The problem at that point is that it's easy to dismiss any metaphysical influence and explain all scientific blank spots with "we just don't know yet."
I don't understand - saying "we just don't know yet" is entirely correct. I don't think that implies we will know. Of course it would be wrong to teach that one day we will know everything - that is not clear, but is anyone claiming that as truth, or suggesting it be taught in schools?
The OP merely said "scientific critical thinking is the only way to go", I fail to see how you get from there to "Science will one day know everything" - sounds like you are going after a straw man.
The point is that if there are some things that are unknowable, they are unknowable. This doesn't mean religion will tell us the answer it instead. So his statement that science is the only way is still correct.
With the possible exception of capitalism. Nobody has yet survived the onslaught of those who worship the almighty Dollar.
Well, aside from it not being a religion in the sense the OP clearly meant, I have to ask - who has waged war as a result of capitalism?
Corporations, for all their evils, tend to dislike wars, as it makes it harder to make and sell products. Countries that trade, work and do business together might be less likely to think they need to start killing each other.
Here's some dangerous reasoning for ya: Science is all that be proven and therefore is the only thing that should be taught.
It's also a straw man.
Did anyone say that schools should teach science and nothing but science?
This is what amazes me: all the people who rip on people of faith for their insistence on being heard while the whole time insisting their view is the only correct one because... well, it doesnt matter why.
Actually, it does matter why. The answer in this case is "evidence". You are entitled to your belief of course, but no one is suggesting otherwise. The issue is what gets taught in science lessons - are you seriously suggesting that all views are equally valid, and the reason why one might be correct "doesn't matter"?
if I choose to raise my kids ignorant with no school attendance, this is my right)
Right, so go and do that. I don't see anyone arguing against homeschooling. But keep it out of the schools - Creationists are wanting to get it taught to other children too.
In science lessons, science should be taught. In some cases there might be more than one scientific viewpoint, but this is not the case when it comes to explaining the diversity of life on this planet.
Religion is a necessary part of any culture as is science and learning. Whether you accept it or not religion does play a big part in keeping civilizations civil in most cases.
So teach about it in religious education and history lessons then, as appropriate. That's an entirely separate issue, and even the most "militant" atheists do not oppose that (and many are actively in favour of teach about religion, in the appropriate classes). The "atheists want to ban all mention of religion from all teaching" is a common straw man argument that seems to have little basis to it.
It is a fact that the earth with liquid water, is more than 3.6 billion years old. It is a fact that cellular life has been around for at least half of that period and that organized multicellular life is at least 800 million years old. It is a fact that major life forms now on earth were not at all represented in the past. There were no birds or mammals 250 million years ago. It is a fact that major life forms of the past are no longer living. There used to be dinosaurs and Pithecanthropus, and there are none now. It is a fact that all living forms come from previous living forms. Therefore, all present forms of life arose from ancestral forms that were different. Birds arose from nonbirds and humans from nonhumans. No person who pretends to any understanding of the natural world can deny these facts any more than she or he can deny that the earth is round, rotates on its axis, and revolves around the sun.
(The last sentence seems particularly appropriate to your comment.)
They want us all trapped in their scientific dogma where once a theory takes hold, scientist be damned, can't be questioned.
Which is rubbish; science progresses because theories are questioned.
Ah yes, it's the "But science is only one way to do things!" idea, as if suggesting that a method based on religion is equally valid. Given that we're talking about science lessons, I'd say scientific criticial thinking is indeed the only way to go.
Give me an example of how one would perform non-scientific critical thinking, based on your "untestable influences", in the context of trying to determine something about the physical world?
Take with you seven of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate, and two of every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate, and also seven of every kind of bird, male and female, to keep their various kinds alive throughout the earth.
Well yes, clearly the Bible doesn't say "species" because I doubt the scientific concept existed back then. But it's two of every species that you'd need in order "to keep their various kinds alive".
"Kind" would have to be interpreted very broadly in order to fit on a boat, and wouldn't even begin to repopulate the Earth with the diversity we see today. Are you seriously suggesting that it's not nonsense to believe that Noah could preserve the Earth's entire diversity of life based on what he could fit on his ark?
if you came to one of my science classes and made so many basic errors in the first paragraph of your first test essay question, do you really think you'd pass?
You think that the Earth can be repopulated from just a few "kinds" of animals - and you teach science?
How dare the State think that school boards should have any input on their schools curriculum? Its not the communities decision what their children should be learning.
If it ain't right by slashdot, then by god it shouldn't be taught!
No - I think that teaching science should be left to those who have expertise in science. TFA claims that such people oppose this bill. The whole reason we are getting into this mess is because schools are being forced to pander to what "the community" thinks should be taught.
Of course if the school board does their job right, this bill won't have any effect, but it paves the way for that possibility.
Seriously now, what's with all the hate at even the idea of a creator?
Okay, I'll bite: what hate?
But it also seems clear to me that believing that we are the result of neo-darwinism takes a leap of faith as great as believing in any "made up" Religion.
No, it doesn't. On the one hand we have something supported by vast amounts of evidence. On the other hand, stories that people can make up. Just because we can't prove anything with 100% certainty doesn't mean that all claims are equally plausible!
what's wrong with teaching children to discuss and god forbid, question popular *and* unpopular ideas. Isn't the real goal that children learn to think for themselves and make up their own minds?
Nothing as long as it's based on evidence, and god discussion is done in the appropriate class (i.e., philosophy or religious education, not science). There is no reason to pick out evolution specifically as needing "questioning", anymore than say General Relativity.
I don't think a single anecdote disproves what he's saying. Obviously it's not true that every older person is more conservative than every younger person. But over a timescale of decades and certainly centuries, there seems to be a general trend.
E.g., consider the acceptance of slavery hundreds of years ago. Now, if you plucked one of those people and brought them to today, they might concede they were wrong and change their mind. But if all those people were still alive, so there were large numbers of people who accepted slavery, it's a different matter.
If anything, taking a long time to make decisions might be a very good thing, so maybe we'd have less knee-jerk legislation.
Well, there does seem to be a paradox here - it's like the idea that many liberals such as myself might strictly speaking be conservative, and vice-versa, because liberals are opposing new knee-jerk legislation and want the laws to remain the same.
But I think the difference is between passing laws, and the state of societies - conservatives want to preserve things the way they are, even if that means new knee-jerk laws need to quickly be passed in response to changing circumstances (e.g., new technology). The various knee-jerk laws I've disliked have not been a case of attitudes in society changing rapidly, rather it's a law brought in quickly to satisfy an existing attitude in society.
So the problem being posed with a lack of aging is that it is attitudes and views on morality that will change slowly. This says nothing about how quickly laws are passed. On the contrary, with a large number of 100s year old conservative voters, those laws will get passed quicker than ever.
Does retirement look far away? I assume it will look further away when retirement age rises to 450, with annual increases.
Why on earth would I want or need to retire at 65, if I lived to over 500 years? This is a common argument I hear against combating aging, based on the straw man argument that people are demanding hundreds of years of retirement.
But if I still put away the same money as I do now, I could still have the choice of having a twenty year break every few decades, and given that I'll pay of my mortgage in a fraction of my lifespan, I'll be far better off financially, and be able to have longer retirement periods than we currently do.
And under your system, 66 years of retirement? Yes please!
In fact, it's under our current system that the retirement system is going to collapse, because there won't be enough workers to fund all the old people in a few decades' time.
If I'm transporting kids, you kind of have a point. If I'm transporting adults, I'd say use a damn laptop, which odds are has wifi onboard... though a repeater with an external antenna would be rather handy.
I think you're misunderstanding - obviously one needs to use a laptop, but the car provides wireless access, which laptops tend not to have (unless you have a mobile wireless connection). Reading your original post again, "I would enjoy a car with his gear onboard rather than a mickeymouse laptop solution", I think you're reading this as being some built in laptop option for the driver. It's not - it's a wireless access for passengers in the car to connect to with their own laptops etc.
I don't see what kids has to do with anything either. They'd need to use a laptop too.
But the link says several times "the private or intimate parts of a female person shall include that portion of the breast which is below the top of the areola." - it's true there is the restriction that due to People v. Santorelli, simple exposure doesn't apply unless it's in a commercial context, but it seems that female nipples are still in general treated differently to male ones.
Also:
"Sado-masochistic abuse" means flagellation or torture by or upon a person clad in undergarments, a mask or bizzare costume, or the condition of being fettered, bound or otherwise physically restrained on the part of one so clothed.
I love how public displays of S&M are fine, just so long as you aren't dressed in a stereotypical "bizarre" costume:)
If a driver was that desperate to be checking email as they drive, these sorts of mad people would already be out there doing it with mobile Internet connections.
Meant by a society where more people are interested in "orgy" than "apple pie", right.
Now sure, it's true that most people like to have sex in private, and most people don't want to see random strangers having sex against their will, but that's not relevant here. The issue is whether people think sex must be private - i.e., that consenting adults should not pass images of their acts onto other adults who consent to receiving them.
This is Slashdot - obviously he's most likely to be male. Whether one's sex is correlated with views on sexual acts and/or censorship laws in another matter.
Because it is such a private and special act, despite the act having been demeaned over the past 60+ years. And that's the problem. Sexual intercourse is meant to be an act performed in private for the two parties that love and care for each other deeply enough to create a stronger bond. When you put that on public display, the act is reduced to a trite sensuality.
But how does that account for obscenity laws that cover distribution that isn't in public? Here in the UK, from next year a new law will even criminalise simple private possession of "disgusting" private adult images.
The OP made it quite clear - he didn't support "public obscenities and indecencies".
This argument also don't explain why different sexual acts are treated differently. Sexual intercourse is okay to distribute to the public in many countries (despite your argument that it is a private act), yet other acts considered more taboo are not legal, even if distribution is more restricted. So it doesn't seem to be based on whether the act should be private.
Still, it's not only material possessions, but also stuff as his job and his friends...
No, it's an introduction to his friends, and a job trial. Neither of which are notable, except for the fact that someone might be mad enough to pay for such things.
If you RTFA you'll see that the sale includes introductions to his friends, and a trial in his job, which is supported by his employer.
I often introduce people to my friends - this doesn't mean they become me. Even if I then move out the area.
I'm sure if someone was going to leave their job, but they told their employee that they knew of someone who wanted it, most employers would be interested in taking a look, as it saves on recruitment/advertising fees. But that doesn't guarantee you getting the job.
Don't get me wrong, it's an interesting thing that he's doing, but it's far from a guarantee of being able to replace him in his life. His friends will just think "Oh, there's that new guy he introduced to us, who now keeps trying to hang around for some reason". The fact that he happens to live at the same address doesn't change a thing.
Might this be connected to the constant complaints that the UK is falling behind in most every academic subject?
What complaints are these, OOI?
Anyway, no I don't think so - a required mark is meaningless, it tells you nothing about how hard the exam is. Given a choice between an exam where the 2.1 mark is 90%, and one where the 2.1 mark is 68%, but where achieving a 2.1 is equally hard in both, I'd argue the latter is better. Why? Because there you can distinguish more easily between a barely-scraped 2.1, a good 2.1, and a first. With the former system, all of that is squashed into 10%, which makes it harder to tell the good candidates apart.
So you seem to be arguing for a system targetted towards poor candidates, not good ones.
(I did a maths degree at Cambridge where they don't even have something as simple as a percentage mark - it's based on some system where you are awarded marks, "alphas" and "betas", and then you receive points based on some formula of those numbers, which then gets fudged into a final grade...)
Doesn't that mean that every GPL-project needs to be very very careful and make backups of the source code of all releases, however old?
In addition to the other replies, note that this situation of providing an offer of source code only arises if you choose to distribute binaries only. The much simpler way to avoid this issue is to distribute source and binaries at the same time. I also believe it's okay, if you are distributing online, to provide a binary and source link on the same site (i.e., so the user can still download binary only if they choose to save space/time, but you don't have to worry about someone chasing you up three years later).
But the correct form of address for a knight is to use the honorific "Sir". Do you call your physician "Dr. So-and-so"? Do you say "Senator Obama"? "Reverend Martin Luther King"?
But surely those are titles (and in fact job titles) - like Professor - and not honorifics?
I say you're the most stupid, for not knowing how to read someone's post, and instead make up a straw man. Perhaps you should direct your comment at the moderator who modded you insightful - he's the one who obviously has an axe to grind against older operating systems. In fact, I suspect you do too.
Yes, this is why all Firefox users run it on Linux, and there are no Windows or OS X Firefox users, because they prefer free software. It's also why whenever there's a story about OS X, it's full of people complaining that it isn't free software, so we shouldn't use it.
Wait, no that's not true at all. In fact, it's not true for any other commercial software company. It's only Opera that seems to have the long queue of people whining that it isn't open source.
Slashdot Mirror
The problem at that point is that it's easy to dismiss any metaphysical influence and explain all scientific blank spots with "we just don't know yet."
I don't understand - saying "we just don't know yet" is entirely correct. I don't think that implies we will know. Of course it would be wrong to teach that one day we will know everything - that is not clear, but is anyone claiming that as truth, or suggesting it be taught in schools?
The OP merely said "scientific critical thinking is the only way to go", I fail to see how you get from there to "Science will one day know everything" - sounds like you are going after a straw man.
The point is that if there are some things that are unknowable, they are unknowable. This doesn't mean religion will tell us the answer it instead. So his statement that science is the only way is still correct.
With the possible exception of capitalism. Nobody has yet survived the onslaught of those who worship the almighty Dollar.
Well, aside from it not being a religion in the sense the OP clearly meant, I have to ask - who has waged war as a result of capitalism?
Corporations, for all their evils, tend to dislike wars, as it makes it harder to make and sell products. Countries that trade, work and do business together might be less likely to think they need to start killing each other.
Here's some dangerous reasoning for ya: Science is all that be proven and therefore is the only thing that should be taught.
It's also a straw man.
Did anyone say that schools should teach science and nothing but science?
This is what amazes me: all the people who rip on people of faith for their insistence on being heard while the whole time insisting their view is the only correct one because... well, it doesnt matter why.
Actually, it does matter why. The answer in this case is "evidence". You are entitled to your belief of course, but no one is suggesting otherwise. The issue is what gets taught in science lessons - are you seriously suggesting that all views are equally valid, and the reason why one might be correct "doesn't matter"?
if I choose to raise my kids ignorant with no school attendance, this is my right)
Right, so go and do that. I don't see anyone arguing against homeschooling. But keep it out of the schools - Creationists are wanting to get it taught to other children too.
I would like to see teachings on both sides
Wait, wait - what "both sides"?
In science lessons, science should be taught. In some cases there might be more than one scientific viewpoint, but this is not the case when it comes to explaining the diversity of life on this planet.
Religion is a necessary part of any culture as is science and learning. Whether you accept it or not religion does play a big part in keeping civilizations civil in most cases.
So teach about it in religious education and history lessons then, as appropriate. That's an entirely separate issue, and even the most "militant" atheists do not oppose that (and many are actively in favour of teach about religion, in the appropriate classes). The "atheists want to ban all mention of religion from all teaching" is a common straw man argument that seems to have little basis to it.
Of course, we have proven that the earth is a sphere.
And we have proven many facts (yes, facts) about evolution. From http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/evolution-fact.html :
It is a fact that the earth with liquid water, is more than 3.6 billion years old. It is a fact that cellular life has been around for at least half of that period and that organized multicellular life is at least 800 million years old. It is a fact that major life forms now on earth were not at all represented in the past. There were no birds or mammals 250 million years ago. It is a fact that major life forms of the past are no longer living. There used to be dinosaurs and Pithecanthropus, and there are none now. It is a fact that all living forms come from previous living forms. Therefore, all present forms of life arose from ancestral forms that were different. Birds arose from nonbirds and humans from nonhumans. No person who pretends to any understanding of the natural world can deny these facts any more than she or he can deny that the earth is round, rotates on its axis, and revolves around the sun.
(The last sentence seems particularly appropriate to your comment.)
They want us all trapped in their scientific dogma where once a theory takes hold, scientist be damned, can't be questioned.
Which is rubbish; science progresses because theories are questioned.
Ah yes, it's the "But science is only one way to do things!" idea, as if suggesting that a method based on religion is equally valid. Given that we're talking about science lessons, I'd say scientific criticial thinking is indeed the only way to go.
Give me an example of how one would perform non-scientific critical thinking, based on your "untestable influences", in the context of trying to determine something about the physical world?
Take with you seven of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate, and two of every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate, and also seven of every kind of bird, male and female, to keep their various kinds alive throughout the earth.
Well yes, clearly the Bible doesn't say "species" because I doubt the scientific concept existed back then. But it's two of every species that you'd need in order "to keep their various kinds alive".
"Kind" would have to be interpreted very broadly in order to fit on a boat, and wouldn't even begin to repopulate the Earth with the diversity we see today. Are you seriously suggesting that it's not nonsense to believe that Noah could preserve the Earth's entire diversity of life based on what he could fit on his ark?
if you came to one of my science classes and made so many basic errors in the first paragraph of your first test essay question, do you really think you'd pass?
You think that the Earth can be repopulated from just a few "kinds" of animals - and you teach science?
How dare the State think that school boards should have any input on their schools curriculum? Its not the communities decision what their children should be learning.
If it ain't right by slashdot, then by god it shouldn't be taught!
No - I think that teaching science should be left to those who have expertise in science. TFA claims that such people oppose this bill. The whole reason we are getting into this mess is because schools are being forced to pander to what "the community" thinks should be taught.
Of course if the school board does their job right, this bill won't have any effect, but it paves the way for that possibility.
Seriously now, what's with all the hate at even the idea of a creator?
Okay, I'll bite: what hate?
But it also seems clear to me that believing that we are the result of neo-darwinism takes a leap of faith as great as believing in any "made up" Religion.
No, it doesn't. On the one hand we have something supported by vast amounts of evidence. On the other hand, stories that people can make up. Just because we can't prove anything with 100% certainty doesn't mean that all claims are equally plausible!
what's wrong with teaching children to discuss and god forbid, question popular *and* unpopular ideas. Isn't the real goal that children learn to think for themselves and make up their own minds?
Nothing as long as it's based on evidence, and god discussion is done in the appropriate class (i.e., philosophy or religious education, not science). There is no reason to pick out evolution specifically as needing "questioning", anymore than say General Relativity.
I don't think a single anecdote disproves what he's saying. Obviously it's not true that every older person is more conservative than every younger person. But over a timescale of decades and certainly centuries, there seems to be a general trend.
E.g., consider the acceptance of slavery hundreds of years ago. Now, if you plucked one of those people and brought them to today, they might concede they were wrong and change their mind. But if all those people were still alive, so there were large numbers of people who accepted slavery, it's a different matter.
If anything, taking a long time to make decisions might be a very good thing, so maybe we'd have less knee-jerk legislation.
Well, there does seem to be a paradox here - it's like the idea that many liberals such as myself might strictly speaking be conservative, and vice-versa, because liberals are opposing new knee-jerk legislation and want the laws to remain the same.
But I think the difference is between passing laws, and the state of societies - conservatives want to preserve things the way they are, even if that means new knee-jerk laws need to quickly be passed in response to changing circumstances (e.g., new technology). The various knee-jerk laws I've disliked have not been a case of attitudes in society changing rapidly, rather it's a law brought in quickly to satisfy an existing attitude in society.
So the problem being posed with a lack of aging is that it is attitudes and views on morality that will change slowly. This says nothing about how quickly laws are passed. On the contrary, with a large number of 100s year old conservative voters, those laws will get passed quicker than ever.
Does retirement look far away? I assume it will look further away when retirement age rises to 450, with annual increases.
Why on earth would I want or need to retire at 65, if I lived to over 500 years? This is a common argument I hear against combating aging, based on the straw man argument that people are demanding hundreds of years of retirement.
But if I still put away the same money as I do now, I could still have the choice of having a twenty year break every few decades, and given that I'll pay of my mortgage in a fraction of my lifespan, I'll be far better off financially, and be able to have longer retirement periods than we currently do.
And under your system, 66 years of retirement? Yes please!
In fact, it's under our current system that the retirement system is going to collapse, because there won't be enough workers to fund all the old people in a few decades' time.
If I'm transporting kids, you kind of have a point. If I'm transporting adults, I'd say use a damn laptop, which odds are has wifi onboard... though a repeater with an external antenna would be rather handy.
I think you're misunderstanding - obviously one needs to use a laptop, but the car provides wireless access, which laptops tend not to have (unless you have a mobile wireless connection). Reading your original post again, "I would enjoy a car with his gear onboard rather than a mickeymouse laptop solution", I think you're reading this as being some built in laptop option for the driver. It's not - it's a wireless access for passengers in the car to connect to with their own laptops etc.
I don't see what kids has to do with anything either. They'd need to use a laptop too.
But the link says several times "the private or intimate parts of a female person shall include that portion of the breast which is below the top of the areola." - it's true there is the restriction that due to People v. Santorelli, simple exposure doesn't apply unless it's in a commercial context, but it seems that female nipples are still in general treated differently to male ones.
Also:
"Sado-masochistic abuse" means flagellation or torture by or upon a person clad in undergarments, a mask or bizzare costume, or the condition of being fettered, bound or otherwise physically restrained on the part of one so clothed.
I love how public displays of S&M are fine, just so long as you aren't dressed in a stereotypical "bizarre" costume :)
Perhaps some cars have room for passengers?
If a driver was that desperate to be checking email as they drive, these sorts of mad people would already be out there doing it with mobile Internet connections.
Oh that's easy, here in the UK the police just stop people from dressing as ninjas.
Meant by society.
Meant by a society where more people are interested in "orgy" than "apple pie", right.
Now sure, it's true that most people like to have sex in private, and most people don't want to see random strangers having sex against their will, but that's not relevant here. The issue is whether people think sex must be private - i.e., that consenting adults should not pass images of their acts onto other adults who consent to receiving them.
Citation?
This is Slashdot - obviously he's most likely to be male. Whether one's sex is correlated with views on sexual acts and/or censorship laws in another matter.
Because it is such a private and special act, despite the act having been demeaned over the past 60+ years. And that's the problem. Sexual intercourse is meant to be an act performed in private for the two parties that love and care for each other deeply enough to create a stronger bond. When you put that on public display, the act is reduced to a trite sensuality.
But how does that account for obscenity laws that cover distribution that isn't in public? Here in the UK, from next year a new law will even criminalise simple private possession of "disgusting" private adult images.
The OP made it quite clear - he didn't support "public obscenities and indecencies".
This argument also don't explain why different sexual acts are treated differently. Sexual intercourse is okay to distribute to the public in many countries (despite your argument that it is a private act), yet other acts considered more taboo are not legal, even if distribution is more restricted. So it doesn't seem to be based on whether the act should be private.
Still, it's not only material possessions, but also stuff as his job and his friends...
No, it's an introduction to his friends, and a job trial. Neither of which are notable, except for the fact that someone might be mad enough to pay for such things.
If you RTFA you'll see that the sale includes introductions to his friends, and a trial in his job, which is supported by his employer.
I often introduce people to my friends - this doesn't mean they become me. Even if I then move out the area.
I'm sure if someone was going to leave their job, but they told their employee that they knew of someone who wanted it, most employers would be interested in taking a look, as it saves on recruitment/advertising fees. But that doesn't guarantee you getting the job.
Don't get me wrong, it's an interesting thing that he's doing, but it's far from a guarantee of being able to replace him in his life. His friends will just think "Oh, there's that new guy he introduced to us, who now keeps trying to hang around for some reason". The fact that he happens to live at the same address doesn't change a thing.
Might this be connected to the constant complaints that the UK is falling behind in most every academic subject?
What complaints are these, OOI?
Anyway, no I don't think so - a required mark is meaningless, it tells you nothing about how hard the exam is. Given a choice between an exam where the 2.1 mark is 90%, and one where the 2.1 mark is 68%, but where achieving a 2.1 is equally hard in both, I'd argue the latter is better. Why? Because there you can distinguish more easily between a barely-scraped 2.1, a good 2.1, and a first. With the former system, all of that is squashed into 10%, which makes it harder to tell the good candidates apart.
So you seem to be arguing for a system targetted towards poor candidates, not good ones.
(I did a maths degree at Cambridge where they don't even have something as simple as a percentage mark - it's based on some system where you are awarded marks, "alphas" and "betas", and then you receive points based on some formula of those numbers, which then gets fudged into a final grade...)
Doesn't that mean that every GPL-project needs to be very very careful and make backups of the source code of all releases, however old?
In addition to the other replies, note that this situation of providing an offer of source code only arises if you choose to distribute binaries only. The much simpler way to avoid this issue is to distribute source and binaries at the same time. I also believe it's okay, if you are distributing online, to provide a binary and source link on the same site (i.e., so the user can still download binary only if they choose to save space/time, but you don't have to worry about someone chasing you up three years later).
But the correct form of address for a knight is to use the honorific "Sir". Do you call your physician "Dr. So-and-so"? Do you say "Senator Obama"? "Reverend Martin Luther King"?
But surely those are titles (and in fact job titles) - like Professor - and not honorifics?
I say you're the most stupid
I say you're the most stupid, for not knowing how to read someone's post, and instead make up a straw man. Perhaps you should direct your comment at the moderator who modded you insightful - he's the one who obviously has an axe to grind against older operating systems. In fact, I suspect you do too.
Yes, this is why all Firefox users run it on Linux, and there are no Windows or OS X Firefox users, because they prefer free software. It's also why whenever there's a story about OS X, it's full of people complaining that it isn't free software, so we shouldn't use it.
Wait, no that's not true at all. In fact, it's not true for any other commercial software company. It's only Opera that seems to have the long queue of people whining that it isn't open source.