobs of life is dangerous when you don't know exactly how it works in the first place. "Hey let's see what happens when we turn on this gene! Ooops. Plague! Who knew? Hey, don't blame us. We were just twiddling the knobs." There's a reason fish don't breed with strawberries in the natural world. It might not be a good idea to discover exactly what that reason is until we know a whole lot more about the way DNA works.
...by continually shoveling think tank PR at us as if it were fact. Journalists have become too lazy and too corporate-oriented to do their own, independent research so they just shove PR at us and say, "Here's the facts." Witness the whole "Lawsuits are out of control" meme they're currently pushing. That's just a way to limit citizens' rights in court to put checks on out-of-control corporations who want to be free of any liability so they can do whatever the hell they want to us in the name of profit. We'll be slaves soon if it continues.
...eliminate the fallacy that allows corporations to be defined as "persons" under the law. This was a bad decision that prevents real persons from containing soulless and consciousless entities with virtually unlimited resources from pillaging everything in reach just because that's what they do.
Remember "No Face" from Spirited Away? Best to keep them out of the bath house.
Also, that if the information sources were totally wrong about the WMDs, they could be wrong in the future about other things that could spell the difference.
But I think it's fairly well established now that the information sources were wrong -- at least the information sources that the bushies selectively listened to. The weapons weren't there but you said you would feel better if they were (that being the only way they could find them, don't ya know).
btw -- Which part of "Well Regulated Militia" don't you understand?
Yes id feel better myself if they [WMD] were found...
Wait a minute... did you just say you'd feel better if Saddam had developed weapons of mass destruction and we had found them? You actually wanted Saddam to have WMD? You neocons are really getting tripped up in your own lies.
I'm impressed, you managed to use this guy's inoffensive and amusing signature to segue into an unrelated environmentalist tirade.
Tirade??? Wow. If you think that was a tirade then you've led an extremely sheltered life. I simply and politely pointed out the fallacy that the poster seemed to believe. The fallacy is that electricity is an environmentally benign energy source. The reality is far, far to the opposite extreme, so I believe it deserved a correction.
Congratulations, you're a bleeding heart hippie.
Well, if we're going to degenerate into name-calling, then let's put your label on: You're a head-in-the-sand, abusive, machiavellian, industry apologist who's jumping in in defense of a practice that you apparently aren't well informed about.
Telling them to stop this sort of mining is impossible as long as people are buying it.
Uh... we tell crack dealers to stop selling crack while people are buying it. As you seem to be poorly informed about a topic that you wish to preach to me about, I'll clue you in. Mountaintop removal/valley fill mining is an illegal practice. Degrading the quality of a stream is illegal under the Clean Water Act (except in certain conditions which this practice doesn't meet.) State and federal environmental agencies (wholly owned subsidiaries of extractive industries) have illegally allowed hundreds of miles of streams to be buried and mountains to go unreclaimed to their "approximate original contour" (as specified in the Surface Mine Control and Reclamation Act) just so you can have electricity at five cents per kilowatt-hour.
On the other hand, coal-fired powerplants are horrific polluters, and there are numerous other ways to generate electricity, which any respectable power company could switch to. Putting pressure on companies that build coal-fired powerplants is a slightly less irrational solution to this problem.
Exactly what kind of "pressure" do you propose to apply to power companies? Any forcing of production technologies onto power generators will be met with extreme resistance and eventually overcome as long as there is a much cheaper alternative available. Coal may be a low-priced fuel but it's certainly not a low-cost fuel. The artificially low price comes about because MTR mining exports part of the cost of production onto the local environment and the citizens who reside there. The mining industry thwarts the rules of capitalism which proscribe that all costs should be reflected in the price of the product so that the market can make sound choices. By maintaining their product's artificially low price, they also throw an economic road-block into the path of alternative energy sources by making them look expensive by comparison.
MTR mining also amounts to a taking of property from the citizens. The streams beds from bank to bank belong to the citizens. The industry takes this property from us, not only without compensation; not only without our permission; but over our expressed objection. That's pure, unadulterated, arrogance and theft. Tony Soprano has nothing on these guys.
No trees were killed in the sending of this message. However, a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced.
That is extremely and profoundly incorrect. Trees were killed. In fact, streams, valleys, and even entire mountains and watersheds were destroyed so that you could send this message. See for yourself. Hereand Here.
If humans are a product of nature, and humans do something, shouldn't that still be considered "natural"? If the evolution of a species such as humans is then natural, and that evolution "naturally" results in technology which stresses an ecosystem in strange ways, is that bad? Is it good?
What that philosophy fails to recognize, understandably, is that humans have suddenly and dramatically changed not only the playing field, but the players and the nature of the game. Evolution had been a struggle of a species versus its predators or a struggle of a species to exploit an environmental niche.
What happens, though, when a species suddenly becomes its own greatest threat? How does a species evolve a defense against its own base instincts? We don't know. This is a new development that has never occurred in the history of life on Earth. We're venturing into uncharted territory and doing it with abandon. It would be much wiser to step a little more carefully. We might just be a failed experiment.
Instead of starting with a hypothetical (Global Warming) and trying to determine what we should or shouldn't do about it, we should start with some actual effect (alteration of the atmosphere) and deal with that.
Most scientists agree that Global Warming is real but all serious scientists agree (and can measure and prove) that humans are altering the composition of the atmosphere by dumping billions of pounds of industrial waste into it in the form of carbon dioxide.
Does everyone agree about what effect that change will have on the climate? No. But it's pretty damn unlikely that it will have no effect. If the effect of the alteration of the atmosphere is somewhat uncertain, and the change affects something our lives depend on, then it makes sense to stop doing it.
This is the atmosphere we're talking about. The only one we have. Let's stop experimenting on it (unless you have a backup atmosphere we can use in case we break this one.)
The scientists have to stoke fear in order to get funding from governments.
Wow. Your tinfoil hat must be absolutely vibrating.
The "evil" flaks you like to berate actually produce products that people buy on their own.
Yes. No one would ever have incentive to lie or distort facts in order to make profit from sales of their products, now, would they? Ever hear of a man named P.T. Barnum?
It takes a seriously distorted mentality to twist logic so much that you could actually come to these conclusions.
I started to read that link, but I got sick over all the biased propaganda there.
There are none so blind as those who will not see.
If it doesn't fit your world view you immediately avert your eyes. I've seen plenty of biased propaganda on both sides of the environmental debate. I saw very little in that article or else I wouldn't have used it as evidence to support my point. In fact, it's very well researched and documented with footnotes. You seem to be suffering from hardening of the ideologies. It's a disease that's fatal to a person's ability to understand contentious issues and leaves you vulnerable to propagandists on your chosen side.
I disagree that private citizen are interested in the health of the forest. Some are, but a large number have been swayed by activists into supporting a position that isn't for the health of the forest.
Oh, I see. It's the activists who are swaying public opinion while corporations are just being good straight-arrows with no power brokering or influence purchasing at all. Those activists sure are a well-heeled bunch if they can out-PR corporations.
Frankly, it baffles my mind that anyone could see things that way. Just read this and see if you still have the same opinion.
The fact is that unlogged forest today is much denser than unlogged forest of 100 years ago.
Hmmm...You think that has anything to do with us decimating the bison herds and other grazing animals that used to keep the grasslands open? I think the real lesson isn't that we need to manage nature but that we need to exist within it and let nature lead us rather than vise versa.
When we put out the fires, the forest just keeps getting denser.
We attack and put out forest fires because logging corporations hate to see their potential profits go up in flames. Now that the automobile has allowed people to build their houses in remote locations we also put out fires to protect private property. Also, fires are more common now due to loonies who like to see things burn or don't know how to contain camp fires. Mankind's actions are the forests' problem, not their solution.
This is a case of our knowledge outstripping our wisdom. We have the knowledge and technology to affect the forest in profound ways but not the wisdom to restrain ourselves from doing profound damage in the name of greed and profit.
Forest managers are trained to manage a forest so that the maximum board-feet of lumber can be extracted from it, not so that maximum forest health is achieved (although, the forest must maintain some degree of health to reach maximum output.) The "activists", as you call them, are generally private citizens who are more interested in the health of the forest than its commercial value. If the forest is on private land then the owner should be free to manage the forest as he sees fit (provided he doesn't damage streams which belong to the people from bank to bank, or destroy unique and irreplaceable habitat that threatens extinction to a particular species - right to exist trumps property rights.) If the forest is on the people's property (State and National forests) then private citizens should have ultimate say over how that resource is utilized. Commercial interests must take a back seat to the people's interest on the people's land.
Yeah, I guess that explains why there were no forests until humans came along to manage them properly. How long have forests been on Earth? How long has man been here? Do you really think the forests need our brilliant management? I think that if the trees were able to vote on it, man would be de-chainsawed until we learned to be a little more respectful.
Were you aware that the unemployment rate in Iraq right now is half of what it was under Saddam Huseein?
Hmmm. Would that be because the US taxpayers are paying their salaries? Lots of socialism creates lots of jobs as long as the taxpayers are willing to keep shelling out the dough. Think we could work out that kind of deal here at home? Taxpayer money for everyone!! Wooo Hoo!! Oh, wait. Tax cut? You mean it's all being financed with new debt our children will have to pay? Uh-Oh. What time do the chickens come home?
And if there is life there, well its sure to be better suited to its native environment than what we bring along.
Not necessarily. You're making a huge assumption, there, with no empirical evidence for it.
At worst we get our first scientific data about how our bacteria interact with xenobacteria.
No. At worst we erase evidence of how life works universally rather than just here on our planet. I would imagine there are lots of great discoveries there waiting for us. It would suck to wipe it out before we get a chance to study it.
Most of the people in Georgia do not even have an inkling of an idea about the liquor laws in Georgia. They span thousands of pages.
That's why we elect representatives to represent our wishes and compose or wade through those thousands of pages to determine if they're in the peoples' interest. If they aren't doing their job and representing the people accurately then we're electing the wrong people to represent us. And we are electing the wrong people because corporations are using their financial power to ensure that only their people are allowed to be representatives.
The reason why they don't know that they are passed is because the laws don't affect non-business owners.
Yes they do. The laws cause their beer to be more expensive. That's an effect on non-business owners.
My beef is with the legislators who passed these laws, not with "the people" who had no clue that these laws were passed.
Now you're getting it. The legislators are doing their jobs poorly. This is how government is broken. It's not that government is bad. It's that the people representing us are corrupt. But maybe they are accurately representing us. Maybe we are a corrupt society. Maybe more people are interested in participating in corruption than in ending it.
Should the government have the right to deprive me of arbitrary amounts of my property if someone else doesn't care if that happens?
This is what I mean about government being broken partly due to neglect. Since the government is there to represent the peoples' wishes then it's up to us to make it work. If we neglect it then it gets wacked.
What about "the people" who didn't vote? Should my "beef" be with them?
Hell, yes. By not voting they allow powerful interest groups (like a certain beer distributor) to control the system. Neglect leads to corruption.
The perpetrator here is the legislators who passed the laws. I won't let them off easy like you will.
I just called them corrupt, didn't I? Who's letting them off easy?
No, government doesn't allow us, government does. And what it does, it does poorly.
Government should only do what we collectively want it to do. When it doesn't then that's the definition of corruption. The corruption is mostly our fault because we neglect and deride the system instead of taking control of it the way our founders did. It's like a big open source project. You have to participate and provide your input or things fall apart. It's called democracy. Look into it.
And, besides, what do you propose replacing government with? Monarchy? Anarchy? Yeah, that'll be good for the economy. Get real, dude. You have to have some kind of system. Whiny complainers that just want to burn the joint down just add to the problems.
Furthermore, I'm not talking about fire and roads, am I? I am talking about the unnecessary meddling of government in business.
Whenever government and business mix you get corruption. Large businesses use their influence over government to disadvantage small businesses and individual citizens. Look at the example you provided, yourself. Some corporation with a lot of influence convinced (read: bought) government "representatives" to give them a monopoly over beer distribution. That disadvantaged small business (bar owners) and citizens because it drives up prices. I'm all for overturning the court ruling that granted personhood to corporations so that they don't have that kind of corrupting influence over government in the future.
Their increased taxes on "the rich" allow them to set up new vote-buying programs. The formula is simple: take money by force from the people whose votes you don't need, and give it to the people who promise to vote for you. It's power through force rather than power through hard work and good decisions.
Microsoft was large but I honestly don't think that they were a monopoly back then.
Microsoft had a monopoly on PC operating systems from day one. IBM PCs shipped with DOS. That was Bill's master stroke. Once PCs shipped with DOS then clones had to run DOS or they wouldn't be "IBM PC compatible" and couldn't run the application software written for IBM PCs. MS rode the PC platform to power. Never did it use innovation or product quality to succeed.
Slashdot Mirror
Let's explain how selective breeding works, shall we?
Oh, thank you, Oh Wise One, for bestowing your most holy wisdom upon me. Would that I could only SEE how my mind is clouded and yours is clear.
You take a plant. You randomly mutate it through radiation and chemicals. If the result has a property you like, you breed it into the food supply willy-nilly.
What???? That's not like any of the selective breeding I've learned about. Selective breeding involves nothing more than choosing the traits you'd prefer to see in the offspring and then breeding a pair of individuals that posses those traits in the hope that they will be passed on to an improved generation. Using radiation and chemistry in selective breeding is a little "queer." (to use your word)
Now, you might be using "natural" radiation (but many "organic" foods were derived from strains deliberately mutated by human-created radiation) and "natural"ly-occuring mutagenic chemicals (but many "organic" foods were derived from strains deliberately mutated by human-created mutagenic chemicals), but the fact is the process is entirely random.
If that's true (and I'd like to see your sources on that) then I would say that those products are complete shams and are mislabeled, to say the least. I would call that genetic engineering, albeit a clumsy and primitive version.
"Nature" is in quotes above not because of fear, but because it is a basically religious concept.
How do you know what the poster's intent was for using quotes, Kreskin? Once again, you make a statement that has no basis in fact.
On a strictly scientific basis, there's no distiction in the "natural"ness of a dandelion spreading its seed and humans operating a steel mill; both are the actions of "natural" organisms. The declaration of the works of the human brain as somehow non-natural requires a fundamentally religious distinction between body and soul.
No. I call bullshit on that. Industrialism is a deviation from natural processes because it is clearly unsustainable in that it relies on the perpetual consumption of natural resources. If we insist on continuing, eventually, the resources will be consumed and we will cease to exist. Now, you may say that even that is a natural process but then your argument becomes "religion." My argument is purely practical in that it is based on survival. I don't want to die because some lab dork spliced a gene into a strand of DNA somewhere that wiped us all out. The proof of safety should rest solely on the shoulders of those who wish to deviate from natural tradition. As far as I'm concerned, that proof has yet to be provided.
I won't comment on the rest of your statements because they're rooted in straw man arguments.
Argument by analogy is not persuasive. And car analogies are the most annoying.
And antiseptic argument by pedantism is even more annoying.
1) You didn't define what and why a certain mode of genetic change is normal. Is it because it's done by nature and not by man? (what's the difference?) Is it because the genetic changes are imprecise? (what about precise changes to DNA that a natural virus causes?)
The reason is that the natural mode of genetic propagation is the mode that created absolutely every living thing that came to be on this planet for millennia. For a fairly clever ape to jump up and say, "Hey, I can make changes in a completely different way -- damn the consequences" is the ultimate in hubris and recklessness.
2) You didn't explain exactly why a natural change in DNA is good, but an artificial one is bad.
That's because I don't know whether the consequences of artificial change will be good or bad or horrendously tragic, and neither do you. That's what makes it so dangerous.
Your example of "plague" is a red herring.
You sound pretty sure of yourself, there, cowboy. Can you really say that a plague won't result from fiddling with something's DNA?
The issue at hand is not about harmful products of genetic change, it's about the mode of the genetic change itself. We've already seen that both natural and artificial genetic changes can arrive at dangerous conclusions, so the argument that artificial genetic changes should be avoided because of that is irrelevant.
Hey, call it faith if you want to, but I'd rather take my chances with the natural forces that my body has evolved to cope with over eons than risk everything on the whim of some DNA hacker in a lab coat.
I'm beginning to believe that you're a paid PR flack for a biotech firm. It's well known that they troll discussion boards to inject corporate propaganda into the stream of consciousness. You're response was just a little too quick and prepared, if you know what I mean.
What is the problem with "genetic engineering"? We've been doing it for ages with breeding, as has "nature."
That's about as insightful as if people started plowing their SUVs though other peoples' yards and living rooms and then saying, "What's the problem with driving? People have been driving cars for a hundred years."
The difference is we've been driving mostly on roads. And we've been breeding plants and animals using natural methods and reproductive techniques and only being selective about which individuals bred with one another. (Oh, btw, I like the way you put "nature" in quotes. You can almost see the sneer on your face when you typed it. What are you afraid of?)
Genetic engineering removes the guardrails and lets the SUVs into the living rooms. Tinkering with the knobs of life is dangerous when you don't know exactly how it works in the first place. "Hey let's see what happens when we turn on this gene! Ooops. Plague! Who knew? Hey, don't blame us. We were just twiddling the knobs."
There's a reason fish don't breed with strawberries in the natural world. It might not be a good idea to discover exactly what that reason is until we know a whole lot more about the way DNA works.
...by continually shoveling think tank PR at us as if it were fact. Journalists have become too lazy and too corporate-oriented to do their own, independent research so they just shove PR at us and say, "Here's the facts."
Witness the whole "Lawsuits are out of control" meme they're currently pushing. That's just a way to limit citizens' rights in court to put checks on out-of-control corporations who want to be free of any liability so they can do whatever the hell they want to us in the name of profit. We'll be slaves soon if it continues.
...eliminate the fallacy that allows corporations to be defined as "persons" under the law. This was a bad decision that prevents real persons from containing soulless and consciousless entities with virtually unlimited resources from pillaging everything in reach just because that's what they do.
Remember "No Face" from Spirited Away? Best to keep them out of the bath house.
...at Disinfopedia.
Uhh, Newsflash -- People are animals. Homo sapiens to be exact.
Also, that if the information sources were totally wrong about the WMDs, they could be wrong in the future about other things that could spell the difference.
But I think it's fairly well established now that the information sources were wrong -- at least the information sources that the bushies selectively listened to. The weapons weren't there but you said you would feel better if they were (that being the only way they could find them, don't ya know).
btw -- Which part of "Well Regulated Militia" don't you understand?
Yes id feel better myself if they [WMD] were found...
Wait a minute
I'm impressed, you managed to use this guy's inoffensive and amusing signature to segue into an unrelated environmentalist tirade.
Tirade??? Wow. If you think that was a tirade then you've led an extremely sheltered life. I simply and politely pointed out the fallacy that the poster seemed to believe. The fallacy is that electricity is an environmentally benign energy source. The reality is far, far to the opposite extreme, so I believe it deserved a correction.
Congratulations, you're a bleeding heart hippie.
Well, if we're going to degenerate into name-calling, then let's put your label on:
You're a head-in-the-sand, abusive, machiavellian, industry apologist who's jumping in in defense of a practice that you apparently aren't well informed about.
Telling them to stop this sort of mining is impossible as long as people are buying it.
Uh... we tell crack dealers to stop selling crack while people are buying it. As you seem to be poorly informed about a topic that you wish to preach to me about, I'll clue you in. Mountaintop removal/valley fill mining is an illegal practice. Degrading the quality of a stream is illegal under the Clean Water Act (except in certain conditions which this practice doesn't meet.) State and federal environmental agencies (wholly owned subsidiaries of extractive industries) have illegally allowed hundreds of miles of streams to be buried and mountains to go unreclaimed to their "approximate original contour" (as specified in the Surface Mine Control and Reclamation Act) just so you can have electricity at five cents per kilowatt-hour.
On the other hand, coal-fired powerplants are horrific polluters, and there are numerous other ways to generate electricity, which any respectable power company could switch to. Putting pressure on companies that build coal-fired powerplants is a slightly less irrational solution to this problem.
Exactly what kind of "pressure" do you propose to apply to power companies? Any forcing of production technologies onto power generators will be met with extreme resistance and eventually overcome as long as there is a much cheaper alternative available. Coal may be a low-priced fuel but it's certainly not a low-cost fuel. The artificially low price comes about because MTR mining exports part of the cost of production onto the local environment and the citizens who reside there. The mining industry thwarts the rules of capitalism which proscribe that all costs should be reflected in the price of the product so that the market can make sound choices. By maintaining their product's artificially low price, they also throw an economic road-block into the path of alternative energy sources by making them look expensive by comparison.
MTR mining also amounts to a taking of property from the citizens. The streams beds from bank to bank belong to the citizens. The industry takes this property from us, not only without compensation; not only without our permission; but over our expressed objection. That's pure, unadulterated, arrogance and theft. Tony Soprano has nothing on these guys.
Consider it.
I have -- apparently more than you have.
No trees were killed in the sending of this message. However, a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced.
That is extremely and profoundly incorrect. Trees were killed. In fact, streams, valleys, and even entire mountains and watersheds were destroyed so that you could send this message. See for yourself.
Here and Here.
...to protect its own liver.
If humans are a product of nature, and humans do something, shouldn't that still be considered "natural"? If the evolution of a species such as humans is then natural, and that evolution "naturally" results in technology which stresses an ecosystem in strange ways, is that bad? Is it good?
What that philosophy fails to recognize, understandably, is that humans have suddenly and dramatically changed not only the playing field, but the players and the nature of the game. Evolution had been a struggle of a species versus its predators or a struggle of a species to exploit an environmental niche.
What happens, though, when a species suddenly becomes its own greatest threat? How does a species evolve a defense against its own base instincts? We don't know. This is a new development that has never occurred in the history of life on Earth. We're venturing into uncharted territory and doing it with abandon. It would be much wiser to step a little more carefully. We might just be a failed experiment.
I even heard at one point that there wasn't oxygen on the planet until it got polluted by those damn plants and vegetation! - that's what I heard...
Did you also hear that those plants went extinct when they changed their atmosphere? There might be a lesson in there somewhere.
Instead of starting with a hypothetical (Global Warming) and trying to determine what we should or shouldn't do about it, we should start with some actual effect (alteration of the atmosphere) and deal with that.
Most scientists agree that Global Warming is real but all serious scientists agree (and can measure and prove) that humans are altering the composition of the atmosphere by dumping billions of pounds of industrial waste into it in the form of carbon dioxide.
Does everyone agree about what effect that change will have on the climate? No. But it's pretty damn unlikely that it will have no effect. If the effect of the alteration of the atmosphere is somewhat uncertain, and the change affects something our lives depend on, then it makes sense to stop doing it.
This is the atmosphere we're talking about. The only one we have. Let's stop experimenting on it (unless you have a backup atmosphere we can use in case we break this one.)
The scientists have to stoke fear in order to get funding from governments.
Wow. Your tinfoil hat must be absolutely vibrating.
The "evil" flaks you like to berate actually produce products that people buy on their own.
Yes. No one would ever have incentive to lie or distort facts in order to make profit from sales of their products, now, would they? Ever hear of a man named P.T. Barnum?
It takes a seriously distorted mentality to twist logic so much that you could actually come to these conclusions.
I started to read that link, but I got sick over all the biased propaganda there.
There are none so blind as those who will not see.
If it doesn't fit your world view you immediately avert your eyes. I've seen plenty of biased propaganda on both sides of the environmental debate. I saw very little in that article or else I wouldn't have used it as evidence to support my point. In fact, it's very well researched and documented with footnotes.
You seem to be suffering from hardening of the ideologies. It's a disease that's fatal to a person's ability to understand contentious issues and leaves you vulnerable to propagandists on your chosen side.
I disagree that private citizen are interested in the health of the forest. Some are, but a large number have been swayed by activists into supporting a position that isn't for the health of the forest.
Oh, I see. It's the activists who are swaying public opinion while corporations are just being good straight-arrows with no power brokering or influence purchasing at all. Those activists sure are a well-heeled bunch if they can out-PR corporations.
Frankly, it baffles my mind that anyone could see things that way. Just read this and see if you still have the same opinion.
The fact is that unlogged forest today is much denser than unlogged forest of 100 years ago.
Hmmm...You think that has anything to do with us decimating the bison herds and other grazing animals that used to keep the grasslands open? I think the real lesson isn't that we need to manage nature but that we need to exist within it and let nature lead us rather than vise versa.
When we put out the fires, the forest just keeps getting denser.
We attack and put out forest fires because logging corporations hate to see their potential profits go up in flames. Now that the automobile has allowed people to build their houses in remote locations we also put out fires to protect private property. Also, fires are more common now due to loonies who like to see things burn or don't know how to contain camp fires. Mankind's actions are the forests' problem, not their solution.
This is a case of our knowledge outstripping our wisdom. We have the knowledge and technology to affect the forest in profound ways but not the wisdom to restrain ourselves from doing profound damage in the name of greed and profit.
Forest managers are trained to manage a forest so that the maximum board-feet of lumber can be extracted from it, not so that maximum forest health is achieved (although, the forest must maintain some degree of health to reach maximum output.) The "activists", as you call them, are generally private citizens who are more interested in the health of the forest than its commercial value. If the forest is on private land then the owner should be free to manage the forest as he sees fit (provided he doesn't damage streams which belong to the people from bank to bank, or destroy unique and irreplaceable habitat that threatens extinction to a particular species - right to exist trumps property rights.) If the forest is on the people's property (State and National forests) then private citizens should have ultimate say over how that resource is utilized. Commercial interests must take a back seat to the people's interest on the people's land.
Yeah, I guess that explains why there were no forests until humans came along to manage them properly. How long have forests been on Earth? How long has man been here? Do you really think the forests need our brilliant management? I think that if the trees were able to vote on it, man would be de-chainsawed until we learned to be a little more respectful.
Were you aware that the unemployment rate in Iraq right now is half of what it was under Saddam Huseein?
Hmmm. Would that be because the US taxpayers are paying their salaries? Lots of socialism creates lots of jobs as long as the taxpayers are willing to keep shelling out the dough. Think we could work out that kind of deal here at home? Taxpayer money for everyone!! Wooo Hoo!! Oh, wait. Tax cut? You mean it's all being financed with new debt our children will have to pay? Uh-Oh. What time do the chickens come home?
And if there is life there, well its sure to be better suited to its native environment than what we bring along.
Not necessarily. You're making a huge assumption, there, with no empirical evidence for it.
At worst we get our first scientific data about how our bacteria interact with xenobacteria.
No. At worst we erase evidence of how life works universally rather than just here on our planet. I would imagine there are lots of great discoveries there waiting for us. It would suck to wipe it out before we get a chance to study it.
Most of the people in Georgia do not even have an inkling of an idea about the liquor laws in Georgia. They span thousands of pages.
That's why we elect representatives to represent our wishes and compose or wade through those thousands of pages to determine if they're in the peoples' interest. If they aren't doing their job and representing the people accurately then we're electing the wrong people to represent us. And we are electing the wrong people because corporations are using their financial power to ensure that only their people are allowed to be representatives.
The reason why they don't know that they are passed is because the laws don't affect non-business owners.
Yes they do. The laws cause their beer to be more expensive. That's an effect on non-business owners.
My beef is with the legislators who passed these laws, not with "the people" who had no clue that these laws were passed.
Now you're getting it. The legislators are doing their jobs poorly. This is how government is broken. It's not that government is bad. It's that the people representing us are corrupt. But maybe they are accurately representing us. Maybe we are a corrupt society. Maybe more people are interested in participating in corruption than in ending it.
Should the government have the right to deprive me of arbitrary amounts of my property if someone else doesn't care if that happens?
This is what I mean about government being broken partly due to neglect. Since the government is there to represent the peoples' wishes then it's up to us to make it work. If we neglect it then it gets wacked.
What about "the people" who didn't vote? Should my "beef" be with them?
Hell, yes. By not voting they allow powerful interest groups (like a certain beer distributor) to control the system. Neglect leads to corruption.
The perpetrator here is the legislators who passed the laws. I won't let them off easy like you will.
I just called them corrupt, didn't I? Who's letting them off easy?
No, government doesn't allow us, government does. And what it does, it does poorly.
Government should only do what we collectively want it to do. When it doesn't then that's the definition of corruption. The corruption is mostly our fault because we neglect and deride the system instead of taking control of it the way our founders did. It's like a big open source project. You have to participate and provide your input or things fall apart. It's called democracy. Look into it.
And, besides, what do you propose replacing government with? Monarchy? Anarchy? Yeah, that'll be good for the economy. Get real, dude. You have to have some kind of system. Whiny complainers that just want to burn the joint down just add to the problems.
Furthermore, I'm not talking about fire and roads, am I? I am talking about the unnecessary meddling of government in business.
Whenever government and business mix you get corruption. Large businesses use their influence over government to disadvantage small businesses and individual citizens. Look at the example you provided, yourself. Some corporation with a lot of influence convinced (read: bought) government "representatives" to give them a monopoly over beer distribution. That disadvantaged small business (bar owners) and citizens because it drives up prices. I'm all for overturning the court ruling that granted personhood to corporations so that they don't have that kind of corrupting influence over government in the future.
Their increased taxes on "the rich" allow them to set up new vote-buying programs. The formula is simple: take money by force from the people whose votes you don't need, and give it to the people who promise to vote for you. It's power through force rather than power through hard work and good decisions.
But the one thing you're missing in that e
Microsoft was large but I honestly don't think that they were a monopoly back then.
Microsoft had a monopoly on PC operating systems from day one. IBM PCs shipped with DOS. That was Bill's master stroke. Once PCs shipped with DOS then clones had to run DOS or they wouldn't be "IBM PC compatible" and couldn't run the application software written for IBM PCs. MS rode the PC platform to power. Never did it use innovation or product quality to succeed.