Being groped without consent is equivalent to rape, regardless of whether it's my genitals that are being groped. Rape is not about sex, although that is often a part of the "act". It's about control over another person, and abuse of that control, and that is why the term has been used in many other contexts.
If the alternative to submitting to it is imprisonment or physical violence, what other term could one use?
As to cats and their toilet habits, it may or may not be a comment on them that they almost universally prefer at least a little privacy when they are performing their ablutions.
They're almost... human... in that respect; excepting a considerable amount of paranoia, the sort that still has the human race segregating bathrooms according to gender, anyway;)
I have a 23 lb furball here who will swat the bathroom door closed if he wants his privacy. He doesn't seem embarassed about it, either....
After reading so many comments tonight, I do have to remark that the "cat doubters" that are so often prevalent when these discussions come up elsewhere, are noticeably absent here... *g*
Much more, probably. Historically cats have been much more in the role of symbiotes, rather than parasites. By that I mean that cat colonies generally take of themselves, while performing the same vermin infestation control, while dogs have needed more overt control, lest they turn feral and prey on the very livestock that humans relied on, or humans themselves.
I think the modern idea that cats have attitude just stems from the prevalence of spoiling of cats by modern families.
I think that it has more to do with humans being spoiled by social and cultural concepts of superiority, myself.
It cheers me to think that many of our "domesticated" cats still maintain a level of independence that would put most humans concepts of the same to shame.
One could hope that after we smash our civilization down to bedrock - which we are working very hard towards doing - that our domestic cats might, in the very distant future, manage to salvage something out of the mess that we made, and benefit from it. Who are we to say? As a species, we haven't even learned how not to shit in our own nest.
Maybe that's just me wishing for fishes, but as I am often told nowadays, I am more cat than human - and I take that as a compliment.
Maybe she's figured it out, but doesn't care. Humans tilt at windmills, too. We have many ancient mythologies built entirely around the concept, come to think of it, carried on by people who display less rationality than your cat does.
At least your cat isn't trying to push her point of view on the entire damned world at weapon's point.
Too many people assume that the human concepts of motivation are those that every other living thing follow.
Survival is the only real ultimate motivation. How one does so does not necessarily define one's intelligence, except perhaps in the compromises one is willing to enter in to - and in that respect, cats win paws down over dogs. Freedom of choice is still something that us humans value as well, is it not?
Cats in Modern America 2010 perform another function - helping keep the human race from making an entirely greedy self-centered arrogant fool of itself.
Your comments in this respect are by far the most intelligent ones I have seen on slashdot on this subject in many years. Thank you. I have observed the same as you, I'm just not quite so eloquent in saying so, I guess...
I think we're inherently misled by our own experience (and a lot of hubris, as is made obvious by human treatment of other animals in general.)
I've argued much the same for some time, but few humans listen - we have a societal/cultural bias towards superiority that blinds us to many things.
I'll add (amplify?) that variations in the individual's intelligence is just as prevalent in cats or dogs as it in human beings, or, for that matter, any mammal, and quite possibly any living creature.
Very few humans seem to realize just how much their environment determines their behavior... and just how little experiments inside of controlled environments can tell us about the existence or non- of free will.
agree; degrees of consciousness is closer than "yes" or "no",
If there were such thing as a "yes/no" point when it comes to consciousness, then the human race would not have the problems with mental handicaps, senility, etc, that it has. Anyone who has spent any time in a hospice with alzheimer's patients knows damned well that the line between consciousness and "irrationality" is a indefinably blurry one, and one that is not limited to what our society/culture considers "handicaps".
Our society/culture hardly has a good track record in treating it's own "cripples" as living, feeling beings;(
we could also spend 50 billion fixing the Katrina disaster
I haven't seen any recent figures, but I do know that federal funding for the cleanup has already cost at least four times that. Heck, here are some figures from 2006.
We won't see the Puppeteers, they are long gone toward galactic north already.
On the other hand, by the time we detect the Pak fleets coming from the core, it'll already be too late... they kill technological civilizations in their path.
Yeah, fantasies regarding supernatural mammalian-type beings seem to be very common among members of the human species. I even heard one about an invisible man in the sky who has a list of things that people shouldn't do, upon pain of punishment, but it doesn't seem that the ones who worship him get punished when they do those things. Indeed, many of them gain lots of riches and control over their fellow members of that species. Who would have thought?
Might be a superstition, who knows?/sarcasm mixed with truth
People are becoming more stupid since the internet took off. I don't blame the internet. I blame people.
BTW, my spell checker insists on capitalising "internet". It's not a proper noun, nor a trademark. Stop that. (nevermind the argument about the 'z' and 's')
Of course it does. I included quantum physics, as to the best of our (collective! see?) knowledge, it adequately describes (some aspects of) reality. The fact that the same initial conditions need not always lead to the same outcome is, IMHO, tangential to the question of free will.
Do you have a better explanation for the wide variation of human behaviour? Tangential? I don't think so. As you pointed out, we are governed by the same physical processes that govern the rest of the universe.
I think you need to question your basic assumptions a bit closer. No offence meant.
I know that I know nothing.;-)
I know nothing but what I observe...
But is territory really comparable to property? AFAIK animals only claim (and defend) the territory they need to survive, either alone or in a group. They don't (again AFAIK) have the tendency to claim ever bigger territories and use social constructs to defend them.
If what you said was true, then animals would not expand into new territories that would force them to evolve; which is obviously false.
BTW, humans are just animals - evolved ones, perhaps, but still just animals. There is little that differentiates us from the rest of the life on this planet other than our technology.
Nowwhere in his post does he say anything about requirements to check a firearm for a civilian.
His second paragraph - which I'm assuming you're referring to, rather than "second word" states:
And, unlike standard baggage, you have to use a lock and case THEY can't open... And if they want to see the contents, by their own regulations YOU have to be present! Make sure your cell # is plastered all over the case.
Which is only indirectly related to what I was asking. He states that it has to be locked up. Not whether or not one can check a firearm as a civilian. I've never flown, but personally, I don't travel anywhere without at least one sort of "personal weapon".
His "second word" is: "check"
Please review your reading comprehension as it relates to your posting.
Slashdot Mirror
Funnies aside...
Being groped without consent is equivalent to rape, regardless of whether it's my genitals that are being groped. Rape is not about sex, although that is often a part of the "act". It's about control over another person, and abuse of that control, and that is why the term has been used in many other contexts.
If the alternative to submitting to it is imprisonment or physical violence, what other term could one use?
SB
Go down kicking, screaming and fighting. If you don't, then you probably didn't have a life worth fighting for in the first place.
Personally I don't give a fuck for anything carrying the label of "popular choice".
SB
This is a good place to start.
SB
Dogs are much more in tune with human behavior than cats are.
Dogs are much more *outspoken* about it; doesn't necessarily mean they understand more ;)
I'll leave the comparisons to human society for the next wag.
SB
The Internet is made of cats!
Then there might be some hope for the future...
As to cats and their toilet habits, it may or may not be a comment on them that they almost universally prefer at least a little privacy when they are performing their ablutions.
They're almost... human... in that respect; excepting a considerable amount of paranoia, the sort that still has the human race segregating bathrooms according to gender, anyway ;)
I have a 23 lb furball here who will swat the bathroom door closed if he wants his privacy. He doesn't seem embarassed about it, either. ...
After reading so many comments tonight, I do have to remark that the "cat doubters" that are so often prevalent when these discussions come up elsewhere, are noticeably absent here... *g*
SB
Pack animals fighting over the last shards of a bone, more like.
SB
Much more, probably. Historically cats have been much more in the role of symbiotes, rather than parasites. By that I mean that cat colonies generally take of themselves, while performing the same vermin infestation control, while dogs have needed more overt control, lest they turn feral and prey on the very livestock that humans relied on, or humans themselves.
SB
I think the modern idea that cats have attitude just stems from the prevalence of spoiling of cats by modern families.
I think that it has more to do with humans being spoiled by social and cultural concepts of superiority, myself.
It cheers me to think that many of our "domesticated" cats still maintain a level of independence that would put most humans concepts of the same to shame.
One could hope that after we smash our civilization down to bedrock - which we are working very hard towards doing - that our domestic cats might, in the very distant future, manage to salvage something out of the mess that we made, and benefit from it. Who are we to say? As a species, we haven't even learned how not to shit in our own nest.
Maybe that's just me wishing for fishes, but as I am often told nowadays, I am more cat than human - and I take that as a compliment.
Besides, I just love fish... yummy!
SB
Maybe she's figured it out, but doesn't care. Humans tilt at windmills, too. We have many ancient mythologies built entirely around the concept, come to think of it, carried on by people who display less rationality than your cat does.
At least your cat isn't trying to push her point of view on the entire damned world at weapon's point.
SB
For pussy you might put up with a really annoying movie and listen to someone bitch about how all the women at work piss them off ;)
Or one could go have dinner and intellectual conversation with someone you might actually like to live with longer than 24 hours.
It's all about motivation ;)
SB
Too many people assume that the human concepts of motivation are those that every other living thing follow.
Survival is the only real ultimate motivation. How one does so does not necessarily define one's intelligence, except perhaps in the compromises one is willing to enter in to - and in that respect, cats win paws down over dogs. Freedom of choice is still something that us humans value as well, is it not?
SB
Cats in Modern America 2010 perform another function - helping keep the human race from making an entirely greedy self-centered arrogant fool of itself.
SB
SB
Your comments in this respect are by far the most intelligent ones I have seen on slashdot on this subject in many years. Thank you. I have observed the same as you, I'm just not quite so eloquent in saying so, I guess...
I think we're inherently misled by our own experience (and a lot of hubris, as is made obvious by human treatment of other animals in general.)
I've argued much the same for some time, but few humans listen - we have a societal/cultural bias towards superiority that blinds us to many things.
I'll add (amplify?) that variations in the individual's intelligence is just as prevalent in cats or dogs as it in human beings, or, for that matter, any mammal, and quite possibly any living creature.
Very few humans seem to realize just how much their environment determines their behavior... and just how little experiments inside of controlled environments can tell us about the existence or non- of free will.
agree; degrees of consciousness is closer than "yes" or "no",
If there were such thing as a "yes/no" point when it comes to consciousness, then the human race would not have the problems with mental handicaps, senility, etc, that it has. Anyone who has spent any time in a hospice with alzheimer's patients knows damned well that the line between consciousness and "irrationality" is a indefinably blurry one, and one that is not limited to what our society/culture considers "handicaps".
Our society/culture hardly has a good track record in treating it's own "cripples" as living, feeling beings ;(
SB
Coyotes... with rocket launchers mounted on their backs.
I'd vote for that.
SB
Because the local animal control was too busy trying to reduce the numbers of feral cats?
SB
Said coyote is in every sense an "illegal immigrant" except it's sanctioned by government employees ;-\
(Don't read any more in to that than just a joke, please, I don't play partisan asshole politics,for either side)
SB
Not following along with the radical consumerism insanity during the Big Holiday is unamerican, didn't you know?
SB
we could also spend 50 billion fixing the Katrina disaster
I haven't seen any recent figures, but I do know that federal funding for the cleanup has already cost at least four times that. Heck, here are some figures from 2006.
SB
We won't see the Puppeteers, they are long gone toward galactic north already.
On the other hand, by the time we detect the Pak fleets coming from the core, it'll already be too late... they kill technological civilizations in their path.
SB
Yeah, fantasies regarding supernatural mammalian-type beings seem to be very common among members of the human species. I even heard one about an invisible man in the sky who has a list of things that people shouldn't do, upon pain of punishment, but it doesn't seem that the ones who worship him get punished when they do those things. Indeed, many of them gain lots of riches and control over their fellow members of that species. Who would have thought?
Might be a superstition, who knows? /sarcasm mixed with truth
People are becoming more stupid since the internet took off. I don't blame the internet. I blame people.
BTW, my spell checker insists on capitalising "internet". It's not a proper noun, nor a trademark. Stop that. (nevermind the argument about the 'z' and 's')
SB
I meant tangential to the question of whether or not free will exists.
That you can even argue whether free will exists, implies free will.
As to whether it exists in individuals, I think you are going to have to figure that out for Yourself.
SB
Of course it does. I included quantum physics, as to the best of our (collective! see?) knowledge, it adequately describes (some aspects of) reality. The fact that the same initial conditions need not always lead to the same outcome is, IMHO, tangential to the question of free will.
Do you have a better explanation for the wide variation of human behaviour? Tangential? I don't think so. As you pointed out, we are governed by the same physical processes that govern the rest of the universe.
I think you need to question your basic assumptions a bit closer. No offence meant.
I know that I know nothing. ;-)
I know nothing but what I observe...
But is territory really comparable to property? AFAIK animals only claim (and defend) the territory they need to survive, either alone or in a group. They don't (again AFAIK) have the tendency to claim ever bigger territories and use social constructs to defend them.
If what you said was true, then animals would not expand into new territories that would force them to evolve; which is obviously false.
BTW, humans are just animals - evolved ones, perhaps, but still just animals. There is little that differentiates us from the rest of the life on this planet other than our technology.
SB
Nowwhere in his post does he say anything about requirements to check a firearm for a civilian.
His second paragraph - which I'm assuming you're referring to, rather than "second word" states:
And, unlike standard baggage, you have to use a lock and case THEY can't open... And if they want to see the contents, by their own regulations YOU have to be present! Make sure your cell # is plastered all over the case.
Which is only indirectly related to what I was asking. He states that it has to be locked up. Not whether or not one can check a firearm as a civilian. I've never flown, but personally, I don't travel anywhere without at least one sort of "personal weapon".
His "second word" is: "check"
Please review your reading comprehension as it relates to your posting.
SB
The fictional characters certainly didn't write it.
One has to remember that in the times these authors were living in, voicing opinions that ran against the status quo was social death to the writer.
Kind of like now.
SB