A public traded company, must (yes must) maximize the profit of its shareholders.
False. Even without clarifying your statement to include "legal profit", other concerns can be placed above the interests of the shareholders as long as they are clearly communicated (usually in the bylaws of the corporate charter).
Just because most (almost all) companies choose to put profit above all other concerns doesn't mean that all companies do. Or should.
You could try to create a game with some random rules and ask the other side to participate.
Now *that* is a good idea. Tough part is being smart enough to make up a decent game on the fly. Your game is a really good one, but if people use it often enough, it will be incorporated into the test-passing "fake AI" code. Which pretty much rules out Yahoo Mail using it as a captcha replacement.
But for a one-to-one test, something like that sounds nigh-on unbeatable. Until the AI's really are smart, at which point, the question is moot (which goes to your second point).
Thank you for responding to my question. I really appreciate hearing from a different perspective. My summary of your issues is: 1) Many/most PTO policies don't add up to the same number of days, which is unfair (agree) 2) Some employees abuse the additional freedom of the PTO policy and end up coming to work sick (agree, see discussion below).
From my perspective, people need to take vacations. It's important for productivity and also good mental health. It's also important that sick people don't come to work, as that has a negative impact on productivity, as well as the possibility of spreading illness.
I absolutely agree with both of these points. It is also my experience (based on admittedly limited evidence) that it's fairly straightforward to convince smart employees of the wisdom of both of your primary arguments.
If you give people a bank of time that they can use as either sick time or vacation time, most of them will want to use it as vacation time and therefore show up to work sick more often.
I agree that there will be a few vacation junkies who always have their PTO account maxed out. Two parts of the PTO policy go a long way to working with these individuals and allowing them to take sick days when needed. First, you can go negative on PTO, up to 40 hours, with only a verbal affirmation from your boss. Second, you can go beyond the normal -40 hour PTO limit, but you have to have a little "please explain" meeting to figure out what's going on.
Very shortly, these discussions revolve around professional behavior, responsible use of PTO time, and culture fit with the rest of the organization. Typhoid Mary would be told to go home when she showed up sick, and if she protested, just let her know that she needs to put a hold on vacations for a little while and her PTO would return to positive in very short order. If she still protested, perhaps this isn't the company for her.
As you mentioned, someone who is really sick (or normally healthy, but happens to have a bad health year) might burn all of their PTO time as sick days and be left with nothing for vacation. This is bad for productivity and mental health as noted above.
This isn't changed by going back to separate sick + vacation days. Once the sick days are used up, they'll start taking vacation days to avoid the pay cut of short and long term disability. This type of employee loses nothing between the two policies.
Finally, most employers do not offer the same number of PTO days as they would have offerred as separate sick and vacation time days (because inevitably some healthy first-year employee will take a month's vacation).
I agree that adding vacation and sick days up to a smaller number of PTO days is wrong. Who cares if a first-year employee takes a month off? If he's accumulated the PTO, it's his to spend.
To avoid disruptions to the schedule, I do ask employees to be responsible to their teammates and to please try not to schedule long vacations just before important dates (and we'll schedule deliverables around favorable vacation times). I also ask for fair warning on planned vacations: If you want a week off, try to give two weeks notice. If you want a month off, try to give a head's up two months before. If you want a day off, give a few days warning. I'm not a stickler for paperwork, but I do think there are ethical ways to treat your employer and your coworkers.
Also, in many companies the number of vacation days allowed increases with years of service, where in PTO-only companies I have noticed that the increases come more slowly.
This is an interesting point. Personally, I don't value seniority all that much, perhaps because I tend to only stay at jobs for two to three years and have never had seniority on a job. I think that there is a sea-change happening on this issue, and that many companies are increasing the benefits of new hires and minimizing the impact of seniority on benefits in order to attract more experienced employees.
It had been my plan to offer 20 days/year of PTO for all employees and have no adjustments for seniority. I think I'll solicit more opinions on that subject and see what I can learn.
my employer lumps sick and vacation time together as PTO, which is a horrible thing to do
Could you explain why you feel that way? I had a previous employer who did that and I loved it. My coworkers also liked it, to the point that you're the first person I've heard (read) who didn't like it, and as a result, I am currently planning on implementing a similar policy at my shiny new startup.
From my perspective...
Pros:
Simplify the ethics of calling in sick. You wanna take a mental health day? Take it.
Employees who happen to be healthy gain extra vacation time by virtue of not losing sick days that they can't use.
Employees who occasionally get sick lose nothing. They get about as much vacation as they would have with separate categories.
Employees who get really sick lose nothing. If they need the time, they can still use vacation time and short term disability to keep the pay coming in while they're down.
Cons:
Employees may feel motivated not to take sick days they really should because it might cut into their vacation plans.
I honestly can't come up with any other downsides, and the one downside can be managed with a few discussions about professional responsibility and why we use PTO instead of vacation + sick days... As long as a particular company doesn't do creative math to come up with the amount of PTO (it should be the same size as the vacation and sick days combined, not less), I can't see why employees would possibly object to being able to use sick days as they see fit.
Perhaps I should have specified "on level pavement". On uphill sections, even gentle grades, maintaining 20mph isn't going to be practical unless you're pretty fit and in good form.
I do believe that being able to maintain a reasonable speed is essential in order to be safe, and if you can't maintain a speed that won't frustrate car drivers, then I suggest limiting your riding to roads with dedicated bicycle lanes and clean, wide shoulders until you are fit enough to "get on the road". Not judgemental, as I need to do some practice riding to get back to that state myself...
The bottom 40-80% of cross country bicyclists maintain an average of 20mph for rides of 40-100 miles and more. The best riders are obviously faster. This is not an impossible goal, though it certainly will be a challenge for the average American.
The only roads where it's illegal to ride a bike are limited-access highways that are posted as prohibiting bicycles.
Otherwise, it's not illegal, and it's just about as dangerous as driving a car on the same roads.
Plan your route to stay on back roads with speed limits of 35 or less (occasionally up to 45, but try to avoid these if possible). When riding on roads without dedicated bicycle lanes, you should tend to ride in the middle of the lane, to discourage cars from trying to share the lane with you. You may wish to move over and allow cars to pass when it is safe for you to do so (wide shoulder, middle turning lane, etc.). You should be able to sustain a pace of 20mph or faster, you should have high visibility lighting (not just reflectors) in the front and back of your bike, and your clothing/pack should be made from brightly colored fabric with reflective material for additional visibility.
Don't worry yourself on this one. Your article was was well organized, interesting, and incisive. I particularly appreciated the slightly humorous questions from the listener's POV which divided the lengthy content into comfortably sized, encapsulated pieces.
Keep writing how you write. It's clear you're doing just fine. I could offer criticism, but it would only be at the grammar-nazi level, not at the clarity of writing level (and I hate grammar-nazi's, so I won't do that to you).
Do you really think these guys would give their really choice ideas for free?
Yes. Everyone has a few great ideas floating around, but very few have what it takes to convert a good idea into a viable enterprise. Being able to lead people, make a plan, ignore the plan, and ultimately being willing to do what it takes to make a success of a good idea are a vanishingly rare set of skills.
Concluding that Yahoo's index has to be smaller because they return fewer results seems a bit overzealous.
No, it's accurate. They're testing Yahoo's claim of how many pages they've indexed, which just means that all indexed pages that contain the requested words should be returned from the search request. If yahoo returns fewer unique pages, yahoo has indexed fewer pages.
What you're talking about is measuring the effectiveness of page ranking, which is a completely different measure of how good a search engine is. Note: Google wins on that measure too.
Oh, and I'm sorry about the situation you described earlier. The biggest and most frustrating thing about the world is that it really isn't fair and some of the worst things happen to the nicest people.
Here's hoping you can find a way to get out from wage-slavery (that's what it really is, even for well-paid wage-slaves) and to a state of independence.
I'm trying to do that very thing, and I'm doing my honest personal best not to screw anyone over in the process of achieving independence. The day to day reality of working for a wage in a job that I dislike just so I can pay the bills tires me out. One of these days, I'm hoping that all of this work in the evenings to make something better for myself (and others) will pay off.
I see what you're trying to say- that labor is the basic value of money
Not exactly, though you're a lot closer than the other poster. I hate to disappoint you, and though I do really like much of what Marx wrote, I'm not a Marxist.
I assert that the value of money comes from the value added to resources and products, expressed through the differences in the costs that go into the product and the revenues captured when the product is sold. The difference is measured as profit, which is aggregated into the value of the enterprise as measured by its investors.
If there are 1000 investors who each put $1000 into a new enterprise, then before any work is done, the company is worth one million $US. Everyone agrees that their shares are all worth $1000. That company then makes a product and a few years later is moderately successful. By coincidence, after covering payroll and all of the debts it has, there's just about a million dollars in the bank. At this point, let's assume that other eager investors are offering $5000 per share to anyone willing to sell and some investors do sell. The stock price is now $5000 and the company's value is five million. What happened there? Where did the difference between the earlier $1000 and the new price of $5000 come from?
What was worth one million is now worth five million, but nobody at the company has been making funny money in the back. Somehow, the value of a constructed thing, a company, gained four million dollars. And there's a million dollars in the bank to pay back everyone's original investment, so this four million dollar increase is a bonus, some sort of excess. What happened was the company demonstrated a profit, a difference between its costs and its revenues, and the total expected sum of those profits for the rest of time is what those potential investors are valuing at four million more than the money in the bank.
The four million dollars was created in the potential profit from the value added by the company in its product or service.
Other places where the value of money is created is in the changing value of natural resources, including raw materials and real estate.
This value now held by the company is not only from the workers, however. The investors who provided the original investment that bought the offices and equipment where the work could be done provided value. The entrepreneur who convinced the investors to part with their money and who hired the workers who could do the work provided value.
the stockbroker and the banker are paid the best of any employee in this economy, but they produce no actual goods.
These two jobs are certainly strange ones. The stockbroker in particular, made his money from a legislated scarcity--controlled access to financial risk. The stockbroker is on the way out, however. With discount brokers now charging barely more than the transaction cost of keeping track of who owns what, the "full service" broker can be clearly seen for the scam artists they are. The banker, like the investor and the factor, makes money from access to money. Like the factor, however, his value is taken "per transaction" instead of being involved in and accepting the risk of whether the company does well. He's only interested in the debtor's ability to repay the debt. But make no mistake, access to money now in exchange for money later is a valuable service and taking a cut of the "time value of money" is more than fair, it's a good thing.
in the last 150 years, a small minority of people have been working very hard to change that- by use of cartels, monopolies, and multinational corporations. And they've succeeded- we've lost the war for a free market.
Well, a "free" market can either be free in that buyers and sellers are free to do what they like (and the people who are the workers and consumers end up with very little actual freedom) or "free" in that it supports a goal of maximizing freedom, which means that there are a
Whoops. All the gold standard did was tie the dollar to a quantity of a somewhat rare mineral.
If we were on a gold standard and all of the people died tomorrow, how much gold would a gallon of milk be worth? The gold standard doesn't change the answer to your question.
Economics is always about an agreed upon valuation. Which you're calling a myth because you think that gold has intrinsic value. But it doesn't, so that theory's kinda kaput.
And whew! Talk about an unstable system. The current system offers a lot more of a tie to "reality" than the gold standard ever did.
And thus, when you have more people, the per capita share of resources goes DOWN, not up.
But the real price of the goods needed for survival, as a fraction of income, has been going down for all of recorded history (with some local bumps around depressions, recessions, revolutions, wars, etc.). Which means that the amount of effort needed to obtain the same minimal standard of living has been decreasing over the centuries, at the same time that the population has been going up and up (and UP). So something's not right about your assertion...
we just SAY it has value with no real objective inherant value at all.
Nothing has "real objective inherant[sic]" value. Even the simplest of natural resources has to be identified as useful and put to use before it has intrinsic value. As soon as everyone (or even just two people) agree that something has value, it has economic value. Just because economic value is a piece of information instead of a piece of matter doesn't make it any less real.
If you're insisting on some objective measure of economic value, it is even more clear why you think economics is all a sham. You really need to do a little reading on the subject, because your argument starts from your ignorance, and as a result, you aren't even speaking the same language as the people you're discussing economics with in this thread.
a shared myth.
You're SOOOO close! All you have to do is look around and understand that most of the activity you see happens because of the power behind that "shared myth" to start to grasp what's going on in economics... You're sooo close. Just give up on the "objective" bit and you'll be on your way...
Rather than just slam you, I'll give you a great pointer to getting started on that reading. A great start to learning what economics is all about might be "Economics in One Lesson". If you're in western LA, reply to this and I'll lend you my copy.
In order for me to become rich, I do not have to make someone else poor.
Prove it- do it. I've yet to see anybody become rich without making somebody else poor.
I suggest you try to understand where the value behind money comes from. When I say "the value behind money", I'm referring to everyone's ability to make consistent (but not identical) pricing decisions ($3 can be exchanged for a gallon of milk most places in the continental US). Why is $3 worth about the same as a gallon of milk? It is clear from your remark that you lack understanding of that very important economic process.
I suspect that you feel that the whole thing is a house of cards with no foundation. While there are some assumptions being made, that if incorrect, could destabilize the system (if arabian oil field stocks are much closer to depletion than is currently being estimated), but most of it actually is built on a sane foundation. It's just not the easiest foundation to understand. The value of money comes from somewhere. It has to represent something, otherwise there would be nothing for people to agree on, especially in currency exchanges (leading to the highly related question: What might be happening behind the scene when currency traders to decide the dollar gained or lost value against another currency?)
Cirque de Soleil employees and investors have made money without forcing anyone into the poorhouse. Their ticket buyers do not exchange their ability to pay the rent and stay off the street with the decision to go see Cirque tonight. Typical circuses have been in decline in North America for decades and Cirque did not alter that trend in the slightest. And yet, wealth was created... (Oops, I almost gave away the answer!)
Economics is not a zero sum game in all time frames except for the VERY long term (your point about limited resources does put an eventual limit on the sum, assuming we don't go off-planet and eventually open up the entire universe to economic exploitation). If you're actually interested in joining in this discussion from a more informed perspective, you really should learn where the value behind money comes from. The answers might suprise you and restore a little of what appears to be lost faith in the economic system.
Sorry to be the annoying English teacher from 9th grade here but something can't be "pretty unique" or "very unique". It's either unique or it isn't.
Proper English should be left in the classroom where it is taught. What people speak (and write) in the real world is what matters. Pretty much everyone except the pedants understand that something different is meant by "pretty unique" (the design is not really unique, but it is original in that it brings together many existing good ideas) instead of just saying "unique".
When people use modifiers to "unique", they are describing or qualifying those aspects that make the subject unique. If someone describes another person's hair as "extremely unique", they mean to communicate that the hair is unique in a way that is worth describing differently from how the other person's fingerprints are unique.
There are degrees of uniqueness, even if the grammar nazi's haven't yet gotten around to modifying "Proper English" to acknowledge it yet. The same goes for ending sentences in prepositions, using the passive tense in sentences (up yours, Microsoft grammar check!), and all sorts of other ways in which english continues to change over time.
Trying to force people to use yesterday's rules for their verbal and written communication simply doesn't work. The rules will eventually change to match how people communicate. And that's the way things ought to work.
El Guapo: Would you say I have a plethora of piñatas? -long, confused pause- Jefe: Yes, El Guapo. You have a plethora. El Guapo: Jefe, what is a plethora? Jefe: Why El Guapo? El Guapo: Well, I would just like to know if you know what a plethora is because you believe I have a plethora Jefe: Sorry El Guapo, I, Jefe, do not have your superior intellect or education. Could it be you are angry about something and are looking to take it out on me? El Guapo: Like what Jefe? Jefe: Maybe it's because you are turning 40 today?
True Christians attempt to live moral lives to please their god not avoid his wrath.
Christianity is not a single organization or group of beliefs, though most modern Christians do share a set of core beliefs. "True" Christianity is extraordinarily tough to nail down since there are so many claiming that their beliefs are "True" and others are "mistaken", "misguided" or "apostate" depending on the degree of disagreement. Through the ages, however, Christianity has always worked to add two meta-goals to believer's moral thinking. 1) You should fear the future if you live without righteousness and 2) you should love God and live in harmony with His wishes.
There is an obvious tension between those two statements and different groups at different times have chosen different ways to convince people of the necessity and benefits of belief. Even as recently as fifty years ago, "god-fearing" was synonymous with "righteous" across most of the U.S. You could put the "fear of God" into someone to scare them into doing the right thing... Sayings like those arise naturally from the culture, and they carry truths about that culture.
Today, there are fewer groups who strongly emphasize the "fear God" meta-goal, but they still exist, they are firmly convinced that they are "True" Christians and they are likely to treat your assertions about "True" Christianity with some suspicion. I have big problems with those people and the messages they spread.
You have taken the exceptions and formed rules that are not accurate.
My conclusion is that demonstrating morality within the rubric of "fear-based" Christianity can interfere with people's moral development, to the point of contributing to severe decision making problems later in life. You asserted that there was no such thing as "fear-based" Christianity. I think you'll have to agree after these discussions that such a beast really does exist, though I know you don't feel that fear is the right tool to spread the good word. I tried to be very careful to qualify the aspects of Christianity that I have a problem with and if you look at my original post, I never wrote just "Christianity", but qualified my criticism with "fear-based Christianity".
But don't discount any religions ability to aid in righting these social wrongs.
I think that religion is very helpful to many people who never did get an effective moral education as a child (and helpful for other situations besides just that). It certainly helped me. I also think that there are ways of improving upon what Christianity currently provides in the way of moral education (i.e. replace "sin" with "self-destructive behavior" or "bad for you" for more precision and fewer assumptions about exactly what you believe).
At this point, I'm hoping you still don't see me as a "slack jawed ignoramus":) I have put a great deal of thought into what I believe and why, and Christianity has played a significant (and mostly positive) role in my personal history, so I'm not insensitive to what you're saying.
Why do you think the various religions were invented in the first place?
An excellent question. My position is that organized religions naturally appear as a method of control and accumulating cultural/political power. They achieve this by assuming the mantle of authority on right and wrong. If their story is good, the religion can convince others. If their story is really good, the religion can continue across generations. If the story can change and the religion can maintain the appearance of ultimate knowledge, the religion can continue almost indefinitely.
The history of Christianity is quite fascinating. It's amazing to me how many aspects of modern Christian dogma appeared hundreds of years after all of the biblical authors died (ref. the holy Trinity and Emperor Constantine).
All of which has nothing to do with how parents can interfere with their children's moral development and set the stage for adults with problems making sound decisions. Religion doesn't bring morality. At best, religion can reinforce effective ethics. At worst, it interferes with and prevents the exploration of effective ethics, usually when it demands moral orthodoxy.
the church most certainly allows for the dismissal of damnation. So, either way you look at it where does the fear play in?
The assertion that "there is damnation if you aren't righteous" is where the fear "plays in".
I will explain in more detail with the hope that it will will make you feel less persecuted by us non-Christians (although, I will also admit that I find it truly amazing that the most powerful group in the country manages to spin honest and thoughtful disagreement as 'persecution'.). Restating the central point of my original posting, I assert that thieves don't seem to place value on long-term goals and that they appear to learn lessons that discount long-term goals when young. Lessons learned from parents who may have used teaching techniques that prevented the normal, natural, moral inquisitiveness of children from reaching the best (or even adequate) conclusions.
Many parents and community leaders understand that morality is actually "informed decision making" and strive to provide plenty of real-world examples, lessons, and explanations to children with questions about right and wrong. There are some other parents who do not have this insight and who think that morality is a set of rules that minimizes how annoying and troublesome children can be. Parents who agree with this are likely to teach morality with statements like, "because I said so" or a threat of corporal punishment, and not only when tired or time is short. Irresponsible church-going parents will occasionally substitute "because God/Jesus said so" and various statements that more or less explicitly raise the issue of being a sinner and the threat of eternal damnation. In some churches, this fear-based moral "teaching" continues in Sunday school and youth groups. Individuals from some sects (Calvinist sects, for one) even continue this dogma through adulthood.
At this point, you're getting steamed because I'm not mentioning how Jesus's sacrifice on the cross means that you can make all the mistakes you want and you're still saved as long as you believe in him (where "believe" means something more significant than "I believe I'll have another beer."). I'm not forgetting it, I'm being honest about how parents teach morals. If you give kids a "get out of jail free" card, which is how they will perceive "believe in Jesus", they will use it every time they don't want to follow a rule. The same parents who want their kids to not annoy them won't bring this up.
If you're an irresponsible parent who has so little time for teaching your children that you actually interfere with their moral lessons, then you're contributing to the problem of moral decay, whether or not you're a Christian. If parents universally taught what you said Christians teach: consequences for actions, self sacrifice, and allows for people to make their own decisions, specifically where "consequences for actions" doesn't mean "damnation", we wouldn't be having this discussion because thieves wouldn't have learned many of the worst possible lessons from their parents.
That's basically it. I don't mean to attack anyone specifically, nor do I mean to attack Christianity generally. But there are parents who pretty much choose the worst possible way to help kids learn ethics and morality and they are contributing to the problem. Further, I believe that lazy parent + Christianity is a particularly bad combination because where orthodox biblical morals diverge from universal moral principles is where the lessons learned can be the most destructive.
Now, there are people of the opinion that Christianity is the biggest problem in adapting moral teaching to best equip people for the modern world. I'm not completely convinced of that. Though I think that many/most Christian leaders are on the wrong side of the question (one set of rules no matter what the culture or technology for more than two thousand years is pretty damned irresponsible), I believe that moral orthodoxy is the problem, and not Christian morals or morality.
You're a troll, but one of my pastimes is providing reasonable responses to unreasonable people and arguments, so I'll respond:)
Ross has a personal problem with Chrisitanity which makes him see it as a social ill.
Yes and no. Historically, Christian leaders have been involved in many great goods, but also many of the worst atrocities of Western culture. In the modern day, Christians with a public agenda are regularly assert that only Christianity offers a moral system capable of improving the world, that all other influences are corrupting or degrating the world.
It is that particular false statement which needs to be repeatedly and broadly shown to be nonsense. First, because Christians are wrong when they assert that God or the Bible are the only source of useful morals. Second, because of the Christian belief that all people are inherently bad (not just sinful, but evil) and require an outside authority to do the right thing. Third, and finally, because modern Christian advocates' proposals for moral health are usually worse than the problem they purport to solve.
To refute both Christian assertions, you only need to point out that pretty much everyone knows and agrees on the basics of right and wrong, even in cultures that don't use the Bible or any reference to YAHWEH. Everyone even has something called a "conscience", your inner voice of right and wrong. Even us atheists have a conscience...
I bet some girl would not let him on first base because she was saving herself for "marriage". That could explain it. I bet he sees himself growing old and miserable and has to look for a good reason.
Insults and barbs only "bite" if they are somewhat close to reality. In high-school I was a born-again Christian and I was the one saving myself for marriage. I do in fact regret passing on a few opportunities and on not asking more girls out. However, in the past few years, my life has been amazingly wonderful and getting better each day thanks to the wonderful woman I met in 2003.
Basic American spirtual principals - adheard to by secularists Christians Scientologists Islamademocrats Jews are
Honesty openmindedness and willingness
None of those words have anything to do with spirituality. "Honesty" is an ethical ideal. "Open-mindedness" is an epistemological ideal (one that many/most Christians in America would be wise to consider). "Willingness" is a modifier to some action verb that you have failed to specify. I do agree, however, with what you thought you were saying, which is that Christianity shares it's basic moral teachings with all other moral systems on the planet.
The two problems happen with the methods that many Christians use to teach morality (fear of damnation, sinners in the hands of an angry God, etc.) and when Christianity goes beyond basic moral teachings to label people evil for being human (i.e. having lustful thoughts). But you are correct that Christianity has no monopoly on fundamental issues of right and wrong. On the simpler ethical principles, they agree with other major religions as well as with people who have no religion...
Fear is what drives Ross - fear because he has come with some of these ideas but does not have the guts to do it.
Apparently ignorance and lack of education are what drive the Anonymous Coward since he has failed to put together a cogent sentence.
the answer: there is NO moral compass anymore. People just do what they want.
That sounds like a Christian analysis of secular culture. But like most quips, it doesn't hold up under scrutiny. The article about videogame violence talks about the decline in violent crime (FBI Uniform Crime Reports) that has occured at the same time as increasing realism in video games, including violent games. The article about piracy is actually discussing how businesses have taken a highly nuanced topic (copyright) and are successfully selling their very one-sided interpretation to governments in Europe.
The problem with thieves is that they have learned not to value long-term goals or to put weight on medium to long term consequences. As a result, their moral decision making is skewed towards what they can get away with right now, while simultaneously discounting the effects their actions might have on themselves and the people around them.
As to how and why this happens, some see their parents or others in the community around them growing old and miserable, having worked hard for a long time and getting very little for it. Some are taught that morals are a set of rules without any explanation of the why's behind the rules. When "because I said so" doesn't answer the question any more, but no other answer is given, people will successfully learn to ignore their perfectly functioning conscience in favor of what they've learned (rationalization).
Sadly, I'll now have to explain that understanding why thieves behave the way they do does not excuse or justify their behavior. Oh and I most definitely am asserting that fear-based Christian morals are worse than useless in teaching morality and are part of the problem.
But you may have reached different conclusions on all of my points...
Note: I call myself a libertarian, if that affects how you read this.
Tolerance is a fairly complex action verb that implies a previous or simultaneous judgement, which is a necessarily subjective process. You may disagree with someone else's judgement. Understanding the words "tolerance" and "intolerance" requires a little thought and care. Two simple conclusions that I draw about the subject of tolerance are:
Tolerance of intolerance breeds intolerance. Intolerance of intolerance breeds tolerance.
Example: if someone is spouting racist b.s. and I fail to voice my objection, I've allowed the world to become more racist. Something I consider a bad thing.
Liberal has been locally redefined. You're wasting your breath by objecting. It's a reality of rhetoric that happens all the time to self-applied labels. Visit Australia, where the right-wingers call themselves the Liberals. You might as well object to the US party names "Democrat" and "Republican". Also, the radical and reactionary regularly change places as new ideas become established and the person desiring change now becomes the person desiring the status-quo (they now have the situation they used to be hoping for).
Open-minded is differently nuanced, but involves another mostly-subjective judgement. It quickly boils down to the epistemological question of "What is 'useful knowledge'?" At some early point in learning a new fact, you have to filter out the complete nonsense. Simultaneously, you have to leave open the possibility that what you already know is wrong and the new fact that contradicts what you know is correct.
People who can't filter out nonsense might be called "gullible", "quack bait", "vegans", etc. People who can't admit they might be wrong might be called "closed-minded". People who can effectively balance these two concerns might be called "open-minded".
In my experience, most people willing to lunge into liberal vs. conservative political arguments are almost universally closed minded. No matter how much almost everyone wants to be thought of as "open minded".
At this point, you're arguing against language and the art of rhetoric. Start arguing substantively and you may have more fun (but maybe not).
David Brin is original and always builds cool, consistent worlds for his stories... "Kiln People" and "Earth" are each mind-bending in a different way. His "Uplift War" books are a more straightforward epic saga, but the future that he describes will still manage to overcome your expectations and predictions.
I particularly enjoyed the very deep exploration of identity that happens in in "Kiln People". Fun stuff.
I finally got around to finishing Card's "Homecoming Saga" a few months ago and can't even begin to tell you how disappointed I was that it turned out to be a Mormon-Christian morality play. I actually liked the way he worked religion and morality into the Ender series. *sigh*
As for someone more recent than Brin, I'll admin that I don't know who might be making a literary splash right now...
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A public traded company, must (yes must) maximize the profit of its shareholders.
False. Even without clarifying your statement to include "legal profit", other concerns can be placed above the interests of the shareholders as long as they are clearly communicated (usually in the bylaws of the corporate charter).
Just because most (almost all) companies choose to put profit above all other concerns doesn't mean that all companies do. Or should.
Regards,
Ross
You could try to create a game with some random rules and ask the other side to participate.
Now *that* is a good idea. Tough part is being smart enough to make up a decent game on the fly. Your game is a really good one, but if people use it often enough, it will be incorporated into the test-passing "fake AI" code. Which pretty much rules out Yahoo Mail using it as a captcha replacement.
But for a one-to-one test, something like that sounds nigh-on unbeatable. Until the AI's really are smart, at which point, the question is moot (which goes to your second point).
Regards,
Ross
Thank you for responding to my question. I really appreciate hearing from a different perspective. My summary of your issues is: 1) Many/most PTO policies don't add up to the same number of days, which is unfair (agree) 2) Some employees abuse the additional freedom of the PTO policy and end up coming to work sick (agree, see discussion below).
From my perspective, people need to take vacations. It's important for productivity and also good mental health. It's also important that sick people don't come to work, as that has a negative impact on productivity, as well as the possibility of spreading illness.
I absolutely agree with both of these points. It is also my experience (based on admittedly limited evidence) that it's fairly straightforward to convince smart employees of the wisdom of both of your primary arguments.
If you give people a bank of time that they can use as either sick time or vacation time, most of them will want to use it as vacation time and therefore show up to work sick more often.
I agree that there will be a few vacation junkies who always have their PTO account maxed out. Two parts of the PTO policy go a long way to working with these individuals and allowing them to take sick days when needed. First, you can go negative on PTO, up to 40 hours, with only a verbal affirmation from your boss. Second, you can go beyond the normal -40 hour PTO limit, but you have to have a little "please explain" meeting to figure out what's going on.
Very shortly, these discussions revolve around professional behavior, responsible use of PTO time, and culture fit with the rest of the organization. Typhoid Mary would be told to go home when she showed up sick, and if she protested, just let her know that she needs to put a hold on vacations for a little while and her PTO would return to positive in very short order. If she still protested, perhaps this isn't the company for her.
As you mentioned, someone who is really sick (or normally healthy, but happens to have a bad health year) might burn all of their PTO time as sick days and be left with nothing for vacation. This is bad for productivity and mental health as noted above.
This isn't changed by going back to separate sick + vacation days. Once the sick days are used up, they'll start taking vacation days to avoid the pay cut of short and long term disability. This type of employee loses nothing between the two policies.
Finally, most employers do not offer the same number of PTO days as they would have offerred as separate sick and vacation time days (because inevitably some healthy first-year employee will take a month's vacation).
I agree that adding vacation and sick days up to a smaller number of PTO days is wrong. Who cares if a first-year employee takes a month off? If he's accumulated the PTO, it's his to spend.
To avoid disruptions to the schedule, I do ask employees to be responsible to their teammates and to please try not to schedule long vacations just before important dates (and we'll schedule deliverables around favorable vacation times). I also ask for fair warning on planned vacations: If you want a week off, try to give two weeks notice. If you want a month off, try to give a head's up two months before. If you want a day off, give a few days warning. I'm not a stickler for paperwork, but I do think there are ethical ways to treat your employer and your coworkers.
Also, in many companies the number of vacation days allowed increases with years of service, where in PTO-only companies I have noticed that the increases come more slowly.
This is an interesting point. Personally, I don't value seniority all that much, perhaps because I tend to only stay at jobs for two to three years and have never had seniority on a job. I think that there is a sea-change happening on this issue, and that many companies are increasing the benefits of new hires and minimizing the impact of seniority on benefits in order to attract more experienced employees.
It had been my plan to offer 20 days/year of PTO for all employees and have no adjustments for seniority. I think I'll solicit more opinions on that subject and see what I can learn.
Regards,
Ross
my employer lumps sick and vacation time together as PTO, which is a horrible thing to do
Could you explain why you feel that way? I had a previous employer who did that and I loved it. My coworkers also liked it, to the point that you're the first person I've heard (read) who didn't like it, and as a result, I am currently planning on implementing a similar policy at my shiny new startup.
From my perspective...
Pros:
Cons:
I honestly can't come up with any other downsides, and the one downside can be managed with a few discussions about professional responsibility and why we use PTO instead of vacation + sick days... As long as a particular company doesn't do creative math to come up with the amount of PTO (it should be the same size as the vacation and sick days combined, not less), I can't see why employees would possibly object to being able to use sick days as they see fit.
Regards,
Ross
I truly enjoy reading a well-written argument. Reading your post this evening was a rare pleasure here on Slashdot.
Bravo!
Perhaps I should have specified "on level pavement". On uphill sections, even gentle grades, maintaining 20mph isn't going to be practical unless you're pretty fit and in good form.
I do believe that being able to maintain a reasonable speed is essential in order to be safe, and if you can't maintain a speed that won't frustrate car drivers, then I suggest limiting your riding to roads with dedicated bicycle lanes and clean, wide shoulders until you are fit enough to "get on the road". Not judgemental, as I need to do some practice riding to get back to that state myself...
The bottom 40-80% of cross country bicyclists maintain an average of 20mph for rides of 40-100 miles and more. The best riders are obviously faster. This is not an impossible goal, though it certainly will be a challenge for the average American.
Regards,
Ross
The only roads where it's illegal to ride a bike are limited-access highways that are posted as prohibiting bicycles.
Otherwise, it's not illegal, and it's just about as dangerous as driving a car on the same roads.
Plan your route to stay on back roads with speed limits of 35 or less (occasionally up to 45, but try to avoid these if possible). When riding on roads without dedicated bicycle lanes, you should tend to ride in the middle of the lane, to discourage cars from trying to share the lane with you. You may wish to move over and allow cars to pass when it is safe for you to do so (wide shoulder, middle turning lane, etc.). You should be able to sustain a pace of 20mph or faster, you should have high visibility lighting (not just reflectors) in the front and back of your bike, and your clothing/pack should be made from brightly colored fabric with reflective material for additional visibility.
But most of that is just common sense.
Regards,
Ross
Don't worry yourself on this one. Your article was was well organized, interesting, and incisive. I particularly appreciated the slightly humorous questions from the listener's POV which divided the lengthy content into comfortably sized, encapsulated pieces.
Keep writing how you write. It's clear you're doing just fine. I could offer criticism, but it would only be at the grammar-nazi level, not at the clarity of writing level (and I hate grammar-nazi's, so I won't do that to you).
Regards,
Ross
Do you really think these guys would give their really choice ideas for free?
Yes. Everyone has a few great ideas floating around, but very few have what it takes to convert a good idea into a viable enterprise. Being able to lead people, make a plan, ignore the plan, and ultimately being willing to do what it takes to make a success of a good idea are a vanishingly rare set of skills.
The ideas themselves are a dime a dozen.
Regards,
Ross
Can't find one for $10, but the first product link when you Google for external hard drive enclosure 2.5" is this one for $13 + shipping.
I have no idea if the product shown on that link is any good, mind you...
Regards,
Ross
Concluding that Yahoo's index has to be smaller because they return fewer results seems a bit overzealous.
No, it's accurate. They're testing Yahoo's claim of how many pages they've indexed, which just means that all indexed pages that contain the requested words should be returned from the search request. If yahoo returns fewer unique pages, yahoo has indexed fewer pages.
What you're talking about is measuring the effectiveness of page ranking, which is a completely different measure of how good a search engine is. Note: Google wins on that measure too.
Regards,
Ross
Oh, and I'm sorry about the situation you described earlier. The biggest and most frustrating thing about the world is that it really isn't fair and some of the worst things happen to the nicest people.
Here's hoping you can find a way to get out from wage-slavery (that's what it really is, even for well-paid wage-slaves) and to a state of independence.
I'm trying to do that very thing, and I'm doing my honest personal best not to screw anyone over in the process of achieving independence. The day to day reality of working for a wage in a job that I dislike just so I can pay the bills tires me out. One of these days, I'm hoping that all of this work in the evenings to make something better for myself (and others) will pay off.
Here's to a better day tomorrow,
Ross
I see what you're trying to say- that labor is the basic value of money
Not exactly, though you're a lot closer than the other poster. I hate to disappoint you, and though I do really like much of what Marx wrote, I'm not a Marxist.
I assert that the value of money comes from the value added to resources and products, expressed through the differences in the costs that go into the product and the revenues captured when the product is sold. The difference is measured as profit, which is aggregated into the value of the enterprise as measured by its investors.
If there are 1000 investors who each put $1000 into a new enterprise, then before any work is done, the company is worth one million $US. Everyone agrees that their shares are all worth $1000. That company then makes a product and a few years later is moderately successful. By coincidence, after covering payroll and all of the debts it has, there's just about a million dollars in the bank. At this point, let's assume that other eager investors are offering $5000 per share to anyone willing to sell and some investors do sell. The stock price is now $5000 and the company's value is five million. What happened there? Where did the difference between the earlier $1000 and the new price of $5000 come from?
What was worth one million is now worth five million, but nobody at the company has been making funny money in the back. Somehow, the value of a constructed thing, a company, gained four million dollars. And there's a million dollars in the bank to pay back everyone's original investment, so this four million dollar increase is a bonus, some sort of excess. What happened was the company demonstrated a profit, a difference between its costs and its revenues, and the total expected sum of those profits for the rest of time is what those potential investors are valuing at four million more than the money in the bank.
The four million dollars was created in the potential profit from the value added by the company in its product or service.
Other places where the value of money is created is in the changing value of natural resources, including raw materials and real estate.
This value now held by the company is not only from the workers, however. The investors who provided the original investment that bought the offices and equipment where the work could be done provided value. The entrepreneur who convinced the investors to part with their money and who hired the workers who could do the work provided value.
the stockbroker and the banker are paid the best of any employee in this economy, but they produce no actual goods.
These two jobs are certainly strange ones. The stockbroker in particular, made his money from a legislated scarcity--controlled access to financial risk. The stockbroker is on the way out, however. With discount brokers now charging barely more than the transaction cost of keeping track of who owns what, the "full service" broker can be clearly seen for the scam artists they are. The banker, like the investor and the factor, makes money from access to money. Like the factor, however, his value is taken "per transaction" instead of being involved in and accepting the risk of whether the company does well. He's only interested in the debtor's ability to repay the debt. But make no mistake, access to money now in exchange for money later is a valuable service and taking a cut of the "time value of money" is more than fair, it's a good thing.
in the last 150 years, a small minority of people have been working very hard to change that- by use of cartels, monopolies, and multinational corporations. And they've succeeded- we've lost the war for a free market.
Well, a "free" market can either be free in that buyers and sellers are free to do what they like (and the people who are the workers and consumers end up with very little actual freedom) or "free" in that it supports a goal of maximizing freedom, which means that there are a
we left the gold standard behind in the 1950s.
Whoops. All the gold standard did was tie the dollar to a quantity of a somewhat rare mineral.
If we were on a gold standard and all of the people died tomorrow, how much gold would a gallon of milk be worth? The gold standard doesn't change the answer to your question.
Economics is always about an agreed upon valuation. Which you're calling a myth because you think that gold has intrinsic value. But it doesn't, so that theory's kinda kaput.
And whew! Talk about an unstable system. The current system offers a lot more of a tie to "reality" than the gold standard ever did.
Regards,
Ross
And thus, when you have more people, the per capita share of resources goes DOWN, not up.
But the real price of the goods needed for survival, as a fraction of income, has been going down for all of recorded history (with some local bumps around depressions, recessions, revolutions, wars, etc.). Which means that the amount of effort needed to obtain the same minimal standard of living has been decreasing over the centuries, at the same time that the population has been going up and up (and UP). So something's not right about your assertion...
we just SAY it has value with no real objective inherant value at all.
Nothing has "real objective inherant[sic]" value. Even the simplest of natural resources has to be identified as useful and put to use before it has intrinsic value. As soon as everyone (or even just two people) agree that something has value, it has economic value. Just because economic value is a piece of information instead of a piece of matter doesn't make it any less real.
If you're insisting on some objective measure of economic value, it is even more clear why you think economics is all a sham. You really need to do a little reading on the subject, because your argument starts from your ignorance, and as a result, you aren't even speaking the same language as the people you're discussing economics with in this thread.
a shared myth.
You're SOOOO close! All you have to do is look around and understand that most of the activity you see happens because of the power behind that "shared myth" to start to grasp what's going on in economics... You're sooo close. Just give up on the "objective" bit and you'll be on your way...
Rather than just slam you, I'll give you a great pointer to getting started on that reading. A great start to learning what economics is all about might be "Economics in One Lesson". If you're in western LA, reply to this and I'll lend you my copy.
Regards,
Ross
In order for me to become rich, I do not have to make someone else poor.
Prove it- do it. I've yet to see anybody become rich without making somebody else poor.
I suggest you try to understand where the value behind money comes from. When I say "the value behind money", I'm referring to everyone's ability to make consistent (but not identical) pricing decisions ($3 can be exchanged for a gallon of milk most places in the continental US). Why is $3 worth about the same as a gallon of milk? It is clear from your remark that you lack understanding of that very important economic process.
I suspect that you feel that the whole thing is a house of cards with no foundation. While there are some assumptions being made, that if incorrect, could destabilize the system (if arabian oil field stocks are much closer to depletion than is currently being estimated), but most of it actually is built on a sane foundation. It's just not the easiest foundation to understand. The value of money comes from somewhere. It has to represent something, otherwise there would be nothing for people to agree on, especially in currency exchanges (leading to the highly related question: What might be happening behind the scene when currency traders to decide the dollar gained or lost value against another currency?)
Cirque de Soleil employees and investors have made money without forcing anyone into the poorhouse. Their ticket buyers do not exchange their ability to pay the rent and stay off the street with the decision to go see Cirque tonight. Typical circuses have been in decline in North America for decades and Cirque did not alter that trend in the slightest. And yet, wealth was created... (Oops, I almost gave away the answer!)
Economics is not a zero sum game in all time frames except for the VERY long term (your point about limited resources does put an eventual limit on the sum, assuming we don't go off-planet and eventually open up the entire universe to economic exploitation). If you're actually interested in joining in this discussion from a more informed perspective, you really should learn where the value behind money comes from. The answers might suprise you and restore a little of what appears to be lost faith in the economic system.
Regards,
Ross
Sorry to be the annoying English teacher from 9th grade here but something can't be "pretty unique" or "very unique". It's either unique or it isn't.
Proper English should be left in the classroom where it is taught. What people speak (and write) in the real world is what matters. Pretty much everyone except the pedants understand that something different is meant by "pretty unique" (the design is not really unique, but it is original in that it brings together many existing good ideas) instead of just saying "unique".
When people use modifiers to "unique", they are describing or qualifying those aspects that make the subject unique. If someone describes another person's hair as "extremely unique", they mean to communicate that the hair is unique in a way that is worth describing differently from how the other person's fingerprints are unique.
There are degrees of uniqueness, even if the grammar nazi's haven't yet gotten around to modifying "Proper English" to acknowledge it yet. The same goes for ending sentences in prepositions, using the passive tense in sentences (up yours, Microsoft grammar check!), and all sorts of other ways in which english continues to change over time.
Trying to force people to use yesterday's rules for their verbal and written communication simply doesn't work. The rules will eventually change to match how people communicate. And that's the way things ought to work.
Regards,
Ross
El Guapo: Would you say I have a plethora of piñatas?
:)
-long, confused pause-
Jefe: Yes, El Guapo. You have a plethora.
El Guapo: Jefe, what is a plethora?
Jefe: Why El Guapo?
El Guapo: Well, I would just like to know if you know what a plethora is because you believe I have a plethora
Jefe: Sorry El Guapo, I, Jefe, do not have your superior intellect or education. Could it be you are angry about something and are looking to take it out on me?
El Guapo: Like what Jefe?
Jefe: Maybe it's because you are turning 40 today?
*sigh* Good times
True Christians attempt to live moral lives to please their god not avoid his wrath.
:) I have put a great deal of thought into what I believe and why, and Christianity has played a significant (and mostly positive) role in my personal history, so I'm not insensitive to what you're saying.
Christianity is not a single organization or group of beliefs, though most modern Christians do share a set of core beliefs. "True" Christianity is extraordinarily tough to nail down since there are so many claiming that their beliefs are "True" and others are "mistaken", "misguided" or "apostate" depending on the degree of disagreement. Through the ages, however, Christianity has always worked to add two meta-goals to believer's moral thinking. 1) You should fear the future if you live without righteousness and 2) you should love God and live in harmony with His wishes.
There is an obvious tension between those two statements and different groups at different times have chosen different ways to convince people of the necessity and benefits of belief. Even as recently as fifty years ago, "god-fearing" was synonymous with "righteous" across most of the U.S. You could put the "fear of God" into someone to scare them into doing the right thing... Sayings like those arise naturally from the culture, and they carry truths about that culture.
Today, there are fewer groups who strongly emphasize the "fear God" meta-goal, but they still exist, they are firmly convinced that they are "True" Christians and they are likely to treat your assertions about "True" Christianity with some suspicion. I have big problems with those people and the messages they spread.
You have taken the exceptions and formed rules that are not accurate.
My conclusion is that demonstrating morality within the rubric of "fear-based" Christianity can interfere with people's moral development, to the point of contributing to severe decision making problems later in life. You asserted that there was no such thing as "fear-based" Christianity. I think you'll have to agree after these discussions that such a beast really does exist, though I know you don't feel that fear is the right tool to spread the good word. I tried to be very careful to qualify the aspects of Christianity that I have a problem with and if you look at my original post, I never wrote just "Christianity", but qualified my criticism with "fear-based Christianity".
But don't discount any religions ability to aid in righting these social wrongs.
I think that religion is very helpful to many people who never did get an effective moral education as a child (and helpful for other situations besides just that). It certainly helped me. I also think that there are ways of improving upon what Christianity currently provides in the way of moral education (i.e. replace "sin" with "self-destructive behavior" or "bad for you" for more precision and fewer assumptions about exactly what you believe).
At this point, I'm hoping you still don't see me as a "slack jawed ignoramus"
Regards,
Ross
Why do you think the various religions were invented in the first place?
An excellent question. My position is that organized religions naturally appear as a method of control and accumulating cultural/political power. They achieve this by assuming the mantle of authority on right and wrong. If their story is good, the religion can convince others. If their story is really good, the religion can continue across generations. If the story can change and the religion can maintain the appearance of ultimate knowledge, the religion can continue almost indefinitely.
The history of Christianity is quite fascinating. It's amazing to me how many aspects of modern Christian dogma appeared hundreds of years after all of the biblical authors died (ref. the holy Trinity and Emperor Constantine).
All of which has nothing to do with how parents can interfere with their children's moral development and set the stage for adults with problems making sound decisions. Religion doesn't bring morality. At best, religion can reinforce effective ethics. At worst, it interferes with and prevents the exploration of effective ethics, usually when it demands moral orthodoxy.
Regards,
Ross
the church most certainly allows for the dismissal of damnation. So, either way you look at it where does the fear play in?
The assertion that "there is damnation if you aren't righteous" is where the fear "plays in".
I will explain in more detail with the hope that it will will make you feel less persecuted by us non-Christians (although, I will also admit that I find it truly amazing that the most powerful group in the country manages to spin honest and thoughtful disagreement as 'persecution'.). Restating the central point of my original posting, I assert that thieves don't seem to place value on long-term goals and that they appear to learn lessons that discount long-term goals when young. Lessons learned from parents who may have used teaching techniques that prevented the normal, natural, moral inquisitiveness of children from reaching the best (or even adequate) conclusions.
Many parents and community leaders understand that morality is actually "informed decision making" and strive to provide plenty of real-world examples, lessons, and explanations to children with questions about right and wrong. There are some other parents who do not have this insight and who think that morality is a set of rules that minimizes how annoying and troublesome children can be. Parents who agree with this are likely to teach morality with statements like, "because I said so" or a threat of corporal punishment, and not only when tired or time is short. Irresponsible church-going parents will occasionally substitute "because God/Jesus said so" and various statements that more or less explicitly raise the issue of being a sinner and the threat of eternal damnation. In some churches, this fear-based moral "teaching" continues in Sunday school and youth groups. Individuals from some sects (Calvinist sects, for one) even continue this dogma through adulthood.
At this point, you're getting steamed because I'm not mentioning how Jesus's sacrifice on the cross means that you can make all the mistakes you want and you're still saved as long as you believe in him (where "believe" means something more significant than "I believe I'll have another beer."). I'm not forgetting it, I'm being honest about how parents teach morals. If you give kids a "get out of jail free" card, which is how they will perceive "believe in Jesus", they will use it every time they don't want to follow a rule. The same parents who want their kids to not annoy them won't bring this up.
If you're an irresponsible parent who has so little time for teaching your children that you actually interfere with their moral lessons, then you're contributing to the problem of moral decay, whether or not you're a Christian. If parents universally taught what you said Christians teach: consequences for actions, self sacrifice, and allows for people to make their own decisions, specifically where "consequences for actions" doesn't mean "damnation", we wouldn't be having this discussion because thieves wouldn't have learned many of the worst possible lessons from their parents.
That's basically it. I don't mean to attack anyone specifically, nor do I mean to attack Christianity generally. But there are parents who pretty much choose the worst possible way to help kids learn ethics and morality and they are contributing to the problem. Further, I believe that lazy parent + Christianity is a particularly bad combination because where orthodox biblical morals diverge from universal moral principles is where the lessons learned can be the most destructive.
Now, there are people of the opinion that Christianity is the biggest problem in adapting moral teaching to best equip people for the modern world. I'm not completely convinced of that. Though I think that many/most Christian leaders are on the wrong side of the question (one set of rules no matter what the culture or technology for more than two thousand years is pretty damned irresponsible), I believe that moral orthodoxy is the problem, and not Christian morals or morality.
Regards,
Ross
You're a troll, but one of my pastimes is providing reasonable responses to unreasonable people and arguments, so I'll respond :)
Ross has a personal problem with Chrisitanity which makes him see it as a social ill.
Yes and no. Historically, Christian leaders have been involved in many great goods, but also many of the worst atrocities of Western culture. In the modern day, Christians with a public agenda are regularly assert that only Christianity offers a moral system capable of improving the world, that all other influences are corrupting or degrating the world.
It is that particular false statement which needs to be repeatedly and broadly shown to be nonsense. First, because Christians are wrong when they assert that God or the Bible are the only source of useful morals. Second, because of the Christian belief that all people are inherently bad (not just sinful, but evil) and require an outside authority to do the right thing. Third, and finally, because modern Christian advocates' proposals for moral health are usually worse than the problem they purport to solve.
To refute both Christian assertions, you only need to point out that pretty much everyone knows and agrees on the basics of right and wrong, even in cultures that don't use the Bible or any reference to YAHWEH. Everyone even has something called a "conscience", your inner voice of right and wrong. Even us atheists have a conscience...
I bet some girl would not let him on first base because she was saving herself for "marriage". That could explain it. I bet he sees himself growing old and miserable and has to look for a good reason.
Insults and barbs only "bite" if they are somewhat close to reality. In high-school I was a born-again Christian and I was the one saving myself for marriage. I do in fact regret passing on a few opportunities and on not asking more girls out. However, in the past few years, my life has been amazingly wonderful and getting better each day thanks to the wonderful woman I met in 2003.
Basic American spirtual principals - adheard to by secularists Christians Scientologists Islamademocrats Jews are
Honesty openmindedness and willingness
None of those words have anything to do with spirituality. "Honesty" is an ethical ideal. "Open-mindedness" is an epistemological ideal (one that many/most Christians in America would be wise to consider). "Willingness" is a modifier to some action verb that you have failed to specify. I do agree, however, with what you thought you were saying, which is that Christianity shares it's basic moral teachings with all other moral systems on the planet.
The two problems happen with the methods that many Christians use to teach morality (fear of damnation, sinners in the hands of an angry God, etc.) and when Christianity goes beyond basic moral teachings to label people evil for being human (i.e. having lustful thoughts). But you are correct that Christianity has no monopoly on fundamental issues of right and wrong. On the simpler ethical principles, they agree with other major religions as well as with people who have no religion...
Fear is what drives Ross - fear because he has come with some of these ideas but does not have the guts to do it.
Apparently ignorance and lack of education are what drive the Anonymous Coward since he has failed to put together a cogent sentence.
Guts to do what?
Regards,
Ross
the answer: there is NO moral compass anymore. People just do what they want.
That sounds like a Christian analysis of secular culture. But like most quips, it doesn't hold up under scrutiny. The article about videogame violence talks about the decline in violent crime (FBI Uniform Crime Reports) that has occured at the same time as increasing realism in video games, including violent games. The article about piracy is actually discussing how businesses have taken a highly nuanced topic (copyright) and are successfully selling their very one-sided interpretation to governments in Europe.
The problem with thieves is that they have learned not to value long-term goals or to put weight on medium to long term consequences. As a result, their moral decision making is skewed towards what they can get away with right now, while simultaneously discounting the effects their actions might have on themselves and the people around them.
As to how and why this happens, some see their parents or others in the community around them growing old and miserable, having worked hard for a long time and getting very little for it. Some are taught that morals are a set of rules without any explanation of the why's behind the rules. When "because I said so" doesn't answer the question any more, but no other answer is given, people will successfully learn to ignore their perfectly functioning conscience in favor of what they've learned (rationalization).
Sadly, I'll now have to explain that understanding why thieves behave the way they do does not excuse or justify their behavior. Oh and I most definitely am asserting that fear-based Christian morals are worse than useless in teaching morality and are part of the problem.
But you may have reached different conclusions on all of my points...
Regards,
Ross
Tolerance: Intolerace to all opposing viewpoints
Note: I call myself a libertarian, if that affects how you read this.
Tolerance is a fairly complex action verb that implies a previous or simultaneous judgement, which is a necessarily subjective process. You may disagree with someone else's judgement. Understanding the words "tolerance" and "intolerance" requires a little thought and care. Two simple conclusions that I draw about the subject of tolerance are:
Tolerance of intolerance breeds intolerance.
Intolerance of intolerance breeds tolerance.
Example: if someone is spouting racist b.s. and I fail to voice my objection, I've allowed the world to become more racist. Something I consider a bad thing.
Liberal has been locally redefined. You're wasting your breath by objecting. It's a reality of rhetoric that happens all the time to self-applied labels. Visit Australia, where the right-wingers call themselves the Liberals. You might as well object to the US party names "Democrat" and "Republican". Also, the radical and reactionary regularly change places as new ideas become established and the person desiring change now becomes the person desiring the status-quo (they now have the situation they used to be hoping for).
Open-minded is differently nuanced, but involves another mostly-subjective judgement. It quickly boils down to the epistemological question of "What is 'useful knowledge'?" At some early point in learning a new fact, you have to filter out the complete nonsense. Simultaneously, you have to leave open the possibility that what you already know is wrong and the new fact that contradicts what you know is correct.
People who can't filter out nonsense might be called "gullible", "quack bait", "vegans", etc. People who can't admit they might be wrong might be called "closed-minded". People who can effectively balance these two concerns might be called "open-minded".
In my experience, most people willing to lunge into liberal vs. conservative political arguments are almost universally closed minded. No matter how much almost everyone wants to be thought of as "open minded".
At this point, you're arguing against language and the art of rhetoric. Start arguing substantively and you may have more fun (but maybe not).
Regards,
Ross
David Brin is original and always builds cool, consistent worlds for his stories... "Kiln People" and "Earth" are each mind-bending in a different way. His "Uplift War" books are a more straightforward epic saga, but the future that he describes will still manage to overcome your expectations and predictions.
I particularly enjoyed the very deep exploration of identity that happens in in "Kiln People". Fun stuff.
I finally got around to finishing Card's "Homecoming Saga" a few months ago and can't even begin to tell you how disappointed I was that it turned out to be a Mormon-Christian morality play. I actually liked the way he worked religion and morality into the Ender series. *sigh*
As for someone more recent than Brin, I'll admin that I don't know who might be making a literary splash right now...
Regards,
Ross