None of this changes the fact that it's an operation that has little if any real benefit. This is more about politics. Feminist groups will back anything that takes control away from men. It's incredibly childish.. In this case, it denies men a good percentage of sexual pleasure which, anecdotally anyway, most feminists would cheer for. There are a lot of nerves in the foreskin, and it also protects the glans from abrasion
Don't be so disingenuous.. He says that because feminists are always up in arms when men dare to state their opinions in what feminists view as gynecological/reproductive matters.. This is quite typical of female histrionic and narcissistic behavior. They want men out of their affairs, yet they want men responsible for 'his kid' when he 'gets her pregnant', and at the same time, they want a say in dictating what happens to mens' genitalia..
The hypocrisy and complete lack of respect from feminists on this subject should piss off anyone who actually wants a balanced playing field.
yet I'll bet you think feminine genital mutilation is an 'international outrage'?
Lots of women don't clean down there either, you know. Maybe we should preempt that behavior with a nice easy surgical operation? what the hell is wrong with you?
If we demanded respect for the laws of physics from both drivers and pedestrians as much as we do for the rule of law, we'd have almost no accidents. I never said little residential backroads should be 65 nor did my statements imply it.
It looks like this study only takes speed into account. Well duh.. If speed is assumed as the only cause, the only answer is 0mph. Now the humans are protected and the space robots have done their jobs. The end, right?
On a road where 25 is truly justified, people will still die at 15. That road needs a major overhaul. In low speed situations, lack of visibility is usually the problem. I've seen streets where neighbors purposely block needed sight lines to slow people down. Of course, they don't slow down because a lot of people are shitty drivers, and then someone's idiot kid gets killed because he didn't look both ways before crossing like a pedestrian is supposed to do...as I thought everyone was taught to do. I've noticed no one does that anymore.. they just walk whereever without any regard to what tracks big, heavy objects are vectoring around them.. It's insane stupidity that no law can fix, no matter how slow you set the speed limit.
ah yes, the tyrant apologist argument. After all, demanding such freedoms will be met with open arms by government which of course loves all of its citizens. It would never put them on watch/nofly lists, label them with some kind of dirty keyword that preempts them from due process, tap their communications, or twist existing laws to justify arrests.. It would never violate the spirit of its founding documents with circular reasoning and newspeak redefinitions...
The only way to prevent tyranny is to deny what's require for one to operate.
whoa hold up.. No one has a right to 'feel safe.' That is a fallacy that needs to die. Feeling safe and being safe are two different things with two very different political outcomes.
The problem is that cops are treating every situation as 'dangerous' now, because of these ever more powerful tools. with the information provided by the cams, they're free to justify any sort of intent they want by washing the recorded behavior though a pile of half baked and badly interpreted psychology. With this, they can now justify targeting nearly anyone they choose. This is really bad for freedom for obvious reasons. TASERs are another example. You're welcome to respond with 'don't tase me bro', but the fact is these weapons are often misused under the guise they're 'non fatal.' Give a bully mentality a bat to whack people in the head with, tell him it's 'non fatal', and watch what happens. There's a reason the schoolyard bully type often gravitates to law enforcement.
and if people were more attentive and better skilled drivers, that whole curve is shifted downward radically. Inattentiveness (lack of situational awareness) has a far better correlation with accidents than speed.
Perhaps you're forgetting that authority is rarely honest? I could retort with "Perhaps you're forgetting that most western europeans are too trusting of authority" but then I'd be making the same fallacy you did. I never claimed it was done by "a few guys istting in a room trying to decide how to be stereotypically evil and selfish." I can bet that your governmental institutions operate with the same kind of self serving actions any institutional bureaucracy takes for self-preservation and expansion of its influence.
Sure, but road design and layout is the biggest external factor. The problem is that speed limit benefits are interpreted as a slippery slope argument for the sake of lowering them to increase revenue. The lower it is, the 'safer' things are assumed to be, making the speeding 'offense' ever more egregious.. The logical conclusion is to ban driving altogether.. now everyone's safe, right?
I'm not saying there are always idiots (though that's also true), I'm saying that lowering the expected levels of performance makes better idiots.. People adapt themselves to the new normals, and the accident levels creep back up again. With modern cars, that creep levels off pretty damn close to the same level as the above-limit speeds most people travel at. 65 or 80, the accident levels for most stretches of highway are similar enough that strict enforcement of 65 is pointless. For the most part, the limits are changed along roads for no rhyme or reason unless that particular state wants to set up traps for revenue. Obviously, I'm leaving out situations where it does make some sense, like construction, though even there, the 'temporary' speed limit signs are enforced even when no workers are present and there is no other hazard. I've seen situations where these 'temporary' signs are still up a year after the work was completed, complete with two cop cars sitting around waiting to ticket 'speeders.' So while you're technically correct, the reality is that a fatal accident at 80 is most likely going to be a fatal accident at 65 in most highway situations. It's just assumed by the law that the speeding was the fault, when it it's more likely due to some other behavior causing inattention. The same thing goes with the 35-50 zones on most backroads. 'most' being the operator here. Ideally, funds from tickets should go to civil projects to redesign areas with recurrent accident problems instead of law enforcement budgets.
I'd rather have alert drivers going 80, than a bunch of cellphone yammering idiots going 60. If the real goal is safety, the best thing we can do is tear down the road mounted cell towers. Interactive communication is as distracting as intoxication.
The loss of freedom that comes from excessive accumulation of power? The only reason to have such surveillance systems is to use the collected information against the surveilled masses. Honest traffic safety hotspots can be monitored by individual cop cars when necessary, and if they are continually problematic, then it's time to call in the civil engineers to fix the issue. There is no need for ubiquitous surveillance to solve this problem. That's why I think it's bogus.
..and you trust the relevant agencies when they have obvious conflicts of interest? All roads aren't equal you know, in some places perhaps they're correct. In most cases I'll bet the limits are lower than they need to be. It's more likely some politicrats were afraid their backers would lose ticket revenues.
oh so we serve police officers now? It's our job to make them feel safe? I thought they were supposed to serve us? Well..the humans must be shoved. They will go down the stairs.. Space has a terrible power after all....and being able to see everything is absolute power. We all know what that does..
which is all based on the assumption that speed limits are about safety. They're not.. If traffic is smooth, then it is safe...even if it's going 80 in a 65. Best leave it be then. If traffic is rarely smooth, then the road needs to be redesigned so that it is.
Well basically, people end up forced to disguise motives for actions taken if they don't comply with a social status quo that demands moral justifications for almost everything. In other words, one doesn't have a right to something unless it complies with a 'universal' morality. As this status quo becomes less and less compatible with basic human needs, it breeds all kinds of passive aggressive behavior as individuals attempt to get their legitimate needs filled without feeling institutionally programmed guilt or getting in to trouble with authority. Today, it's bad enough that it's almost impossible to have a truly honest discussion about anything truly important nowadays, never mind live truly satisfying lives. I think this dynamic is one of the first causes of political problems in western countries, or any country that claims a representative government. The more 'socialized' and interconnected the society, the more powerful this dynamic becomes.
His statements about 'lack of meaningful work' are also interesting. Having large numbers of people seriously unsatisfied with the daily grinds they must endure is definitely a key component of social unrest. We anesthetize ourselves with cheesy entertainment or embed ourselves in (or generate) trivial real life drama to hide from this. Sometimes we combine the two (reality tv). While most would be quick to state how hard the back breaking rural lifestyle was, 12hr work days cooped up in office buildings are not any better. They may in fact be worse. He sees technology as the enemy because of this.
As far as technology goes, I admit it enables this to happen with more efficiency, but I think the solution lies in fixing the root causes, not attacking tools. As the drug and gun wars have shown, attacking tools solves nothing.
So you'll sacrifice your privacy and rights for fake security? Lovely. Leave mine alone, thank you very much. Oh, and your car analogy sucks. Programming software and the ability to choose what software runs on your device is NOT the same thing, for one, and secondly, insurance and cops do NOT keep you safer on the road. The self preservation instinct in the drivers does, along with skill, vehicle condition, and situational awareness.
Ensures no spyware? So, you won't tolerate spyware unless it's corporate or government sanctioned?..because that's what these walled gardens are. Hey buddy, reality check: if you're running spyware, you're compromised! It really doesn't matter who put it there because the reason is obvious. They want to monitor and/or control your use behavior.
It's not just about the nerds. It's the users too. These nerds write alternative software that forces the big vendors into offering at least some value in their products. You're welcome to throw around as many 'neckbeard' jokes as you want, but many of these guys write code that ends up in software that average users want to run. Locking the devices down prevents this development from happening. This is why general purpose computing is crucial to continued innovation.
What the hell? Free ride? I paid for my hardware, thank you.
Then you can say goodbye to innovation.. programming will become something that only large corporations and government can afford to do. That's the day when computers truly cross the line from empowering users to enslaving them. Those geeks and nerds balance the push from vendor trolls who build businesses on false scarcity by coding alternative software that is user empowering. Trust me, you want this kind of competition because it's the only thing keeping vendors even remotely honest.
Slashdot Mirror
it's possible to create aesthetic interfaces that don't have gimmicks like 'stitched leather.' I hate that crap.
None of this changes the fact that it's an operation that has little if any real benefit. This is more about politics. Feminist groups will back anything that takes control away from men. It's incredibly childish.. In this case, it denies men a good percentage of sexual pleasure which, anecdotally anyway, most feminists would cheer for. There are a lot of nerves in the foreskin, and it also protects the glans from abrasion
maybe because they figure they're missing out on better sex? the same way clitorectomies deny that for women?
Don't be so disingenuous.. He says that because feminists are always up in arms when men dare to state their opinions in what feminists view as gynecological/reproductive matters.. This is quite typical of female histrionic and narcissistic behavior. They want men out of their affairs, yet they want men responsible for 'his kid' when he 'gets her pregnant', and at the same time, they want a say in dictating what happens to mens' genitalia..
The hypocrisy and complete lack of respect from feminists on this subject should piss off anyone who actually wants a balanced playing field.
yet I'll bet you think feminine genital mutilation is an 'international outrage'?
Lots of women don't clean down there either, you know. Maybe we should preempt that behavior with a nice easy surgical operation? what the hell is wrong with you?
this is funny?
lets try my joke and see if it's ranked just as funny
sterilising women will provide sigificant savings in:
1. state funded single moms
2. contraceptive costs
3. pregnancy related expenses
4. cervical cancer costs
HAHAHA are we still laughing?
If we demanded respect for the laws of physics from both drivers and pedestrians as much as we do for the rule of law, we'd have almost no accidents. I never said little residential backroads should be 65 nor did my statements imply it.
It looks like this study only takes speed into account. Well duh.. If speed is assumed as the only cause, the only answer is 0mph. Now the humans are protected and the space robots have done their jobs. The end, right?
On a road where 25 is truly justified, people will still die at 15. That road needs a major overhaul. In low speed situations, lack of visibility is usually the problem. I've seen streets where neighbors purposely block needed sight lines to slow people down. Of course, they don't slow down because a lot of people are shitty drivers, and then someone's idiot kid gets killed because he didn't look both ways before crossing like a pedestrian is supposed to do...as I thought everyone was taught to do. I've noticed no one does that anymore.. they just walk whereever without any regard to what tracks big, heavy objects are vectoring around them.. It's insane stupidity that no law can fix, no matter how slow you set the speed limit.
ah yes, the tyrant apologist argument. After all, demanding such freedoms will be met with open arms by government which of course loves all of its citizens. It would never put them on watch/nofly lists, label them with some kind of dirty keyword that preempts them from due process, tap their communications, or twist existing laws to justify arrests.. It would never violate the spirit of its founding documents with circular reasoning and newspeak redefinitions...
The only way to prevent tyranny is to deny what's require for one to operate.
whoa hold up.. No one has a right to 'feel safe.' That is a fallacy that needs to die. Feeling safe and being safe are two different things with two very different political outcomes.
The problem is that cops are treating every situation as 'dangerous' now, because of these ever more powerful tools. with the information provided by the cams, they're free to justify any sort of intent they want by washing the recorded behavior though a pile of half baked and badly interpreted psychology. With this, they can now justify targeting nearly anyone they choose. This is really bad for freedom for obvious reasons. TASERs are another example. You're welcome to respond with 'don't tase me bro', but the fact is these weapons are often misused under the guise they're 'non fatal.' Give a bully mentality a bat to whack people in the head with, tell him it's 'non fatal', and watch what happens. There's a reason the schoolyard bully type often gravitates to law enforcement.
and if people were more attentive and better skilled drivers, that whole curve is shifted downward radically. Inattentiveness (lack of situational awareness) has a far better correlation with accidents than speed.
Perhaps you're forgetting that authority is rarely honest? I could retort with "Perhaps you're forgetting that most western europeans are too trusting of authority" but then I'd be making the same fallacy you did. I never claimed it was done by "a few guys istting in a room trying to decide how to be stereotypically evil and selfish." I can bet that your governmental institutions operate with the same kind of self serving actions any institutional bureaucracy takes for self-preservation and expansion of its influence.
Sure, but road design and layout is the biggest external factor. The problem is that speed limit benefits are interpreted as a slippery slope argument for the sake of lowering them to increase revenue. The lower it is, the 'safer' things are assumed to be, making the speeding 'offense' ever more egregious.. The logical conclusion is to ban driving altogether.. now everyone's safe, right?
I'm not saying there are always idiots (though that's also true), I'm saying that lowering the expected levels of performance makes better idiots.. People adapt themselves to the new normals, and the accident levels creep back up again. With modern cars, that creep levels off pretty damn close to the same level as the above-limit speeds most people travel at. 65 or 80, the accident levels for most stretches of highway are similar enough that strict enforcement of 65 is pointless. For the most part, the limits are changed along roads for no rhyme or reason unless that particular state wants to set up traps for revenue. Obviously, I'm leaving out situations where it does make some sense, like construction, though even there, the 'temporary' speed limit signs are enforced even when no workers are present and there is no other hazard. I've seen situations where these 'temporary' signs are still up a year after the work was completed, complete with two cop cars sitting around waiting to ticket 'speeders.' So while you're technically correct, the reality is that a fatal accident at 80 is most likely going to be a fatal accident at 65 in most highway situations. It's just assumed by the law that the speeding was the fault, when it it's more likely due to some other behavior causing inattention. The same thing goes with the 35-50 zones on most backroads. 'most' being the operator here. Ideally, funds from tickets should go to civil projects to redesign areas with recurrent accident problems instead of law enforcement budgets.
I'd rather have alert drivers going 80, than a bunch of cellphone yammering idiots going 60. If the real goal is safety, the best thing we can do is tear down the road mounted cell towers. Interactive communication is as distracting as intoxication.
The loss of freedom that comes from excessive accumulation of power? The only reason to have such surveillance systems is to use the collected information against the surveilled masses. Honest traffic safety hotspots can be monitored by individual cop cars when necessary, and if they are continually problematic, then it's time to call in the civil engineers to fix the issue. There is no need for ubiquitous surveillance to solve this problem. That's why I think it's bogus.
Actually, no. The three things that prevent accidents are:
1. situational awareness
2. driving skill
3. vehicle condition
Slowing everyone down only masks the problem, and, long term, makes people worse drivers. Idiot proofing just makes for better idiots.
..and you trust the relevant agencies when they have obvious conflicts of interest? All roads aren't equal you know, in some places perhaps they're correct. In most cases I'll bet the limits are lower than they need to be. It's more likely some politicrats were afraid their backers would lose ticket revenues.
oh so we serve police officers now? It's our job to make them feel safe? I thought they were supposed to serve us? Well..the humans must be shoved. They will go down the stairs.. Space has a terrible power after all.. ..and being able to see everything is absolute power. We all know what that does..
which is all based on the assumption that speed limits are about safety. They're not.. If traffic is smooth, then it is safe...even if it's going 80 in a 65. Best leave it be then. If traffic is rarely smooth, then the road needs to be redesigned so that it is.
Well basically, people end up forced to disguise motives for actions taken if they don't comply with a social status quo that demands moral justifications for almost everything. In other words, one doesn't have a right to something unless it complies with a 'universal' morality. As this status quo becomes less and less compatible with basic human needs, it breeds all kinds of passive aggressive behavior as individuals attempt to get their legitimate needs filled without feeling institutionally programmed guilt or getting in to trouble with authority. Today, it's bad enough that it's almost impossible to have a truly honest discussion about anything truly important nowadays, never mind live truly satisfying lives. I think this dynamic is one of the first causes of political problems in western countries, or any country that claims a representative government. The more 'socialized' and interconnected the society, the more powerful this dynamic becomes.
His statements about 'lack of meaningful work' are also interesting. Having large numbers of people seriously unsatisfied with the daily grinds they must endure is definitely a key component of social unrest. We anesthetize ourselves with cheesy entertainment or embed ourselves in (or generate) trivial real life drama to hide from this. Sometimes we combine the two (reality tv). While most would be quick to state how hard the back breaking rural lifestyle was, 12hr work days cooped up in office buildings are not any better. They may in fact be worse. He sees technology as the enemy because of this.
As far as technology goes, I admit it enables this to happen with more efficiency, but I think the solution lies in fixing the root causes, not attacking tools. As the drug and gun wars have shown, attacking tools solves nothing.
I don't agree with his anti technology stance, but the concept of 'oversocialization' rings true for me.
yeah.. how depressing..
bit by bit, freedom is chipped away in the name of safety. I know I want no part of such a society.
So you'll sacrifice your privacy and rights for fake security? Lovely. Leave mine alone, thank you very much. Oh, and your car analogy sucks. Programming software and the ability to choose what software runs on your device is NOT the same thing, for one, and secondly, insurance and cops do NOT keep you safer on the road. The self preservation instinct in the drivers does, along with skill, vehicle condition, and situational awareness.
Ensures no spyware? So, you won't tolerate spyware unless it's corporate or government sanctioned? ..because that's what these walled gardens are. Hey buddy, reality check: if you're running spyware, you're compromised! It really doesn't matter who put it there because the reason is obvious. They want to monitor and/or control your use behavior.
It's not just about the nerds. It's the users too. These nerds write alternative software that forces the big vendors into offering at least some value in their products. You're welcome to throw around as many 'neckbeard' jokes as you want, but many of these guys write code that ends up in software that average users want to run. Locking the devices down prevents this development from happening. This is why general purpose computing is crucial to continued innovation.
What the hell? Free ride? I paid for my hardware, thank you.
Then you can say goodbye to innovation.. programming will become something that only large corporations and government can afford to do. That's the day when computers truly cross the line from empowering users to enslaving them. Those geeks and nerds balance the push from vendor trolls who build businesses on false scarcity by coding alternative software that is user empowering. Trust me, you want this kind of competition because it's the only thing keeping vendors even remotely honest.
So? not having spyware that remote controls allowed applications won't stop such people from using their devices the way they want.