You cannot disprove that there is a god either, so you might be waiting for quite a while. Then again, believing that there isn't a god without evidence to support it is just as naive a viewpoint. Therefore if it's possible, however unprobable, it should be given consideration.
I've considered it, a great deal in fact (I imagine that many atheists have actually thought about the possibility of God an awful lot, and it's impossible not to given how obsessed this world is with belief in God).
However, considering that something is possible is no reason to believe in it.
Have you considered every other conceivable religion or God out there, along with the possibility of ghosts, easter bunnies, invisible elephants, and the possibility that we are living in a computer simulation? And if so, do you believe in any of these?
Identifying yourself to the government isn't a big deal when you want something from them.
And you can be sure that these cards will only ever be needed when we want something from the Government?
So, in other words, the argument isn't "this is bad", but "this, followed by bad laws, is bad"? Why not just argue against the bad laws?
Because once the billions of pounds have been spent implementing the new system, and laws have been brought in allowing ID cards, the hard work will have been done, and it will be trivial for a Government to get away with introducing new situations where the ID card is needed.
If we are to have any hope against preventing the "bad laws", we have to act now.
If you object to that, object to that. Not the cards.
I object to the National ID Card system that is being planned by the UK Government, of which the national database is an intrinsic part of. By opposing the national database, I'm opposing this form of ID card.
Now sure, I might not object to any sort of hypothetical ID card system, including ones that don't require a national database. But since these sorts of fantasy ID schemes aren't the ones being planned by the UK Government, I'm not sure how that means I should be in favour of the ID cards being planned by the UK Government.
If you don't even know what the details are, then it's just scaremongering, plain and simple.
So tell us? What do we get for our billions?
A method of identification is not a big deal. Couple it with other nasty stuff and it is, but you've already admitted that you don't know that kind of stuff is even being considered
And the ID card being planned by the UK Government is coupled with other nasty stuff! And I'm not sure where I said that - we do know some of the bad things about this ID card. That the Government refuses to be clear on further details does not make me willing to trust them, nor does it make me willing to choose between paying almost 80 quid for a bit of plastic, or going to prison.
I have yet to see anybody explain why ID cards are an attempt to limit liberty. Sure, ID cards in some forms are abusive, but that doesn't mean that ID cards are intrinsically abusive.
Of course, an ID card isn't intrinsically abusive, but there are lots of worrying things about what is being proposed.
Firstly, it is a limit of liberty if I have to prove who I am to do certain things, and am prevented from doing those things if I happen to forget or lose my card. If the ID card will only ever been needed in cases where we currently need ID cards, then great, but what constitutional rights or leglisation will be in place to prevent a future Government saying that ID cards are needed for more and more things (eg, public transport)?
Also these are not just cards, but will be linked to the creation of a national database containing things like fingerprints and DNA.
I already have a number of ways, such as my passport.
So if it's just the same as now, why spend billions on a new system?
I have yet to see anybody explain why ID cards are a good thing, and what purpose they are actually needed for, and how they will actually achieve that purpose.
No one seems to be answering basic questions about what and how this ID card will be implemented, so it is impossible to verify that this ID card will not be abusive.
and as far as drug use goes, the drugs laws are relaxing
Generally true, but note that Blunkett wants drug testing of anyone arrested, and for "possession" to be redefined as including drugs being found in your blood.
A $50 CD player wouldn't allow me to carry around the 300+ music CDs and two milk crates full of 12" vinyl in my music collection without the aid of a sturdy wheeled cabinet.
A $50 CD player would probably play mp3s. At say 12 albums per CD, 300 audio CDs would fit into 25 mp3 CDs, which easily fits into a small light carrying case (obviously you don't need to carry the CD cases with you).
Now sure, it's still nowhere near as small as a hard disk based mp3 player, so you do get more for spending $400, but a CD player is nowhere near as bad as you make out.
A government issue national identification is really no different than either a passport or drivers license/birth certificate, allowing someone to correctly identify you as a citizen.
There's a huge difference between needing identification for the right to enter a foreign country, and needing identification for the right to walk out of my front door.
And if it's no different to a passport, why does it cost more? Why can't we just stick with a passport?
It could even have the potential of being equivalent to a passport, one that is given automatically to every citizen instead of being forced to pay the application fees and wait period etc that is currently required.
What do you mean "instead of being forced to pay the application fees"? They won't grow on trees, and as I say, in fact the combined passport/ID will cost more. I don't see how the wait period will be removed either - with all the biometrics that need to be taken, I would imagine it being even more hassle.
Furthermore, I fail to see why it would cost $100 on every visit - you could get round this buy having an optional biometric passport, for those who wish to travel to the US.
And given that this ID card is going to cost over $100 (£77 for an ID card with passport), it's certainly absurd to say that this will save people money!
Regarding insurance companies, they love to discriminate based on generalisations that make you statistically a worse risk for them.
They're not going to listen to you saying that you gave twinkies to homeless people - if people buying ice cream, cheese, and Twinkies are statistically a bad risk, then that's all that matters.
In many states, it is against the law for your auto insurance to drop you.
They don't have to give you insurance in the first place, or they can make it more expensive.
Besides, if you have a good driving record, it doesn't make sense for your auto insurance to drop you.. because it just loses them money.
Not if stastically a group of people are worse drivers. They may lose money on the odd person that is the exception, but in general they gain.
Why do women get cheaper insurance (or young people get more expensive insurance), even though some women may be worse drivers than some men?
As far as I remember, my privacy has never been threatened by them - I show it to the police to prove who I am
I see from your later post that this was when you were driving - in the UK, we already have ID that must be on you when driving, so there is no need to spend billions on a new card. We are also required to show ID when collecting a parcel, so this is nothing new (note that saying it would be convenient to have a new form of ID for this is an argument only for a voluntary ID card).
Are you required to show it to the police at any time? Are you required to carry it at all times, or if not, when is it required?
How much does this ID card cost (to individuals, and an estimate of the cost to the taxpayer)?
What happens if your card is lost or stolen - how much does this cost you, and how soon does it have to be replaced?
What sort of information is carried on this card? What safeguards are there to prevent this information being read (either by a company that requires the ID, or someone who steals your card)?
What evidence is there that this ID has done any good in whatever it was intended to do (eg, combatting terrorism)? That's assuming there is an intention for ID cards of course - the UK Government have yet to give a clear answer on what ID cards will do and how they will do it.
What constitutional/legal safeguards are in place that would prevent a future government introducing new laws that would require more uses of the ID card (eg, having to carry it at all times, assuming that wasn't already the case)?
Fair enough - it's certainly true that GPL isn't as free as some licences.
Yes- a form that prevents other people using my work freely.
As for libraries, as others have pointed out, there is the LGPL which allows linking from closed source applications, and IME seems to be fairly commonly used instead of the GPL. So yes, it's true that the GPL is a bad choice for libraries, but this is an entirely different thing from saying that the GPL in general is a bad licence, as someone suggested higher up in this thread.
Even so, your arguments of wanting to use GPL software, such as not wanting to reimplement things, apply equally to someone who might want to reuse your work, rather than having to reimplement it from scratch. But you're not letting them, under any circumstance (where as at least the GPL allows people to reuse the work under some circumstances).
But this problem applies to commercial software, not just GPL - you're not free to use a random company's library either, unless they're willing to sell it to you under some conditions.
So this applies to anything other than things like BSD or public domain software. But hang on - you're arguing from the point of view of releasing commercial software yourself! Are you seriously suggesting you should have the right to use other people's work, and then sell it in a form that prevents other people using your work freely? Or have I misunderstood your point?
The Mac OS is document-centric and not application-centric like Windows. Once you let yourself do what makes sense instead of what Windows does it's much easier to use.
Though actually there isn't really that much difference - Windows in fact is document-centric too, in that documents have their own windows, and closing the window only closes that document.
The difference here is that Windows applications tend to have a parent window, and closing that quits the application, where as Mac applications tend to have no such visible cue, instead relying on an icon somewhere (and whilst that may be overloading the "close window" action, that's no more overloaded than the way that closing a window also closes a document).
It's also worth noting that the "Mac" behaviour is possible in Windows, in that there are applications which have no parent windows, and minimise to the system tray if you close the window (eg, Overnet, some IM clients, some LiveJournal clients). Other applications (such as Word, Excel), whilst they do quit when the last window is closed, they still behave in a document-centric manner in that there is one document per main window, with no extra parent window (does it really matter to the user whether the application has closed or not - I don't see how going to the "run program" icon again is any harder than going to the "minimised" icon).
Of course, I'm not saying there isn't confusion when one switches platforms - there is. But this seems to be down to a trend in choices by application programmers, rather than something fundamental in the OSs.
Thank you for that admission. There is no basis for the atheistic moral code--it is arbitrarily chosen. Therfore, you must allow that other people may arbitrarily choose their moral code, too. Because you have no basis for your morality, you have no grounds to declare someone else's moral system "wrong." On what authority can you say someone else is wrong? Your own? If you can invoke your own authority, then I'll do the same. I declare myself the winner of our little slashdot debate--on my own authority. But then I wouldn't be rational, but arbitrary, just like the atheist who says Hitler was wrong without grounds for doing so.
Hang on - my reason for arguing here is that you claimed that atheists cannot call someone's morality wrong, where as Christians can. I'm not trying to pretend that it's the other way around, I'm saying that everyone has just as much or as little right to call someone else wrong. I'm not the one appealing to authority; you are.
You said "you have no basis for your morality", actually I do, I just told you it in my last post.
I think much of the problem comes because you lump atheists all in one group, then seem surprised that they don't share the same moral basis. Since no one ever claimed that atheism was a moral system, this isn't surprising. If you were to select, say, humanists as your group, you would find that they share a moral code.
Also, you ignored the bit where I pointed out that theists do not share a moral basis; each religion chooses its own.
When an atheist assumes laws of logic, human dignity, and the uniformity of nature, he is borrowing from the Christian theistic worldview because the atheistic worldview does not allow for them. The Christian theist is consistent, the atheist is not.
Atheists do not take these ideas from Christians, they take them from observing nature. Where we differ is that atheists admit things we don't know, where as Christians make up a story along the lines of "God did it" (which still doesn't explain it).
The Christian Theistic worldview is superior to the atheistic because it can account for human dignity, laws of logic, and moral absolutes. An atheist, if he were consistent, would not rely on these absolutes without first proving them.
You still haven't proved where they come from. Saying "they come from God" isn't a proof.
I'll elaborate more on my moral basis - it come from noting that: (1) There exists things which I don't like happening to me. (2) It seems that (1) is true of other people. (3) Therefore I shall strive for a world to minimise these things not happening.
(1) is a fact, which is as provable as just about anything (ie, short of saying how can we prove that we trust our senses, and so on). (2) is an assumption, but a reasonable one. Even if we reject this and assume that others cannot suffer, I still benefit by promoting a world where harm does not happen to me, and even if all I care about myself, I still have to cooperate with others for long term benefit. (3) is the action to take, which is basically a statement of the bleeding obvious.
Now, to me it seems that the only question is whether this set of reasoning is a basis of "morality" in the sense that it is similar to what Christians call a "morality". Given that in both cases, we are deciding what things people should and shouldn't do, and in which ways people should behave, I think it is reasonable to say we are covering the same area.
That's exactly my point. WHAT is the atheist's basis for her system of morality? You still haven't given it.
My basis or morality generally stems from measuring the harm or suffering an action causes people. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of atheists have a similar view, but there is no one basis - just as not all theists have the same basis of morality.
You gave two ways in which the atheist can say someone's moral code is wrong
Actually I meant those are two ways in which anyone can say someone is wrong. I fail to see how you can disagree with my two methods, and then say that a Christian can still say that others are wrong.
When you say your morality is coming from God, that is your personal choice of a basis of morality - when you say I am wrong, you are going by the second method I gave, and disagreeing with my basis of morality.
Sure, you may believe that your basis of morality is the absolutely correct one - but I believe my basis just as much (I find it hard to believe that all sorts of actions could be justified just because God says so, and also we have no way to know what God wants anyway; it seems hard for me to believe that anything else matters other than harm that may be caused to people).
But the Christian Theist can say that nature is uniform because the God that created everything designed it that way.
I'm not sure I understand how something abstract like logic requires nature to be uniform - but anyhow, you are on no better ground than the atheist, because you cannot prove that uniformity came from God.
I can just as reasonably say that nature is uniform because the universe started that way.
Exactly, which proves my point. Your moral code is not absolute, but you've simply declared your moral code based on your whims and worldview. Because your moral code is arbitrary, you cannot impose your arbitrary moral code on someone else.
You can have morals, but you can never say your set of morals is superior to anyone else's because you've just declared them.
As a Christian theist, however, my worldview accounts for moral absolutes (and laws of logic for that matter) and can say that someone is right or wrong. My worldview flows from a God who created the universe with absolute laws and an absolute moral code.
Er, no. You may believe that your morals are absolute, but that doesn't mean they are. Indeed, that you have accepted that other people may come up with different morals means that morals are not absolute.
I could use just the same argument as you, and say that whatever method I have used to derive my system of morality is the correct one, and the absolute one, and therefore say that you are wrong. Whether God is involved or not has nothing to do with it.
To say that atheists' morality is based on whims is completely false. One can build up a system of morality from some basic principles, just as theists do.
When someone says that someone is morally wrong, they are either pointing out an inconsistency in their system of morality (something which can be proven), or they are saying that they disagree with the person's method of coming up with those morals (eg, I think saying something is right or wrong just because God says so is absurd), which ultimately is more a matter of opinion (though still one that can be justified with reasoning).
Using that logic, I could say that I believe that murder and stealing are right things to do, and therefore be offended that they are illegal....
I would hope that people can state the rather obvious reasons why murder and stealing are wrong, and also should be illegal.
The problem here is people who argue things based purely on a belief that requires no additional argument or explanation, such as "It's wrong because God says so" or "because it's written in The Bible" or "It's wrong because it's immoral".
Personally, I think Europe can go fuck themselves.
I'm glad you can argue your points with such intellect.
Just imagine if we got as lazy as the Europeans and decided we'd only work 6 hours 5 days per week, and only 8 months out of the year, and decided to just sit around and smoke pot all the time. The world economy would go down the toilet faster than Kerry's campaign. If the rest of the world were half as motivated as we are, there's not a single person on this planet that wouldn't eventually come to live comfortably.
That's funny, our economies are doing just fine. I guess we must work smarter, and get the same done in less time. Perhaps if you were as motivated as we were, you might be able to live comfortably - which in my book, includes things like decent leisure time (and indeed, not locking up people for smoking things in their own home) as well as wealth.
You don't get up in front of 280 million people and admit that you're going to crawl your country into bed with known criminals and terrorists and not expect an uprising.
There's no need to when you become a criminal terrorist yourself.
Marriage is very much already defined by most people as being between a man and a woman. It was never a generic term. How you can suggest otherwise is beyond me.
Marriage is only defined as being between a man and a women because that's what the majority of countries only allow. This is circular reasoning - the definition follows from the way things are, and then saying that things should stay the way they are because that's the definition.
Certainly the word marriage can be used in more general terms (not even between people, eg, a marriage of two ideas), so opposite gender is not something that is intrinsic to the definition, but something that follows from the way things currently are.
Take a look at http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=marriage. It seems that all of the "man and woman" definitions are talking about the legal sense of marriage, but the non-legal definitions talk about "two people".
Of course, I'd be happy if marriage was dropped as a legal concept altogether and replaced with some other word, but then people would moan that their right to marry was being taken away.
If a person lives their life in a loving and good way to please God and then it turns out there is no God and no Heaven and no Hell, what has such a person lost? On the other hand if a person lives a selfish and unfruitful life with no regard to God and it turns out He is there after all, along with a heaven and a hell to which the sinner is now consigned forever, what is the better risk in how to live?
Hi Pascal,
And if it turns out that there is a God, but you weren't living your life in a way that pleases him after all, because you picked the wrong religion, then you go to hell anyway.
Living a loving, selfless, fruitful life has nothing to do with it - it's all about picking the correct one of an infinite number of possible religions. Since I'm bound to pick the wrong one, I'll live my life without caring about what people think God supposedly wants.
Just imagine if my company came out with a tape recorder that would use a completely different cassette type. Can it exist in theory along the standard formats - absolutely! Would it be able to exist (esp. as a commercial entity) - probably not.
There are various different incompatible formats for music storage out there, including proprietary ones (eg, Sony's Minidisc).
Certainly this is the a reason why we have a monopoly in the market of operating systems, but it clearly isn't true that there is one and only one company making a profit with a platform.
I still maintain that Amiga will have the same fate as OS/2 in that respect: a small number of commercial vendors offering aging versions of simple programs reminding of Windows 3.0 and a bunch of BBS like repositories for software maintained by a couple of enthusiasts.
Oh please. Whilst I'll happily admit that AmigaOS lacks some essential modern software (most notably an up to date browser), it's nowhere near that bad. Even relying of software which already exists, and assuming no new software is written or ported, things are far beyond crappy Windows 3.0 software. Hell, things were better than that on the Amiga at the time Windows 3.0 was out, IMO:/
Last but not the least is the fact that Amiga is cheerfully digging its own grave by making the OS run on expensive and proprietary hardware. I find it ironic - Sun is charging ahead making Intel (AMD actually) their 2nd platform of choice and Amiga is choosing the proprietary path...
I wish that AmigaOS was coming to the PC platform - I'd gladly buy a copy, where as I'm not likely to buy a whole new machine. But there are reasons in favour of going to a proprietary route, if you want revenue at the expense of market share, in that it is possible to make money on the hardware as well as the software. Ie, a similar situation to Apple.
Finally, always remember the Law of Duality. This explains very nicely why neither AmigaOS, nor BeOS would ever enjoy significant popularity on the market.
That article says that the Law of Duality doesn't apply to the software industry. So by this logic, nothing other than Windows will ever enjoy "significant popularity of the market".
Of course, it depends on what is "significant". No one is claiming that AmigaOS is going to be a market leader, but that doesn't mean it can't exist at all. In all of the examples of markets with two primary players that the article gives, there are still plenty of other smaller companies in those markets, happily selling products and making money.
AmigaOS 3.9 used a tiny fraction of 128MB, though I've no idea what OS 4 is like.
No one is forcing the original poster to buy a Dell PC, but he makes the claim that they are more expensive, bulkier and uglier.
Of course people are free to use whatever platform they wish, but if someone makes the claim that X is better or cheaper than Y, it's fair game to counter that argument.
No, because sperm cells and eggs are not human beings. They are simply cells. Things change dramatically once you bring them together. From that moment, a NEW human life starts. Diploid chomosome set, new set of genes due to potential chross-overs/mutations, and if you don't work against it (and modulo naturally ocurring deaths) it will get born and surf the Web, read slashdot and stuff.
Embyros are simply cells too. If we're allowed to consider what will happen, then we can say what will happen to sperm and ova if you don't work against it - should contraception be considered murder?
It's not clear that having a new set of genes is an important difference. If someone gave birth to a clone (either by technology, or in some hypothetical universe where such a thing was possible), I don't think we would say that the clone child wasn't a new life - we would still say that a new person had appeared somewhere along the way. Also, IIRC sperm and ova do not have the same set of genes as the rest of my cells (they only have half of them, or something like that).
Slashdot Mirror
You cannot disprove that there is a god either, so you might be waiting for quite a while. Then again, believing that there isn't a god without evidence to support it is just as naive a viewpoint. Therefore if it's possible, however unprobable, it should be given consideration.
I've considered it, a great deal in fact (I imagine that many atheists have actually thought about the possibility of God an awful lot, and it's impossible not to given how obsessed this world is with belief in God).
However, considering that something is possible is no reason to believe in it.
Have you considered every other conceivable religion or God out there, along with the possibility of ghosts, easter bunnies, invisible elephants, and the possibility that we are living in a computer simulation? And if so, do you believe in any of these?
Identifying yourself to the government isn't a big deal when you want something from them.
And you can be sure that these cards will only ever be needed when we want something from the Government?
So, in other words, the argument isn't "this is bad", but "this, followed by bad laws, is bad"? Why not just argue against the bad laws?
Because once the billions of pounds have been spent implementing the new system, and laws have been brought in allowing ID cards, the hard work will have been done, and it will be trivial for a Government to get away with introducing new situations where the ID card is needed.
If we are to have any hope against preventing the "bad laws", we have to act now.
If you object to that, object to that. Not the cards.
I object to the National ID Card system that is being planned by the UK Government, of which the national database is an intrinsic part of. By opposing the national database, I'm opposing this form of ID card.
Now sure, I might not object to any sort of hypothetical ID card system, including ones that don't require a national database. But since these sorts of fantasy ID schemes aren't the ones being planned by the UK Government, I'm not sure how that means I should be in favour of the ID cards being planned by the UK Government.
If you don't even know what the details are, then it's just scaremongering, plain and simple.
So tell us? What do we get for our billions?
A method of identification is not a big deal. Couple it with other nasty stuff and it is, but you've already admitted that you don't know that kind of stuff is even being considered
And the ID card being planned by the UK Government is coupled with other nasty stuff! And I'm not sure where I said that - we do know some of the bad things about this ID card. That the Government refuses to be clear on further details does not make me willing to trust them, nor does it make me willing to choose between paying almost 80 quid for a bit of plastic, or going to prison.
I have yet to see anybody explain why ID cards are an attempt to limit liberty. Sure, ID cards in some forms are abusive, but that doesn't mean that ID cards are intrinsically abusive.
Of course, an ID card isn't intrinsically abusive, but there are lots of worrying things about what is being proposed.
Firstly, it is a limit of liberty if I have to prove who I am to do certain things, and am prevented from doing those things if I happen to forget or lose my card. If the ID card will only ever been needed in cases where we currently need ID cards, then great, but what constitutional rights or leglisation will be in place to prevent a future Government saying that ID cards are needed for more and more things (eg, public transport)?
Also these are not just cards, but will be linked to the creation of a national database containing things like fingerprints and DNA.
I already have a number of ways, such as my passport.
So if it's just the same as now, why spend billions on a new system?
I have yet to see anybody explain why ID cards are a good thing, and what purpose they are actually needed for, and how they will actually achieve that purpose.
No one seems to be answering basic questions about what and how this ID card will be implemented, so it is impossible to verify that this ID card will not be abusive.
and as far as drug use goes, the drugs laws are relaxing
Generally true, but note that Blunkett wants drug testing of anyone arrested, and for "possession" to be redefined as including drugs being found in your blood.
Reminds me of here in Cambridge recently, when police told a group of people dressed as ninjas to remove their outfits.
A $50 CD player wouldn't allow me to carry around the 300+ music CDs and two milk crates full of 12" vinyl in my music collection without the aid of a sturdy wheeled cabinet.
A $50 CD player would probably play mp3s. At say 12 albums per CD, 300 audio CDs would fit into 25 mp3 CDs, which easily fits into a small light carrying case (obviously you don't need to carry the CD cases with you).
Now sure, it's still nowhere near as small as a hard disk based mp3 player, so you do get more for spending $400, but a CD player is nowhere near as bad as you make out.
So if it's no different to the current situation, what on earth is the logic in spending billions on a new ID card?
A government issue national identification is really no different than either a passport or drivers license/birth certificate, allowing someone to correctly identify you as a citizen.
There's a huge difference between needing identification for the right to enter a foreign country, and needing identification for the right to walk out of my front door.
And if it's no different to a passport, why does it cost more? Why can't we just stick with a passport?
It could even have the potential of being equivalent to a passport, one that is given automatically to every citizen instead of being forced to pay the application fees and wait period etc that is currently required.
What do you mean "instead of being forced to pay the application fees"? They won't grow on trees, and as I say, in fact the combined passport/ID will cost more. I don't see how the wait period will be removed either - with all the biometrics that need to be taken, I would imagine it being even more hassle.
Furthermore, I fail to see why it would cost $100 on every visit - you could get round this buy having an optional biometric passport, for those who wish to travel to the US.
And given that this ID card is going to cost over $100 (£77 for an ID card with passport), it's certainly absurd to say that this will save people money!
Regarding insurance companies, they love to discriminate based on generalisations that make you statistically a worse risk for them.
They're not going to listen to you saying that you gave twinkies to homeless people - if people buying ice cream, cheese, and Twinkies are statistically a bad risk, then that's all that matters.
In many states, it is against the law for your auto insurance to drop you.
They don't have to give you insurance in the first place, or they can make it more expensive.
Besides, if you have a good driving record, it doesn't make sense for your auto insurance to drop you.. because it just loses them money.
Not if stastically a group of people are worse drivers. They may lose money on the odd person that is the exception, but in general they gain.
Why do women get cheaper insurance (or young people get more expensive insurance), even though some women may be worse drivers than some men?
As far as I remember, my privacy has never been threatened by them - I show it to the police to prove who I am
I see from your later post that this was when you were driving - in the UK, we already have ID that must be on you when driving, so there is no need to spend billions on a new card. We are also required to show ID when collecting a parcel, so this is nothing new (note that saying it would be convenient to have a new form of ID for this is an argument only for a voluntary ID card).
Are you required to show it to the police at any time? Are you required to carry it at all times, or if not, when is it required?
How much does this ID card cost (to individuals, and an estimate of the cost to the taxpayer)?
What happens if your card is lost or stolen - how much does this cost you, and how soon does it have to be replaced?
What sort of information is carried on this card? What safeguards are there to prevent this information being read (either by a company that requires the ID, or someone who steals your card)?
What evidence is there that this ID has done any good in whatever it was intended to do (eg, combatting terrorism)? That's assuming there is an intention for ID cards of course - the UK Government have yet to give a clear answer on what ID cards will do and how they will do it.
What constitutional/legal safeguards are in place that would prevent a future government introducing new laws that would require more uses of the ID card (eg, having to carry it at all times, assuming that wasn't already the case)?
Fair enough - it's certainly true that GPL isn't as free as some licences.
Yes- a form that prevents other people using my work freely.
As for libraries, as others have pointed out, there is the LGPL which allows linking from closed source applications, and IME seems to be fairly commonly used instead of the GPL. So yes, it's true that the GPL is a bad choice for libraries, but this is an entirely different thing from saying that the GPL in general is a bad licence, as someone suggested higher up in this thread.
Even so, your arguments of wanting to use GPL software, such as not wanting to reimplement things, apply equally to someone who might want to reuse your work, rather than having to reimplement it from scratch. But you're not letting them, under any circumstance (where as at least the GPL allows people to reuse the work under some circumstances).
But this problem applies to commercial software, not just GPL - you're not free to use a random company's library either, unless they're willing to sell it to you under some conditions.
So this applies to anything other than things like BSD or public domain software. But hang on - you're arguing from the point of view of releasing commercial software yourself! Are you seriously suggesting you should have the right to use other people's work, and then sell it in a form that prevents other people using your work freely? Or have I misunderstood your point?
The Mac OS is document-centric and not application-centric like Windows. Once you let yourself do what makes sense instead of what Windows does it's much easier to use.
Though actually there isn't really that much difference - Windows in fact is document-centric too, in that documents have their own windows, and closing the window only closes that document.
The difference here is that Windows applications tend to have a parent window, and closing that quits the application, where as Mac applications tend to have no such visible cue, instead relying on an icon somewhere (and whilst that may be overloading the "close window" action, that's no more overloaded than the way that closing a window also closes a document).
It's also worth noting that the "Mac" behaviour is possible in Windows, in that there are applications which have no parent windows, and minimise to the system tray if you close the window (eg, Overnet, some IM clients, some LiveJournal clients). Other applications (such as Word, Excel), whilst they do quit when the last window is closed, they still behave in a document-centric manner in that there is one document per main window, with no extra parent window (does it really matter to the user whether the application has closed or not - I don't see how going to the "run program" icon again is any harder than going to the "minimised" icon).
Of course, I'm not saying there isn't confusion when one switches platforms - there is. But this seems to be down to a trend in choices by application programmers, rather than something fundamental in the OSs.
Thank you for that admission. There is no basis for the atheistic moral code--it is arbitrarily chosen. Therfore, you must allow that other people may arbitrarily choose their moral code, too. Because you have no basis for your morality, you have no grounds to declare someone else's moral system "wrong." On what authority can you say someone else is wrong? Your own? If you can invoke your own authority, then I'll do the same. I declare myself the winner of our little slashdot debate--on my own authority. But then I wouldn't be rational, but arbitrary, just like the atheist who says Hitler was wrong without grounds for doing so.
Hang on - my reason for arguing here is that you claimed that atheists cannot call someone's morality wrong, where as Christians can. I'm not trying to pretend that it's the other way around, I'm saying that everyone has just as much or as little right to call someone else wrong. I'm not the one appealing to authority; you are.
You said "you have no basis for your morality", actually I do, I just told you it in my last post.
I think much of the problem comes because you lump atheists all in one group, then seem surprised that they don't share the same moral basis. Since no one ever claimed that atheism was a moral system, this isn't surprising. If you were to select, say, humanists as your group, you would find that they share a moral code.
Also, you ignored the bit where I pointed out that theists do not share a moral basis; each religion chooses its own.
When an atheist assumes laws of logic, human dignity, and the uniformity of nature, he is borrowing from the Christian theistic worldview because the atheistic worldview does not allow for them. The Christian theist is consistent, the atheist is not.
Atheists do not take these ideas from Christians, they take them from observing nature. Where we differ is that atheists admit things we don't know, where as Christians make up a story along the lines of "God did it" (which still doesn't explain it).
The Christian Theistic worldview is superior to the atheistic because it can account for human dignity, laws of logic, and moral absolutes. An atheist, if he were consistent, would not rely on these absolutes without first proving them.
You still haven't proved where they come from. Saying "they come from God" isn't a proof.
I'll elaborate more on my moral basis - it come from noting that:
(1) There exists things which I don't like happening to me.
(2) It seems that (1) is true of other people.
(3) Therefore I shall strive for a world to minimise these things not happening.
(1) is a fact, which is as provable as just about anything (ie, short of saying how can we prove that we trust our senses, and so on).
(2) is an assumption, but a reasonable one. Even if we reject this and assume that others cannot suffer, I still benefit by promoting a world where harm does not happen to me, and even if all I care about myself, I still have to cooperate with others for long term benefit.
(3) is the action to take, which is basically a statement of the bleeding obvious.
Now, to me it seems that the only question is whether this set of reasoning is a basis of "morality" in the sense that it is similar to what Christians call a "morality". Given that in both cases, we are deciding what things people should and shouldn't do, and in which ways people should behave, I think it is reasonable to say we are covering the same area.
That's exactly my point. WHAT is the atheist's basis for her system of morality? You still haven't given it.
My basis or morality generally stems from measuring the harm or suffering an action causes people. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of atheists have a similar view, but there is no one basis - just as not all theists have the same basis of morality.
You gave two ways in which the atheist can say someone's moral code is wrong
Actually I meant those are two ways in which anyone can say someone is wrong. I fail to see how you can disagree with my two methods, and then say that a Christian can still say that others are wrong.
When you say your morality is coming from God, that is your personal choice of a basis of morality - when you say I am wrong, you are going by the second method I gave, and disagreeing with my basis of morality.
Sure, you may believe that your basis of morality is the absolutely correct one - but I believe my basis just as much (I find it hard to believe that all sorts of actions could be justified just because God says so, and also we have no way to know what God wants anyway; it seems hard for me to believe that anything else matters other than harm that may be caused to people).
But the Christian Theist can say that nature is uniform because the God that created everything designed it that way.
I'm not sure I understand how something abstract like logic requires nature to be uniform - but anyhow, you are on no better ground than the atheist, because you cannot prove that uniformity came from God.
I can just as reasonably say that nature is uniform because the universe started that way.
Exactly, which proves my point. Your moral code is not absolute, but you've simply declared your moral code based on your whims and worldview. Because your moral code is arbitrary, you cannot impose your arbitrary moral code on someone else.
You can have morals, but you can never say your set of morals is superior to anyone else's because you've just declared them.
As a Christian theist, however, my worldview accounts for moral absolutes (and laws of logic for that matter) and can say that someone is right or wrong. My worldview flows from a God who created the universe with absolute laws and an absolute moral code.
Er, no. You may believe that your morals are absolute, but that doesn't mean they are. Indeed, that you have accepted that other people may come up with different morals means that morals are not absolute.
I could use just the same argument as you, and say that whatever method I have used to derive my system of morality is the correct one, and the absolute one, and therefore say that you are wrong. Whether God is involved or not has nothing to do with it.
To say that atheists' morality is based on whims is completely false. One can build up a system of morality from some basic principles, just as theists do.
When someone says that someone is morally wrong, they are either pointing out an inconsistency in their system of morality (something which can be proven), or they are saying that they disagree with the person's method of coming up with those morals (eg, I think saying something is right or wrong just because God says so is absurd), which ultimately is more a matter of opinion (though still one that can be justified with reasoning).
Using that logic, I could say that I believe that murder and stealing are right things to do, and therefore be offended that they are illegal....
I would hope that people can state the rather obvious reasons why murder and stealing are wrong, and also should be illegal.
The problem here is people who argue things based purely on a belief that requires no additional argument or explanation, such as "It's wrong because God says so" or "because it's written in The Bible" or "It's wrong because it's immoral".
Personally, I think Europe can go fuck themselves.
I'm glad you can argue your points with such intellect.
Just imagine if we got as lazy as the Europeans and decided we'd only work 6 hours 5 days per week, and only 8 months out of the year, and decided to just sit around and smoke pot all the time. The world economy would go down the toilet faster than Kerry's campaign. If the rest of the world were half as motivated as we are, there's not a single person on this planet that wouldn't eventually come to live comfortably.
That's funny, our economies are doing just fine. I guess we must work smarter, and get the same done in less time. Perhaps if you were as motivated as we were, you might be able to live comfortably - which in my book, includes things like decent leisure time (and indeed, not locking up people for smoking things in their own home) as well as wealth.
You don't get up in front of 280 million people and admit that you're going to crawl your country into bed with known criminals and terrorists and not expect an uprising.
There's no need to when you become a criminal terrorist yourself.
Marriage is very much already defined by most people as being between a man and a woman. It was never a generic term. How you can suggest otherwise is beyond me.
. It seems that all of the "man and woman" definitions are talking about the legal sense of marriage, but the non-legal definitions talk about "two people".
Marriage is only defined as being between a man and a women because that's what the majority of countries only allow. This is circular reasoning - the definition follows from the way things are, and then saying that things should stay the way they are because that's the definition.
Certainly the word marriage can be used in more general terms (not even between people, eg, a marriage of two ideas), so opposite gender is not something that is intrinsic to the definition, but something that follows from the way things currently are.
Take a look at http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=marriage
Of course, I'd be happy if marriage was dropped as a legal concept altogether and replaced with some other word, but then people would moan that their right to marry was being taken away.
If a person lives their life in a loving and good way to please God and then it turns out there is no God and no Heaven and no Hell, what has such a person lost? On the other hand if a person lives a selfish and unfruitful life with no regard to God and it turns out He is there after all, along with a heaven and a hell to which the sinner is now consigned forever, what is the better risk in how to live?
Hi Pascal,
And if it turns out that there is a God, but you weren't living your life in a way that pleases him after all, because you picked the wrong religion, then you go to hell anyway.
Living a loving, selfless, fruitful life has nothing to do with it - it's all about picking the correct one of an infinite number of possible religions. Since I'm bound to pick the wrong one, I'll live my life without caring about what people think God supposedly wants.
And in the same vein, just because we can explain it doesn't mean that magic pixies didn't do it. So surely, you believe in magic pixies too?
Just imagine if my company came out with a tape recorder that would use a completely different cassette type. Can it exist in theory along the standard formats - absolutely! Would it be able to exist (esp. as a commercial entity) - probably not.
:/
There are various different incompatible formats for music storage out there, including proprietary ones (eg, Sony's Minidisc).
Certainly this is the a reason why we have a monopoly in the market of operating systems, but it clearly isn't true that there is one and only one company making a profit with a platform.
I still maintain that Amiga will have the same fate as OS/2 in that respect: a small number of commercial vendors offering aging versions of simple programs reminding of Windows 3.0 and a bunch of BBS like repositories for software maintained by a couple of enthusiasts.
Oh please. Whilst I'll happily admit that AmigaOS lacks some essential modern software (most notably an up to date browser), it's nowhere near that bad. Even relying of software which already exists, and assuming no new software is written or ported, things are far beyond crappy Windows 3.0 software. Hell, things were better than that on the Amiga at the time Windows 3.0 was out, IMO
Last but not the least is the fact that Amiga is cheerfully digging its own grave by making the OS run on expensive and proprietary hardware. I find it ironic - Sun is charging ahead making Intel (AMD actually) their 2nd platform of choice and Amiga is choosing the proprietary path...
I wish that AmigaOS was coming to the PC platform - I'd gladly buy a copy, where as I'm not likely to buy a whole new machine. But there are reasons in favour of going to a proprietary route, if you want revenue at the expense of market share, in that it is possible to make money on the hardware as well as the software. Ie, a similar situation to Apple.
Finally, always remember the Law of Duality. This explains very nicely why neither AmigaOS, nor BeOS would ever enjoy significant popularity on the market.
That article says that the Law of Duality doesn't apply to the software industry. So by this logic, nothing other than Windows will ever enjoy "significant popularity of the market".
Of course, it depends on what is "significant". No one is claiming that AmigaOS is going to be a market leader, but that doesn't mean it can't exist at all. In all of the examples of markets with two primary players that the article gives, there are still plenty of other smaller companies in those markets, happily selling products and making money.
AmigaOS 3.9 used a tiny fraction of 128MB, though I've no idea what OS 4 is like.
No one is forcing the original poster to buy a Dell PC, but he makes the claim that they are more expensive, bulkier and uglier.
Of course people are free to use whatever platform they wish, but if someone makes the claim that X is better or cheaper than Y, it's fair game to counter that argument.
No, because sperm cells and eggs are not human beings. They are simply cells. Things change dramatically once you bring them together. From that moment, a NEW human life starts. Diploid chomosome set, new set of genes due to potential chross-overs/mutations, and if you don't work against it (and modulo naturally ocurring deaths) it will get born and surf the Web, read slashdot and stuff.
Embyros are simply cells too. If we're allowed to consider what will happen, then we can say what will happen to sperm and ova if you don't work against it - should contraception be considered murder?
It's not clear that having a new set of genes is an important difference. If someone gave birth to a clone (either by technology, or in some hypothetical universe where such a thing was possible), I don't think we would say that the clone child wasn't a new life - we would still say that a new person had appeared somewhere along the way. Also, IIRC sperm and ova do not have the same set of genes as the rest of my cells (they only have half of them, or something like that).