Your post also illustrates another possible source of confusion around home schooling: there's a lot of different kinds.
I was "home schooled" in the sense that I did most of my schooling at home. But I wasn't taught by my parents. Both of my parents are fairly bright, and both are very creative artistic people, but neither are what I would call in any way academic. Neither went to college, and neither works any kind of intellectual job - my father is a stone worker who builds fireplaces, fountains, and other such creative rock works, and my mother does hospice care (or did, until she was injured). Neither of which are particularly interesting to me, though my dad's work is beautiful and my mom is an angel in what she does. So what I got was a combination of private tutoring and independent study.
In 6th through 8th grades I had a tutor (supplied by the public school district's 'special ed' division) come to my house once a day, grade my previous work, answer any questions I had, give me my next day's assignments, and then leave me alone to work on my own.
In 9th grade we tried a small private school for me, but that was way too expensive so we switched to their brand-new internet-based independent study program (Laurel Springs) for 10th and 11th grade, where I had email contact with teachers and online curricula to study, but otherwise was entirely self-taught.
But that was still too expensive, so a friend in the local school district pulled some favors and got me technically transferred to another county (like it makes a difference when you work from home) where their 'special ed' independent-study programs continue through the end of high school (the local district only went through 8th grade), so for 12th grade I would go see the coordinator of that program once every two weeks, turn in my previous assignments, get old work back with grades, talk a bit about the old stuff and ask any questions I had, get new assignments, and then go home to work on them. I finished high school about six months early thanks to that program.
So yeah, there's not only good and bad qualities of home schooling, but there's all different sorts. You could be taught by your parents, be taught by a private tutor, study independently, study in groups with other home schooled kids, etc. Home schooling is a huge and varied field, often filled with lots of very progressive people, and it doesn't deserve to be pigeonholed into this "only conservative Christian fundamentalists would do that to their kids" box.
(And don't worry about your verbosity, as you can tell I'm not exactly the most terse person in the world either).
Afraid of a 6 billon year old world? Creationists. Afraid of space miliarization/the future? Moon landing deniers. Afraid of the free market? Communists. Afraid of disease? Homeopathy. Afraid of secular education? Home Schoolers.
This is just a pet peeve of mine, but fear of secular education isn't the only reason anybody home schools. That is, not all home schoolers are religious nuts trying to indoctrinate their children and keep them from some kind of "bad thoughts" out there. I was home taught for entirely different reasons (social troubles in big, lowest-common-denominator, shut-up-sit-still-and-memorize-this public schools, and the inability to pay for smaller, more progressive private schools that could cater to gifted students) and I'm about the most anti-dogmatic person I know. And I'm now almost through with university, with very good grades, so I can't complain about the quality of the education either.
That's all, just wanted to harp on that. Home school != religious indoctrination.
Pirates does have a plot, good humor, and great production value, and I would recommend it for reasons other than pure masturbation fodder (though it's definitely better viewing if you've got a special someone to watch it with).
Maybe "obscene" is a technical term that doesn't apply here, but my point was that it is considered pornography and it's distribution to minors is prohibited in ways that other media is now. I'm pretty sure that I would get in big trouble if I invited a bunch of kids from the nearby high school to come over and watch it with me in my living room. That goes beyond just normal movie ratings - I can watch an R-rated action movie with a five year old in the room if I want and I won't get in any trouble for that, despite the rating being "for 17 years or older".
Besides, as I said in another reply above, it seems that they are implicitly defining "has artistic value" as "is interesting for reasons other than sexuality", which is a nice cop-out way of doing things. Why is it creative or artistic when someone says something like this:
"I have the most awesome idea for a car chase scene! We'll have the villain driving his red sports car downhill in San Francisco, headed toward the docks, being chased by a pair of hum-vees with gauss rifle turrets, when suddenly out of the harbor rises an amphibious helicopter which fires a missile at the car and saves the day! It'll be the most awesome thing ever!"
But it's not creative or artistic when someone says something like this?:
"I have the most awesome vision for a 6-on-1 transsexual group sex scene! We'll get a shemale on her back, have a girl riding her cowgirl style, a guy between her legs fucking her ass, she'll finger a girl beside her with with each hand, another guy will straddle her chest and titty fuck her, and then she'll tilt her head back to take a cock down her throat! It'll be the hottest thing ever!"
The former is standard R-rated action movie fodder. The latter is almost the hardest of hardcore pornography. But it took a good deal of creativity for me to come up with the second paragraph, at least as much as it did the first. And both are appealing to the "woohoo!" visceral reactions of the audience, albiet different sorts of visceral reactions. So why is the latter subject to greater restrictions than the former?
I can't tell if you're being ironic or not (this is Slashdot, you can never be sure), but just in case you're not...
All that you just said sounds, to me, in plainer English, about like this:
Something of transient literary or artistic value = something that I find interesting at the moment.
(Interesting doesn't mean pleasant or enlightening, just worthy of my attention, worth sampling an experience of).
Something of stable literary or artistic value = something that many people (given some context, presumably) find interesting at the moment.
Something of lasting literary or artistic value = something that many people throughout time find interesting or worth experiencing.
Given that sex and violence have been of great, perhaps even the greatest interest to many people for pretty much all of human history, and that the definition of "literary or artistic value" is supposed to exclude pornography from the category of things predicated thus, they who use such terms as a means of demarcating art from non-art must mean something other than what you have said.
Though my original question was purely rhetorical. I'm pretty sure that their definition is something along the lines of "being of interest for reasons other than violence or sexuality", which is a nice self-serving way of defining the problem in their favor - a nice easy way of saying "we don't like porn, but we'll allow it if it's not just porn". It still leaves unanswered the question "what's wrong with porn? Why should we ban it?"
And frankly, the whole "this category of things is banned unless it's useful to society" angle strikes me as a slippery slope toward a command society, where you're forbidden from doing anything other than what you are told to do, which is whatever the authorities deem useful; and anathema to freedom, wherein all things are permitted unless they are harmful to others.
More likely, the judge is taking the position that the First Amendment does not allow banning material on the basis of "obscenity" unless the three prongs of the Miller test are satisfied, particularly the third prong: "the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value."
As defined by whom? Why would something like God of War fall under that categorization, while something like Pirates (the porn film; don't worry, the link is to the wiki article about it) would not? Both are set in pseudo-historical or pseudo-mythological settings, and both are primarily interesting for their violent and sexual content, respectively, with the setting being just that - an interesting setting for the violence or sexuality to take place in. Yet the latter is very clearly considered (my those whose opinion matters in court) "obscene", and the former is apparently some sort of work of art. What's the difference - and more importantly, to whom are we entrusting the power to determine what it culturally valuable or not? Doesn't the fact that someone wants to acquire such works mean that they have value to someone? Just what is "literary" or "artistic" value, beyond simply being a piece of media that someone finds interesting and worth experiencing?
I would like to understand why exactly this is. Does the Bible say that it should not be taken literally? Should the whole thing not be taken literally or just parts of it? If the latter, how do you know what parts? And if we are not supposed to take it literally, what are the contents actually supposed to mean (given that interpretation of nor literal material is highly subjective)?
Forgive me for flying off the handle right away, but it seems to me this is just a technique believers use to shield themselve from inquiry when it is clear that their beliefs are downright outlandish (and they know it). If the Bible is not meant to be taken literally then honestly what could it possibly be good for? (Aside from the reasons we read The Odyssey or similar classics.) You cannot be sure of anything in such a text as it is intended for the audience to make their own decisions. It is like basing beliefs on interpretations of Fight Club or Rocking-Horse Winner. Those stories could mean anything and specifically do not present absolutes, drawing on the reader to make sense of them.
Precisely! The way I see it, there are only two ways to look at a supposedly authoritative text like the Bible:
(1) It is authoritative, and thus you must believe every word of it as it is written. If you want to use the text to prove things to other people, this is the position you must take, as otherwise you're conceding that what you're claiming as the source of your proof is not authoritative, i.e. doesn't count for proof; or you're claiming that your interpretation of that text is authoritative, which is just to say that such-and-such is true because you say so, which will get you nowhere.
(2) It is not authoritative, and at best you can say that you agree with certain interpretations of it for certain reasons. If you want to prove that those things you agree with are right to someone else, give them your reasons for agreeing with them. Then maybe you can tell them, if you convince them of all the conclusions of your interpretation of the text, "see, you agree with the doctrine of this text." Which isn't very useful except perhaps as a shorthand way of referring to your belief system to someone familiar with that text; though, since interpretations may vary, that could be misleading.
Most people, even religious types, rightly see those few who follow (1) above as nutjobs. And plenty of irreligious (atheist, agnostic, etc) types fall under (2) above, where they have their own beliefs for their own reasons which usually aren't so horribly out of whack with the core of most popular religious doctrines.
The problem arises when you get people who claim to follow (2), who claim that they have independent good reasons to support some particular subset or interpretation of a religious text, but who, when pressed as to why they insist that such-and-such must be like so-and-so, fall back on "because the Bible says so". Which, since they're non-literalists, means "because my interpretation of the Bible says so", which again just amounts to "because I say so", which is not at all useful for convincing anyone of anything.
By all means, everybody, agree with the Bible or any other damn book if it suits you. I won't care to convince you otherwise unless the fate of something really important depends on it, and even then, I'll be sure to try to give you good reasons why I think you're wrong. Just don't try to tell me that something is or ought to be a certain way just because the Bible... er, your interpretation of the Bible... er, just because you say so. Maybe you're right, but if I don't already agree with you, just insisting that you're right without giving me any good reasons isn't going to persuade me of anything.
I meant to mention this in there and forgot it somehow...
You might ask, why exactly is it wrong to build programs in the web's document-centric framework?
To make the answer clear, I need only ask back, would you build an interactive game, or heck, even a word processor, *inside* of a Word doc, if the macro language allowed you the ability to do that? If the answer is "no" (as I suspect it is, and it ought to be), then you should understand why doing the same thing in an HTML document, which is in the same category of files as a Word doc (rich text with other embedded media), is wrong.
I think a better question would be: Why Would you Usurp the Web Browser?
I thought the summary alone made it pretty clear why you'd want something beyond a web browser. The web is (or at least, was designed as) a network of hypertexts. This would now properly be expanded to a network of hypermedia, but the point remains the same: it's function is to present documents, and link from one document to another. Text, images, sounds, movies, all that fits well enough into this model; even database output is basically nothing more than all of the above organized in a different way than a standard file system would do it, and databases can implement all variety of useful things like the web forum that we're chatting on without really breaking that model.
But when you start getting fancy complicated interactive applications crammed into that model, it gets ugly and breaks. Games, document editors, all that sort of stuff belongs in an *application* framework, not a document framework. And mind you, I find a lot of these networked applications very useful, but still, they don't belong in the Web; they belong in something else, an Application Browser to go along with your Document Browser. Though honestly, I'd just do away with the whole "browser" concept entirely and treat internet documents and applications the same as you would a doc or app on the other side of your LAN, which is not much different than you treat local docs and apps, besides permissions differences).
I guess this is my answer to the question in the summary, too. I'd take all applications out of the browser entirely and integrate the browser functions into something like, to use OSX examples, Finder and Preview; maybe merge the two together into one program, for browsing (local and remote) filesystems and viewing (local and remote) documents. Include a plugin architecture to allow extensibility of format support (and heck, if you allow editing of documents therein too, you're moving awfully close to a document-centric computing model, at last!).
Then standardize on a cross-platform API (Java is a possible candidate), and then when you click a link to a remote application (from your browser/finder/explorer thing), that app is quickly downloaded and cached on your end and run like any other local program, with the exception of different privileges and such. These programs might just call back to their home server for their data, in the case of something like a simple game, or they could allow you to read and write data from your local disks. The advantage of using a remote app in the latter case would of course be not having to worry about upgrading or anything - the only version that's available to use is the latest version. The disadvantage of course being if that app is unavailable, well, maybe you're stuck without the ability to open your data, even if it is stored locally. But open file formats could help there.
So, I guess that's my solution. Fat chance of it ever happening though.
Like a usualy red light but for some reason a green arrow is also present, on the same signal box as the red light. Can you turn but not go?
I can't speak for the rest of the country/world, but here in California, yes. If there are arrow-shaped lights present, those lights take precedence over plain lights for traffic turning in that direction. You could have green with a red arrow or red with a green arrow or both red or both green. Also, a green arrow indicates that you have absolute right of way for turning that direction, whereas, for example, turning left across traffic at a plain green light, you must yield to incoming traffic, or turning right at a plain red light, you must yield to cross traffic. In fact those are the only instances of such 'protected turns' (as we call them) I know of.
The usual use of such light is for a pattern such as this: you have a four-way intersection of roads A and B. Both directions of road A will get a plain green light and red left-turn light (allowing only straight and right-turn traffic) while both directions of road B have all red; then switch that so both directions of road A can turn left only (or turn right after stop, yielding to the oncoming traffic turning onto road B), with no straight traffic to interfere. Then road A gets all red and road B gets the same two phases. Repeat.
I also know of a protected right-hand turn signal at a 'T' intersection in my old hometown, but I'm not quite sure why that's there. I think that light allows the ending street (the vertical line of the 'T') full green, then stops the left-turning (plain light) traffic to allow only right turns and one lane of the cross street (the horizontal line of the 'T') to go straight and turn left, then stops the right turns of the ending street and allows both lanes of the cross street to go straight or turn right, but no left turns. Repeat.
The only other stave I've driven in was Arizona, and while initially I was shocked that there was no such thing as a protected turn (wondering how the hell I would ever manage to get across oncoming traffic when turning left on busy street), but then I realized that in absence, something that never happens in California, happened; oncoming traffic which technically had the right-of-way would sometimes let left-turning traffic have space to turn left safely (by slowing down or waiting a bit to go when the lights turned green). Which maybe say something in favor of the proposed changes in the article - when people have no road signs telling them specifically what they can and cannot and must do, they are more prone to self-manage traffic by communicating with other drivers. Then again, I also remember Arizona speed limit signs being awfully polite, asking drivers to 'please not exceed' the posted limit instead of just saying SPEED LIMIT, so maybe Arizona's just a police place. But it's been a while, so my memory of that bit may be inaccurate.
Does it offend you that certain books and articles express an opinion contrary to the very popular, widespread, and policy-shaping beliefs held by many highly vocal Americans, and that certain communities on the internet are largely populated by people who share such contrary opinions?
It'd be horribly difficult to retrofit existing cities to function this way, but I've always thought that all traffic should function like freeway traffic. Treat traffic flow like water flow, and roads like pipes. No two-way streets; you never have water flowing two ways through one pipe. You have two separate pipes running next to each other in opposite directions, and water from one pipe never has to cross through another pipe to continue somewhere else; it cross over or around it (like making a left-hand turn [or right-hand turn for the Brits out there]). This could be approximated with roundabouts; so that traffic can flow into the circle and then out again in any direction (allowing for straight-through traffic, right or left turns, or U-turns). Stop signs and lights are like valves; you want to use them as little as possible, so your traffic keeps flowing, never at a stop.
You'd really only need three rules: yield to traffic on your left when merging (standard freeway/roundabound behavior), keep to the left when travelling (so there's room for people to merge on), and yield the left to faster traffic (so people can pass on your left). Or reverse the sides if you like, it doesn't matter. Now that I think about it, that's basically the driving rules for big-rig truck drivers; keep to the center lanes unless entering or passing.
Eliminates the need for any signs at all besides directional arrows (indicating what direction traffic flows on that street). Just follow the arrows that point the direction you want to go until you get where you want to be, and try not to hit anybody else on the way.
There seems to be this weird correlation between people who think homosexuality is wrong and people who think it's a choice, and people who think it's ok and people who think it's not a choice. Like the homophobes think it's wrong and don't want to excuse people for it (and you can't blame someone for something that they can't help), so they have to say it's a choice, and that they could and SHOULD choose otherwise. And the gays say "no man I can't help it it's who I am please don't hurt me!", when that's not the right response to that kind of threat.
It doesn't matter if it's a choice or not. It's kind of both - I can't choose whether or not I'm attracted to men but I can choose whether or not to do anything with them - but that's irrelevant. Saying "it's not my choice don't blame me" is tacitly admitting that there's something objectionable about it but that you can't be faulted for it because you can't help it. The right response is to point out that THERE'S NO HARM DONE, whether it's a choice or not.
People just seem to act like if you say homosexuality is a choice, you mean it's a BAD choice. I'm just saying, it can be (and is) in some ways a choice... but it's a neutral one, it doesn't matter, choose however you like. Nobody's getting hurt by it.
And anybody trying to hurt people for making such a neutral choice, of course, are doing wrong themselves.
ROFL. Better metrics? You've got to be kidding me. Better metrics than understanding the subject matter? Like what? How much money someone pays someone else? Who pays whom? All you're doing is identifying whether someone draws money from someone you don't like. At that moment, you're politicizing what should be a scientific debate. At that moment, you become part of the problem that surrounds the Global Warming debate.
I'm not saying that you should blindly trust anything that a tobacco company says about the effects of smoking. What you should do is not blindly trust anybody, and instead verify what's being said. Sadly, that seems to be too much work for some people.
I believe his point was that people can't be experts on everything, and thus can't form properly reasoned opinions on everything by purely rational, scientific means.
There's lots of information out there. I can't verify the accuracy of all of it myself. I can try to rely on as little unverified information as possible (and manage to do so fairly well in my every day life), but when I need to make a decision (like a political decision, who or what to vote for or otherwise support) about which there is relevant information which I am pragmatically unable to verify myself, I've got to decide whose word to trust on that information.
I'm not interested in smoking at all, just because smoke bothers me and I find it a disgusting habit. So for me, I can just ignore the whole "does smoking cause cancer" issue and not trust anybody's word, because the answer it doesn't affect me. But if I was a smoker, then it would be very relevant to me whether or not smoking causes cancer. I can't conduct a vast and statistically relevant controlled study of smokers myself - I just don't have the time, money or knowledge to do so, and while I could probably get the knowledge to do so fairly easily, the time and money problems are pretty insurmountable.
So if I want to know about that, I've got to trust someone else's study. Whose am I going to trust? The tobacco companies? You seem willing to say 'no' there - why? Because they may be a biased source? Because they have financial motivations to fudge the data or even outright lie if they can get away with it?
That's the point. You're right, don't trust anybody if you don't have to. Verify everything you can. But when you *can't* verify something, and it's still relevant to you, and you need an answer... whose answer do you trust, and why?
That is precisely what the classic Marxist definition of communism is: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need". The latter part implies that you can satisfy everyone's needs, and for that there has to be no scarcity.
Perhaps I misspoke. I should have said "No scarcity, no need for any economic system. You want some of something, just take it, and nobody will care because there's plenty of it left. Like air."
The problem with statist so-called communism (which you'll note I made a point to differentiate from Marx's dream of a stateless society) is that it relies on someone telling you what you need and giving you only that and nothing more, when maybe you think you need more than that, and you want to go out and get it; but you're not allowed to do so.
You have a point, in that communism was meant to be implemented in a post-capitalist world of plenty, with high levels of automation and industrialization and thus high per-capita production and little scarcity. I agree that it would function much better in such a society (and does seem to function fairly well in the more prosperous European socialist countries). But so long as there is *any* scarcity, communism is still not a perfect solution, because there will always be some people who think that they don't have enough - and maybe they're right, and they do deserve more than you (society) have given them. But pure capitalism doesn't function perfectly well either; that just becomes survival of the rich, and fuck the poor as much as you can get away with. So long as any scarcity exists, some economic system is necessary, but neither extreme of the economic-system spectrum is sufficient.
But the point I was making is different from all that. In a fantasy world with zero scarcity, you (society) don't have to ask anything from anyone, not even what they are able to do, and you don't have to concern yourself at all with what anybody needs. People will work just as little as necessary to take what they want, and nobody else will care because there's indefinitely more left over for them, just as easily accessible. It won't even be Marx's communist utopia with everybody diligently working as hard as they can and graciously taking only what they need, leaving the rest for others - it'd be a hedonistic world of people gooding off all day and taking whatever they want and nobody else caring because nobody needs to work and there's no scarcity of anything. There'd be no need for government regulation of resources at all. If it weren't for the fact that people were still able to hurt each other directly, there'd be no need for government at all, period.
That kind of world is highly unlikely to come about, at least not any time soon. But it makes a nice analogy for the internet, where everything *is* infinitely reproducible and the worst you can really hurt someone is to hurt their feelings. There's not much need for governance there, beyond committees to help coordinate collective efforts by setting standards and such - and that's not really governance in the forceful, coercive sense of the word. (Now, governance of the people out here in meatspace who set up and maintain the networks that the internet runs on... that's another question).
Eventually, if we make good enough use of technology, there just won't be enough work for people to do and we'd have to switch to some kind of communist system.
Not so. At least, we wouldn't have to switch to some sort of "communist system" in the sense that all extent and historical so-called "communist" states have used - forced equal distribution of resources.
If by some technological means we arrive in a situation where capital and labor both are so plentiful as to be free (via robots and Star Trek-style replicators as you described), we won't have just outgrown capitalism, we'll have outgrown the need for any system of economics. Economics systems are just means of trying to "fairly" (for some value of "fair") distribute the limited resources available to us. The reason why we don't have any economic interest in buying and selling (or communally producing and distributing) something like air is because it's an effectively unlimited resource - there is no real scarcity of it, at least not here on Earth. (Though if we had lunar colonies, you can damn well bet that there would be a monthly air bill like your water, gas, or electricity bills you pay on Earth today).
No scarcity, no need for any economic system. You need some of something, just take it, and nobody will care because there's plenty of it left. Like air. If for some reason we ever did run into a scarcity of air and needed more of it, you can damn well bet that people would pony up to pay for air production - and as air is a physical thing that can't be freely duplicated, there could then be valid complaints of "theft of air" and such. But then, with your Star Trek style replicators... if you've got a sample of good-quality air, just replicate some of your own, and let others do the same, and voila, no more air scarcity. Information is now at that stage of effectively free reproduction and thus absence of scarcity. So the distribution of *copies* of information no longer has need for any sort of economic regulation at all - people will do it for free, just to share with their friends, since it costs them virtually nothing.
Now, the *original production* of information (including artistic works like music) is still a scarce resource, and so it would make sense to pay for that. There's any number of ways to do so. Work for hire (get paid to produce a creative work by someone who personally wants such a work) is one way, and how it was done in ancient times - kings would pay great artists to create beautiful paintings and compositions for them. Ransoms are another way (effectively a group version of the above, where a large number of people pool their resources and pay an artist to produce something for them all). Concerts could be a form of ransom - acts could work with concert promoters to find a venue that will likely sell enough to be worth it, and then sell CDs at the concert (or include the CDs in the ticket price).
One way or another, once the information is out there, if someone wants to replicate it and give it away, there's nothing you can ethically do to stop them - they're not stealing from anyone. If it wasn't worth it to you (the music producer) to produce and release the music in the first place, you shouldn't have done so. But then, great artists will produce art for it's own sake, if only the can afford to do so - and if the can't afford it, they should probably be focusing on getting their livelihood together before they worry about their art. And if our society is such that most people don't have enough leisure time so that the artists among them can create art for it's own sake, then there's something wrong with our society. Either we're not as prosperous as we think we are - in which case we should probably be doing other, more important work before we start worrying about having enough new music - or we are prosperous, but a lot of people are getting ripped off and a few bastards are reaping the profits of the masses' labor.
This post is full of enough analogies as it is, but one more: with
Yeah, their history sucks. But is what they're saying now unreasonable? If you push your opponent against the wall and he finally relents and gives you what you need (not saying he's giving everything, but he is giving something) do you just scoff at him?
Hell, we need to be taking notes on what he's saying now and we need to stick him to his word. He says things should be balanced. Yes, they should. He says we should have some, but not unlimited fair use. Yes and yes.
When your enemy gives you ground, you don't go hide in your bunker and call him names. You advance. I consider this an opportunity.
Since you're using this warfare analogy, lets look at this a little more closely.
For a long while, the countries of Listeneria and Distributeria lived side by side in a peaceful trade agreement. The Distributers sold products (imported from distant Musiciania) that the Listeners wanted to buy, and so the they bought them and everyone was happy. Then along came technological advances which allowed the Listeners to domestically reproduce the products they previously had to purchase from Distributeria, and other advances that would allow the Musicians to sell their new products directly to the Listeners, completely bypassing the Distributarian trade routes. So, fearing for their livelihood, Distributeria invaded Listeneria and tried to halt and reverse their technological progress, plunging them back into a more primitive way of life where they would again be dependent on Distributeria.
But, banned by international treaty from the sorts of weapons they would need to use to successfully conquer Listeneria, the Distributers found a long, drawn-out battle that they could not hope to win, as Listeners fought a guerilla war against the Distributers. The Listeners knew that in the end they could never be conquered, but the Distributer invasion was seriously disturbing the peace in their lands.
Fast forward to today, after this hopeless battle has been continuing for many years, and suddenly the Distributers say "you know we don't really want to hurt the Listeners at all, we've always liked them and just want to live in peace with them again." They haven't pulled out of the country, haven't stopped their attempts to destroy the Listeners' technological infrastructure that let them be free of dependency on Distributeria. They're like the Martians of "Mars Attacks!", running about and shooting their ray guns shouting "do not run, we are your friends!"
Would you expect the people of Listeneria to just walk out into the open and say "oh ok, they didn't want to hurt us in the first place!"? Or would you imagine they would tell the Distributer to "fuck off and get the hell out, and then we'll talk about getting along peacefully"?
You're right that when your enemy gives you ground, you don't just hide and call him names. But when your enemy just says "I'm putting down my guns now, you can come out, I promise I won't hurt you", it pays to remain suspicious, unless he's saying that because you've just pointed a bigger gun at his head. We the consumers don't have such big guns to point at the RIAA's head, so there's no reason to think that they would just happily give up the fight.
ps. Preachers like Haggard claim that homosexuality is a "choice" and not an inate character trait. Then he writes an apology letter to his congregation saying "I have been at war with these inner demons most of my adult life". Sounds like he's admitting that it WASN'T a choice... it's just who he is and he's forced to come to grips with it.
This is going a bit off-topic, but this comment of your reminded me of an analogy for homosexuality as a choice (versus homosexuality as some determinate character trait) which I thought of a few days ago, which I think is quite apt at clarifying this (non)-conundrum.
I am bisexual (actually pansexual, but whatever). As a man, this means that I like to have sex with men (amongst other sexes as well). An entirely unrelated preference of mine, but the other half of this analogy, is that I like to eat blue cheese (amongst, of course, other foods as well).
Neither of these are central, defining aspects of my social identity or my personality - they are just things that I enjoy doing. Many people find both of them gross and wouldn't want to do them themselves. That's fine - I'm not interested in making people do either of them, though I may try to persuade some people that they might enjoy trying them. Plenty of people would find just being near me while I do either them to be gross. My girlfriend certainly hates to be around while I'm eating blue cheese (it's the smell mostly), and people in general tend not to be around other people having sex, period. This is slightly less OK, but not too bad unless they intend to *force* me not to do such things around them (as is already the case with sex of any sort), but I'm a considerate person so I don't really mind refraining from these things that I enjoy while I'm in the company of others who find them disgusting. So long as I can do either in the privacy of my own home it's not a big problem.
But on to the question at hand - are these preferences of mine choices or somehow determined? Certainly to engage in the act - having sex with a man, or eating blue cheese - is entirely voluntary. I desire to do both these things, but reason can weight those desires against other factors to come to a choice as to whether or not to do them, and in what way and what circumstances if I do choose to do them. But do I have a choice whether or not to desire those things in the first place? It seems fairly certain that I do not. I see a piece of blue cheese in the store and I think "ooh, yum, I want to eat that." I see a cute guy in the store and I think the same thing. These thoughts are purely involuntary, and thus must be determinate parts of my personality, things beyond my rational control - though as already said, I have control over whether or not I act on them (although since neither of them is in any way harmful, I should never be compelled to exercise that control in one way or another).
Whether or not those involuntary desires were determined more by genetics or upbringing is another question - in my case I can think of several events in my early life that introduced me to the possibility of homosexual acts, but then, I was still disposed to be attracted to such acts when I was exposed to them. Likewise, I can remember the first time I ever saw blue cheese, so you could blame the person who introduced that to me for my liking of it; but still, I was disposed to like it when I first tried it. I could have tried a piece, found it disgusting, and never wanted to eat it again.
In short: to desire to engage in homosexual acts is not a choice, any more than to have any other desire is a choice. To actually engage in homosexual acts is a choice, as much as it is ever a choice whether or not to act on your desires. But as there is nothing intrinsically harmful about having sex with someone of the same sex as you, there is no reason ever to compel a person to exercise their will in one way or another on this issue, no matter how much other people may find it disgusting. And no reason at all to discriminate against someone for their choice to engage in such acts, or their desire to engage in such acts, any more than there is reason to discriminate against people who like a certain food that you find gross.
As for the Libertarians, they need to be much more pragmatic, while at the same time not sacrificing the core of their principles: civil libertarianism fused with fiscal conservatism. A pragmatic version of libertarianism would almost certainly make inroads with much of the population segment that are not extreme leftists nor extreme conservatives.
I agree completely. Libertarianism sounds so attractive today because we are moving in such an authoritarian direction: rampant government spending and excessive taxation (either now in the form of taxes proper or later in the form of national debt) and a growing Christian fundamentalism, political correctness, fear of terrorism and "think of the children"-itis eroding our civil liberties. So a push in the opposite direction, toward less fundamentalism and reactionary social constraints, and more fiscally efficient and streamlined government, is a welcome change given that background.
But as you say, it has to be pragmatic. Nobody (outside certain fringe groups) is suggesting that we ought to have so much civil freedom that we do away with all law enforcement and emergency management entirely. That's what I was saying about what we consider "socially liberal" actually being "socially moderate" - there's an even more liberal extreme you could go to that most people are sane enough to see the danger of. Likewise, going too extreme on the economic axis (referring to the familiar Nolan Chart here) by doing away with all taxes and government-funded programs would be equally crazy, leaving the poor at the mercy of the wealthy just as pure anarchy with no law enforcement would leave the weak at the mercy of the strong. But some libertarians advocate just such a thing.
Looking at the Nolan chart again, I'd say that almost all mainstream debate today is really happening on the lower half of the chart, between the upper parts of the populist quadrant (socially moderate, economically collectivist) and the lower parts of the right-wing quadrant (socially collectivist, economically individualist). Almost nobody is seriously advocating the various anarchic and anarcho-capitalist positions that would rightly belong where Nolan placed the "left-wing" and "libertarian" quadrants. (No offense to anarchists of any sort here; your position is a welcome counterbalance to the growing fundamentalism in the world today).
What we call Libertarians aren't really where Nolan puts them on the chart, but more in the upper (more socially moderate) part of the right-wing quadrant. A more pragmatic Libertarianesque party would throw out the extreme right-wing part of their platform as well, and frame their debate as "sane preservation of personal and economic liberty without going overboard" versus "those damn crazy fundamentalists and communists". They've got the "versus" part down right... but I think they're overreacting a bit too much in the economics department, and throwing the baby out with the bath water.
Recently I heard the phrase "everything I ever need to know I learned in kindergarten", and it struck me that my moderate political stance can be nicely summed up in kindergartener-friendly terms:
1. Don't start fights - no initiation or escalation of violence. 2. Stand up against bullies - support the maintenance of civil order, ala police. 3. Don't play with fire - no reckless endangerment of the public. 4. Protect your friends - support emergency services, ala firefighters, EMTs, etc.
5. Don't steal or break things - no theft or vandalism. 6. Stand up against bullies (again) - support the protection of private property. 7. Don't make a mess - no pollution or destruction of public resources. 8. Share with the class - contribute to the availability of public resources and goods.
Speaking of, why does the Green Party get so much support as opposed to the Libertarians (which from what I can tell, seem much more "mainstream" in that if you asked someone their thoughts, would probably fall in line with them)?
Most people I know dislike Libertarians because they're seen as economically too right-wing. That is, the whole personal economic freedom thing is great, but people want social economic responsibility enforced as well, i.e. a social safety net of some sort, which the libertarians don't seem too fond of. The greens are more economically moderate, and as you'd expect from just statistical distribution, most people have moderate views of some sort or another.
Incidentally, I'd say that what we call "socially liberal" is actually quite socially moderate, hence it's popularity; only a few of the most radical anarchistic liberals say that "people should be able to do whatever the want to long as they aren't harming others, and there should be no system in place to catch those who do try to harm others and protect those in danger of coming to harm". Fewer still say simple "people should be able to do whatever they want, period, even if it hurts others". Most everybody favors the existence of some sort of police, and emergency services like firefighters, and nobody wants complete anomie; all of which would be more liberal positions than even libertarians hold.
Which doesn't make them better positions mind you, at least in my book - there has to be a proper balance between personal freedom and social responsibility and too little of either (or conversely, too much of the other) will give equally bad results. Too much "social responsibility" - when you start not only supporting the needs and general wellbeing of a society, but also giving in to it's arbitrary whims - leads to authoritarian tyranny of the majority, and is just as bad as the anarchy in the above extremes. (Consider it analogous to giving your child what it needs, which is a responsibility and thus somewhat a limit on your freedom, versus giving your child everything it demands, which would go beyond mere responsibility and make you a whipped parent). Apply this same line of reasoning (something the likes of which I suspect lies in the back of most people's minds) to economic issues and you'll see why more moderate economic stances are more popular than either of the extreme capitalist or extreme socialist positions.
An store and a forum can be implemented perfectly well as simple databases. As I said earlier, just displaying data from a database counts as a document, to me at least. Placing an order from the store is just creating a new record in the database, and likewise posting a comment is just creating another record in a database. I never said this web of documents had to be read-only; in fact, the original web was conceived of as a largely read-write medium. (I believe WWW.app could edit hypertext WYSIWYG-style as well as render it).
This isn't to say anything database-driven is a document, though; practically everything involves a database somewhere. I'm just saying that things which are JUST displaying and editing database records work perfectly well within a document-centric framework. It's when you start having online games, online word processors, online graphics editors... that you start getting highly-interactive "web apps" that shouldn't be shoehorned into a document-centric framework.
Again: The Web is not a giant e-book reader anymore.
It should be.
The web was designed as a network of electronic documents. Anything that is not a document should not try to be shoehorned into such a framework. Database output can count as documents since that's really still just data, but interactive games or anything else that you could call a "program" is not what the web was meant for.
Online applications are neat. Having a standard, thin method of delivery for them is neat too. Maybe some of the modern technologies used to do that are neat too. But such things should not be conflated with the World Wide Web. Build something else and call it something else, or adapt something from the technology already built. Just don't conflate a document framework with an application framework.
"The point of this isn't that the burden of birth control can now be shifted to the men and women don't have to take the pill. The point is that now men have a way of making sure that they don't get someone pregnant that they don't want pregnant."
Have you ever heard of a condom? Works pretty well actually....
And women have diaphragms too, why don't they use them more often? A pill is much more convenient for many people.
Men now have another way of making sure they don't accidentally get someone pregnant.
Condoms are important where STDs are a concern. For men, condoms are also important where the trustworthiness or forgetfulness of your partner (who is ostensibly on the pill) may be a problem. This new pill eliminates the second of those concerns. If your circumstances are such that STDs aren't a concern (clean, monogamous couple, etc), you may no longer need to use condoms, and can (as the man) be extra safe in case the woman won't intentionally or accidentally lapse on her birth control.
I keep seeing comments here to the effect that "no woman will or should trust a man that he is on the pill".
That's not the point of there being a male pill. The point is that men no longer have to trust women to be on the pill. If a guy is on the pill, he doesn't have to worry that the woman will say she is on the pill and then go off it, trapping him into supporting a child that he never wanted to gave. Imagine switching the gender roles there: say there was only male contraceptives, and the man says he's on the pill, but he wants a kid, so he stops taking his bill, and yay, now he's got a baby and a mom to take care of it, too! But what if the woman didn't want kids yet? "Well then... she should have been having sex, should she? It's her own fault for chasing cock," someone in this bizarro world might say.
But most of us (besides the abstinence-only types) would think that was a ridiculous response. She engaged in an activity trusting her partner's word that certain consequences would not occur because of measures he had taken. When he fails to take those measures, it's not her fault for trusting him and engaging in the activity, it's his fault for failing to keep his promises. Switch the pronouns here so it's a woman reneging on her word instead and the situation is not different, but plenty of people will harp on a man and say "well you should have kept it in your pants".
Even setting aside these issues of trust, the man being on the pill *and* the woman being on the pill is extra backup in case one of them should simply forget.
The point of this isn't that the burden of birth control can now be shifted to the men and women don't have to take the pill. The point is that now men have a way of making sure that they don't get someone pregnant that they don't want pregnant. If a woman also wants to make sure that she doesn't get pregnant when she doesn't want to, she can take her pill too. In a couple where both people don't want kids and so both are on the pill, extra protection in case one fails or is simply forgotten. In a couple where the woman may want a kid and try to trick the man into giving her one (and subsequently supporting it), or perhaps where the woman is just forgetful (as everyone can be sometimes), the man now has a means of protecting himself, instead of just relying on the woman.
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Your post also illustrates another possible source of confusion around home schooling: there's a lot of different kinds.
I was "home schooled" in the sense that I did most of my schooling at home. But I wasn't taught by my parents. Both of my parents are fairly bright, and both are very creative artistic people, but neither are what I would call in any way academic. Neither went to college, and neither works any kind of intellectual job - my father is a stone worker who builds fireplaces, fountains, and other such creative rock works, and my mother does hospice care (or did, until she was injured). Neither of which are particularly interesting to me, though my dad's work is beautiful and my mom is an angel in what she does. So what I got was a combination of private tutoring and independent study.
In 6th through 8th grades I had a tutor (supplied by the public school district's 'special ed' division) come to my house once a day, grade my previous work, answer any questions I had, give me my next day's assignments, and then leave me alone to work on my own.
In 9th grade we tried a small private school for me, but that was way too expensive so we switched to their brand-new internet-based independent study program (Laurel Springs) for 10th and 11th grade, where I had email contact with teachers and online curricula to study, but otherwise was entirely self-taught.
But that was still too expensive, so a friend in the local school district pulled some favors and got me technically transferred to another county (like it makes a difference when you work from home) where their 'special ed' independent-study programs continue through the end of high school (the local district only went through 8th grade), so for 12th grade I would go see the coordinator of that program once every two weeks, turn in my previous assignments, get old work back with grades, talk a bit about the old stuff and ask any questions I had, get new assignments, and then go home to work on them. I finished high school about six months early thanks to that program.
So yeah, there's not only good and bad qualities of home schooling, but there's all different sorts. You could be taught by your parents, be taught by a private tutor, study independently, study in groups with other home schooled kids, etc. Home schooling is a huge and varied field, often filled with lots of very progressive people, and it doesn't deserve to be pigeonholed into this "only conservative Christian fundamentalists would do that to their kids" box.
(And don't worry about your verbosity, as you can tell I'm not exactly the most terse person in the world either).
Afraid of a 6 billon year old world? Creationists. Afraid of space miliarization/the future? Moon landing deniers. Afraid of the free market? Communists. Afraid of disease? Homeopathy. Afraid of secular education? Home Schoolers.
This is just a pet peeve of mine, but fear of secular education isn't the only reason anybody home schools. That is, not all home schoolers are religious nuts trying to indoctrinate their children and keep them from some kind of "bad thoughts" out there. I was home taught for entirely different reasons (social troubles in big, lowest-common-denominator, shut-up-sit-still-and-memorize-this public schools, and the inability to pay for smaller, more progressive private schools that could cater to gifted students) and I'm about the most anti-dogmatic person I know. And I'm now almost through with university, with very good grades, so I can't complain about the quality of the education either.
That's all, just wanted to harp on that. Home school != religious indoctrination.
Pirates does have a plot, good humor, and great production value, and I would recommend it for reasons other than pure masturbation fodder (though it's definitely better viewing if you've got a special someone to watch it with).
Maybe "obscene" is a technical term that doesn't apply here, but my point was that it is considered pornography and it's distribution to minors is prohibited in ways that other media is now. I'm pretty sure that I would get in big trouble if I invited a bunch of kids from the nearby high school to come over and watch it with me in my living room. That goes beyond just normal movie ratings - I can watch an R-rated action movie with a five year old in the room if I want and I won't get in any trouble for that, despite the rating being "for 17 years or older".
Besides, as I said in another reply above, it seems that they are implicitly defining "has artistic value" as "is interesting for reasons other than sexuality", which is a nice cop-out way of doing things. Why is it creative or artistic when someone says something like this:
"I have the most awesome idea for a car chase scene! We'll have the villain driving his red sports car downhill in San Francisco, headed toward the docks, being chased by a pair of hum-vees with gauss rifle turrets, when suddenly out of the harbor rises an amphibious helicopter which fires a missile at the car and saves the day! It'll be the most awesome thing ever!"
But it's not creative or artistic when someone says something like this?:
"I have the most awesome vision for a 6-on-1 transsexual group sex scene! We'll get a shemale on her back, have a girl riding her cowgirl style, a guy between her legs fucking her ass, she'll finger a girl beside her with with each hand, another guy will straddle her chest and titty fuck her, and then she'll tilt her head back to take a cock down her throat! It'll be the hottest thing ever!"
The former is standard R-rated action movie fodder. The latter is almost the hardest of hardcore pornography. But it took a good deal of creativity for me to come up with the second paragraph, at least as much as it did the first. And both are appealing to the "woohoo!" visceral reactions of the audience, albiet different sorts of visceral reactions. So why is the latter subject to greater restrictions than the former?
I can't tell if you're being ironic or not (this is Slashdot, you can never be sure), but just in case you're not...
All that you just said sounds, to me, in plainer English, about like this:
Something of transient literary or artistic value = something that I find interesting at the moment.
(Interesting doesn't mean pleasant or enlightening, just worthy of my attention, worth sampling an experience of).
Something of stable literary or artistic value = something that many people (given some context, presumably) find interesting at the moment.
Something of lasting literary or artistic value = something that many people throughout time find interesting or worth experiencing.
Given that sex and violence have been of great, perhaps even the greatest interest to many people for pretty much all of human history, and that the definition of "literary or artistic value" is supposed to exclude pornography from the category of things predicated thus, they who use such terms as a means of demarcating art from non-art must mean something other than what you have said.
Though my original question was purely rhetorical. I'm pretty sure that their definition is something along the lines of "being of interest for reasons other than violence or sexuality", which is a nice self-serving way of defining the problem in their favor - a nice easy way of saying "we don't like porn, but we'll allow it if it's not just porn". It still leaves unanswered the question "what's wrong with porn? Why should we ban it?"
And frankly, the whole "this category of things is banned unless it's useful to society" angle strikes me as a slippery slope toward a command society, where you're forbidden from doing anything other than what you are told to do, which is whatever the authorities deem useful; and anathema to freedom, wherein all things are permitted unless they are harmful to others.
More likely, the judge is taking the position that the First Amendment does not allow banning material on the basis of "obscenity" unless the three prongs of the Miller test are satisfied, particularly the third prong: "the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value."
As defined by whom? Why would something like God of War fall under that categorization, while something like Pirates (the porn film; don't worry, the link is to the wiki article about it) would not? Both are set in pseudo-historical or pseudo-mythological settings, and both are primarily interesting for their violent and sexual content, respectively, with the setting being just that - an interesting setting for the violence or sexuality to take place in. Yet the latter is very clearly considered (my those whose opinion matters in court) "obscene", and the former is apparently some sort of work of art. What's the difference - and more importantly, to whom are we entrusting the power to determine what it culturally valuable or not? Doesn't the fact that someone wants to acquire such works mean that they have value to someone? Just what is "literary" or "artistic" value, beyond simply being a piece of media that someone finds interesting and worth experiencing?
I would like to understand why exactly this is. Does the Bible say that it should not be taken literally? Should the whole thing not be taken literally or just parts of it? If the latter, how do you know what parts? And if we are not supposed to take it literally, what are the contents actually supposed to mean (given that interpretation of nor literal material is highly subjective)?
Forgive me for flying off the handle right away, but it seems to me this is just a technique believers use to shield themselve from inquiry when it is clear that their beliefs are downright outlandish (and they know it). If the Bible is not meant to be taken literally then honestly what could it possibly be good for? (Aside from the reasons we read The Odyssey or similar classics.) You cannot be sure of anything in such a text as it is intended for the audience to make their own decisions. It is like basing beliefs on interpretations of Fight Club or Rocking-Horse Winner. Those stories could mean anything and specifically do not present absolutes, drawing on the reader to make sense of them.
Precisely! The way I see it, there are only two ways to look at a supposedly authoritative text like the Bible:
(1) It is authoritative, and thus you must believe every word of it as it is written. If you want to use the text to prove things to other people, this is the position you must take, as otherwise you're conceding that what you're claiming as the source of your proof is not authoritative, i.e. doesn't count for proof; or you're claiming that your interpretation of that text is authoritative, which is just to say that such-and-such is true because you say so, which will get you nowhere.
(2) It is not authoritative, and at best you can say that you agree with certain interpretations of it for certain reasons. If you want to prove that those things you agree with are right to someone else, give them your reasons for agreeing with them. Then maybe you can tell them, if you convince them of all the conclusions of your interpretation of the text, "see, you agree with the doctrine of this text." Which isn't very useful except perhaps as a shorthand way of referring to your belief system to someone familiar with that text; though, since interpretations may vary, that could be misleading.
Most people, even religious types, rightly see those few who follow (1) above as nutjobs. And plenty of irreligious (atheist, agnostic, etc) types fall under (2) above, where they have their own beliefs for their own reasons which usually aren't so horribly out of whack with the core of most popular religious doctrines.
The problem arises when you get people who claim to follow (2), who claim that they have independent good reasons to support some particular subset or interpretation of a religious text, but who, when pressed as to why they insist that such-and-such must be like so-and-so, fall back on "because the Bible says so". Which, since they're non-literalists, means "because my interpretation of the Bible says so", which again just amounts to "because I say so", which is not at all useful for convincing anyone of anything.
By all means, everybody, agree with the Bible or any other damn book if it suits you. I won't care to convince you otherwise unless the fate of something really important depends on it, and even then, I'll be sure to try to give you good reasons why I think you're wrong. Just don't try to tell me that something is or ought to be a certain way just because the Bible... er, your interpretation of the Bible... er, just because you say so. Maybe you're right, but if I don't already agree with you, just insisting that you're right without giving me any good reasons isn't going to persuade me of anything.
I meant to mention this in there and forgot it somehow...
You might ask, why exactly is it wrong to build programs in the web's document-centric framework?
To make the answer clear, I need only ask back, would you build an interactive game, or heck, even a word processor, *inside* of a Word doc, if the macro language allowed you the ability to do that? If the answer is "no" (as I suspect it is, and it ought to be), then you should understand why doing the same thing in an HTML document, which is in the same category of files as a Word doc (rich text with other embedded media), is wrong.
I think a better question would be: Why Would you Usurp the Web Browser?
I thought the summary alone made it pretty clear why you'd want something beyond a web browser. The web is (or at least, was designed as) a network of hypertexts. This would now properly be expanded to a network of hypermedia, but the point remains the same: it's function is to present documents, and link from one document to another. Text, images, sounds, movies, all that fits well enough into this model; even database output is basically nothing more than all of the above organized in a different way than a standard file system would do it, and databases can implement all variety of useful things like the web forum that we're chatting on without really breaking that model.
But when you start getting fancy complicated interactive applications crammed into that model, it gets ugly and breaks. Games, document editors, all that sort of stuff belongs in an *application* framework, not a document framework. And mind you, I find a lot of these networked applications very useful, but still, they don't belong in the Web; they belong in something else, an Application Browser to go along with your Document Browser. Though honestly, I'd just do away with the whole "browser" concept entirely and treat internet documents and applications the same as you would a doc or app on the other side of your LAN, which is not much different than you treat local docs and apps, besides permissions differences).
I guess this is my answer to the question in the summary, too. I'd take all applications out of the browser entirely and integrate the browser functions into something like, to use OSX examples, Finder and Preview; maybe merge the two together into one program, for browsing (local and remote) filesystems and viewing (local and remote) documents. Include a plugin architecture to allow extensibility of format support (and heck, if you allow editing of documents therein too, you're moving awfully close to a document-centric computing model, at last!).
Then standardize on a cross-platform API (Java is a possible candidate), and then when you click a link to a remote application (from your browser/finder/explorer thing), that app is quickly downloaded and cached on your end and run like any other local program, with the exception of different privileges and such. These programs might just call back to their home server for their data, in the case of something like a simple game, or they could allow you to read and write data from your local disks. The advantage of using a remote app in the latter case would of course be not having to worry about upgrading or anything - the only version that's available to use is the latest version. The disadvantage of course being if that app is unavailable, well, maybe you're stuck without the ability to open your data, even if it is stored locally. But open file formats could help there.
So, I guess that's my solution. Fat chance of it ever happening though.
Like a usualy red light but for some reason a green arrow is also present, on the same signal box as the red light.
Can you turn but not go?
I can't speak for the rest of the country/world, but here in California, yes. If there are arrow-shaped lights present, those lights take precedence over plain lights for traffic turning in that direction. You could have green with a red arrow or red with a green arrow or both red or both green. Also, a green arrow indicates that you have absolute right of way for turning that direction, whereas, for example, turning left across traffic at a plain green light, you must yield to incoming traffic, or turning right at a plain red light, you must yield to cross traffic. In fact those are the only instances of such 'protected turns' (as we call them) I know of.
The usual use of such light is for a pattern such as this: you have a four-way intersection of roads A and B. Both directions of road A will get a plain green light and red left-turn light (allowing only straight and right-turn traffic) while both directions of road B have all red; then switch that so both directions of road A can turn left only (or turn right after stop, yielding to the oncoming traffic turning onto road B), with no straight traffic to interfere. Then road A gets all red and road B gets the same two phases. Repeat.
I also know of a protected right-hand turn signal at a 'T' intersection in my old hometown, but I'm not quite sure why that's there. I think that light allows the ending street (the vertical line of the 'T') full green, then stops the left-turning (plain light) traffic to allow only right turns and one lane of the cross street (the horizontal line of the 'T') to go straight and turn left, then stops the right turns of the ending street and allows both lanes of the cross street to go straight or turn right, but no left turns. Repeat.
The only other stave I've driven in was Arizona, and while initially I was shocked that there was no such thing as a protected turn (wondering how the hell I would ever manage to get across oncoming traffic when turning left on busy street), but then I realized that in absence, something that never happens in California, happened; oncoming traffic which technically had the right-of-way would sometimes let left-turning traffic have space to turn left safely (by slowing down or waiting a bit to go when the lights turned green). Which maybe say something in favor of the proposed changes in the article - when people have no road signs telling them specifically what they can and cannot and must do, they are more prone to self-manage traffic by communicating with other drivers. Then again, I also remember Arizona speed limit signs being awfully polite, asking drivers to 'please not exceed' the posted limit instead of just saying SPEED LIMIT, so maybe Arizona's just a police place. But it's been a while, so my memory of that bit may be inaccurate.
Does it offend you that certain books and articles express an opinion contrary to the very popular, widespread, and policy-shaping beliefs held by many highly vocal Americans, and that certain communities on the internet are largely populated by people who share such contrary opinions?
What is the alternative you're suggesting?
It'd be horribly difficult to retrofit existing cities to function this way, but I've always thought that all traffic should function like freeway traffic. Treat traffic flow like water flow, and roads like pipes. No two-way streets; you never have water flowing two ways through one pipe. You have two separate pipes running next to each other in opposite directions, and water from one pipe never has to cross through another pipe to continue somewhere else; it cross over or around it (like making a left-hand turn [or right-hand turn for the Brits out there]). This could be approximated with roundabouts; so that traffic can flow into the circle and then out again in any direction (allowing for straight-through traffic, right or left turns, or U-turns). Stop signs and lights are like valves; you want to use them as little as possible, so your traffic keeps flowing, never at a stop.
You'd really only need three rules: yield to traffic on your left when merging (standard freeway/roundabound behavior), keep to the left when travelling (so there's room for people to merge on), and yield the left to faster traffic (so people can pass on your left). Or reverse the sides if you like, it doesn't matter. Now that I think about it, that's basically the driving rules for big-rig truck drivers; keep to the center lanes unless entering or passing.
Eliminates the need for any signs at all besides directional arrows (indicating what direction traffic flows on that street). Just follow the arrows that point the direction you want to go until you get where you want to be, and try not to hit anybody else on the way.
That's mostly the point I was making.
There seems to be this weird correlation between people who think homosexuality is wrong and people who think it's a choice, and people who think it's ok and people who think it's not a choice. Like the homophobes think it's wrong and don't want to excuse people for it (and you can't blame someone for something that they can't help), so they have to say it's a choice, and that they could and SHOULD choose otherwise. And the gays say "no man I can't help it it's who I am please don't hurt me!", when that's not the right response to that kind of threat.
It doesn't matter if it's a choice or not. It's kind of both - I can't choose whether or not I'm attracted to men but I can choose whether or not to do anything with them - but that's irrelevant. Saying "it's not my choice don't blame me" is tacitly admitting that there's something objectionable about it but that you can't be faulted for it because you can't help it. The right response is to point out that THERE'S NO HARM DONE, whether it's a choice or not.
People just seem to act like if you say homosexuality is a choice, you mean it's a BAD choice. I'm just saying, it can be (and is) in some ways a choice... but it's a neutral one, it doesn't matter, choose however you like. Nobody's getting hurt by it.
And anybody trying to hurt people for making such a neutral choice, of course, are doing wrong themselves.
ROFL. Better metrics? You've got to be kidding me. Better metrics than understanding the subject matter? Like what? How much money someone pays someone else? Who pays whom? All you're doing is identifying whether someone draws money from someone you don't like. At that moment, you're politicizing what should be a scientific debate. At that moment, you become part of the problem that surrounds the Global Warming debate.
I'm not saying that you should blindly trust anything that a tobacco company says about the effects of smoking. What you should do is not blindly trust anybody, and instead verify what's being said. Sadly, that seems to be too much work for some people.
I believe his point was that people can't be experts on everything, and thus can't form properly reasoned opinions on everything by purely rational, scientific means.
There's lots of information out there. I can't verify the accuracy of all of it myself. I can try to rely on as little unverified information as possible (and manage to do so fairly well in my every day life), but when I need to make a decision (like a political decision, who or what to vote for or otherwise support) about which there is relevant information which I am pragmatically unable to verify myself, I've got to decide whose word to trust on that information.
I'm not interested in smoking at all, just because smoke bothers me and I find it a disgusting habit. So for me, I can just ignore the whole "does smoking cause cancer" issue and not trust anybody's word, because the answer it doesn't affect me. But if I was a smoker, then it would be very relevant to me whether or not smoking causes cancer. I can't conduct a vast and statistically relevant controlled study of smokers myself - I just don't have the time, money or knowledge to do so, and while I could probably get the knowledge to do so fairly easily, the time and money problems are pretty insurmountable.
So if I want to know about that, I've got to trust someone else's study. Whose am I going to trust? The tobacco companies? You seem willing to say 'no' there - why? Because they may be a biased source? Because they have financial motivations to fudge the data or even outright lie if they can get away with it?
That's the point. You're right, don't trust anybody if you don't have to. Verify everything you can. But when you *can't* verify something, and it's still relevant to you, and you need an answer... whose answer do you trust, and why?
That is precisely what the classic Marxist definition of communism is: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need". The latter part implies that you can satisfy everyone's needs, and for that there has to be no scarcity.
Perhaps I misspoke. I should have said "No scarcity, no need for any economic system. You want some of something, just take it, and nobody will care because there's plenty of it left. Like air."
The problem with statist so-called communism (which you'll note I made a point to differentiate from Marx's dream of a stateless society) is that it relies on someone telling you what you need and giving you only that and nothing more, when maybe you think you need more than that, and you want to go out and get it; but you're not allowed to do so.
You have a point, in that communism was meant to be implemented in a post-capitalist world of plenty, with high levels of automation and industrialization and thus high per-capita production and little scarcity. I agree that it would function much better in such a society (and does seem to function fairly well in the more prosperous European socialist countries). But so long as there is *any* scarcity, communism is still not a perfect solution, because there will always be some people who think that they don't have enough - and maybe they're right, and they do deserve more than you (society) have given them. But pure capitalism doesn't function perfectly well either; that just becomes survival of the rich, and fuck the poor as much as you can get away with. So long as any scarcity exists, some economic system is necessary, but neither extreme of the economic-system spectrum is sufficient.
But the point I was making is different from all that. In a fantasy world with zero scarcity, you (society) don't have to ask anything from anyone, not even what they are able to do, and you don't have to concern yourself at all with what anybody needs. People will work just as little as necessary to take what they want, and nobody else will care because there's indefinitely more left over for them, just as easily accessible. It won't even be Marx's communist utopia with everybody diligently working as hard as they can and graciously taking only what they need, leaving the rest for others - it'd be a hedonistic world of people gooding off all day and taking whatever they want and nobody else caring because nobody needs to work and there's no scarcity of anything. There'd be no need for government regulation of resources at all. If it weren't for the fact that people were still able to hurt each other directly, there'd be no need for government at all, period.
That kind of world is highly unlikely to come about, at least not any time soon. But it makes a nice analogy for the internet, where everything *is* infinitely reproducible and the worst you can really hurt someone is to hurt their feelings. There's not much need for governance there, beyond committees to help coordinate collective efforts by setting standards and such - and that's not really governance in the forceful, coercive sense of the word. (Now, governance of the people out here in meatspace who set up and maintain the networks that the internet runs on... that's another question).
Eventually, if we make good enough use of technology, there just won't be enough work for people to do and we'd have to switch to some kind of communist system.
Not so. At least, we wouldn't have to switch to some sort of "communist system" in the sense that all extent and historical so-called "communist" states have used - forced equal distribution of resources.
If by some technological means we arrive in a situation where capital and labor both are so plentiful as to be free (via robots and Star Trek-style replicators as you described), we won't have just outgrown capitalism, we'll have outgrown the need for any system of economics. Economics systems are just means of trying to "fairly" (for some value of "fair") distribute the limited resources available to us. The reason why we don't have any economic interest in buying and selling (or communally producing and distributing) something like air is because it's an effectively unlimited resource - there is no real scarcity of it, at least not here on Earth. (Though if we had lunar colonies, you can damn well bet that there would be a monthly air bill like your water, gas, or electricity bills you pay on Earth today).
No scarcity, no need for any economic system. You need some of something, just take it, and nobody will care because there's plenty of it left. Like air. If for some reason we ever did run into a scarcity of air and needed more of it, you can damn well bet that people would pony up to pay for air production - and as air is a physical thing that can't be freely duplicated, there could then be valid complaints of "theft of air" and such. But then, with your Star Trek style replicators... if you've got a sample of good-quality air, just replicate some of your own, and let others do the same, and voila, no more air scarcity. Information is now at that stage of effectively free reproduction and thus absence of scarcity. So the distribution of *copies* of information no longer has need for any sort of economic regulation at all - people will do it for free, just to share with their friends, since it costs them virtually nothing.
Now, the *original production* of information (including artistic works like music) is still a scarce resource, and so it would make sense to pay for that. There's any number of ways to do so. Work for hire (get paid to produce a creative work by someone who personally wants such a work) is one way, and how it was done in ancient times - kings would pay great artists to create beautiful paintings and compositions for them. Ransoms are another way (effectively a group version of the above, where a large number of people pool their resources and pay an artist to produce something for them all). Concerts could be a form of ransom - acts could work with concert promoters to find a venue that will likely sell enough to be worth it, and then sell CDs at the concert (or include the CDs in the ticket price).
One way or another, once the information is out there, if someone wants to replicate it and give it away, there's nothing you can ethically do to stop them - they're not stealing from anyone. If it wasn't worth it to you (the music producer) to produce and release the music in the first place, you shouldn't have done so. But then, great artists will produce art for it's own sake, if only the can afford to do so - and if the can't afford it, they should probably be focusing on getting their livelihood together before they worry about their art. And if our society is such that most people don't have enough leisure time so that the artists among them can create art for it's own sake, then there's something wrong with our society. Either we're not as prosperous as we think we are - in which case we should probably be doing other, more important work before we start worrying about having enough new music - or we are prosperous, but a lot of people are getting ripped off and a few bastards are reaping the profits of the masses' labor.
This post is full of enough analogies as it is, but one more: with
Yeah, their history sucks. But is what they're saying now unreasonable? If you push your opponent against the wall and he finally relents and gives you what you need (not saying he's giving everything, but he is giving something) do you just scoff at him?
Hell, we need to be taking notes on what he's saying now and we need to stick him to his word. He says things should be balanced. Yes, they should. He says we should have some, but not unlimited fair use. Yes and yes.
When your enemy gives you ground, you don't go hide in your bunker and call him names. You advance. I consider this an opportunity.
Since you're using this warfare analogy, lets look at this a little more closely.
For a long while, the countries of Listeneria and Distributeria lived side by side in a peaceful trade agreement. The Distributers sold products (imported from distant Musiciania) that the Listeners wanted to buy, and so the they bought them and everyone was happy. Then along came technological advances which allowed the Listeners to domestically reproduce the products they previously had to purchase from Distributeria, and other advances that would allow the Musicians to sell their new products directly to the Listeners, completely bypassing the Distributarian trade routes. So, fearing for their livelihood, Distributeria invaded Listeneria and tried to halt and reverse their technological progress, plunging them back into a more primitive way of life where they would again be dependent on Distributeria.
But, banned by international treaty from the sorts of weapons they would need to use to successfully conquer Listeneria, the Distributers found a long, drawn-out battle that they could not hope to win, as Listeners fought a guerilla war against the Distributers. The Listeners knew that in the end they could never be conquered, but the Distributer invasion was seriously disturbing the peace in their lands.
Fast forward to today, after this hopeless battle has been continuing for many years, and suddenly the Distributers say "you know we don't really want to hurt the Listeners at all, we've always liked them and just want to live in peace with them again." They haven't pulled out of the country, haven't stopped their attempts to destroy the Listeners' technological infrastructure that let them be free of dependency on Distributeria. They're like the Martians of "Mars Attacks!", running about and shooting their ray guns shouting "do not run, we are your friends!"
Would you expect the people of Listeneria to just walk out into the open and say "oh ok, they didn't want to hurt us in the first place!"? Or would you imagine they would tell the Distributer to "fuck off and get the hell out, and then we'll talk about getting along peacefully"?
You're right that when your enemy gives you ground, you don't just hide and call him names. But when your enemy just says "I'm putting down my guns now, you can come out, I promise I won't hurt you", it pays to remain suspicious, unless he's saying that because you've just pointed a bigger gun at his head. We the consumers don't have such big guns to point at the RIAA's head, so there's no reason to think that they would just happily give up the fight.
I think most gamers are pro-female. The more the merrier :-)
Though I'm sure there's a few woman-haters out there...
ps. Preachers like Haggard claim that homosexuality is a "choice" and not an inate character trait. Then he writes an apology letter to his congregation saying "I have been at war with these inner demons most of my adult life". Sounds like he's admitting that it WASN'T a choice... it's just who he is and he's forced to come to grips with it.
This is going a bit off-topic, but this comment of your reminded me of an analogy for homosexuality as a choice (versus homosexuality as some determinate character trait) which I thought of a few days ago, which I think is quite apt at clarifying this (non)-conundrum.
I am bisexual (actually pansexual, but whatever). As a man, this means that I like to have sex with men (amongst other sexes as well). An entirely unrelated preference of mine, but the other half of this analogy, is that I like to eat blue cheese (amongst, of course, other foods as well).
Neither of these are central, defining aspects of my social identity or my personality - they are just things that I enjoy doing. Many people find both of them gross and wouldn't want to do them themselves. That's fine - I'm not interested in making people do either of them, though I may try to persuade some people that they might enjoy trying them. Plenty of people would find just being near me while I do either them to be gross. My girlfriend certainly hates to be around while I'm eating blue cheese (it's the smell mostly), and people in general tend not to be around other people having sex, period. This is slightly less OK, but not too bad unless they intend to *force* me not to do such things around them (as is already the case with sex of any sort), but I'm a considerate person so I don't really mind refraining from these things that I enjoy while I'm in the company of others who find them disgusting. So long as I can do either in the privacy of my own home it's not a big problem.
But on to the question at hand - are these preferences of mine choices or somehow determined? Certainly to engage in the act - having sex with a man, or eating blue cheese - is entirely voluntary. I desire to do both these things, but reason can weight those desires against other factors to come to a choice as to whether or not to do them, and in what way and what circumstances if I do choose to do them. But do I have a choice whether or not to desire those things in the first place? It seems fairly certain that I do not. I see a piece of blue cheese in the store and I think "ooh, yum, I want to eat that." I see a cute guy in the store and I think the same thing. These thoughts are purely involuntary, and thus must be determinate parts of my personality, things beyond my rational control - though as already said, I have control over whether or not I act on them (although since neither of them is in any way harmful, I should never be compelled to exercise that control in one way or another).
Whether or not those involuntary desires were determined more by genetics or upbringing is another question - in my case I can think of several events in my early life that introduced me to the possibility of homosexual acts, but then, I was still disposed to be attracted to such acts when I was exposed to them. Likewise, I can remember the first time I ever saw blue cheese, so you could blame the person who introduced that to me for my liking of it; but still, I was disposed to like it when I first tried it. I could have tried a piece, found it disgusting, and never wanted to eat it again.
In short: to desire to engage in homosexual acts is not a choice, any more than to have any other desire is a choice. To actually engage in homosexual acts is a choice, as much as it is ever a choice whether or not to act on your desires. But as there is nothing intrinsically harmful about having sex with someone of the same sex as you, there is no reason ever to compel a person to exercise their will in one way or another on this issue, no matter how much other people may find it disgusting. And no reason at all to discriminate against someone for their choice to engage in such acts, or their desire to engage in such acts, any more than there is reason to discriminate against people who like a certain food that you find gross.
humans tasted just like chicken. (I haven't summoned the courage to ask my wife what she thinks I taste like.)
You know, you *could* always just see what *she* tastes like yourself... not that that really has any reflection on what you taste like.
As for the Libertarians, they need to be much more pragmatic, while at the same time not sacrificing the core of their principles: civil libertarianism fused with fiscal conservatism. A pragmatic version of libertarianism would almost certainly make inroads with much of the population segment that are not extreme leftists nor extreme conservatives.
I agree completely. Libertarianism sounds so attractive today because we are moving in such an authoritarian direction: rampant government spending and excessive taxation (either now in the form of taxes proper or later in the form of national debt) and a growing Christian fundamentalism, political correctness, fear of terrorism and "think of the children"-itis eroding our civil liberties. So a push in the opposite direction, toward less fundamentalism and reactionary social constraints, and more fiscally efficient and streamlined government, is a welcome change given that background.
But as you say, it has to be pragmatic. Nobody (outside certain fringe groups) is suggesting that we ought to have so much civil freedom that we do away with all law enforcement and emergency management entirely. That's what I was saying about what we consider "socially liberal" actually being "socially moderate" - there's an even more liberal extreme you could go to that most people are sane enough to see the danger of. Likewise, going too extreme on the economic axis (referring to the familiar Nolan Chart here) by doing away with all taxes and government-funded programs would be equally crazy, leaving the poor at the mercy of the wealthy just as pure anarchy with no law enforcement would leave the weak at the mercy of the strong. But some libertarians advocate just such a thing.
Looking at the Nolan chart again, I'd say that almost all mainstream debate today is really happening on the lower half of the chart, between the upper parts of the populist quadrant (socially moderate, economically collectivist) and the lower parts of the right-wing quadrant (socially collectivist, economically individualist). Almost nobody is seriously advocating the various anarchic and anarcho-capitalist positions that would rightly belong where Nolan placed the "left-wing" and "libertarian" quadrants. (No offense to anarchists of any sort here; your position is a welcome counterbalance to the growing fundamentalism in the world today).
What we call Libertarians aren't really where Nolan puts them on the chart, but more in the upper (more socially moderate) part of the right-wing quadrant. A more pragmatic Libertarianesque party would throw out the extreme right-wing part of their platform as well, and frame their debate as "sane preservation of personal and economic liberty without going overboard" versus "those damn crazy fundamentalists and communists". They've got the "versus" part down right... but I think they're overreacting a bit too much in the economics department, and throwing the baby out with the bath water.
Recently I heard the phrase "everything I ever need to know I learned in kindergarten", and it struck me that my moderate political stance can be nicely summed up in kindergartener-friendly terms:
1. Don't start fights - no initiation or escalation of violence.
2. Stand up against bullies - support the maintenance of civil order, ala police.
3. Don't play with fire - no reckless endangerment of the public.
4. Protect your friends - support emergency services, ala firefighters, EMTs, etc.
5. Don't steal or break things - no theft or vandalism.
6. Stand up against bullies (again) - support the protection of private property.
7. Don't make a mess - no pollution or destruction of public resources.
8. Share with the class - contribute to the availability of public resources and goods.
Other than that, just have fun.
Speaking of, why does the Green Party get so much support as opposed to the Libertarians (which from what I can tell, seem much more "mainstream" in that if you asked someone their thoughts, would probably fall in line with them)?
Most people I know dislike Libertarians because they're seen as economically too right-wing. That is, the whole personal economic freedom thing is great, but people want social economic responsibility enforced as well, i.e. a social safety net of some sort, which the libertarians don't seem too fond of. The greens are more economically moderate, and as you'd expect from just statistical distribution, most people have moderate views of some sort or another.
Incidentally, I'd say that what we call "socially liberal" is actually quite socially moderate, hence it's popularity; only a few of the most radical anarchistic liberals say that "people should be able to do whatever the want to long as they aren't harming others, and there should be no system in place to catch those who do try to harm others and protect those in danger of coming to harm". Fewer still say simple "people should be able to do whatever they want, period, even if it hurts others". Most everybody favors the existence of some sort of police, and emergency services like firefighters, and nobody wants complete anomie; all of which would be more liberal positions than even libertarians hold.
Which doesn't make them better positions mind you, at least in my book - there has to be a proper balance between personal freedom and social responsibility and too little of either (or conversely, too much of the other) will give equally bad results. Too much "social responsibility" - when you start not only supporting the needs and general wellbeing of a society, but also giving in to it's arbitrary whims - leads to authoritarian tyranny of the majority, and is just as bad as the anarchy in the above extremes. (Consider it analogous to giving your child what it needs, which is a responsibility and thus somewhat a limit on your freedom, versus giving your child everything it demands, which would go beyond mere responsibility and make you a whipped parent). Apply this same line of reasoning (something the likes of which I suspect lies in the back of most people's minds) to economic issues and you'll see why more moderate economic stances are more popular than either of the extreme capitalist or extreme socialist positions.
An store and a forum can be implemented perfectly well as simple databases. As I said earlier, just displaying data from a database counts as a document, to me at least. Placing an order from the store is just creating a new record in the database, and likewise posting a comment is just creating another record in a database. I never said this web of documents had to be read-only; in fact, the original web was conceived of as a largely read-write medium. (I believe WWW.app could edit hypertext WYSIWYG-style as well as render it).
This isn't to say anything database-driven is a document, though; practically everything involves a database somewhere. I'm just saying that things which are JUST displaying and editing database records work perfectly well within a document-centric framework. It's when you start having online games, online word processors, online graphics editors... that you start getting highly-interactive "web apps" that shouldn't be shoehorned into a document-centric framework.
Again: The Web is not a giant e-book reader anymore.
It should be.
The web was designed as a network of electronic documents. Anything that is not a document should not try to be shoehorned into such a framework. Database output can count as documents since that's really still just data, but interactive games or anything else that you could call a "program" is not what the web was meant for.
Online applications are neat. Having a standard, thin method of delivery for them is neat too. Maybe some of the modern technologies used to do that are neat too. But such things should not be conflated with the World Wide Web. Build something else and call it something else, or adapt something from the technology already built. Just don't conflate a document framework with an application framework.
"The point of this isn't that the burden of birth control can now be shifted to the men and women don't have to take the pill. The point is that now men have a way of making sure that they don't get someone pregnant that they don't want pregnant."
Have you ever heard of a condom? Works pretty well actually....
And women have diaphragms too, why don't they use them more often? A pill is much more convenient for many people.
Men now have another way of making sure they don't accidentally get someone pregnant.
Condoms are important where STDs are a concern. For men, condoms are also important where the trustworthiness or forgetfulness of your partner (who is ostensibly on the pill) may be a problem. This new pill eliminates the second of those concerns. If your circumstances are such that STDs aren't a concern (clean, monogamous couple, etc), you may no longer need to use condoms, and can (as the man) be extra safe in case the woman won't intentionally or accidentally lapse on her birth control.
I keep seeing comments here to the effect that "no woman will or should trust a man that he is on the pill".
That's not the point of there being a male pill. The point is that men no longer have to trust women to be on the pill. If a guy is on the pill, he doesn't have to worry that the woman will say she is on the pill and then go off it, trapping him into supporting a child that he never wanted to gave. Imagine switching the gender roles there: say there was only male contraceptives, and the man says he's on the pill, but he wants a kid, so he stops taking his bill, and yay, now he's got a baby and a mom to take care of it, too! But what if the woman didn't want kids yet? "Well then... she should have been having sex, should she? It's her own fault for chasing cock," someone in this bizarro world might say.
But most of us (besides the abstinence-only types) would think that was a ridiculous response. She engaged in an activity trusting her partner's word that certain consequences would not occur because of measures he had taken. When he fails to take those measures, it's not her fault for trusting him and engaging in the activity, it's his fault for failing to keep his promises. Switch the pronouns here so it's a woman reneging on her word instead and the situation is not different, but plenty of people will harp on a man and say "well you should have kept it in your pants".
Even setting aside these issues of trust, the man being on the pill *and* the woman being on the pill is extra backup in case one of them should simply forget.
The point of this isn't that the burden of birth control can now be shifted to the men and women don't have to take the pill. The point is that now men have a way of making sure that they don't get someone pregnant that they don't want pregnant. If a woman also wants to make sure that she doesn't get pregnant when she doesn't want to, she can take her pill too. In a couple where both people don't want kids and so both are on the pill, extra protection in case one fails or is simply forgotten. In a couple where the woman may want a kid and try to trick the man into giving her one (and subsequently supporting it), or perhaps where the woman is just forgetful (as everyone can be sometimes), the man now has a means of protecting himself, instead of just relying on the woman.