Talk to a classical musician: ask her the price of a fine solo instrument, a piano, a violin. The basic tools of her profession.
And classical musicians don't make much of their income from selling copies of recordings.
Anyway, an fine instrument is a one-time investment of a few thousand dollars. It's still comparitively cheap to make music verus making, say, automobiles.
Please accept my sincerest apologies for the inconvenience of not breaking the law.
Over the course of any given week, the average American breaks many laws. We all violate traffic laws. Anyone with an interesting sex life breaks outdated sodomy laws (laws against oral sex are still on the books in many states, though not enforced). No one can fully comply with tax laws, they're too complex for humans to understand. Everyone has at least one beer before they turn 21. And how many of these people who argue "follow the law!" about copyright, violated drug laws and puffed a joint during their college days?
"It's the law" is a poor argument to guide a person's behavior.
Is it inconvenient for you to wear pants?
Sometimes, yes, it is, and it's ridiculous that people will point guns at you and herd you into a cage for walking down the street in your natural state. Or for skinny-dipping, for crying out loud.
by all means go ahead amble into your local Best Buy with your dick swinging free and grab whichever stereo system grabs your eye.
Copying is not related to stealing. When I steal something of yours, I take it away from you. When I copy something, you still have it.
Another model would be to allow any copying, but put a sales tax of, say, 50-80% of any end price to consumer, with the proceeds going directly to the artists and composers of the particular work generating the revenue.
This is very similar to the "royalty-right" model that I've been advocating for years.
Copy all you want, but selling copies requires a royalty to the creator. It's similar to songwriter's performance royalties today. I can sing "(Keep on) Rockin' in the Free World" in the shower or at a party for free, but when I play it at the bar Neil Young gets his nickel.
Making copying has now become as easy and as much a part of the culture as singing songs. Copy protection does not and never has worked. It's time to replace copyright with a royalty-right.
Sure, the artist isn't actually losing existing money by your light fingered brother's purloining of the content, but had your brother purchased said items the artist (and the rest of the chain from shop keepers to recording labels/studios/etc) would have got a share of the monies.
So what? If you sent me $50 for reading this message, I'd have $50. That doesn't mean that if you don't send me $50, you're stealing.
Sure, the artists aren't fiscally worse off after your brother's shenanigans, but someone's lost something.
No, no one has lost anything. Failure to make a desired gain is not a loss.
Nuclear (of the uranium fisson type used today) has significant enviromental and security problems; and hydroelectic is not without environmental costs.
Heating with electicity _can_ mean fewer imported fossil fuels.
that light bulb is heating the house most of the year. if you replaced it you would turn up the heat.
For much of the year, I don't want light bulbs heating up my house any more than the environment is already doing. When I do want heat, electrical resistance heating is the worst way to go (due to the tremendous conversion and transmisson losses from the original heat source along the way), so if people are using marginally less electicity for heating and a few iotas more gas, it's a win.
Except that ISN'T what you said...The boolean choice offered
discounts the possibility of there being some cases yes, some cases
no.
I don't see how you understood the two sentences to mean different
things; clearly "certain behaviors" allows for "the possibility of there
being some cases yes, some cases no", depending on the value of "certain".
But now that any ambiguity on that point is cleared...
The implication that teaching children values counter to
your own is paramount to child abuse was yours, not mine.
No such implication was made. Creating an implication that "X is
paramount to Y" from the argument that "argument A, which is being
presented for or against X, also acts as an argument against Y; but Y is
something you want to advocate; therefore A is a bad argument", is exactly
the fallacy of the Extended Analogy.
(Consider: let A be "one should always obey the law", X be "copying a
CD", and Y be "catching fugitive slaves". "You shouldn't copy CDs. Always
obey the law." "Always obey the law? Those who believe that would have made
fine slave-catchers." "Are you saying that copying CDs is paramount to
freeing slaves? That's ridiculous!")
Wrong. A "decent" education includes mathematics, research
and the scientific method, history without whitewashing, and communication,
not fairy tales, outmoded and arbitrary moralities, and victim
mentality.
An education that includes research and the scientific method, certainly
includes that the child will encounter alternate theories to the invisible
pink unicorn theory of the origin of the universe. The scientific method is
part of our "consensual best knowledge about the universe"; I think you're
violently agreeing with me.
I haven't mentioned anything at all like "fairy tales, outmoded and
arbitrary moralities, and victim mentality"; I don't see how any of these
falls under our best knowledge except in literature or history lessons.
No matter how far down the line you take it, you're still
advocating forcing your values on others.
As are you. Even the criteria "the safety of the child" is a value
judgment, valuing the child's safety over the parent's choices. There is
no answer to this question of "what is the set of behaviors which it is
ethically right to force parents into"?" that is not a value judgment.
If the kid wants to learn about that sort of stupidity, he
can research it on his own time. If he received the "decent education" I
described above, he has more than enough capability to do so. He should not
be poisoned with the ideas BEFORE reaching the "fullness of maturity"
especially if his parents don't wish it.
According to the parents in our example here, the Big Bang theory is the
stupidity, and they don't want to give him the "decent education" you
describe exactly because it would lead to him being poisoned with heathen
ideas counter to Unicornism.
So which sort of stupidity are you suggesting the kid learns on his own
time, the Big Bang or the invisible pink unicorn theory?
You can either:
allow the parents to teach nothing but Unicornism to their kids;
allow the parents to teach Unicornism, but mandate that the kids have the opportunity to get decent educations in which they will encounter alternate theories (the Big Bang, etc.) that contradict the parent's teachings;
forbid the parents from teaching Unicornism to their kids
The first choice neglects the rights of the child. The last neglects the rights of the parent. Only the second maximizes consideration of the rights of both.
For "Unicornism", substitute creationism, intelligent design, Marxism, neoconservatism, racism (any flavor), and any other dumb idea. (Substitute also smart ideas that the parents may hold that are at odds with the consensus ta
No, neither. The choice is not a false one; it is mutually exclusive to say "there exist behaviors X for which it is ethical to force parents into X" and "there do not exist behaviors X for which it is ethical to force parents into X."
Of course the examples given have emotional impact, but that does not make the argument fallacious. The point is that they are behaviors that almost every sane person finds ethically abhorrent; a set of ethical principles that fails to condemn them is at odds with our intuitive understanding. It is this intuitive understanding, not raw emotion, to which the appeal is made.
Arguments of this sort are common in ethics, the equivalent of a reductio ad absurdum: "by such-and-such argument, murdering innocents is acceptable. But we know murder is not acceptable. Therefore such-and-such argument is flawed."
You may reject such axioms as "murdering innocents is unacceptable" or "beating kids with a two-by-four is wrong and justifies the use of force to stop". They are (at the level at which we're working) axioms, not provable statements. But if that is your position, then we have nothing more to discuss.
If, however, you agree that there exist behaviors X (such as refraining from severe beatings) for which is is ethically right to force parents into X, then we must ask what conditions characterize the set X. There is no answer to this that does not rest on a "value judgment": what things do we value strongly enough to use force?
There is a strong consensus in our society that a basic education for children is something we value that strongly, that compulsory education is ethically justified.
Such an education must be based on what is true according to our consensual best knowledge about the universe; the process of setting school curricula is political so that a consensus of some sort can be reached. Yes, it can be an ugly process, and doesn't work 100% of the time. Consensus and best knowledge are sometimes at odds. People are a problem.
Some of this consensual best knowledge may contradict prejudices and superstitions held by the parents. Saying that "a person's skin color has no bearing on their ability to think or feel", "the Earth goes around the sun", or "species are related through common ancestry, differentiated through natural selection" are examples of such truths.
Comparing the above [child abuse, etc.] to teaching children values *you* might find objectionable is disingenuous, at best.
Again, let me point out that there are two questions: "are there
behaviors X for which is ethically right to force parents into X", and "what is the criteria for membership in X"?
If they want to teach thier kids that the invisible pink unicorns created the world by wishing really really hard, that's thier concern. You can question it, condemn it, and ridicule it all you want, but you have no right to stop them.
Anyone is free to tell anyone that invisible pink unicorns created the world by wishing really really hard; that's free speech.
Parents, however, are obligated to see to it that their children are given a decent education. Such an education includes that the child will encounter and be given the opportunty to fully consider alternate theories, theories which are based upon the consensual best knowledge about the universe.
That may mean that a homeschooling parent has to tell the kid about the Big Bang during a science lesson, and then after the lesson tells the kid that scientists who don't believe in the invisible pink unicorns are liars and are condemned to spend eternity in the region of Thud. Fine. The kid has been exposed to the idea and, in the fullness of maturity, will be able to make an informed choice about which theory has more explanatory power.
So on other words, for all your delusions of grandeur, you're no better than the imaginary-friend crowd trying to screw up the science classes.
Either it is, or it is not, our right and our obligation to force parents into certain behaviors, upon threat of removing their children. If it is not, then when the parent beats the kid with a two-by-four, or starves them, or chains them in the backyard all day like an neglected dog, we should do nothing but cluck our tongues. If that is your position, then we have nothing more to discuss.
But if it is our our right and our obligation to use force to make parents engage in or refrain from certain behaviors with respect to their children, we then must ask, "What behaviors"?
At that point, we are now in the territory of value judgements. Ethics often ends up there. Sorry; life's complicated like that.
If you're a vegetarian/vegan, why would you want an imitation of the taste and form of a dead animal?
Some people are not vegetarian/vegan but are looking to cut down their meat consumption for reasons of health or environmental impact. If a meat-like Boca burger helps that, I'd call it a positive step, even if I find them too much like ground charred cow flesh to eat.
On the other hand I do know cases where doctors recommend vegetarians to start eating meat.
And it was only a few decades ago that doctors suggested taking up cigarette smoking to some patients.
Your avergage doctor knows fsck-all about nutrition.
The problem itself is what is and is not considered "good" information by the parents. Even your own examples are littered with what are, while they may seems concrete to you, simple value judgements.
The idea that you should not chain your kids in the basement and beat them every day with a two-by-four is nothing by a "value judgement", but it is our right and our obligation to force that value judgement onto parents.
How can you support homeschooling at all when you have no idea what the child is really being taught?
In Maryland, homeschooling parents are monitored and reviewed by the school system. I don't know the details, but there is at least some degree of oversight.
So you have a big problem with homeschooling, right?
If a parent is homeschooling a child in order to keep the child ignorant of such basic information as I mentioned, yes, I have a problem with that, as I have problems with all forms of child abuse.
If a parent is homeschooling because the local schools are bad, or the child has special needs that are not being met, or the parent wants to bond more closely with the child, and a good education is provided, no, I don't have a problem with that.
It does seem from my casual observation that many homeschoolers seem to fall in the first category. But, as the schools in the areas I've lived have been decent, there's a selection bias in my observations.
For I didn't design you, and yet you fit my design.
Ah. So you're arguing for some notion of a god who was not capable of creating the species he wanted, but had to allow the Universe to do it for him, then selects the species he wants and waves his magick wand at it to douse it with soul juice or something? Interesting. That's hardly an "omnipotent" god, though.
But Macroevolution (what most people think of as Evolution) can't been observed. Until Macroevolution can be observed it is just another religion.
What do you mean by "macroevolution"? If we take the defintion of the Wikipedia article you link to, "evolution that occurs above the level of species, over long periods of time, that leads to speciation", well then speciation has in fact been observed. And the fossil record shows how this process occurs over long periods of time.
Many of our observations are indirect, but so what?
If parents who are offended by evolution could send their kids to a private school, the conflict over what's taught in public schools would largely disappear
Should parents who are offended by the idea that people of different skin colors are legally and ethically equal, be allowed to send their kids at taxpayer expense to a school that teaches racism?
Adults can believe whatever crap they want, but children have an ethical right to be presented with good information. There is a certain educational baseline, things that you are obligated to see that your children have the opportunity to learn. These things include basic safety (fire burns you, drinking bleach is a bad idea), basic ethics (skin color is irrelevant, bullying and cruelty are wrong), basic health (regular bathing promotes health, masturbation will not make you go blind, proper condom use reduces but does not eliminate the risk of pregnancy and STDs).
This basic orientation to life also includes the fundamentals of the best human knowledge about our place in the universe: that the earth goes around the sun and not the other way around, that the stars are distant suns, and that all life on Earth is related through a common chain of descent and diversified through natural selection.
The fact that some ignorant or superstitious parents may find some of these ideas uncomfortable does not relive them of their obligation to see that their children's right to good information is respected.
Teaching children only creationism is no more acceptable than teaching them racism or the geocentric model of the universe.
Neptune hasn't cleared Pluto out of its orbital space. Not a planet?
Scale up the Pluto/Neptune situation and consider a hypothetical stellar system with an Earth-sized body in an highly ellipical orbit that crossed that of a gas giant. Would neither be planets?
Since I still own my Z: how large was the battery & how long would the extra juice last?
I'd say it's abut twice the size of a Zippo lighter, actually somewhat smaller than that. Holds enough of a charge to run my Z for two hours or writing, I haven't tested it longer than that.
But typing stuff you intend to keep like this is generally slow & requires some amount of thought & is probably best done in quiet privacy (where you'd have access to a larger computer) wherever possible.
Actually I get a lot of my personal writing done in coffeehouses and bars. And I find the Z great for writing while sitting on a train, obviously a big selling point in Japan, less so here outside of a few big cities.
Sure, Korganizer on the Z syncs with my desktop agenda, but it is so tedious to get the data in there in the first place (compared to flipping open a pad & scribbling down a todo).
The biggest thing KOrganizer helps me with is easily tracking repeating events and todos. I can tell it "practice guitar, every Monday, 7pm", and not only will it appear on my schedule every Monday, it'll be there as an undone todo on Tuesday if I play hookey. For me, that's a huge step towards organization.
For more ephemeral notes, like "dont forget buy soymilk and beer on the way home", yeah, paper is great.
The Zaurus is good, but the batteries would always die on me.
When I was in Japan I picked up a spare external battery for my Z. Harder to find here but I think some are marketed for handheld game systems, just need to find the right voltage and connector.
Paper is great!
...until you want to enter whatever you wrote into a computer.
I find it easier to type things (journal entries, poems, various small documents) the first time and be able to load them into my PC immediately when I want, rather than write in a notebook originally and then have to type them up later. Also, I find that on a train typing on my Z is easier then writing ledgibly; and with a built-in light, the Z is easier to use if you wake up at 3am with an idea you need to write down/type up.
OTOH, for the ephemeral, paper is fine. There are many things I never enter into my Z. And index cards rock for the abilty to spread them out on a table, or shuffle them into order; I still use the index card approach for taking notes when doing research for longer documents.
I installed KO/Pi on mine as an scheduler/organizer, and use the provided "Hancom Word" word processor to maintain my journal and do other writing. I got a WiFi card for it, and I can even hook up my cell phone via it's USB port and do a SSH session from anywhere I can get a signal.
I think their success in Japan versus the U.S. is due to the fact that in Japan, the clamshell form factor seems to be very common for electronic dictonaries, while Americans are still looking for something that looks like a Palm Pilot. It's a shame and a crime that such a wonderful piece of technology, which draws admiring stares whereever I go, isn't more widely available in the U.S.
It's an arms race, and consumers are at least breaking even.
How the fsck is it "breaking even" when the amount of time during the day when I am not subject to advertizing is ever decreasing? Go to take a piss and there's ads over the urinal...
Life is life, whether it be plant, animal, fungi, protist or
moneran.
Life is an interesting set of chemical reactions, and we all have a
sentimental attachment about it, but it is not the ethically relevant
criteron. The ethically relevant thing is consciousess, the ability to have
experiences, to be the "subject of a life". In biological organisms that
corresponds to the presence of a functioning highly-structured nervous
system. It is the end of this experience, this subjectivity, that concerns
us, not the cesation of chemical reactions. That is why we define the
legally and ethically relevent death as "brain death" for humans. (This also
gives us the guide for hypotheticals such as intelligent computers, or
extraterrestrial organisms based on radically different physiochemical
processes.)
And, while I'm 99% sure your "plants rights" blather is the usual troll, since animals slaughtered for food are fed plants, choosing a vegetarian diet ends up in fewer plant being killed.
I can understand the argument of killing being more wrong the higher up the evolutionary scale you go
I'm not sure I do; what does "higher up the evolutionary scale" mean? Are you suggesting that members of a species that emerged more recently is automatically entitled to greater ethical consideration? Or one with more complex genetic information?
Same argument goes for any fruit or vegetable. That pretty much puts eating meat and plants on even standing in my ethical book...Just try to do as little harm to the ecosystem and the individual life as you can.
If you saw eating meat and plants as ethically equivalent, and your goal was strictly to do as little harm to the ecosystem as possible, you'd hunt, kill, and eat the naked ape. They're overpopulated and a tremendous stress on the environment. So, I suppose you're a cannibal?
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And classical musicians don't make much of their income from selling copies of recordings.
Anyway, an fine instrument is a one-time investment of a few thousand dollars. It's still comparitively cheap to make music verus making, say, automobiles.
Over the course of any given week, the average American breaks many laws. We all violate traffic laws. Anyone with an interesting sex life breaks outdated sodomy laws (laws against oral sex are still on the books in many states, though not enforced). No one can fully comply with tax laws, they're too complex for humans to understand. Everyone has at least one beer before they turn 21. And how many of these people who argue "follow the law!" about copyright, violated drug laws and puffed a joint during their college days?
"It's the law" is a poor argument to guide a person's behavior.
Sometimes, yes, it is, and it's ridiculous that people will point guns at you and herd you into a cage for walking down the street in your natural state. Or for skinny-dipping, for crying out loud.
Copying is not related to stealing. When I steal something of yours, I take it away from you. When I copy something, you still have it.
This is very similar to the "royalty-right" model that I've been advocating for years.
Copy all you want, but selling copies requires a royalty to the creator. It's similar to songwriter's performance royalties today. I can sing "(Keep on) Rockin' in the Free World" in the shower or at a party for free, but when I play it at the bar Neil Young gets his nickel.
Making copying has now become as easy and as much a part of the culture as singing songs. Copy protection does not and never has worked. It's time to replace copyright with a royalty-right.
So what? If you sent me $50 for reading this message, I'd have $50. That doesn't mean that if you don't send me $50, you're stealing.
No, no one has lost anything. Failure to make a desired gain is not a loss.
Nuclear (of the uranium fisson type used today) has significant enviromental and security problems; and hydroelectic is not without environmental costs.
The US imports a lot more uranium than we produce.
For much of the year, I don't want light bulbs heating up my house any more than the environment is already doing. When I do want heat, electrical resistance heating is the worst way to go (due to the tremendous conversion and transmisson losses from the original heat source along the way), so if people are using marginally less electicity for heating and a few iotas more gas, it's a win.
I don't see how you understood the two sentences to mean different things; clearly "certain behaviors" allows for "the possibility of there being some cases yes, some cases no", depending on the value of "certain". But now that any ambiguity on that point is cleared...
No such implication was made. Creating an implication that "X is paramount to Y" from the argument that "argument A, which is being presented for or against X, also acts as an argument against Y; but Y is something you want to advocate; therefore A is a bad argument", is exactly the fallacy of the Extended Analogy.
(Consider: let A be "one should always obey the law", X be "copying a CD", and Y be "catching fugitive slaves". "You shouldn't copy CDs. Always obey the law." "Always obey the law? Those who believe that would have made fine slave-catchers." "Are you saying that copying CDs is paramount to freeing slaves? That's ridiculous!")
An education that includes research and the scientific method, certainly includes that the child will encounter alternate theories to the invisible pink unicorn theory of the origin of the universe. The scientific method is part of our "consensual best knowledge about the universe"; I think you're violently agreeing with me.
I haven't mentioned anything at all like "fairy tales, outmoded and arbitrary moralities, and victim mentality"; I don't see how any of these falls under our best knowledge except in literature or history lessons.
As are you. Even the criteria "the safety of the child" is a value judgment, valuing the child's safety over the parent's choices. There is no answer to this question of "what is the set of behaviors which it is ethically right to force parents into"?" that is not a value judgment.
According to the parents in our example here, the Big Bang theory is the stupidity, and they don't want to give him the "decent education" you describe exactly because it would lead to him being poisoned with heathen ideas counter to Unicornism.
So which sort of stupidity are you suggesting the kid learns on his own time, the Big Bang or the invisible pink unicorn theory?
You can either:
The first choice neglects the rights of the child. The last neglects the rights of the parent. Only the second maximizes consideration of the rights of both.
For "Unicornism", substitute creationism, intelligent design, Marxism, neoconservatism, racism (any flavor), and any other dumb idea. (Substitute also smart ideas that the parents may hold that are at odds with the consensus ta
No, neither. The choice is not a false one; it is mutually exclusive to say "there exist behaviors X for which it is ethical to force parents into X" and "there do not exist behaviors X for which it is ethical to force parents into X."
Of course the examples given have emotional impact, but that does not make the argument fallacious. The point is that they are behaviors that almost every sane person finds ethically abhorrent; a set of ethical principles that fails to condemn them is at odds with our intuitive understanding. It is this intuitive understanding, not raw emotion, to which the appeal is made.
Arguments of this sort are common in ethics, the equivalent of a reductio ad absurdum: "by such-and-such argument, murdering innocents is acceptable. But we know murder is not acceptable. Therefore such-and-such argument is flawed."
You may reject such axioms as "murdering innocents is unacceptable" or "beating kids with a two-by-four is wrong and justifies the use of force to stop". They are (at the level at which we're working) axioms, not provable statements. But if that is your position, then we have nothing more to discuss.
If, however, you agree that there exist behaviors X (such as refraining from severe beatings) for which is is ethically right to force parents into X, then we must ask what conditions characterize the set X. There is no answer to this that does not rest on a "value judgment": what things do we value strongly enough to use force?
There is a strong consensus in our society that a basic education for children is something we value that strongly, that compulsory education is ethically justified.
Such an education must be based on what is true according to our consensual best knowledge about the universe; the process of setting school curricula is political so that a consensus of some sort can be reached. Yes, it can be an ugly process, and doesn't work 100% of the time. Consensus and best knowledge are sometimes at odds. People are a problem.
Some of this consensual best knowledge may contradict prejudices and superstitions held by the parents. Saying that "a person's skin color has no bearing on their ability to think or feel", "the Earth goes around the sun", or "species are related through common ancestry, differentiated through natural selection" are examples of such truths.
That's an example of the "fallacy of the Extended Analogy".
Again, let me point out that there are two questions: "are there behaviors X for which is ethically right to force parents into X", and "what is the criteria for membership in X"?
Anyone is free to tell anyone that invisible pink unicorns created the world by wishing really really hard; that's free speech.
Parents, however, are obligated to see to it that their children are given a decent education. Such an education includes that the child will encounter and be given the opportunty to fully consider alternate theories, theories which are based upon the consensual best knowledge about the universe.
That may mean that a homeschooling parent has to tell the kid about the Big Bang during a science lesson, and then after the lesson tells the kid that scientists who don't believe in the invisible pink unicorns are liars and are condemned to spend eternity in the region of Thud. Fine. The kid has been exposed to the idea and, in the fullness of maturity, will be able to make an informed choice about which theory has more explanatory power.
There's a phone company that still does that? Where?
Last time I had an extra "touch tone" charge on my line was at least 10, probably more like 15, years ago.
Either it is, or it is not, our right and our obligation to force parents into certain behaviors, upon threat of removing their children. If it is not, then when the parent beats the kid with a two-by-four, or starves them, or chains them in the backyard all day like an neglected dog, we should do nothing but cluck our tongues. If that is your position, then we have nothing more to discuss.
But if it is our our right and our obligation to use force to make parents engage in or refrain from certain behaviors with respect to their children, we then must ask, "What behaviors"?
At that point, we are now in the territory of value judgements. Ethics often ends up there. Sorry; life's complicated like that.
Some people are not vegetarian/vegan but are looking to cut down their meat consumption for reasons of health or environmental impact. If a meat-like Boca burger helps that, I'd call it a positive step, even if I find them too much like ground charred cow flesh to eat.
And it was only a few decades ago that doctors suggested taking up cigarette smoking to some patients.
Your avergage doctor knows fsck-all about nutrition.
The idea that you should not chain your kids in the basement and beat them every day with a two-by-four is nothing by a "value judgement", but it is our right and our obligation to force that value judgement onto parents.
In Maryland, homeschooling parents are monitored and reviewed by the school system. I don't know the details, but there is at least some degree of oversight.
If a parent is homeschooling a child in order to keep the child ignorant of such basic information as I mentioned, yes, I have a problem with that, as I have problems with all forms of child abuse.
If a parent is homeschooling because the local schools are bad, or the child has special needs that are not being met, or the parent wants to bond more closely with the child, and a good education is provided, no, I don't have a problem with that.
It does seem from my casual observation that many homeschoolers seem to fall in the first category. But, as the schools in the areas I've lived have been decent, there's a selection bias in my observations.
Ah. So you're arguing for some notion of a god who was not capable of creating the species he wanted, but had to allow the Universe to do it for him, then selects the species he wants and waves his magick wand at it to douse it with soul juice or something? Interesting. That's hardly an "omnipotent" god, though.
What do you mean by "macroevolution"? If we take the defintion of the Wikipedia article you link to, "evolution that occurs above the level of species, over long periods of time, that leads to speciation", well then speciation has in fact been observed. And the fossil record shows how this process occurs over long periods of time.
Many of our observations are indirect, but so what?
Should parents who are offended by the idea that people of different skin colors are legally and ethically equal, be allowed to send their kids at taxpayer expense to a school that teaches racism?
Adults can believe whatever crap they want, but children have an ethical right to be presented with good information. There is a certain educational baseline, things that you are obligated to see that your children have the opportunity to learn. These things include basic safety (fire burns you, drinking bleach is a bad idea), basic ethics (skin color is irrelevant, bullying and cruelty are wrong), basic health (regular bathing promotes health, masturbation will not make you go blind, proper condom use reduces but does not eliminate the risk of pregnancy and STDs).
This basic orientation to life also includes the fundamentals of the best human knowledge about our place in the universe: that the earth goes around the sun and not the other way around, that the stars are distant suns, and that all life on Earth is related through a common chain of descent and diversified through natural selection.
The fact that some ignorant or superstitious parents may find some of these ideas uncomfortable does not relive them of their obligation to see that their children's right to good information is respected. Teaching children only creationism is no more acceptable than teaching them racism or the geocentric model of the universe.
"Furthist" is an obvious typo for furthest, which is a perfectly fine word.
That's the part I don't get.
We have a rather large body in the neighorhood of our orbit. We call it Luna. Are we not a planet?
Jupiter has groups of asteroids that share its orbit. Not a planet?
Neptune hasn't cleared Pluto out of its orbital space. Not a planet?
Scale up the Pluto/Neptune situation and consider a hypothetical stellar system with an Earth-sized body in an highly ellipical orbit that crossed that of a gas giant. Would neither be planets?
Some astronomer help me out here...
I'd say it's abut twice the size of a Zippo lighter, actually somewhat smaller than that. Holds enough of a charge to run my Z for two hours or writing, I haven't tested it longer than that.
Actually I get a lot of my personal writing done in coffeehouses and bars. And I find the Z great for writing while sitting on a train, obviously a big selling point in Japan, less so here outside of a few big cities.
The biggest thing KOrganizer helps me with is easily tracking repeating events and todos. I can tell it "practice guitar, every Monday, 7pm", and not only will it appear on my schedule every Monday, it'll be there as an undone todo on Tuesday if I play hookey. For me, that's a huge step towards organization.
For more ephemeral notes, like "dont forget buy soymilk and beer on the way home", yeah, paper is great.
When I was in Japan I picked up a spare external battery for my Z. Harder to find here but I think some are marketed for handheld game systems, just need to find the right voltage and connector.
...until you want to enter whatever you wrote into a computer.
I find it easier to type things (journal entries, poems, various small documents) the first time and be able to load them into my PC immediately when I want, rather than write in a notebook originally and then have to type them up later. Also, I find that on a train typing on my Z is easier then writing ledgibly; and with a built-in light, the Z is easier to use if you wake up at 3am with an idea you need to write down/type up.
OTOH, for the ephemeral, paper is fine. There are many things I never enter into my Z. And index cards rock for the abilty to spread them out on a table, or shuffle them into order; I still use the index card approach for taking notes when doing research for longer documents.
However, there are distributors that import them and do the English language conversion, such as conics.net.
The SL-C3xxx clamshell models with built-in harddrives rock. It's like having a laptop that was exposed to a shrink ray.
I installed KO/Pi on mine as an scheduler/organizer, and use the provided "Hancom Word" word processor to maintain my journal and do other writing. I got a WiFi card for it, and I can even hook up my cell phone via it's USB port and do a SSH session from anywhere I can get a signal.
I think their success in Japan versus the U.S. is due to the fact that in Japan, the clamshell form factor seems to be very common for electronic dictonaries, while Americans are still looking for something that looks like a Palm Pilot. It's a shame and a crime that such a wonderful piece of technology, which draws admiring stares whereever I go, isn't more widely available in the U.S.
How the fsck is it "breaking even" when the amount of time during the day when I am not subject to advertizing is ever decreasing? Go to take a piss and there's ads over the urinal...
Thanks to Writer2LaTeX, they can use OpenOffice for a composition GUI for WYSINearlyWYG, and LaTeX for typesetting.
Life is an interesting set of chemical reactions, and we all have a sentimental attachment about it, but it is not the ethically relevant criteron. The ethically relevant thing is consciousess, the ability to have experiences, to be the "subject of a life". In biological organisms that corresponds to the presence of a functioning highly-structured nervous system. It is the end of this experience, this subjectivity, that concerns us, not the cesation of chemical reactions. That is why we define the legally and ethically relevent death as "brain death" for humans. (This also gives us the guide for hypotheticals such as intelligent computers, or extraterrestrial organisms based on radically different physiochemical processes.)
And, while I'm 99% sure your "plants rights" blather is the usual troll, since animals slaughtered for food are fed plants, choosing a vegetarian diet ends up in fewer plant being killed.
I'm not sure I do; what does "higher up the evolutionary scale" mean? Are you suggesting that members of a species that emerged more recently is automatically entitled to greater ethical consideration? Or one with more complex genetic information?
If you saw eating meat and plants as ethically equivalent, and your goal was strictly to do as little harm to the ecosystem as possible, you'd hunt, kill, and eat the naked ape. They're overpopulated and a tremendous stress on the environment. So, I suppose you're a cannibal?