I got a laugh out of Moore.. guy is kind of tactless but very brave I think.
Brave? Brave?
Making a speech that will get you a lot attention and pander to your target audience (anti-American Europeans, anti-American Americans, people who hate white men), in a country in which the right to free speech is garunteed?
Unless you want to redefine the word brave to mean "wanting to make a quick buck," or unless your idea of brave is to make "documentaries" consisting of invented facts and speeches edited to deliberately change the meaning of what was really said, you may want to rethink that.
BTW, Saddam is not an Islamic militant. He is just a regular dictator.
Well that changes EVERYTHING. I mean, if he was an ISLAMIC MILITANT dictator oppressing and killing and threatening his own people, that might be a problem. But as long as he's just a SECULAR dictator oppressing and killing and threatening his own people, well, what's the big deal?
"the West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do."
It was the ideas and values and religion of the West that led them to the freedom and prosperity that enabled them to apply organized violence better than their adversaries.
I'm probably the only one that will tell you this, but I tried reading Neal Stephenson/Stevenson/However you spell it, and threw it out less than 100 pages in. Not just put it away, THREW IT OUT. Neal is apparently the James Joyce of SF, That is to say, he uses too many freaking words and doesn't really ever gets to the damn point, nor does he tell all that great a story.
True, many have already recommended N.S. in their posts, but just want to say specifically what I find entertaining about his work. The rambling is the whole POINT. Kind of like if you're driving through really interesting scenery, you might not care about getting to your destination quickly. There's so many bits of trivia and minutae (sp?) presented on cryptology, WWII tech, human psychology, venture capital finance, computers, etc. in an accessible and entertaining way that you don't really care that you don't get anywhere very quickly in terms of plot.
Attacking microsoft because the PCs it donates aren't good enough? Come on! Donations are voluntary and should be welcomed no matter what they are.
No, because the donations were proposed as a settlement for a case in which MS was being sued for monopilistic practices (which was left out of the article). The judge rejected the settlement.
Brin doesn't say much about Gandalf, but Gandalf is more like a scientist than anything. His abilities and influence are based on his knowledge. The title he uses to refer to himself and those like himself is "the wise". In other words, they distinguish themselves by their knowledge, not heredity or titles.
Another point: Sauron and his armies are evil because they are the aggressors. I don't believe that anyone attacked Sauron or his armies before they attacked Middle Earth.
How about reading, writing and basic arithmetic? We have school systems where kids aren't even getting the basic skills they need to function in society, and you want to focus on abstract, hard to define ideals like creativity and social worth (what the heck does that mean, anyway?).
Basically, you want to give the kids dessert before they've had a meal.
I just think you're being naive about human nature. You might as well propose an economic system where everyone gives according to their ability and receives according to their needs.
Sometimes learning is fun, and sometimes it's hard work. With your system kids would learn things they thought were fun, but would ignore everything else. Is it your position that we never require our kids to put effort into learning unless they feel like it?
Also, without SOME kind of tests, grades, or other system of measurement, we would have no idea which teaching techniques (or which schools or which teachers) are most effective. So are you also saying we're better off without any way to measure educational attainment?
Again, it's great that you know what the result of a policy change will be before that policy has ever been tried. I'd also like to point out that most of the parents with kids in those underfunded, overcrowded schools WANT a voucher program. But I'm sure you know better what's good for them than they do themselves.
1. The duh answer of them all of course is increased school funding.
I don't suppose its important exactly where or to who that school funding goes, just as long as there's more of it?
I relize however, if everyone got a decent education, we would have very few people willing to join the military and those who did would join one loaded with officers, and no cannon fodder, I mean elisted men.
Um, just who in the current U.S. military today is serving as cannon fodder? In the U.S. "conflict" in Afghanistan, probably more people were killed by friendly fire than by the enemy. All the "cannon fodder" was on the other side.
4. Medical Advancement: Place a 20 blackout on the production of generics and in return drug companies must reduce prices by 75%. New drug prices are high in this country because a company must recoup the billions it spent on R&D in the first 3 years to make any sort of profit, because after 5 it can be made by anyone dirt cheap.
Reduced 75% from what? For example, let's say the drug companies all agree to your plan. Then, the day before the plan goes into effect, they increase prices 400%. Net result: 20 years of drugs at the same price they get for 5 years now. Also, what about new drugs that haven't been invented yet (and thus do not have a price)? Does the government get to decide? (We call that "centralized planning". You can find plenty of 20th century examples to see how well it works.)
So let me see if I understand you. It's not the ACTUAL, currently EXISTING system of public schools without alternatives that's failing American kids; it's the POTENTIAL, future system that MIGHT include a voucher program SOMEDAY that's failing them? Is this some kind of social quantum effect where debating the possibility of a future policy can impact current conditions more than actual current policies?
I wouldn't mind going to school for 10-14 hours a day if I had comfortable chairs to sit in, computers connected to networks filled with all the info I'd ever need, and my purpose for being there was to learn instead of pass tests or get a grade.
Yeah, I'm sure if we just get rid of tests and grades all American kids will suddenly start studying real hard and show up all those European and Asian kids!
Enact a tax system that encourages the rich to get richer and the poor to get poorer. Shift as much of the tax burden as possible onto the middle class. Make sure that the wealthy have plenty of ways to exclude their income from taxation, and that the less wealthy have as little access to capital as possible.
Now this is total bunk. Almost all taxes are paid by the upper %50 of income earners. There's just no way that you can argue that low income people are footing the tax burden of the wealthy.
America has been an extremely religious society for pretty much its entire history, and have been the world leader or among the world leaders in science and technology at the same time. There's just no correlation.
Let's imagine that you've just made a small film on a shoestring budget. For the sake of argument, let's say that it's a biting socio-political expose of the corruption in industry and goverment.
Now here comes Microsoft. They buy copies of your film, redact the parts that they don't like, and release them with your name on it, and slap on little "Edited to remove adult themes" stickers.
I can't think of a way to drive up demand more for the redacted parts than telling people The Man doesn't want them to see it. The publicity would probably drive up demand for the original more than if M$ did nothing at all.
However, what IS germane is to point out, over and over again, is that the argument for creationism is really about the effort to force a particular, and IMO very ugly, moral agenda into public schools. An agenda which, again, squares not at all with the moral agenda of most practicing religious people.
*Sigh*. But the fact remains that a materialist agenda and world view is being imposed on school children NOW. Not imposing an ideology on our children in schools is not possible (unless we teach them nothing). The only question we can answer is "what ideology should we impose?" There is no neutral choice.
I don't want to hurt anyone's sensibilities, but history is filled with instances of the Christian church condemning the scientific world and trying to regulate what the scientists say.
As opposed to the wanton oppression and slaughter of Christians by Communists and other despots? People with unchecked power tend to do bad things, whether the label is Christian, Communist, Emperor, whatever.
I am interested in knowing the views of all you calm people out there as to why evolution is so vigorously attacked by America's religious Christians alone and not so much by other religions/countries?
What evidence do you have that this is true? Do you know for a fact there are fewer creationists among Muslims, Jews, and Hindus than among Christians? It might be true, or it might just be a stereotype. I don't know.
But as for why many American Christians care: Materialists (as these are the evolution proponents Christians take issue to) disallow a priori reference to a Creator outside of Creation into their scientific debate. They don't discredit Creationist (many prefer the term "Intelligent Design" as Creationist has become an epithet for those in academia and the media) ideas with counter arguments and counter evidence, but simply say that anyone even mentioning such an idea must be banned from the debate.
How can you KNOW something through scientific inquiry?
Best, -jimbo
Every last Israeli will be slaughtered...
on
The Post 9/11 Tech Boom
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
The only way you'll stop it happening again -- IMHO -- is to stop funding Israel
The surrounding Arab countries will start another Holocaust the instant America withdraws support for Israel. Every bit of rhetoric coming out of the Arab world is calling for the annihilation of the Israel and the Jews.
Don't think they're serious? Most of us didn't take Islamic terrorists seriously in America, either, before September 11.
Democrats receive the lion's share of donations from Hollywood. True, more business contributions overall go to Republicans, but Hollywood and trial lawyers, at least, give more to Democrats.
Slashdot Mirror
Of course he got booed. Michael Moore is to liberals as Rush Limbaugh is to conservatives.
Nah, I think he's gone right past Rush into Michael Savage/Pat Buchanan class.
Peace be with you,
-jimbo
I got a laugh out of Moore.. guy is kind of tactless but very brave I think.
Brave? Brave?
Making a speech that will get you a lot attention and pander to your target audience (anti-American Europeans, anti-American Americans, people who hate white men), in a country in which the right to free speech is garunteed?
Unless you want to redefine the word brave to mean "wanting to make a quick buck," or unless your idea of brave is to make "documentaries" consisting of invented facts and speeches edited to deliberately change the meaning of what was really said, you may want to rethink that.
Peace be with you,
-jimbo
BTW, Saddam is not an Islamic militant. He is just a regular dictator.
Well that changes EVERYTHING. I mean, if he was an ISLAMIC MILITANT dictator oppressing and killing and threatening his own people, that might be a problem. But as long as he's just a SECULAR dictator oppressing and killing and threatening his own people, well, what's the big deal?
Thanks for clarifying that.
Peace be with you,
-jimbo
Wha... you think france is opposed to this because they are afraid of iraq. you think canada is afraid of iraq. you think germany is afraid of iraq.
They're afraid of their domestic Muslim populations, among whom they believe are terrorists that they would rather go attack America than themselves.
Peace be with you,
-jimbo
"the West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do."
It was the ideas and values and religion of the West that led them to the freedom and prosperity that enabled them to apply organized violence better than their adversaries.
Peace be with you,
-jimbo
Why sentience? Why don't viruses or germs have the same right not to be murdered as you? How about plants?
And if we're to base morality on popularity (e.g. "social conventions"), isn't that just mob rule?
Best,
-jimbo
I'm probably the only one that will tell you this, but I tried reading Neal Stephenson/Stevenson/However you spell it, and threw it out less than 100 pages in. Not just put it away, THREW IT OUT. Neal is apparently the James Joyce of SF, That is to say, he uses too many freaking words and doesn't really ever gets to the damn point, nor does he tell all that great a story.
True, many have already recommended N.S. in their posts, but just want to say specifically what I find entertaining about his work. The rambling is the whole POINT. Kind of like if you're driving through really interesting scenery, you might not care about getting to your destination quickly. There's so many bits of trivia and minutae (sp?) presented on cryptology, WWII tech, human psychology, venture capital finance, computers, etc. in an accessible and entertaining way that you don't really care that you don't get anywhere very quickly in terms of plot.
IMHO,
-jimbo
He is being silly, Mac users make up closer to %45 of the consumer market.
Do you have a reference for this?
Best,
-jimbo
Attacking microsoft because the PCs it donates aren't good enough? Come on! Donations are voluntary and should be welcomed no matter what they are.
No, because the donations were proposed as a settlement for a case in which MS was being sued for monopilistic practices (which was left out of the article). The judge rejected the settlement.
-jimbo
LOL. I love how you show that Tolkien has already rebutted every part of Brin's argument, in spite of being dead before Brin wrote it.
Good work!
-jimbo
Brin doesn't say much about Gandalf, but Gandalf is more like a scientist than anything. His abilities and influence are based on his knowledge. The title he uses to refer to himself and those like himself is "the wise". In other words, they distinguish themselves by their knowledge, not heredity or titles.
Another point: Sauron and his armies are evil because they are the aggressors. I don't believe that anyone attacked Sauron or his armies before they attacked Middle Earth.
Best,
-jimbo
How about reading, writing and basic arithmetic? We have school systems where kids aren't even getting the basic skills they need to function in society, and you want to focus on abstract, hard to define ideals like creativity and social worth (what the heck does that mean, anyway?).
Basically, you want to give the kids dessert before they've had a meal.
Best,
-jimbo
I just think you're being naive about human nature. You might as well propose an economic system where everyone gives according to their ability and receives according to their needs.
Sometimes learning is fun, and sometimes it's hard work. With your system kids would learn things they thought were fun, but would ignore everything else. Is it your position that we never require our kids to put effort into learning unless they feel like it?
Also, without SOME kind of tests, grades, or other system of measurement, we would have no idea which teaching techniques (or which schools or which teachers) are most effective. So are you also saying we're better off without any way to measure educational attainment?
Best,
-jimbo
Again, it's great that you know what the result of a policy change will be before that policy has ever been tried. I'd also like to point out that most of the parents with kids in those underfunded, overcrowded schools WANT a voucher program. But I'm sure you know better what's good for them than they do themselves.
Best,
-jimbo
1. The duh answer of them all of course is increased school funding.
I don't suppose its important exactly where or to who that school funding goes, just as long as there's more of it?
I relize however, if everyone got a decent education, we would have very few people willing to join the military and those who did would join one loaded with officers, and no cannon fodder, I mean elisted men.
Um, just who in the current U.S. military today is serving as cannon fodder? In the U.S. "conflict" in Afghanistan, probably more people were killed by friendly fire than by the enemy. All the "cannon fodder" was on the other side.
4. Medical Advancement: Place a 20 blackout on the production of generics and in return drug companies must reduce prices by 75%. New drug prices are high in this country because a company must recoup the billions it spent on R&D in the first 3 years to make any sort of profit, because after 5 it can be made by anyone dirt cheap.
Reduced 75% from what? For example, let's say the drug companies all agree to your plan. Then, the day before the plan goes into effect, they increase prices 400%. Net result: 20 years of drugs at the same price they get for 5 years now. Also, what about new drugs that haven't been invented yet (and thus do not have a price)? Does the government get to decide? (We call that "centralized planning". You can find plenty of 20th century examples to see how well it works.)
Best,
-jimbo
So let me see if I understand you. It's not the ACTUAL, currently EXISTING system of public schools without alternatives that's failing American kids; it's the POTENTIAL, future system that MIGHT include a voucher program SOMEDAY that's failing them? Is this some kind of social quantum effect where debating the possibility of a future policy can impact current conditions more than actual current policies?
Fascinating.
Best,
-jimbo
I wouldn't mind going to school for 10-14 hours a day if I had comfortable chairs to sit in, computers connected to networks filled with all the info I'd ever need, and my purpose for being there was to learn instead of pass tests or get a grade.
Yeah, I'm sure if we just get rid of tests and grades all American kids will suddenly start studying real hard and show up all those European and Asian kids!
(Or should someone give your post a +1 funny?)
Best,
-jimbo
Enact a tax system that encourages the rich to get richer and the poor to get poorer. Shift as much of the tax burden as possible onto the middle class. Make sure that the wealthy have plenty of ways to exclude their income from taxation, and that the less wealthy have as little access to capital as possible.
Now this is total bunk. Almost all taxes are paid by the upper %50 of income earners. There's just no way that you can argue that low income people are footing the tax burden of the wealthy.
Best,
-jimbo
America has been an extremely religious society for pretty much its entire history, and have been the world leader or among the world leaders in science and technology at the same time. There's just no correlation.
Best,
-jimbo
Let's imagine that you've just made a small film on a shoestring budget. For the sake of argument, let's say that it's a biting socio-political expose of the corruption in industry and goverment.
Now here comes Microsoft. They buy copies of your film, redact the parts that they don't like, and release them with your name on it, and slap on little "Edited to remove adult themes" stickers.
I can't think of a way to drive up demand more for the redacted parts than telling people The Man doesn't want them to see it. The publicity would probably drive up demand for the original more than if M$ did nothing at all.
Best,
-jimbo
However, what IS germane is to point out, over and over again, is that the argument for creationism is really about the effort to force a particular, and IMO very ugly, moral agenda into public schools. An agenda which, again, squares not at all with the moral agenda of most practicing religious people.
*Sigh*. But the fact remains that a materialist agenda and world view is being imposed on school children NOW. Not imposing an ideology on our children in schools is not possible (unless we teach them nothing). The only question we can answer is "what ideology should we impose?" There is no neutral choice.
Best,
-jimbo
I don't want to hurt anyone's sensibilities, but history is filled with instances of the Christian church condemning the scientific world and trying to regulate what the scientists say.
As opposed to the wanton oppression and slaughter of Christians by Communists and other despots? People with unchecked power tend to do bad things, whether the label is Christian, Communist, Emperor, whatever.
I am interested in knowing the views of all you calm people out there as to why evolution is so vigorously attacked by America's religious Christians alone and not so much by other religions/countries?
What evidence do you have that this is true? Do you know for a fact there are fewer creationists among Muslims, Jews, and Hindus than among Christians? It might be true, or it might just be a stereotype. I don't know.
But as for why many American Christians care: Materialists (as these are the evolution proponents Christians take issue to) disallow a priori reference to a Creator outside of Creation into their scientific debate. They don't discredit Creationist (many prefer the term "Intelligent Design" as Creationist has become an epithet for those in academia and the media) ideas with counter arguments and counter evidence, but simply say that anyone even mentioning such an idea must be banned from the debate.
Hope that helps.
Best,
-jimbo
How can you KNOW something through scientific inquiry?
Best,
-jimbo
The only way you'll stop it happening again -- IMHO -- is to stop funding Israel
The surrounding Arab countries will start another Holocaust the instant America withdraws support for Israel. Every bit of rhetoric coming out of the Arab world is calling for the annihilation of the Israel and the Jews.
Don't think they're serious? Most of us didn't take Islamic terrorists seriously in America, either, before September 11.
Best,
-jimbo
Democrats receive the lion's share of donations from Hollywood. True, more business contributions overall go to Republicans, but Hollywood and trial lawyers, at least, give more to Democrats.
Best,
-jimbo