Something I've never understood is how the government got the money to pay for the war machines, bombs, and bullets. I mean, you hear all the time how that got us out of the depression, but it just doesn't add up.
You're forgetting:
The US wasn't the first to enter the war.
The US sold arms to other countries.
People in the US understood the need at the time and would thus tolerate high taxes and rationing. "Buy war bonds." How many people do you know that bought bonds to support the war in Iraq?
If they were made to last 100 years, they would cost twice as much and nobody would buy them.
Using that logic we'd all live in shantys that collapse every 5 years.
A reliable, long life car is something people want and would pay for, but no company I know of has really tried that business model. It sure would be a hell of a lot better for the environment. (Think how much energy it takes to build and recycle one car.)
The car would need to be highly modular to allow for periodic technology upgrades and styling updates and built using long-life materials (not steel), think boat construction materials.
Right now we can't even get manufacturers to use stainless steel for safety critical things like brake lines, let alone building the whole car from materials that last.
"dramatically reduced number of people needed to buy/intimidate" are also the ones that have to be involved.
No. To rig the election you need to get a small team on your side. To do the statistical analysis, you may need similar abilities, but it can be any one of thousands of such "teams". The buyoff/intimidation problem is still much harder.
Nevertheless, in a paperless society e-voting is a logical step that might as well be taken as secure as possible.
??????!!!!
translation: if we take my conclusion as a foregone conclusion, it is a logical conclusion
NO IT'S NOT.
There simply is no compelling reason for e-voting.
It's the user interface. It's intuitive, it's consistent across the platforms, it's responsive, and it's not butt-ugly.
I dare you to show me an actual study stating that. It's just as likely that people buy them because they're fashionable or because the media refers to "ipods" rather than "mp3 players" in virtually any article relating to digital music.
And the QC transfer hardware is built into the voting machines.... or are there two boxes and a non-QC link?
QC throws a lot of money and time at a part of the system that really doesn't need the help.
Voting machines are a terrible application for cryptography in the first place.
How the hell do I, even with my degree in electrical engineering, montior what the hell is going on inside a voting machine?
Voting should be done with paper. It's simple and also very difficult to rig on a large scale.
E-voting is retarded beacuse it dramatically reduces the number of people you need to buy/intimidate.
For example, I could build a counterfeit keyboard controller IC that would allow someone to rig elections by punching in the corrent 95 keystroke sequence. You'll only find that by depackaging the IC and examining it under an electron microscope. How many times do you think they'll do that?
The parent sounds like the people who still drive cars for transportation. At some point, folks, the world is going to move on to new technology whether or not it is environmentall friendly or you like it. I guess everyone has to make the decision to continue living life and embracing new technology or completely blocking it out and hoping it will go away. Sport utitity vehicles aren't going to go away, folks: they are going to multiply. We shouldn't try to stop SUV's, or to ignore them, we should try to work toward helping them get 5% better gas mileage. And I would take a Hummer over an Escalade any day.
The first car I bought was a used car. It was $8,000 at purchase price. Not too bad given milage/condition/etc (and I had it inspected by my own mechanic). However, over the next two and half years, I spent ANOTHER $8,000 getting the stupid thing fixed up, etc, etc.
Now let me ask you a question:
Do you actually believe this is typical?
It seems to me that you simply needed to do better research, and the you did not actually get a good price.
Have you consided actually learning more about cars yourself? Did you compaison shop for the best price when getting repairs?
In the USA, we have the best health care. Some people merely complain it's expensive.
By what measure?
I dare you to post a link to a compartive analysis of health care between the US and other first-world countries when the US was the clear leader.
Even if we have "cooler" procedures, it's quite likely that they're performed on the wrong person/organ and using the wrong medication here in the US. Every doctor's insured and doctors almost never loose their licenses so they don't worry about it.
And that doesn't even factor in the people who are left in crippling debt for the rest of their life.
If "weight" is a euphemism for ruling, then no. Experts should not be given "weight".
Actually yes they should. Unless you're some sort of crazy whack-job anarchist then you believe the SOMEONE must be in charge.
If you accept this, then the next task is to look for the best qualified person for the job.
Experts are not needed to make my choices for me.
Actually they make decisions all the time for you in these funny things called laws. Most of us members of society believe that laws are a good thing as the make sure someone else doesn't move into our house while were off at work for the day.
I'm pretty sure much of the devastation in our economy today is directly attributable to propeller heads, math majors, who took their computers to Wall Street and thought they could rule the world's economy using math, for example by writing algorithms to assess risk of Credit Default Swaps, and to use computerized trading to keep investment banks and hedge funds with 30 to 1 leverage from imploding. They failed. Maybe teaching math isn't always a good idea:)
Can you cite a single fact to back this up or are you just coming up with wild theories with nothing to back them up?
Computer modeling is going to give you more information, not less. It is still up to some greedy human to say, "Damn the risk, I want more money." I think it would be more likely they knew the risks and ignored it, since they get to keep their bonuses and comissions regardless of the success or failure of the company.
Not specfically, but that's exactly what you implied. In order for a bailout to have the effect you suggest, the people who actually determine the value (aka Wall Street) would have to understand less than you. Sure you can find people with money invested who don't understand what is going on, but a huge portion of the market is managed by professionals who do actual research.
some are very beholden to what the fickle masses think they should do.
But the public wasn't asking for this, the banks were. Public sentiment has been either mixed or overwhelminglyagainst.
I'm not defending the gold standard, just saying that now perception of value is much more fickle and salient
Can you prove that? People seem to forget that you can't actually eat gold, nor is it a practial building material. As a result, for gold to have value someone needs to have faith that someone else will believe it has value.
In a perfect world, we could let AIG, etc. fail, give some emergecy economic help to people who lost their homes, and wait for the market to recover, but because of how *perception* plays a part in our economy, this "bailout"...though in theory the wrong move, in practice was needed...almost like a commercial for how good our economy will be...
The problem with that argument is that it assumes you're the only one who "gets it" and that everyone else is a moron who will panic if we don't start throwing gobs of money around.
In reality, the guys on Wall Street are just as smart as you. They know the economy will recover. They would have bought these "toxic" debts if we the taxpayer did not. The reason we stepped in was twofold:
To limit the losses of these companies.
To prevent a decline in value of these debts.
The "OMG the sky will fall if we don't do something" theories are just nonsense. The value of these debts would have dropped, and the market would reach an new equilibrium. And BTW, perception drives any economy, even one based on the gold standard.
Do you have any idea how much produce would cost if people who pay taxes were picking it?
There, fixed that for you. People should earn a living wage and pay their taxes. If that means I eat one less salad this week, fine.
We need illegal mexicans to keep our system going
No we don't. The rich in this country would have fewer toys, but the working poor might actually be able to get jobs at a living wage. It's not exactly like like we're a full employment in this country anyways.
I'm not anti-immigrant. I want to put anyone on a bus to Mexico. I just want everyone to be "on the books".
Why bother to go through the 4 years of schooling to get a BS in something completely unrelated and THEN start learing about being a doctor?
Pre-meds should be taking every class possible that is closely realated to their chosen field.
Sadly most seem to be pre-occupied with taking easy classes and getting the highest grades possible so that they can get into a good school.
(And schools seem to be stupid enough to fall for this.)
Which, of course, I knew that in bringing up his name someone would come out of the woodwork and prove me correct.
So tell me this: How many scientific theories did Einstein have about religion?
How many did he publish formally or subject to experiments?
Einstein may have said a lot of things about religion but he was typically not acting as a scientist when he did so.
If Einstein had made broad sweeping generaizations with no evidence to back them and no coherent theory attached when discussing the migratory habits of Geese, these statments would be dismissed, not treated as great work by a great man. On the subject of religion people seem to accept anything a scientist says as "science" regardless of whether any of the criteria of the scientific process are followed.
To suggest that the metaphysical is outside the domain of science is to deny the reality of scientific ideas themselves.
Perhaps in a philosophy class full of crack pots. Many of us actually understand that the equivalent of "I have an invisible nerf ball that floats above my head and follows me everywhere I go." Is simply not science because it fails the basic criteria.
You're assuming that being a scientist has to be your primary definition in life, with all others subject to that.
No I'm treating scientist as a role, not as an all encompassing definition of any particular person.
There are rules for how a person assuming this role acts. Any person may abandon these rules, but they then cease to be a scientist for the purpose of any discussions where they have abandoned the rules.
It's not necessarily clear how to apply it to, for example, the existence or otherwise of the human soul
Actually it's pretty clear. First you need to define a theory. Things like the existence of the soul usually fail at this first step. It similar to my favorite theory: "I have an invisible nerf ball that floats above my head and follows me everywhere I go."
It's a perfectly valid "concept" but it is not a theory since it is BY DESIGN not falsifyable and makes no predictions. Science = 1, Nerf Ball = 0
Plently of scientists "think" that religion and science are compatible, BUT extermely few actually put forth a scientific argument to this effect.
The problem here is, if you're not walking the walk and talking the talk, you're not actually a scientist anymore.
If you claim that:
a. You're a scientist.
b. You believe in a particular religion.
c. These views are not mutually exclusive.
THEN YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO FRAME YOUR FAITH AS A SCIENTIFIC THEORY AND SUBJECT IT TO THE SCIENTIFIC PROCESS.
If not, then (for the purposes of this discussion) you are not a scientist. If you're not following the process, then you are no more a scientist than a person driving a truck is running a marathon. Either you're following the simple, clearly defined rules of the scientific process or you are not.
Scientific truth is not determined by how many people believe in something. Science is not a popularity contest. Einstein certainly wouldn't have made it very far if that was the case. It is defined by who has the "best" theory. Not who is the most popular, politcally correct, well-funded or well-spoken. The guy who's theory does no get disproven "wins".
It might be the responsibility of the Indian people to stand up against unjust laws, it is not the responsibility of a corporation like google. They are not even an Indian corporation.
That statement doesn't make any sense. It is the responsibility of all people to stand up against unjust laws period, whether done behind the unaccontable screen of a coporation, and regardless of whether they're in your home country.
The same logic you've applied, is just why things like the genocides in Armenia, Bosnia, Rwanda were allowed to happen. Human beings are human beings. It is our duty as decent people to help them. National boundaries do not change this simple fact. Hence why we're so interested in help out people in Burma, for example.
Your argument about Iraq is a false argument, since we did not go there to create a democracy, and our military actions routinely undermine any claims otherwise. If we actually cared about the Iraqi people, don't you think we'd at least bother to count how many of them we killed?
It is no place for Google to make judgements on which laws are unjust and which aren't, it is not their responsibility.
Actually, it IS.
It is the duty of every decent human being to evaluate their actions both inside and outside the context of law.
If you find that you actions would very immoral, yet legal, and you carry through anyways, you're a scumbag.
Say a law was passed tomorrow that reinstated forced sterilization in the US. Would you assist in rounding up unwed mothers or homosexuals?
Forced sterilization was the law in the US. It even withstood a challenge in the supreme court.
How do you think these laws get changed, because people just blindly comply and say "the law's the law"?
No it's still a fundamental issue with the patent system, because the presumption of validity needs to be dropped. Just as the copyright office can't examine every work ever produced to see if yours is unique, the patent office can't examine every idea or invention.
The concept that a bunch of patent examiners can perform this task is fundamentally flawed.
anonymous author, anonymous interview subject, obviously done as part of a high school assignment, very short, no details, and badly presented.
Funny, it seems that's what I see in a lot of professional journalism as well.
Seriously, how many times have you read an anonymous corporate press release reprinted verbatim in a newspaper?
This is a problem throughout our entire society, including adult professionals. It's gotten so bad that politicians will contradict established facts or even their own statements and no one has the nerve to call them on it.
Look at the whole WMD thing for example. Anonymous sources.. check. No details.. check. Badly presented.. check. All this is in front of the UN for any major media outlet to have a field day with.
If the educated, established professionals in our society want to bitch about poor standards when it comes to information, why not start at the top? Students are an easy target. Instead of bitching about how dumb they are, when not give them an example of how to act? What do you think your standards would be if you've been watching Fox News for the last 8 years?
And BTW, I cite wikipedia all the time. Why? Because everyone has access to it. That is more important for some mudane fact than hunting down whoever figured out the specfic gravity of mercury, or citing some ancient greek text containing the pythagorean theorem. People should critcally read all sources whether they are a peer-reviewed technical journal or some guy's blog. There are a lot of books in the library that are flat out wrong on various topics and college professors get things wrong all the time too.
Rules about not citing encyclopedias where created so that students would have to figure out how to use a library. They were not created because encyclopedias are unreliable sources of information. It's a simple case of knowing your audience. If you're writing to prove that you can do reseach, you have to cite sources that show you've done research. If you're writing a paper that contains well-established facts and is meant for consumption by people who don't have access to one of the best libraries in the world, you should cite refences they actually have a chance of using. For example, cite a college physics textbook rather than Newton's Pincipia.
No, that's not what's going on here, becuase one could ask for a much smaller, more reasonable, and relevant set of information to determine this.
There is zero need to look at private medical records for example. There will be no records of compensation there.
It's some jerk trying to make it dangerous and inconvenient to tell the truth.
The problem with your statement is that it ignores probability.
Even it it was punisable by death to have a "live" cellphone on a plane, it would still happen. People forget. Even if only one in ten thousand forget, that's enough to guarantee that there will be multiple active cellphones in the sky at a given point in time.
Simply put, if this was really the problem people make it out to be, planes would be dropping out of the sky like flies. It's possible to theorize about all sorts of crazy instances where something bad might happen, but the reality is:
If there was a significant problem, we'd already be seeing it. Just think about how many people carry a cellphone on their person every waking hour of their day. Then pick some small percentage of people who will forget to turn them off. Even 0.001%. You would still end up with phones in the sky all over the place.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, there seem to be two typical outcomes:
You're forgetting:
If they were made to last 100 years, they would cost twice as much and nobody would buy them.
Using that logic we'd all live in shantys that collapse every 5 years.
A reliable, long life car is something people want and would pay for, but no company I know of has really tried that business model. It sure would be a hell of a lot better for the environment. (Think how much energy it takes to build and recycle one car.)
The car would need to be highly modular to allow for periodic technology upgrades and styling updates and built using long-life materials (not steel), think boat construction materials.
Right now we can't even get manufacturers to use stainless steel for safety critical things like brake lines, let alone building the whole car from materials that last.
"dramatically reduced number of people needed to buy/intimidate" are also the ones that have to be involved.
No. To rig the election you need to get a small team on your side. To do the statistical analysis, you may need similar abilities, but it can be any one of thousands of such "teams". The buyoff/intimidation problem is still much harder.
Nevertheless, in a paperless society e-voting is a logical step that might as well be taken as secure as possible.
??????!!!!
translation: if we take my conclusion as a foregone conclusion, it is a logical conclusion
NO IT'S NOT.
There simply is no compelling reason for e-voting.
It's the user interface. It's intuitive, it's consistent across the platforms, it's responsive, and it's not butt-ugly.
I dare you to show me an actual study stating that. It's just as likely that people buy them because they're fashionable or because the media refers to "ipods" rather than "mp3 players" in virtually any article relating to digital music.
And the QC transfer hardware is built into the voting machines.... or are there two boxes and a non-QC link?
QC throws a lot of money and time at a part of the system that really doesn't need the help.
Voting machines are a terrible application for cryptography in the first place.
How the hell do I, even with my degree in electrical engineering, montior what the hell is going on inside a voting machine?
Voting should be done with paper. It's simple and also very difficult to rig on a large scale.
E-voting is retarded beacuse it dramatically reduces the number of people you need to buy/intimidate.
For example, I could build a counterfeit keyboard controller IC that would allow someone to rig elections by punching in the corrent 95 keystroke sequence. You'll only find that by depackaging the IC and examining it under an electron microscope. How many times do you think they'll do that?
The parent sounds like the people who still drive cars for transportation. At some point, folks, the world is going to move on to new technology whether or not it is environmentall friendly or you like it. I guess everyone has to make the decision to continue living life and embracing new technology or completely blocking it out and hoping it will go away. Sport utitity vehicles aren't going to go away, folks: they are going to multiply. We shouldn't try to stop SUV's, or to ignore them, we should try to work toward helping them get 5% better gas mileage. And I would take a Hummer over an Escalade any day.
The first car I bought was a used car. It was $8,000 at purchase price. Not too bad given milage/condition/etc (and I had it inspected by my own mechanic). However, over the next two and half years, I spent ANOTHER $8,000 getting the stupid thing fixed up, etc, etc.
Now let me ask you a question:
Do you actually believe this is typical?
It seems to me that you simply needed to do better research, and the you did not actually get a good price.
Have you consided actually learning more about cars yourself? Did you compaison shop for the best price when getting repairs?
In the USA, we have the best health care. Some people merely complain it's expensive.
By what measure?
I dare you to post a link to a compartive analysis of health care between the US and other first-world countries when the US was the clear leader.
Even if we have "cooler" procedures, it's quite likely that they're performed on the wrong person/organ and using the wrong medication here in the US. Every doctor's insured and doctors almost never loose their licenses so they don't worry about it.
And that doesn't even factor in the people who are left in crippling debt for the rest of their life.
If "weight" is a euphemism for ruling, then no. Experts should not be given "weight".
Actually yes they should. Unless you're some sort of crazy whack-job anarchist then you believe the SOMEONE must be in charge.
If you accept this, then the next task is to look for the best qualified person for the job.
Experts are not needed to make my choices for me.
Actually they make decisions all the time for you in these funny things called laws. Most of us members of society believe that laws are a good thing as the make sure someone else doesn't move into our house while were off at work for the day.
I'm pretty sure much of the devastation in our economy today is directly attributable to propeller heads, math majors, who took their computers to Wall Street and thought they could rule the world's economy using math, for example by writing algorithms to assess risk of Credit Default Swaps, and to use computerized trading to keep investment banks and hedge funds with 30 to 1 leverage from imploding. They failed. Maybe teaching math isn't always a good idea :)
Can you cite a single fact to back this up or are you just coming up with wild theories with nothing to back them up?
Computer modeling is going to give you more information, not less. It is still up to some greedy human to say, "Damn the risk, I want more money." I think it would be more likely they knew the risks and ignored it, since they get to keep their bonuses and comissions regardless of the success or failure of the company.
Straw man...I never said that.
Not specfically, but that's exactly what you implied. In order for a bailout to have the effect you suggest, the people who actually determine the value (aka Wall Street) would have to understand less than you. Sure you can find people with money invested who don't understand what is going on, but a huge portion of the market is managed by professionals who do actual research.
some are very beholden to what the fickle masses think they should do.
But the public wasn't asking for this, the banks were. Public sentiment has been either mixed or overwhelmingly against.
I'm not defending the gold standard, just saying that now perception of value is much more fickle and salient
Can you prove that? People seem to forget that you can't actually eat gold, nor is it a practial building material. As a result, for gold to have value someone needs to have faith that someone else will believe it has value.
The problem with that argument is that it assumes you're the only one who "gets it" and that everyone else is a moron who will panic if we don't start throwing gobs of money around.
In reality, the guys on Wall Street are just as smart as you. They know the economy will recover. They would have bought these "toxic" debts if we the taxpayer did not. The reason we stepped in was twofold:
The "OMG the sky will fall if we don't do something" theories are just nonsense. The value of these debts would have dropped, and the market would reach an new equilibrium. And BTW, perception drives any economy, even one based on the gold standard.
Do you have any idea how much produce would cost if people who pay taxes were picking it?
There, fixed that for you. People should earn a living wage and pay their taxes. If that means I eat one less salad this week, fine.
We need illegal mexicans to keep our system going
No we don't. The rich in this country would have fewer toys, but the working poor might actually be able to get jobs at a living wage. It's not exactly like like we're a full employment in this country anyways.
I'm not anti-immigrant. I want to put anyone on a bus to Mexico. I just want everyone to be "on the books".
Why bother to go through the 4 years of schooling to get a BS in something completely unrelated and THEN start learing about being a doctor?
Pre-meds should be taking every class possible that is closely realated to their chosen field.
Sadly most seem to be pre-occupied with taking easy classes and getting the highest grades possible so that they can get into a good school.
(And schools seem to be stupid enough to fall for this.)
Albert Einstein had a lot to say about religion
Which, of course, I knew that in bringing up his name someone would come out of the woodwork and prove me correct.
So tell me this: How many scientific theories did Einstein have about religion?
How many did he publish formally or subject to experiments?
Einstein may have said a lot of things about religion but he was typically not acting as a scientist when he did so.
If Einstein had made broad sweeping generaizations with no evidence to back them and no coherent theory attached when discussing the migratory habits of Geese, these statments would be dismissed, not treated as great work by a great man. On the subject of religion people seem to accept anything a scientist says as "science" regardless of whether any of the criteria of the scientific process are followed.
To suggest that the metaphysical is outside the domain of science is to deny the reality of scientific ideas themselves.
Perhaps in a philosophy class full of crack pots. Many of us actually understand that the equivalent of "I have an invisible nerf ball that floats above my head and follows me everywhere I go." Is simply not science because it fails the basic criteria.
You're assuming that being a scientist has to be your primary definition in life, with all others subject to that.
No I'm treating scientist as a role, not as an all encompassing definition of any particular person.
There are rules for how a person assuming this role acts. Any person may abandon these rules, but they then cease to be a scientist for the purpose of any discussions where they have abandoned the rules.
It's not necessarily clear how to apply it to, for example, the existence or otherwise of the human soul
Actually it's pretty clear. First you need to define a theory. Things like the existence of the soul usually fail at this first step. It similar to my favorite theory: "I have an invisible nerf ball that floats above my head and follows me everywhere I go."
It's a perfectly valid "concept" but it is not a theory since it is BY DESIGN not falsifyable and makes no predictions. Science = 1, Nerf Ball = 0
Plently of scientists "think" that religion and science are compatible, BUT extermely few actually put forth a scientific argument to this effect.
The problem here is, if you're not walking the walk and talking the talk, you're not actually a scientist anymore.
If you claim that:
a. You're a scientist.
b. You believe in a particular religion.
c. These views are not mutually exclusive.
THEN YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO FRAME YOUR FAITH AS A SCIENTIFIC THEORY AND SUBJECT IT TO THE SCIENTIFIC PROCESS.
If not, then (for the purposes of this discussion) you are not a scientist.
If you're not following the process, then you are no more a scientist than a person driving a truck is running a marathon. Either you're following the simple, clearly defined rules of the scientific process or you are not.
Scientific truth is not determined by how many people believe in something. Science is not a popularity contest. Einstein certainly wouldn't have made it very far if that was the case. It is defined by who has the "best" theory. Not who is the most popular, politcally correct, well-funded or well-spoken. The guy who's theory does no get disproven "wins".
What about research or education? Inspecting bridges? Salvage operations? There are other useful purposes for a submarine besides killing people.
It might be the responsibility of the Indian people to stand up against unjust laws, it is not the responsibility of a corporation like google. They are not even an Indian corporation.
That statement doesn't make any sense. It is the responsibility of all people to stand up against unjust laws period, whether done behind the unaccontable screen of a coporation, and regardless of whether they're in your home country.
The same logic you've applied, is just why things like the genocides in Armenia, Bosnia, Rwanda were allowed to happen. Human beings are human beings. It is our duty as decent people to help them. National boundaries do not change this simple fact. Hence why we're so interested in help out people in Burma, for example.
Your argument about Iraq is a false argument, since we did not go there to create a democracy, and our military actions routinely undermine any claims otherwise. If we actually cared about the Iraqi people, don't you think we'd at least bother to count how many of them we killed?
It is no place for Google to make judgements on which laws are unjust and which aren't, it is not their responsibility.
Actually, it IS.
It is the duty of every decent human being to evaluate their actions both inside and outside the context of law.
If you find that you actions would very immoral, yet legal, and you carry through anyways, you're a scumbag.
Say a law was passed tomorrow that reinstated forced sterilization in the US. Would you assist in rounding up unwed mothers or homosexuals?
Forced sterilization was the law in the US. It even withstood a challenge in the supreme court.
How do you think these laws get changed, because people just blindly comply and say "the law's the law"?
No it's still a fundamental issue with the patent system, because the presumption of validity needs to be dropped. Just as the copyright office can't examine every work ever produced to see if yours is unique, the patent office can't examine every idea or invention.
The concept that a bunch of patent examiners can perform this task is fundamentally flawed.
anonymous author, anonymous interview subject, obviously done as part of a high school assignment, very short, no details, and badly presented.
Funny, it seems that's what I see in a lot of professional journalism as well.
Seriously, how many times have you read an anonymous corporate press release reprinted verbatim in a newspaper?
This is a problem throughout our entire society, including adult professionals. It's gotten so bad that politicians will contradict established facts or even their own statements and no one has the nerve to call them on it.
Look at the whole WMD thing for example. Anonymous sources.. check. No details.. check. Badly presented.. check. All this is in front of the UN for any major media outlet to have a field day with.
If the educated, established professionals in our society want to bitch about poor standards when it comes to information, why not start at the top? Students are an easy target. Instead of bitching about how dumb they are, when not give them an example of how to act? What do you think your standards would be if you've been watching Fox News for the last 8 years?
And BTW, I cite wikipedia all the time. Why? Because everyone has access to it. That is more important for some mudane fact than hunting down whoever figured out the specfic gravity of mercury, or citing some ancient greek text containing the pythagorean theorem. People should critcally read all sources whether they are a peer-reviewed technical journal or some guy's blog. There are a lot of books in the library that are flat out wrong on various topics and college professors get things wrong all the time too.
Rules about not citing encyclopedias where created so that students would have to figure out how to use a library. They were not created because encyclopedias are unreliable sources of information. It's a simple case of knowing your audience. If you're writing to prove that you can do reseach, you have to cite sources that show you've done research. If you're writing a paper that contains well-established facts and is meant for consumption by people who don't have access to one of the best libraries in the world, you should cite refences they actually have a chance of using. For example, cite a college physics textbook rather than Newton's Pincipia.
No, that's not what's going on here, becuase one could ask for a much smaller, more reasonable, and relevant set of information to determine this. There is zero need to look at private medical records for example. There will be no records of compensation there. It's some jerk trying to make it dangerous and inconvenient to tell the truth.
The problem with your statement is that it ignores probability.
Even it it was punisable by death to have a "live" cellphone on a plane, it would still happen.
People forget. Even if only one in ten thousand forget, that's enough to guarantee that there will be multiple active cellphones in the sky at a given point in time.
Simply put, if this was really the problem people make it out to be, planes would be dropping out of the sky like flies. It's possible to theorize about all sorts of crazy instances where something bad might happen, but the reality is:
If there was a significant problem, we'd already be seeing it. Just think about how many people carry a cellphone on their person every waking hour of their day. Then pick some small percentage of people who will forget to turn them off. Even 0.001%. You would still end up with phones in the sky all over the place.