Yes, not all cultures have pets or even treat pets ethically. That's why I kept writing. The larger point doesn't rely on the existence of a special category of animals.
Well, I've heard this one before and I have a couple of things to say about it. First, you can read PETA's response to this at their forum. I admit that posts by PETA admins are very likely to be pro-PETA, but this is in contrast to your source, a website called petakillsanimals. I don't think it will be hard to sort the bias from just facts. The PETA response provides a context that is not presented by the petakillsanimals page, which you can evaluate for yourself. The (my) tldr version of this is: PETA is killing those animals to end their suffering and not for PETA's benefit, i.e. to consume the animals or otherwise use their parts. Perhaps I am predisposed to believe them, so read the whole thing if you suspect I'm presenting it wrong.
Second, consider who the Center for Consumer Freedom is and what they represent. On their main page, they're advocating for high fructose corn syrup and one of their other projects besides petakillsanimals is a site defending trans-fats. They have every right to shill for the processed food industry but let's recognize them for what they are.
No, not the same rights as humans, just the same rights as pets. Even this is an oversimplification but I think it gets the point across.
The point being that it is not appropriate to speak of animals having all the same rights as humans. I think this is well understood. The right to vote, for example, does not make sense since it presupposes knowledge of language, politics, issues etc. The rights that PETA members ascribe to animals, most basically, are the rights not to suffer and die at the hands of humans. These aren't that far out, when you consider the "arguments" in favor of the suffering and dying.
You're right of course. I intended in my post to describe WOW from the friend's point of view. A more complete discussion can be found in this piece by Richard Bartle. Bartle describes four basic types of motivation that exist in multiplayer games, using MUDs as his example.
This is interesting in that your friend apparently views the game differently from you. That is, WOW is a social venue with a game attached that gives you something to do with your friends. The friends are more important than the game. Blizz has taken pains to ensure accessibility for a large number of people. The system requirements are low, the interface is responsive, and the game itself is extremely easy. All this improves the network effect of the game.
So, as we can see in various sources, the US has called waterboarding torture in the recent and not-so-recent past. Regardless of the specific issue of waterboarding, there is no denying that we have tortured persons in our custody and/or shipped them off to countries where we had every expectation that they would be tortured. Some of these people died and their deaths have been ruled as homicides. But when we do it, Bush can say with a straight face that we do not torture. The real answer is that we do (did), we're just not calling it that. American exceptionalism plays into this as "it's different when we do it because of our unique place in history. There is no moral equivalence between our culture and theirs." Thus, engaging in the same tactics used by the enemy doesn't make us just like them. Nothing would that, because of America's unique place in history.
It doesn't meet the strict definition of the theory as found in Wikipedia, but it's certainly a logical extension.
all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.
Now, you may be saying to yourself "but a treaty is not self-executing - Congress still has to make a law for it to be United States Law!" This is true:
Foreign Affairs Reform and Restructuring Act of 1998.
The Act also required relevant agencies to promulgate and enforce regulations
to implement CAT, subject to the understandings, declarations, and reservations
made by the Senate resolution of ratification.
This quotation is from a (PDF) 2004 report that discusses the United States' obligations with respect to the CAT (Convention Against Torture)
So, since waterboarding is torture (your training example involves consent of the subject and I don't think applies here), there was a law against it, and it was done by the United States, it was and is a crime. The Convention not only outlaws torture in all the participant states, but requires them to investigate and prosecute any incidences of torture found within the borders of any participant states. The Convention creates a universal jurisdiction as well - any participant state has jurisdiction to pursue torturers found in any other participant state. This goes some way towards explaining what's going on in Spain.
Many in the USA subscribe to a theory of American exceptionalism. They do this consciously or unconsciously. The theory is pretty simple: when America does something, it's OK. This is in line with "If the President does it, then it's not illegal." So when Americans are waterboarded, it's torture and a war crime. When the same thing is done by Americans, it's part of the war on terror, and a policy issue that shouldn't be criminalized. Sure, the participants and those authorizing the harsh interrogation techniques (euphemism has risen to new heights these days) circumvented legal frameworks, but they're not criminals no matter what they did. We need to look forward, not backward.
That's not the way to use people who are referring business to your business.
That's exactly the way to use people who are referring business to your business. The only thing that motivates a business "relationship" is the exchange of value. If the proposed law was going to cause this change anyway, making it early as an example is the way to get people to "call down to Raleigh."
As the recession bites deeper, industry will be less willing to take the risk of making an original film or game. I'm sorry I meant to say "of developing an untested property." I don't think we'll see an increase in quality. But we won't figure out the future sitting here on slashdot.
As for Bill Hicks, I see his name a lot but not many actual quotes or material. Apparently for people who know the work, the mention of his name is sufficient.
Or maybe the whole thing is secret under the aegis of War On Terror or National Security or whatever the fuck. I don't think we'll hear much more about how this turns out, and therefore no accountability.
Actually, a better argument as regards the police is that drug busts that only get the low level operators are ineffective law enforcement. Police don't want to spend all their time catching the same handful of guys and having them let off because they're juveniles or because they know the rules just well enough to keep ahead. I'm not police, but I really believe they could be doing better, more socially beneficial work if they didn't have to re-enact the myth of Sisyphus every day.
Ballmer doesn't give a shit about local unemployment and that's not what he's talking about. America's job ills are not that people can't find jobs. It's that he can't find employees to work at the price he's set for Microsoft labor.
I'm actually researching methods of teaching proof right now for a class in Educational Assessment. I have become convinced that:
teachers are doing it wrong
while teachers would like students to appreciate the necessity of proof and proofs in mathematics, they take no steps to convey this
There is a conception among that higher ups that some students are not ready to be taught about proof
encouraging students to demand proof before they accept propositions runs counter to the way schools operate and counter to what students get in their other classes
In my experience, proofs are best taught as a conversation between the student and the teacher. The way I do it, it's mostly me asking questions.
Without proof, we're engaged in sort of a math history course. "Here are some old problems and here is how someone solved them." That's if we're lucky. More often, it's "if you see foo do bar" - simple conditionining. Teachers use mnemonic devices to help students associate one thing with another, skipping the sense-making portion of the learning.
I teach high school math myself, and I'm pretty disheartened by the current state.
Oh dude. They do know that secret at NSA; it's called a large percentage of the people working in intelligence gathering are private contractors. It used to be (and this was the original intent of outsourcing) that the data analysis was contracted out and the oversight was left to government employees. This guaranteed that the persons directing intelligence efforts were sworn in some way to uphold the law and constitution. Slowly, the oversight has also been contracted out too. Industry working groups study the need for intelligence gathering and miraculously determine that their contracts need to be grown.
Read Spies for Hire by Tim Shorrock.
Actually now that I read your post, you did say "free market" and not simply "private sector." What we have now in intelligence gathering and analysis and torture is less of a free market and more of a public-private partnership minus the public. It's still a very interesting book so I'll leave the rest of the post as is.
That's fine you can think that; it doesn't change the nature of Gandhi's argument. I was just clarifying.
But since you brought it up, a moral belief about violence works both ways. Or I guess this is "two wrongs don't make a right" or maybe "an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind."
Also consider that if the article is correct, Dell is doing this advertising completely within the Twitter rules and even the twitter mission. These are small, informative ads that are visible only to parties who have opted in. If Dell was spam creating users and following them as a way to push information to users, that would be different.
Adding a paid service for some place like Dell would just muddy the waters. It would only lead to feature creep.
Not only this, it's also testing the ability of your professor or whoever to create a valid and reliable exam in this format. Not everyone can do it, and for a lot of people, the temptation to include trick questions is very high.
I haven't had this experience. Maybe it's because I'm not in very good shape to begin with. When I finally get myself to do some sustained exercise, my body complains and I'm not inclined to go back any time soon.
I find that I have to be angry to really want to expend the energy to do like an hour or two of working out.
Intrinsic and extrinsic apply to motivation, not learning. I have read a lot of the comments in this thread, but I did skip some, so maybe someone got it wrong and that's what you're quoting. The issue of intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation is very relevant here. Schools do enough currently to kill kids' innate curiosity about the world without introducing more of that shit. Freakonomics was the first place I read about money removing other motivations to do something.
Slashdot Mirror
http://www.oldmanmurray.com/features/727.html
To be fair, however, that title can apply to a great many things in gaming.
Yes, not all cultures have pets or even treat pets ethically. That's why I kept writing. The larger point doesn't rely on the existence of a special category of animals.
Well, I've heard this one before and I have a couple of things to say about it. First, you can read PETA's response to this at their forum. I admit that posts by PETA admins are very likely to be pro-PETA, but this is in contrast to your source, a website called petakillsanimals. I don't think it will be hard to sort the bias from just facts. The PETA response provides a context that is not presented by the petakillsanimals page, which you can evaluate for yourself. The (my) tldr version of this is: PETA is killing those animals to end their suffering and not for PETA's benefit, i.e. to consume the animals or otherwise use their parts. Perhaps I am predisposed to believe them, so read the whole thing if you suspect I'm presenting it wrong.
Second, consider who the Center for Consumer Freedom is and what they represent. On their main page, they're advocating for high fructose corn syrup and one of their other projects besides petakillsanimals is a site defending trans-fats. They have every right to shill for the processed food industry but let's recognize them for what they are.
Last, I am reminded of Matthew 7:3.
The toasters look like us now.
No, not the same rights as humans, just the same rights as pets. Even this is an oversimplification but I think it gets the point across.
The point being that it is not appropriate to speak of animals having all the same rights as humans. I think this is well understood. The right to vote, for example, does not make sense since it presupposes knowledge of language, politics, issues etc. The rights that PETA members ascribe to animals, most basically, are the rights not to suffer and die at the hands of humans. These aren't that far out, when you consider the "arguments" in favor of the suffering and dying.
You're right of course. I intended in my post to describe WOW from the friend's point of view. A more complete discussion can be found in this piece by Richard Bartle. Bartle describes four basic types of motivation that exist in multiplayer games, using MUDs as his example.
This is interesting in that your friend apparently views the game differently from you. That is, WOW is a social venue with a game attached that gives you something to do with your friends. The friends are more important than the game. Blizz has taken pains to ensure accessibility for a large number of people. The system requirements are low, the interface is responsive, and the game itself is extremely easy. All this improves the network effect of the game.
So, as we can see in various sources, the US has called waterboarding torture in the recent and not-so-recent past. Regardless of the specific issue of waterboarding, there is no denying that we have tortured persons in our custody and/or shipped them off to countries where we had every expectation that they would be tortured. Some of these people died and their deaths have been ruled as homicides. But when we do it, Bush can say with a straight face that we do not torture. The real answer is that we do (did), we're just not calling it that. American exceptionalism plays into this as "it's different when we do it because of our unique place in history. There is no moral equivalence between our culture and theirs." Thus, engaging in the same tactics used by the enemy doesn't make us just like them. Nothing would that, because of America's unique place in history.
It doesn't meet the strict definition of the theory as found in Wikipedia, but it's certainly a logical extension.
whoops this was me again - I don't know how I managed to post anonymous
This is going a little afield of the topic, but I think your last paragraph deserves a documented response.
As you probably know, when Reagan signed the United Nations Convention Against Torture, it became the supreme law of the land, as described in Article VI of the United States Constitution:
Now, you may be saying to yourself "but a treaty is not self-executing - Congress still has to make a law for it to be United States Law!" This is true:
This quotation is from a (PDF) 2004 report that discusses the United States' obligations with respect to the CAT (Convention Against Torture)
So, since waterboarding is torture (your training example involves consent of the subject and I don't think applies here), there was a law against it, and it was done by the United States, it was and is a crime. The Convention not only outlaws torture in all the participant states, but requires them to investigate and prosecute any incidences of torture found within the borders of any participant states. The Convention creates a universal jurisdiction as well - any participant state has jurisdiction to pursue torturers found in any other participant state. This goes some way towards explaining what's going on in Spain.
But we need to look forward not backward.
Many in the USA subscribe to a theory of American exceptionalism. They do this consciously or unconsciously. The theory is pretty simple: when America does something, it's OK. This is in line with "If the President does it, then it's not illegal." So when Americans are waterboarded, it's torture and a war crime. When the same thing is done by Americans, it's part of the war on terror, and a policy issue that shouldn't be criminalized. Sure, the participants and those authorizing the harsh interrogation techniques (euphemism has risen to new heights these days) circumvented legal frameworks, but they're not criminals no matter what they did. We need to look forward, not backward.
That's exactly the way to use people who are referring business to your business. The only thing that motivates a business "relationship" is the exchange of value. If the proposed law was going to cause this change anyway, making it early as an example is the way to get people to "call down to Raleigh."
As the recession bites deeper, industry will be less willing to take the risk of making an original film or game. I'm sorry I meant to say "of developing an untested property." I don't think we'll see an increase in quality. But we won't figure out the future sitting here on slashdot.
As for Bill Hicks, I see his name a lot but not many actual quotes or material. Apparently for people who know the work, the mention of his name is sufficient.
Or maybe the whole thing is secret under the aegis of War On Terror or National Security or whatever the fuck. I don't think we'll hear much more about how this turns out, and therefore no accountability.
Actually, a better argument as regards the police is that drug busts that only get the low level operators are ineffective law enforcement. Police don't want to spend all their time catching the same handful of guys and having them let off because they're juveniles or because they know the rules just well enough to keep ahead. I'm not police, but I really believe they could be doing better, more socially beneficial work if they didn't have to re-enact the myth of Sisyphus every day.
Ballmer doesn't give a shit about local unemployment and that's not what he's talking about. America's job ills are not that people can't find jobs. It's that he can't find employees to work at the price he's set for Microsoft labor.
I'm actually researching methods of teaching proof right now for a class in Educational Assessment. I have become convinced that:
In my experience, proofs are best taught as a conversation between the student and the teacher. The way I do it, it's mostly me asking questions.
You might also find the Moore method of interest.
Without proof, we're engaged in sort of a math history course. "Here are some old problems and here is how someone solved them." That's if we're lucky. More often, it's "if you see foo do bar" - simple conditionining. Teachers use mnemonic devices to help students associate one thing with another, skipping the sense-making portion of the learning.
I teach high school math myself, and I'm pretty disheartened by the current state.
Presidents have been expanding executive power since (at least) Lincoln. The only recent president to do anything to curb executive power was Carter.
Oh dude. They do know that secret at NSA; it's called a large percentage of the people working in intelligence gathering are private contractors. It used to be (and this was the original intent of outsourcing) that the data analysis was contracted out and the oversight was left to government employees. This guaranteed that the persons directing intelligence efforts were sworn in some way to uphold the law and constitution. Slowly, the oversight has also been contracted out too. Industry working groups study the need for intelligence gathering and miraculously determine that their contracts need to be grown.
Read Spies for Hire by Tim Shorrock.
Actually now that I read your post, you did say "free market" and not simply "private sector." What we have now in intelligence gathering and analysis and torture is less of a free market and more of a public-private partnership minus the public. It's still a very interesting book so I'll leave the rest of the post as is.
That's fine you can think that; it doesn't change the nature of Gandhi's argument. I was just clarifying.
But since you brought it up, a moral belief about violence works both ways. Or I guess this is "two wrongs don't make a right" or maybe "an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind."
That wasn't Gandhi's bet. Gandhi's bet was that raw injustice would not be allowed to continue by inherently good people.
Also consider that if the article is correct, Dell is doing this advertising completely within the Twitter rules and even the twitter mission. These are small, informative ads that are visible only to parties who have opted in. If Dell was spam creating users and following them as a way to push information to users, that would be different.
Adding a paid service for some place like Dell would just muddy the waters. It would only lead to feature creep.
Not only this, it's also testing the ability of your professor or whoever to create a valid and reliable exam in this format. Not everyone can do it, and for a lot of people, the temptation to include trick questions is very high.
I haven't had this experience. Maybe it's because I'm not in very good shape to begin with. When I finally get myself to do some sustained exercise, my body complains and I'm not inclined to go back any time soon.
I find that I have to be angry to really want to expend the energy to do like an hour or two of working out.
Intrinsic and extrinsic apply to motivation, not learning. I have read a lot of the comments in this thread, but I did skip some, so maybe someone got it wrong and that's what you're quoting. The issue of intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation is very relevant here. Schools do enough currently to kill kids' innate curiosity about the world without introducing more of that shit. Freakonomics was the first place I read about money removing other motivations to do something.