Religion is a generic term which encompasses thousands of different beliefs, and is interchangeable with non-religious beliefs. People can find comfort and support in numerous ways, some of which are religious, some of which are spiritual, and some of which are secular.
Agreed.
Science, on the other hand, doesn't have beliefs or dogmas; it's merely a methodological approach to data analysis, and is the only one of it's kind. We have no other reliable way of analyzing the world around us. What we do with the knowledge we gain has nothing to do with science. When a suicide bomber blows up a bunch of people, he's not doing it for science.
Here is where I must disagree. "Science is not an isolated hobby, but an overarching ideal; and like every other ideal it cannot realize itself in a vacuum. Supposing the method and principles of science were set down in a book and never tried out, its greatness and beauty would be, not increased, but diminished. The purpose must be acted out, and thereby distorted, before it can claim our full devotion. In this regard science resembles all great and good things: the only kind of science we know or shall know is one that has to work in the midst of a credulous mankind, poorly taught, ruled by mixed moralities, and bent upon many other things than the search for truth."* It is as significant that science gives the means to a suicide bomber to blow himself up as it is that religion gives him the will.
That's why I think your comparison is a bit silly. Science doesn't tell us what to do or what to believe, it's merely the process we use to gain knowledge. Religion, on the other hand, DOES tell us what to do and believe, including what to do with the knowledge that science has given us.
Finally, in true slashdot fashion, I'll close off with a car analogy:
You're effectively asking me what the difference is between a company that makes cars, and the lunatics next door who think that the All Mighty Engine sacrificed his spark-plugs so that those who believe in him can go to the Big Garage in the Sky. Even if we ignore their willingness to run-over anyone who disagrees with them, the difference is still pretty damn obvious.
I do not equate science and religion except that neither is required to live or be happy, as you originally wrote, yet both help (and hinder) and talk of abolishing one or the other is misguided. I do not view either of them as an addiction and the whole point of my inquiry was to see how you differentiate the two in that respect. The answer appears to be "I respect the effects of science but not religion," which is fine but a poor litmus test for labeling something as addictive and calling for its abolition.
* Jacques Barzun, Science: The Glorious Entertainment
It's an ambiguous term nowadays, but the connotation I had in mind was "superficially skillful," which I am guessing is also what you mean, as copyrighting one's DNA is in my opinion not a very useful undertaking. If I thought it had any real merit, I would have used "intelligent" instead.
I have researched the topic and drawn up a Venn Diagram of "people clever enough to copyright their DNA" and "people with the opportunity to knock up some chicks": O O
The man who discovered aluminum in 1808, a British chemist named Humphrey Davy, first named it "alumium." When he published in 1812 he had renamed it to "aluminum," which is the name still used in America. So where did that extra "i" come from? Wikipedia has the answer.
'An anonymous contributor to the Quarterly Review, a British political-literary journal, in a review of Davy's book, objected to aluminum and proposed the name aluminium, "for so we shall take the liberty of writing the word, in preference to aluminum, which has a less classical sound."'
That's right. All of the haughtiness with which the British defend their extra syllable, all of the bloodshed spilled over the difference, and all of the mutual incomprehension that ensued is due to a change made against the discoverer's wishes based on the rant of an Anonymous Coward. If that isn't a successful troll I don't know what is.
If I'm offtopic, then so is every response in this thread.
"Offtopic" does NOT mean "I disagree." Offtopic is for posts that bear no relation to the article OR to the posts to which they respond. As I was responding to something written by LostCluster, I am clearly not offtopic. Not +5 material either, but not offtopic.
The people who elected the Democrats thought they'd do a better job of making a health care bill. The Republicans have their own agenda, of course, but it makes it no less true that the Democrats failed the people who elected them in the writing of the legislation. It's a turd of a bill.
I'm glad I live in the land of the free, where the ones in charge aren't accountable to me. They say they do it all for my own good, so I ought to keep my head down like they say I should.
We don't need science and technology to live or be happy, yet we do need food, so that comparison doesn't hold water.
Many people's lives have been significantly improved by religion by giving them hope and comfort in troubled times and a strong network of support. Many people's lives have been ruined by science and technology--any victim of a bullet or bomb, chemical waste, car accident, and any number of other things made possible by the growth of technology. It is a poor comparison that looks only at the negatives of one thing and the positives of another.
I actually agree with you in that the argument to which you responded is a stupid one, and I am not defending it as a reason for keeping religion around though I certainly don't agree with abolishing it. I asked my question in earnest, not as a debate maneuver. I don't advocate ceasing scientific activity because it certainly has brought an increase to physical well-being, yet how is that different from religious practitioners who get spiritual (or mental, if you will) well-being?
Agreed. There is also with that mindset the implicit belief that a solution or answer exists for every problem or question. And not only is it sadly out of fashion to say "I'm not sure," but any tentative answer such as "I'm currently leaning toward this line of thought" usually results in an immediate endorsement or attempt to poke holes in the theory. There is very little open dialogue with the goal of deepening understanding; it's all us versus them all the time.
Yeah, if you depend on a substance or an ideology, breaking with it is going to be hard. That doesn't mean that you need it to live, or to be happy. It just means you're an addict. If you ditch your addiction, things can only get better.
Can't the same thing be said about science and technology?
The uproar is due in part to the extravagant claims made, in specific instances and in general. There is a common assumption among intellectuals* that science will solve all of our problems and answer all questions (as nicely illustrated by your phrase "that we can't fully understand yet"), when most often in reality it allows us only to see more problems and questions than we ever thought existed. There is a great disrespect for human ingenuity, which after all drives the science in the first place and devises applications for the knowledge gained--this is how the problems are solved, when they can be. Science is and ought to remain the tool, yet many people seem to want to elevate it to the status of master.
In this summary, for instance, the overblown claim is that the software "creates beautiful, original music." What isn't mentioned is that one of the pieces of software (for there are two) is fed copious amounts of human-created source material to work from, and the other creates musical bits but only keeps the ones that the composer likes--hardly an unassisted process. The composer himself has this to say:
“All the computer is is just an extension of me,” Cope says. “They’re nothing but wonderfully organized shovels. I wouldn’t give credit to the shovel for digging the hole. Would you?”
I am certainly not anti-science. Yet it seems that like virtually every other belief nowadays, it is expected that you are either "for" or "against" it. I believe that science has limitations in its usefulness, a reasoned middle ground that is no longer acceptable to most.
*Not meant in the pejorative; I consider myself part of this class.
If you can work the software, you can sound every bit as good as the best musicians of the past without a day of musical training.
Not exactly. Auto-tune is basically a float-to-integer converter for your voice, plus the ability to lock into a given scale or in extreme cases to an arbitrary pitch fed to it through MIDI, more like a vocoder. If you should be singing a C and you sing a half-assed flat A instead, it's going to change it to a pristine A (with that nasty hard edge that lets close listeners know you're using a tuner). For someone who isn't completely tone-deaf, this will allow them to perform as well as a good singer, but "the best musicians of the past" also composed at a more elite level than your average person. The craft has to be of quality to make it worth listening to; a perfectly pitched cover of a Blink 182 song is still going to sound like crap (come to think of it, I'm pretty sure they auto-tune).
Apparently, the computer can even compose your score, now, too.
Again, not exactly. From the article:
This program [called Emily Howell] would write music in an odd sort of way. Instead of spitting out a full score, it converses with Cope through the keyboard and mouse. He asks it a musical question, feeding in some compositions or a musical phrase. The program responds with its own musical statement. He says “yes” or “no,” and he’ll send it more information and then look at the output. The program builds what’s called an association network — certain musical statements and relationships between notes are weighted as “good,” others as “bad.” Eventually, the exchange produces a score, either in sections or as one long piece.
Cope, the software's author, clearly plays a role in the creation. The machine spits out ideas and he keeps the ones he likes. Later in the article he says his new focus is in using "on-the-fly programs" to come up with quick and dirty sketches of musical ideas to use in his own compositions. The first program, Emmy, relied on volumes of material from a composer to write new works in their style. Cope fed Emmy his work and the ensuing piece was one of the most highly rated in his career. And yet, it took Emmy dozens of inputs to produce that piece, and each of those pieces was hand-crafted by a human being. All this means is that computers will continue to be wonderful tools; they have already greatly lowered the bar for entry into the act of music creation, yet they have not raised the quality. If anything the opposite is true.
Progress happens.
"Progress" is a tricky term to use with music or any of the arts. New people (or machines!) try new things and spur others to do the same, but probably everyone here can think of a recent (20th century) song performed by a single singer and an acoustic guitar that is very moving. The guitar is over 800 years old, the scale it uses has only 12 tones, and the song you're thinking of likely has five chords in it at the most, yet their convergence in this particular manner results in something that resonates with you. In the realm of art, it is the particular that matters, and progress concerns itself with generalities. That is to say, there is no more chance of finding out what makes music "tick" as there is in why your favorite film is your favorite: there are thousands of reasons even for people who love the same film, and there are thousands of films to choose from.
This software appears to create the art music equivalent of an album: art music pieces often consist of multiple movements, with the whole piece commonly lasting nearly an hour. The same use and variation of themes that one finds in a good rock album are present--in fact, it is my opinion that the album form is a carry-over or replacement from the days when symphonic music was the height of culture. In the 20th century art music became much more difficult to follow and less pleasing to the ear; it is only natural that some of the more musically-acute pop groups felt the urge to create something grander and more meaningful.
Speaking only for myself, I was never taught about the monetary system in the American public school system. Nor did I ever have a class on civics. These two deficits, which I luckily stumbled into correcting for myself, are partially responsible for the polarized political tone, the public apathy, and the continuing financial problems of the United States.
The only reason to think it has value is because it did historically.
It is a sad fact of contemporary Western culture that this is taken to mean "gold has no real value." All of the rights we enjoy in our society are here for the same reason--they were historically valued. It is woefully ignorant to ignore the thrust of history. You can make a case against the use of gold as a currency, but "it has historically held value" is a talking point for your opposition. After all, *every* currency has value only because we choose to agree that it does. Utility in a currency is a bad thing, because then your money supply will keep shrinking as people use the currency for other purposes.
Some kind of currency is necessary to avoid the extra problems that the barter system brings, such as the coincidence of wants. Gold has certain properties that make it a good currency, which is why it has been so often used throughout history. These properties are arguably not as important in times of societal stability, but they become increasingly important when things fall apart.
Gold is fungible, meaning that one piece of gold is equivalent to another. Its size and purity can be easily tested. This is unlike comic books which, especially as they age, end up in different conditions--and then there's the quandary of "is this Punisher 2099 worth as much as that #1 Superman?"
Gold is stable. It takes much effort to pull more up from the ground, which means that devaluation is very slow--especially in bad times. The question of durability also comes into play: food is good for bartering, but food spoils or gets eaten so does not make a good store of value.
Gold is transportable. It's rare enough that a large amount of wealth can be easily carried, yet small payments can be made without using microscopic pieces.
Gold is divisible. It can be divided and rejoined as necessary without losing value.
Gold is easily recognized. Due in part to its particular nature and in part to its historical role.
Try to understand what money is for and why a good currency must have the properties it does before making half-cocked statements about it. Your entire list of reasons for ruling out gold (can't eat it, can't hunt with it, etc.) are all things that make it good for a currency. The fact that you were modded +5 for such stupidity only shows that there are sadly many moderators as ignorant as you on the topic of money.
There are schools of thought that say commodity-backed currencies aren't good for our society, and some of their arguments have merit. But "in bad times," as this thread is about, the only alternative is the barter system which is rife with inefficiencies. If you can't see why gold makes a good hard currency then, then I will gladly trade you all of my comic books for all of your gold.
It's a common misconception by many people that all plane owners are wealthy.
That's as may be, but I think what the GP means is this: If you have an expensive durable good, especially one that has significant upkeep costs and is mainly for entertainment, and you have money problems, selling the durable good to help with the money problems should be one of your first thoughts. "Airplane owner" just means that an airplane happens to be the durable good in this case. It could just as easily have been a second car, the sporty model.
I think if GP had meant to imply that all airplane owners are wealthy, he would have written something like, "I'm supposed to feel bad about an airplane owner's money problems? If he's got enough money for a plane he's got no money problems."
Writing is good and if you have the inclination, do it. Calling the offices (home and DC) of your senator (since this is a treaty) is very quick and almost as effectual as snail mail. I personally call for important matters and email for back-burner stuff. I never got along well with the postal system.
Just as important as contacting your reps is convincing others to do the same. This is why I prefer to suggest phone calls: they can be done on a whim and they're quicker than post and email because you get to air your views to a live person on the other end of the line who can gauge how you feel by your tone (please remain civil and avoid run-on sentences like this one). If you convince other people to call and to talk to their friends, soon enough the staffers on the other end are going to feel like everybody hates this thing, and they'd better tell the boss or they might be blamed when he loses his next election because of it.
A lot of the reason people don't care is because they don't think they can do anything about it. The GP is too cynical to think that any effort will make a difference; it's only one step further to not bothering to care.
But you can do something. You can call your representatives and pressure them to oppose this legislation. In the same way that voters say to the apathetic, "You cannot complain if you didn't vote," the active public can say, "You cannot complain if you did not express your opinion to the people charged with representing you." It is very easy to get their contact information, and a matter of under fifteen minutes to call both senators and your congressman.
Do that first and you can complain. Convince other people to do the same and you can get enough influence to make your representatives pay attention to your collective viewpoint. This is how the system is supposed to work. There is much talk of the failure of the public, but there is too little effort currently being put into making things right. You all talk about how stupid people are but naturally you are thinking of people in general and not yourself or most of your friends. So why aren't you making yourselves heard and spreading the word?
Nationality != race. There is of course significant overlap, but GP is referring to the acts of large political bodies: governments of nation-states. "The Chinese" in that post refers to "the government of China" and does not say anything about "American citizens of Chinese ancestry," as it would if it were about race.
Slashdot Mirror
Religion is a generic term which encompasses thousands of different beliefs, and is interchangeable with non-religious beliefs. People can find comfort and support in numerous ways, some of which are religious, some of which are spiritual, and some of which are secular.
Agreed.
Science, on the other hand, doesn't have beliefs or dogmas; it's merely a methodological approach to data analysis, and is the only one of it's kind. We have no other reliable way of analyzing the world around us. What we do with the knowledge we gain has nothing to do with science. When a suicide bomber blows up a bunch of people, he's not doing it for science.
Here is where I must disagree. "Science is not an isolated hobby, but an overarching ideal; and like every other ideal it cannot realize itself in a vacuum. Supposing the method and principles of science were set down in a book and never tried out, its greatness and beauty would be, not increased, but diminished. The purpose must be acted out, and thereby distorted, before it can claim our full devotion. In this regard science resembles all great and good things: the only kind of science we know or shall know is one that has to work in the midst of a credulous mankind, poorly taught, ruled by mixed moralities, and bent upon many other things than the search for truth."* It is as significant that science gives the means to a suicide bomber to blow himself up as it is that religion gives him the will.
That's why I think your comparison is a bit silly. Science doesn't tell us what to do or what to believe, it's merely the process we use to gain knowledge. Religion, on the other hand, DOES tell us what to do and believe, including what to do with the knowledge that science has given us.
Finally, in true slashdot fashion, I'll close off with a car analogy:
You're effectively asking me what the difference is between a company that makes cars, and the lunatics next door who think that the All Mighty Engine sacrificed his spark-plugs so that those who believe in him can go to the Big Garage in the Sky. Even if we ignore their willingness to run-over anyone who disagrees with them, the difference is still pretty damn obvious.
I do not equate science and religion except that neither is required to live or be happy, as you originally wrote, yet both help (and hinder) and talk of abolishing one or the other is misguided. I do not view either of them as an addiction and the whole point of my inquiry was to see how you differentiate the two in that respect. The answer appears to be "I respect the effects of science but not religion," which is fine but a poor litmus test for labeling something as addictive and calling for its abolition.
* Jacques Barzun, Science: The Glorious Entertainment
Last part of last sentence:
"Obviously a free and open source solution would be preferable, but I'm open to anything at this point."
Pretty clear submitter will take what he can get.
Left-foot breaking, motor breaking and manual transmission are all useful professional techniques.
What profession is this, exactly? Mafia enforcer?
It's an ambiguous term nowadays, but the connotation I had in mind was "superficially skillful," which I am guessing is also what you mean, as copyrighting one's DNA is in my opinion not a very useful undertaking. If I thought it had any real merit, I would have used "intelligent" instead.
I have researched the topic and drawn up a Venn Diagram of "people clever enough to copyright their DNA" and "people with the opportunity to knock up some chicks":
O O
Also, bloodshed spilled is redundant redundant.
Ouch. I'm usually pretty good about that sort of thing. I guess sometimes everybody slips up sometimes ;)
The man who discovered aluminum in 1808, a British chemist named Humphrey Davy, first named it "alumium." When he published in 1812 he had renamed it to "aluminum," which is the name still used in America. So where did that extra "i" come from? Wikipedia has the answer.
'An anonymous contributor to the Quarterly Review, a British political-literary journal, in a review of Davy's book, objected to aluminum and proposed the name aluminium, "for so we shall take the liberty of writing the word, in preference to aluminum, which has a less classical sound."'
That's right. All of the haughtiness with which the British defend their extra syllable, all of the bloodshed spilled over the difference, and all of the mutual incomprehension that ensued is due to a change made against the discoverer's wishes based on the rant of an Anonymous Coward. If that isn't a successful troll I don't know what is.
You know that Edward Teach is Blackbeard, right? Not exactly known for the head-bowing. Beard-lighting, now that's another story.
If I'm offtopic, then so is every response in this thread.
"Offtopic" does NOT mean "I disagree." Offtopic is for posts that bear no relation to the article OR to the posts to which they respond. As I was responding to something written by LostCluster, I am clearly not offtopic. Not +5 material either, but not offtopic.
Noobs.
The people who elected the Democrats thought they'd do a better job of making a health care bill. The Republicans have their own agenda, of course, but it makes it no less true that the Democrats failed the people who elected them in the writing of the legislation. It's a turd of a bill.
I'm glad I live in the land of the free,
where the ones in charge aren't accountable to me.
They say they do it all for my own good,
so I ought to keep my head down like they say I should.
Meh.
We don't need science and technology to live or be happy, yet we do need food, so that comparison doesn't hold water.
Many people's lives have been significantly improved by religion by giving them hope and comfort in troubled times and a strong network of support. Many people's lives have been ruined by science and technology--any victim of a bullet or bomb, chemical waste, car accident, and any number of other things made possible by the growth of technology. It is a poor comparison that looks only at the negatives of one thing and the positives of another.
I actually agree with you in that the argument to which you responded is a stupid one, and I am not defending it as a reason for keeping religion around though I certainly don't agree with abolishing it. I asked my question in earnest, not as a debate maneuver. I don't advocate ceasing scientific activity because it certainly has brought an increase to physical well-being, yet how is that different from religious practitioners who get spiritual (or mental, if you will) well-being?
Agreed. There is also with that mindset the implicit belief that a solution or answer exists for every problem or question. And not only is it sadly out of fashion to say "I'm not sure," but any tentative answer such as "I'm currently leaning toward this line of thought" usually results in an immediate endorsement or attempt to poke holes in the theory. There is very little open dialogue with the goal of deepening understanding; it's all us versus them all the time.
Yeah, if you depend on a substance or an ideology, breaking with it is going to be hard. That doesn't mean that you need it to live, or to be happy. It just means you're an addict. If you ditch your addiction, things can only get better.
Can't the same thing be said about science and technology?
The machine knows that note X is pleasing to the ear after note Y, or note Z will cause a cacophony
*looks at piano*
Huh...mine only goes up to G and then starts over. Maybe that's why I'm no good at composing.
The uproar is due in part to the extravagant claims made, in specific instances and in general. There is a common assumption among intellectuals* that science will solve all of our problems and answer all questions (as nicely illustrated by your phrase "that we can't fully understand yet"), when most often in reality it allows us only to see more problems and questions than we ever thought existed. There is a great disrespect for human ingenuity, which after all drives the science in the first place and devises applications for the knowledge gained--this is how the problems are solved, when they can be. Science is and ought to remain the tool, yet many people seem to want to elevate it to the status of master.
In this summary, for instance, the overblown claim is that the software "creates beautiful, original music." What isn't mentioned is that one of the pieces of software (for there are two) is fed copious amounts of human-created source material to work from, and the other creates musical bits but only keeps the ones that the composer likes--hardly an unassisted process. The composer himself has this to say:
“All the computer is is just an extension of me,” Cope says. “They’re nothing but wonderfully organized shovels. I wouldn’t give credit to the shovel for digging the hole. Would you?”
I am certainly not anti-science. Yet it seems that like virtually every other belief nowadays, it is expected that you are either "for" or "against" it. I believe that science has limitations in its usefulness, a reasoned middle ground that is no longer acceptable to most.
*Not meant in the pejorative; I consider myself part of this class.
If you can work the software, you can sound every bit as good as the best musicians of the past without a day of musical training.
Not exactly. Auto-tune is basically a float-to-integer converter for your voice, plus the ability to lock into a given scale or in extreme cases to an arbitrary pitch fed to it through MIDI, more like a vocoder. If you should be singing a C and you sing a half-assed flat A instead, it's going to change it to a pristine A (with that nasty hard edge that lets close listeners know you're using a tuner). For someone who isn't completely tone-deaf, this will allow them to perform as well as a good singer, but "the best musicians of the past" also composed at a more elite level than your average person. The craft has to be of quality to make it worth listening to; a perfectly pitched cover of a Blink 182 song is still going to sound like crap (come to think of it, I'm pretty sure they auto-tune).
Apparently, the computer can even compose your score, now, too.
Again, not exactly. From the article:
This program [called Emily Howell] would write music in an odd sort of way. Instead of spitting out a full score, it converses with Cope through the keyboard and mouse. He asks it a musical question, feeding in some compositions or a musical phrase. The program responds with its own musical statement. He says “yes” or “no,” and he’ll send it more information and then look at the output. The program builds what’s called an association network — certain musical statements and relationships between notes are weighted as “good,” others as “bad.” Eventually, the exchange produces a score, either in sections or as one long piece.
Cope, the software's author, clearly plays a role in the creation. The machine spits out ideas and he keeps the ones he likes. Later in the article he says his new focus is in using "on-the-fly programs" to come up with quick and dirty sketches of musical ideas to use in his own compositions. The first program, Emmy, relied on volumes of material from a composer to write new works in their style. Cope fed Emmy his work and the ensuing piece was one of the most highly rated in his career. And yet, it took Emmy dozens of inputs to produce that piece, and each of those pieces was hand-crafted by a human being. All this means is that computers will continue to be wonderful tools; they have already greatly lowered the bar for entry into the act of music creation, yet they have not raised the quality. If anything the opposite is true.
Progress happens.
"Progress" is a tricky term to use with music or any of the arts. New people (or machines!) try new things and spur others to do the same, but probably everyone here can think of a recent (20th century) song performed by a single singer and an acoustic guitar that is very moving. The guitar is over 800 years old, the scale it uses has only 12 tones, and the song you're thinking of likely has five chords in it at the most, yet their convergence in this particular manner results in something that resonates with you. In the realm of art, it is the particular that matters, and progress concerns itself with generalities. That is to say, there is no more chance of finding out what makes music "tick" as there is in why your favorite film is your favorite: there are thousands of reasons even for people who love the same film, and there are thousands of films to choose from.
This software appears to create the art music equivalent of an album: art music pieces often consist of multiple movements, with the whole piece commonly lasting nearly an hour. The same use and variation of themes that one finds in a good rock album are present--in fact, it is my opinion that the album form is a carry-over or replacement from the days when symphonic music was the height of culture. In the 20th century art music became much more difficult to follow and less pleasing to the ear; it is only natural that some of the more musically-acute pop groups felt the urge to create something grander and more meaningful.
I have some Punisher 2099...
Speaking only for myself, I was never taught about the monetary system in the American public school system. Nor did I ever have a class on civics. These two deficits, which I luckily stumbled into correcting for myself, are partially responsible for the polarized political tone, the public apathy, and the continuing financial problems of the United States.
The only reason to think it has value is because it did historically.
It is a sad fact of contemporary Western culture that this is taken to mean "gold has no real value." All of the rights we enjoy in our society are here for the same reason--they were historically valued. It is woefully ignorant to ignore the thrust of history. You can make a case against the use of gold as a currency, but "it has historically held value" is a talking point for your opposition. After all, *every* currency has value only because we choose to agree that it does. Utility in a currency is a bad thing, because then your money supply will keep shrinking as people use the currency for other purposes.
Some kind of currency is necessary to avoid the extra problems that the barter system brings, such as the coincidence of wants. Gold has certain properties that make it a good currency, which is why it has been so often used throughout history. These properties are arguably not as important in times of societal stability, but they become increasingly important when things fall apart.
Try to understand what money is for and why a good currency must have the properties it does before making half-cocked statements about it. Your entire list of reasons for ruling out gold (can't eat it, can't hunt with it, etc.) are all things that make it good for a currency. The fact that you were modded +5 for such stupidity only shows that there are sadly many moderators as ignorant as you on the topic of money.
There are schools of thought that say commodity-backed currencies aren't good for our society, and some of their arguments have merit. But "in bad times," as this thread is about, the only alternative is the barter system which is rife with inefficiencies. If you can't see why gold makes a good hard currency then, then I will gladly trade you all of my comic books for all of your gold.
It's a common misconception by many people that all plane owners are wealthy.
That's as may be, but I think what the GP means is this: If you have an expensive durable good, especially one that has significant upkeep costs and is mainly for entertainment, and you have money problems, selling the durable good to help with the money problems should be one of your first thoughts. "Airplane owner" just means that an airplane happens to be the durable good in this case. It could just as easily have been a second car, the sporty model.
I think if GP had meant to imply that all airplane owners are wealthy, he would have written something like, "I'm supposed to feel bad about an airplane owner's money problems? If he's got enough money for a plane he's got no money problems."
Writing is good and if you have the inclination, do it. Calling the offices (home and DC) of your senator (since this is a treaty) is very quick and almost as effectual as snail mail. I personally call for important matters and email for back-burner stuff. I never got along well with the postal system.
Just as important as contacting your reps is convincing others to do the same. This is why I prefer to suggest phone calls: they can be done on a whim and they're quicker than post and email because you get to air your views to a live person on the other end of the line who can gauge how you feel by your tone (please remain civil and avoid run-on sentences like this one). If you convince other people to call and to talk to their friends, soon enough the staffers on the other end are going to feel like everybody hates this thing, and they'd better tell the boss or they might be blamed when he loses his next election because of it.
Public pressure is our greatest tool.
A lot of the reason people don't care is because they don't think they can do anything about it. The GP is too cynical to think that any effort will make a difference; it's only one step further to not bothering to care.
But you can do something. You can call your representatives and pressure them to oppose this legislation. In the same way that voters say to the apathetic, "You cannot complain if you didn't vote," the active public can say, "You cannot complain if you did not express your opinion to the people charged with representing you." It is very easy to get their contact information, and a matter of under fifteen minutes to call both senators and your congressman.
Do that first and you can complain. Convince other people to do the same and you can get enough influence to make your representatives pay attention to your collective viewpoint. This is how the system is supposed to work. There is much talk of the failure of the public, but there is too little effort currently being put into making things right. You all talk about how stupid people are but naturally you are thinking of people in general and not yourself or most of your friends. So why aren't you making yourselves heard and spreading the word?
Nationality != race. There is of course significant overlap, but GP is referring to the acts of large political bodies: governments of nation-states. "The Chinese" in that post refers to "the government of China" and does not say anything about "American citizens of Chinese ancestry," as it would if it were about race.