Perhaps more to the point, it's recently become poignant. In these days of drones, war is becoming like a video game for at least some of those who are fighting it. It's a pretty timely film, from that perspective.
The ideal solution is to bring the issues of governance and liability back into the local geographic arena and to stop worrying about how someone is running their business from thousands of miles away from you.
Local government can be even more corrupt and ineffective than national government. Just look at all those localschool boards trying to promote young-Earth creationism (err... sorry, I mean "intelligent design"). That is a direct result of the curriculum and textbook approval being in the hands of local politicians rather than people with recognised expertise in education.
Incidentally, I do think that one of the bigger villains in the conflict is the US media. They almost never cover Israeli opposition parties who advocate more rights and autonomy for Palestinians, or Palestinian non-violent resistance movements. The inevitable result of this is that only stupidity and mindless belligerence gets noticed on both sides, and so it becomes self-perpetuating on both sides.
The point I was making which you seem to be trying to avoid is that virtually all the 'major' religions were new within recorded history (Hinduism is an exception), and as such we know the detrimental effects they had on society.
Bahai is also an exception. So is Jainism. Oh, and Taoism.
Much has been written on the history of Christianity, and it suffices to say that the slogan-esque conclusion "religion kills" is debatable at best, and downright misleading at worst. Christianity killed basically nobody for the first 300 or so years of its existence. Calling it "new" even by the time of Hypatia is a stretch of the word "new". Not that it was apolitical, of course; it was "the religion of women and slaves" at a time when respectable Romans didn't like women or slaves feeling good about themselves.
Do you honestly think that conquests in Europe, or the Crusades, or any number of those atrocities, would have occurred without Christianity? Maybe they specifically wouldn't (with the likely exception of the Crusades; rich merchants would still have wanted open access to trade routes to the Orient, Christianity or no Christianity), but some equivalent would have. As far as body count goes, Christianity has nothing on the Mongols, or China under Mao, or the Qing Dynasty, for that matter. That's human nature. Politics kills, racism kills, nationalism kills. Yeah, even religion kills sometimes. But there's nothing unique about religion.
You know what kills? Freedom, democracy and security. They were the excuses for the most recent war in Iraq, remember? I say let's get rid of those.
It's interesting that you mention the Taiping Rebellion, because I was just reading about the Münster Rebellion a few days ago. There's another bloody conflict that was inevitable. Pretty much every country that had feudalism experienced peasant revolts. Blaming them on religion is like blaming World War I on the anarchism of Gavrilo Princip.
If your family was actually in fear that you were "going to hell" just for being an atheist, then your family was very likely not adherent to a "mainstream" form of Christianity.
That's a guess based on the available facts, by the way. It's possible that you the are Catholic and you were born before Vatican II, or something like that. But I'm guessing that your family are 1970s-or-later US-style evangelical fundamentalists. This is not "mainstream" by any reasonable definition of that word.
I'm not going to get caught up in the "cherry picking" canard, or the question of whether or not religions are defined by "the book" (hint: almost none of them are in practice). But I will observe two things.
First, I note that the goalposts have shifted to "Abrahamic based religions".
Secondly, even that is incorrect. Mainstream Judaism doesn't really have a concept of "hell", and nor will you find it in "the book". Moreover, Christianity didn't have anything even close to the medieval notion of "hell" until well after "the book" was written.
(Yes, I'm sure you can point to chapter and verse. Trust me, you're reading "hell" into it. It's a matter of historical record that belief in an afterlife of eternal torment was not a majority position in Christianity until around the time of Constantine.)
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that "secure boot" is a good idea for the customer (less malware), implemented badly by certain hardware manufacturers (OS vendor lock-in). That's a pretty good use for DRM, at least in principle.
New religions are disruptive countercultures [...]
That's true of new religions, yes. Sometimes the disruption is arguably for the worse, and sometimes it's arguably for the better.
You're right that I was mostly talking about the dozen or so "major world" religions, and how they are in practice today. I think it was clear from the context of the thread that this is what we were talking about, since new religions are typically not "lazy" sources of purpose.
In Memoriam: Hypatia of Alexandria
Indeed. "Surely nothing can be farther from the spirit of Christianity than the allowance of massacres, fights, and transactions of that sort." -- Socrates Scholasticus
The vast majority of religions don't have an equivalent of "burning in hell for eternity". And even if you just think about those specifically Christian denominations which officially teach it, most don't emphasise it, and most of the adherents don't seem to believe it in practice. It would be a stretch to describe that as "based on fear".
Of course it's speculation, but what this suggests to me is part of a general theme: social pressure is more effective than legal prohibition. Prohibiting alcohol almost guarantees drunkenness, but living in a society where getting drunk is considered a sign that there's something wrong with you almost guarantees moderate drinking habits.
Supermarkets are the simplest and laziest method for obtaining food. I don't see you hunting, gathering or farming all your calories.
Religions generally use fear to control.
Nonsense. Religions generally are cultural practices, just like how you tend to dress like people in your subculture, you tend to participate in the same festivals as people in your country, and you tend to eat the same food as your ethnic group.
The vast majority of religions are based on cultural identity, not fear. Of course, there are some notable exceptions.
Slashdot Mirror
Limited to people who are experts in the field and know what they're doing? I'm going to go with a qualified "yes".
For the same reason why the bullet time sequence was in the trailer for The Matrix: it's the best visual effects shot of the whole movie.
BTW, I think you answered your own question with the parenthetical comment.
Perhaps more to the point, it's recently become poignant. In these days of drones, war is becoming like a video game for at least some of those who are fighting it. It's a pretty timely film, from that perspective.
...and the third half is instantaneous DNA assembly.
I just checked, and it looks like BMC is still owned by Springer.
Local government can be even more corrupt and ineffective than national government. Just look at all those localschool boards trying to promote young-Earth creationism (err... sorry, I mean "intelligent design"). That is a direct result of the curriculum and textbook approval being in the hands of local politicians rather than people with recognised expertise in education.
Yes, that's a good point that's often lost.
Incidentally, I do think that one of the bigger villains in the conflict is the US media. They almost never cover Israeli opposition parties who advocate more rights and autonomy for Palestinians, or Palestinian non-violent resistance movements. The inevitable result of this is that only stupidity and mindless belligerence gets noticed on both sides, and so it becomes self-perpetuating on both sides.
That was precisely my point.
Not true. The most obvious example is a parody of the original work.
If I were Microsoft, I'd be temped to make "ASL" a built-in Powershell command.
It ain't a real spaceship until you can see the Cherenkov radiation.
Bahai is also an exception. So is Jainism. Oh, and Taoism.
Much has been written on the history of Christianity, and it suffices to say that the slogan-esque conclusion "religion kills" is debatable at best, and downright misleading at worst. Christianity killed basically nobody for the first 300 or so years of its existence. Calling it "new" even by the time of Hypatia is a stretch of the word "new". Not that it was apolitical, of course; it was "the religion of women and slaves" at a time when respectable Romans didn't like women or slaves feeling good about themselves.
Do you honestly think that conquests in Europe, or the Crusades, or any number of those atrocities, would have occurred without Christianity? Maybe they specifically wouldn't (with the likely exception of the Crusades; rich merchants would still have wanted open access to trade routes to the Orient, Christianity or no Christianity), but some equivalent would have. As far as body count goes, Christianity has nothing on the Mongols, or China under Mao, or the Qing Dynasty, for that matter. That's human nature. Politics kills, racism kills, nationalism kills. Yeah, even religion kills sometimes. But there's nothing unique about religion.
You know what kills? Freedom, democracy and security. They were the excuses for the most recent war in Iraq, remember? I say let's get rid of those.
It's interesting that you mention the Taiping Rebellion, because I was just reading about the Münster Rebellion a few days ago. There's another bloody conflict that was inevitable. Pretty much every country that had feudalism experienced peasant revolts. Blaming them on religion is like blaming World War I on the anarchism of Gavrilo Princip.
If your family was actually in fear that you were "going to hell" just for being an atheist, then your family was very likely not adherent to a "mainstream" form of Christianity.
That's a guess based on the available facts, by the way. It's possible that you the are Catholic and you were born before Vatican II, or something like that. But I'm guessing that your family are 1970s-or-later US-style evangelical fundamentalists. This is not "mainstream" by any reasonable definition of that word.
You certainly wouldn't want to run the current version. You can't even share apps between users on the same device without rooting it first.
I'm not going to get caught up in the "cherry picking" canard, or the question of whether or not religions are defined by "the book" (hint: almost none of them are in practice). But I will observe two things.
First, I note that the goalposts have shifted to "Abrahamic based religions".
Secondly, even that is incorrect. Mainstream Judaism doesn't really have a concept of "hell", and nor will you find it in "the book". Moreover, Christianity didn't have anything even close to the medieval notion of "hell" until well after "the book" was written.
(Yes, I'm sure you can point to chapter and verse. Trust me, you're reading "hell" into it. It's a matter of historical record that belief in an afterlife of eternal torment was not a majority position in Christianity until around the time of Constantine.)
DRM isn't just about copying and copyright. UEFI secure boot is indeed a form of DRM.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that "secure boot" is a good idea for the customer (less malware), implemented badly by certain hardware manufacturers (OS vendor lock-in). That's a pretty good use for DRM, at least in principle.
Good for you! I'm pleased that you have the time and space to devote to this.
Many such books, from cover to cover.
I presume you don't know a variety of religious people and how they behave in practice. Have you considered visiting some other countries?
I refer you to the phrase in my post, "notable exceptions".
That's true of new religions, yes. Sometimes the disruption is arguably for the worse, and sometimes it's arguably for the better.
You're right that I was mostly talking about the dozen or so "major world" religions, and how they are in practice today. I think it was clear from the context of the thread that this is what we were talking about, since new religions are typically not "lazy" sources of purpose.
Indeed. "Surely nothing can be farther from the spirit of Christianity than the allowance of massacres, fights, and transactions of that sort." -- Socrates Scholasticus
The vast majority of religions don't have an equivalent of "burning in hell for eternity". And even if you just think about those specifically Christian denominations which officially teach it, most don't emphasise it, and most of the adherents don't seem to believe it in practice. It would be a stretch to describe that as "based on fear".
I believe you, but "radical" Christianity is by definition unusual. It's precisely one of the "notable exceptions" to which I refer.
Glad you got out, BTW.
Of course it's speculation, but what this suggests to me is part of a general theme: social pressure is more effective than legal prohibition. Prohibiting alcohol almost guarantees drunkenness, but living in a society where getting drunk is considered a sign that there's something wrong with you almost guarantees moderate drinking habits.
Supermarkets are the simplest and laziest method for obtaining food. I don't see you hunting, gathering or farming all your calories.
Nonsense. Religions generally are cultural practices, just like how you tend to dress like people in your subculture, you tend to participate in the same festivals as people in your country, and you tend to eat the same food as your ethnic group.
The vast majority of religions are based on cultural identity, not fear. Of course, there are some notable exceptions.