Actually, if the Congresscritter in your example was supporting the free market, they'd have stood by their initial stance. Despite the name, the "free market" isn't a synonym "companies can do whatever the hell they want". The "free market" is a place where exchanges are carried out by two parties by mutual consent. It's in contrast to the mercantile model that preceded it, where frequently you had no choice but to deal with a particular company, as the government had granted that company an exclusive charter or monopoly in a particular area.
The free market can only operate in a situation where there are certain rules in place - you must compete with your competitors, not take out a hit on them, for instance. You cannot compel people to do business with you; they must do business with you because they want to. Another of those rules is the idea that contracts must be honoured. Allowing companies to break contracts without consequences is deleterious to the existence of a free market.
Which is why I contextualized by saying that it's the perspective on the current state of the species. Yeah, there are niche cases - geographical isolation, no natural predators, or whatever. But by and large, when you look at the evolution of species as a whole, the picture is that of advancement by adaptation.
Take white tigers for an example; yes, due to controlled inbreeding, isolated environments, and being maintained in circumstances where there's no predation, a "negative" trait is spread through a population. Leaving aside the notion that such a trait is positive by definition (white tigers are poorly evolved for survival in the wild, but highly evolved for visually pleasing humans). But when you're talking about the evolution of panthera tigris, white tigers are a footnote or an interesting sidelight, not indicative of the whole.
Fine; I was imprecise. The mainstream perspective of evolutionary history is that the current state of the species are due to beneficial changes in the genome being distributed across a population due to natural selection.
Yes, there are other means of evolution, but in the longterm, the changes themselves are either beneficial (in which case they're distributed across the population), harmful (in which case they're removed from the gene pool), or neutral (in which case, they are present in some individuals, but the population as a whole can't be said to have "evolved" that trait).
I wasn't trying to provide an accurate definition of evolution in detail; I was trying to highlight the distinction between adaptive changes, and the results of the accretion of those changes.
This demonstrates another misunderstanding ID people have with evolution. Bacteria and humans are equally evolved.
That's not a misunderstanding of ID people; that's a misunderstanding of evolution by people in general. I blame X-Men, but even stuff like Darwin's Radio falls victim to it. Anything that uses the phrase "next phase of human evolution" is probably doing it.
That's why I used the term "complex" rather than "more evolved" or "advanced". Humans are more complex than bacteria, but "evolved" isn't a measure of complexity, it's a measure of adaptivity, and needs to be contextualized. For instance, humans are poorly evolved for life in deep space; fish are poorly evolved for life on land. Some bacteria are highly evolved for survival in extreme temperature or acidity.
Darwin actually called it evolution through the mechanism of natural selection. Evolution is the observation; natural selection is the mechanism whereby certain genes get "selected" for over the generations. The origin of the diversity of the genes is not covered by either term.
Those glucose-aversion genes had to come from somewhere. They may have come from mutation, or crossed from another species, or whatever. Whether they lay "dormant" (that is to say, unselected for) in the genome for centuries, or years before the environmental change that caused them to become beneficial is irrelevant.
The micro- and macro-evolution terms are clumsy labels for what they're being used to describe.
Mainstream evolution states that each change is an adaptive measure, but that when taken in concert, over time, can results in a distinct organism. From what I understand, some IDers consider evolution to be a purely adaptive mechanism. That is, if you take a bacteria, drop it in a pond, and let evolution run for a billion years, what you'll end up with is bacteria perfectly adapted to life in that pond; it won't have evolved into a more complex form of life.
Yeah, that means that evolutionary changes won't likely cross the species barrier, but that's not the point of what they're trying to say.
If you read the article, you'd see this was all about the network being the bottle-neck; the update changes the way the browser preloads resources while the network's blocking on the download of others.
They're not CPU bound; I said they're "doing more" - like pulling javascript APIs from half a dozen different web services, loading massive (compared to 2003) images, buffering video, and doing who knows what with javascript.
I guess I could either use a bluetooth earpiece (loser) or headphones with a microphone and that would be fine.
I don't understand why having a headphone and a microphone is fine, whereas having a headphone and microphone without the cable makes you a loser. I guess it's the same reason why wearing the wrong brand of clothing makes you a loser. All hail the arbitrary dictates of fashion.
The pocketwatch wasn't wrong, any more than the horse and carriage was wrong. However, like the horse and carriage, you don't see many pocketwatches around anymore. Noting that A has been superceded by B doesn't imply any moral failing on the part of A.
They didn't travel the world, because the world had not yet been discovered, and the technology for long-distance travel wasn't available. If they did travel any distance of consequence, it was a long, slow, dirty, dangerous process, even for rich people. And while the wealthy may not have been as vulnerable to disease as the underclass, they were still a helluva lot likelier to die of disease than we are now - as were their children.
Looking through the kings of Babylon (among the earliest Mesopotamian kings we have accounts of): Cambyses II: Suicide after losing his thrown Smerdis: Assassinated by his brother Darius I: Natural death at 64 Xerxes I: Murdered by his bodyguard Artaxerxes: Unknown Xerxes II: Murdered Sogdianus: Killed by his own military Darius II: Unknown Artaxerxes II: Natural death at 86 Artaxerxes III: Disputed - some say natural causes, some say poison. One of his brothers was murdered, one suicided, and one was executed Artaxerxes IV: Poisoned Darius III: Killed by one of his satraps
Of the ones we're fairly sure of, two died natural deaths, and one of those much younger than we'd expect to in modern times. Of the rest, most were killed by someone they trusted. Sign me up for wealth and power in Mesopotamia!
You've missed the point, I don't know about made it. The parent asked about lifestyles; you replied with a list of class divisions throughout history, with the usual hyperbole crap about workers being slaves. Tell me, how do the lifestyles of the "worker-slaves" of the United States compare to the those of the "wealthy few" of Mesopotamia?
Call me old fashioned, but I'd rather be a "worker-slave" in contemporary America, where I can work a five-day week, own my own place, travel the world relatively cheaply, communicate at light-speed around the globe, raise a family in relative security, and most likely live to a ripe old age, than at any other time in history, where I would have been worked harder, seen fewer rewards for my labour, had no ability to travel far from my place of residence, let alone the world, see my young family die due to sky-high infant mortality rates, and die myself of disease or injury before I hit 50.
What the fuck is the problem with people like you? How can the world possibly support 7.1 billion people who need air conditioning, iPhones, and the right to reproduce as irresponsibly as possible?
Have you looked at what happens when people get air conditioning, iPhones and the right to reproduce? Generally, they stop reproducing so much. Once people no longer depend on subsistence farming, and modern medicine makes the infant mortality rate drop, people stop having so many kids. Most developed economies are struggling to maintain replacement-rate reproductive growth.
If these colleges are forsaking the poor-but-smart for the rich-but-stupid, they're going to start turning out below-par graduates. At which point, they will no longer have the reputation as a top college. Is this not so?
I didn't go through the US educational system, but it seems to me that if the reputation of these colleges is based on actual results, then the problem is self-correcting. And if their reputation isn't based on actual results, then the poor not being able to join a glorified frat house is no bad thing.
So if power is going to gather at the top we're left with two choices. Either a strong central government that can stand up to that power, or hoping against hope that the money and wealth 'trickle's down'.
Because this "strong central government" is distinct from this "top" you mention? You're wanting to place more power in the hands of the powerful in order to stop the powerful from becoming more powerful? Let me know how that goes for you.
It's also a reality that they're poorly represented in the plumbing and electrician trades, and that men are poorly represented in nursing, the beauty industry, and education. Why are there no complaints and attempts at artificially twiddling the ratios in those fields? It can't even be a money thing - I know plumbers and electricians who earn about the same as me.
People defend their liberties (all of them, not just the single one in the second amendment) when they feel those liberties, as expressed in their way of life, are threatened. People who own guns are threatened by general gun control, because they're afraid those controls will impact on their life (or, that they'll be the thin end of the wedge).
Nobody owns undetectable guns, or really wants to own them. Therefore nobody defends that particular liberty. And if you don't defend it, you lose it.
He's not arguing that people coming of liquor stores should be killed; he's saying that there's bugger all difference between being killed by a policeman and being killed by a drone. What, it's supposed to make the dead guy happier that the bullet was fire as a result of a trigger being pulled instead of a button being pressed?
It creates yet another layer of "friendship exclusivity" in the Facebook social world. You have "friends" already, but now you can have "OMG BFF!"
Actually, you could do that already, far more effectively, using Facebook groups. My friends can see what I post, but by OMG BFFs (although, I called them "acquaintances" and "friends" respectively) can see my real world contact details, and other info.
but improving Facebook's profit margin is certainly why it's here.
Well, yeah. But that's not a bad thing. This is capitalism working exactly as it's supposed to: company desires to increase profit, company creates a feature that benefits those using their services, company increases profit. It's wins all round, and is a refreshing change from the usual perverted capitalism we see these days, that revolves around captive audiences and legislative lock-ins.
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Actually, if the Congresscritter in your example was supporting the free market, they'd have stood by their initial stance. Despite the name, the "free market" isn't a synonym "companies can do whatever the hell they want". The "free market" is a place where exchanges are carried out by two parties by mutual consent. It's in contrast to the mercantile model that preceded it, where frequently you had no choice but to deal with a particular company, as the government had granted that company an exclusive charter or monopoly in a particular area.
The free market can only operate in a situation where there are certain rules in place - you must compete with your competitors, not take out a hit on them, for instance. You cannot compel people to do business with you; they must do business with you because they want to. Another of those rules is the idea that contracts must be honoured. Allowing companies to break contracts without consequences is deleterious to the existence of a free market.
Which is why I contextualized by saying that it's the perspective on the current state of the species. Yeah, there are niche cases - geographical isolation, no natural predators, or whatever. But by and large, when you look at the evolution of species as a whole, the picture is that of advancement by adaptation.
Take white tigers for an example; yes, due to controlled inbreeding, isolated environments, and being maintained in circumstances where there's no predation, a "negative" trait is spread through a population. Leaving aside the notion that such a trait is positive by definition (white tigers are poorly evolved for survival in the wild, but highly evolved for visually pleasing humans). But when you're talking about the evolution of panthera tigris, white tigers are a footnote or an interesting sidelight, not indicative of the whole.
Fine; I was imprecise. The mainstream perspective of evolutionary history is that the current state of the species are due to beneficial changes in the genome being distributed across a population due to natural selection.
Yes, there are other means of evolution, but in the longterm, the changes themselves are either beneficial (in which case they're distributed across the population), harmful (in which case they're removed from the gene pool), or neutral (in which case, they are present in some individuals, but the population as a whole can't be said to have "evolved" that trait).
I wasn't trying to provide an accurate definition of evolution in detail; I was trying to highlight the distinction between adaptive changes, and the results of the accretion of those changes.
This demonstrates another misunderstanding ID people have with evolution. Bacteria and humans are equally evolved.
That's not a misunderstanding of ID people; that's a misunderstanding of evolution by people in general. I blame X-Men, but even stuff like Darwin's Radio falls victim to it. Anything that uses the phrase "next phase of human evolution" is probably doing it.
That's why I used the term "complex" rather than "more evolved" or "advanced". Humans are more complex than bacteria, but "evolved" isn't a measure of complexity, it's a measure of adaptivity, and needs to be contextualized. For instance, humans are poorly evolved for life in deep space; fish are poorly evolved for life on land. Some bacteria are highly evolved for survival in extreme temperature or acidity.
Darwin actually called it evolution through the mechanism of natural selection. Evolution is the observation; natural selection is the mechanism whereby certain genes get "selected" for over the generations. The origin of the diversity of the genes is not covered by either term.
Those glucose-aversion genes had to come from somewhere. They may have come from mutation, or crossed from another species, or whatever. Whether they lay "dormant" (that is to say, unselected for) in the genome for centuries, or years before the environmental change that caused them to become beneficial is irrelevant.
The micro- and macro-evolution terms are clumsy labels for what they're being used to describe.
Mainstream evolution states that each change is an adaptive measure, but that when taken in concert, over time, can results in a distinct organism. From what I understand, some IDers consider evolution to be a purely adaptive mechanism. That is, if you take a bacteria, drop it in a pond, and let evolution run for a billion years, what you'll end up with is bacteria perfectly adapted to life in that pond; it won't have evolved into a more complex form of life.
Yeah, that means that evolutionary changes won't likely cross the species barrier, but that's not the point of what they're trying to say.
If you read the article, you'd see this was all about the network being the bottle-neck; the update changes the way the browser preloads resources while the network's blocking on the download of others.
They're not CPU bound; I said they're "doing more" - like pulling javascript APIs from half a dozen different web services, loading massive (compared to 2003) images, buffering video, and doing who knows what with javascript.
The same reason that Angband ran faster than Far Cry 3; modern webpages are doing more than the text-and-occasional-link of 10 years ago.
Um, it's not a corollary to Chekov's Gun; it's an example of Chekov's Gun.
I guess I could either use a bluetooth earpiece (loser) or headphones with a microphone and that would be fine.
I don't understand why having a headphone and a microphone is fine, whereas having a headphone and microphone without the cable makes you a loser. I guess it's the same reason why wearing the wrong brand of clothing makes you a loser. All hail the arbitrary dictates of fashion.
The pocketwatch wasn't wrong, any more than the horse and carriage was wrong. However, like the horse and carriage, you don't see many pocketwatches around anymore. Noting that A has been superceded by B doesn't imply any moral failing on the part of A.
No. That's what media outlets are spouting, but it's not even that - it's 97% of published papers, not scientists.
They didn't travel the world, because the world had not yet been discovered, and the technology for long-distance travel wasn't available. If they did travel any distance of consequence, it was a long, slow, dirty, dangerous process, even for rich people. And while the wealthy may not have been as vulnerable to disease as the underclass, they were still a helluva lot likelier to die of disease than we are now - as were their children.
Looking through the kings of Babylon (among the earliest Mesopotamian kings we have accounts of):
Cambyses II: Suicide after losing his thrown
Smerdis: Assassinated by his brother
Darius I: Natural death at 64
Xerxes I: Murdered by his bodyguard
Artaxerxes: Unknown
Xerxes II: Murdered
Sogdianus: Killed by his own military
Darius II: Unknown
Artaxerxes II: Natural death at 86
Artaxerxes III: Disputed - some say natural causes, some say poison. One of his brothers was murdered, one suicided, and one was executed
Artaxerxes IV: Poisoned
Darius III: Killed by one of his satraps
Of the ones we're fairly sure of, two died natural deaths, and one of those much younger than we'd expect to in modern times. Of the rest, most were killed by someone they trusted. Sign me up for wealth and power in Mesopotamia!
So your point is that the population that needs to be controlled are in undeveloped economies
My point is that the population that needs to be controlled are populations that are growing, not the ones that are shrinking.
I.E. brown people
Because only brown people live in undeveloped countries. Your grasp of geography is almost as sound as your grasp on rational argument.
Fuck you. Fuck your racist prick ideology and you have been reported to the website administrators.
Oh no, are you going to tell my parents too? Maaaa, DNS-and-BIND is a dobber!
You've missed the point, I don't know about made it. The parent asked about lifestyles; you replied with a list of class divisions throughout history, with the usual hyperbole crap about workers being slaves. Tell me, how do the lifestyles of the "worker-slaves" of the United States compare to the those of the "wealthy few" of Mesopotamia?
Call me old fashioned, but I'd rather be a "worker-slave" in contemporary America, where I can work a five-day week, own my own place, travel the world relatively cheaply, communicate at light-speed around the globe, raise a family in relative security, and most likely live to a ripe old age, than at any other time in history, where I would have been worked harder, seen fewer rewards for my labour, had no ability to travel far from my place of residence, let alone the world, see my young family die due to sky-high infant mortality rates, and die myself of disease or injury before I hit 50.
What the fuck is the problem with people like you? How can the world possibly support 7.1 billion people who need air conditioning, iPhones, and the right to reproduce as irresponsibly as possible?
Have you looked at what happens when people get air conditioning, iPhones and the right to reproduce? Generally, they stop reproducing so much. Once people no longer depend on subsistence farming, and modern medicine makes the infant mortality rate drop, people stop having so many kids. Most developed economies are struggling to maintain replacement-rate reproductive growth.
Besides, he is an expert in other fields.
If you discount the opinions of every climate scientist who is an expert in other fields, you're pretty much eliminating every climate scientist.
If these colleges are forsaking the poor-but-smart for the rich-but-stupid, they're going to start turning out below-par graduates. At which point, they will no longer have the reputation as a top college. Is this not so?
I didn't go through the US educational system, but it seems to me that if the reputation of these colleges is based on actual results, then the problem is self-correcting. And if their reputation isn't based on actual results, then the poor not being able to join a glorified frat house is no bad thing.
So if power is going to gather at the top we're left with two choices. Either a strong central government that can stand up to that power, or hoping against hope that the money and wealth 'trickle's down'.
Because this "strong central government" is distinct from this "top" you mention? You're wanting to place more power in the hands of the powerful in order to stop the powerful from becoming more powerful? Let me know how that goes for you.
It's also a reality that they're poorly represented in the plumbing and electrician trades, and that men are poorly represented in nursing, the beauty industry, and education. Why are there no complaints and attempts at artificially twiddling the ratios in those fields? It can't even be a money thing - I know plumbers and electricians who earn about the same as me.
People defend their liberties (all of them, not just the single one in the second amendment) when they feel those liberties, as expressed in their way of life, are threatened. People who own guns are threatened by general gun control, because they're afraid those controls will impact on their life (or, that they'll be the thin end of the wedge).
Nobody owns undetectable guns, or really wants to own them. Therefore nobody defends that particular liberty. And if you don't defend it, you lose it.
He's not arguing that people coming of liquor stores should be killed; he's saying that there's bugger all difference between being killed by a policeman and being killed by a drone. What, it's supposed to make the dead guy happier that the bullet was fire as a result of a trigger being pulled instead of a button being pressed?
It creates yet another layer of "friendship exclusivity" in the Facebook social world. You have "friends" already, but now you can have "OMG BFF!"
Actually, you could do that already, far more effectively, using Facebook groups. My friends can see what I post, but by OMG BFFs (although, I called them "acquaintances" and "friends" respectively) can see my real world contact details, and other info.
but improving Facebook's profit margin is certainly why it's here.
Well, yeah. But that's not a bad thing. This is capitalism working exactly as it's supposed to: company desires to increase profit, company creates a feature that benefits those using their services, company increases profit. It's wins all round, and is a refreshing change from the usual perverted capitalism we see these days, that revolves around captive audiences and legislative lock-ins.