Those representatives are generally lawyers and if they aren't they have staffed lawyers doing their work for them or both.
Next you are going to insist that legislation only be passed in small readable length modules of 50 pages or less and that it be written in common English rather than legalese.
Give me a fsckin break. It was the scum bag lawyers that wrote the BS patent laws in the first place.
Lawyers write convoluted and complicated laws. Lawyers then interpret those laws in precedent setting arbitrary ways that no reasonable adult would derive from the text of said laws. Then lawyers charge people for interpreting and exploiting those laws. It's a vicious cycle. Every bullshit lawsuit is possible because of lawyers, was advised by a lawyer, executed by a lawyer, and presided over by a lawyer.
Without lawyers legal documents would be as clear as any other written work and you wouldn't need lawyers. Without lawyers people trying to exploit bs technical errors in the wording of a document could be tossed out or punished. Without lawyers juries would still have the final say in what happens to their peers with no exception.
"I know your trying really hard to perform reductio ad absurdum here - unfortunately you seem to have failed to understand the meaning of 'am' in this context. A little reading; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cogito_ergo_sum"
Wikipedia articles make poor sources since you can edit them to support your argument when posting. Fortunately, it appears you forgot to do that. There is nothing in that article that refutes anything I said. I didn't do any reducing, the argument is reduced to absurdity on it's face or rather "I think therefore I am" is not absurd so much as completely unsupported. Refer to the criticisms section in your own Wikipedia article. This kind of broken logic results when one starts from the assumption of the existence of "God". The tree of life in Jewish cabala has a root shared with many other faiths that begins with a single point of light in the darkness becoming aware of itself. That point is God and everything else in creation is the result of an explosive process of God logically dividing itself. Until one can establish that the property of "thinking" necessitates existence the core foundation of the "God" of most of the world is on fairly shaky ground.
Note, I haven't actually given my opinion on the whether or not Descartes was correct. Rather I've pointed out that he didn't prove the point.
"We LIVE philosophy and, just as a small example, you wouldn't be able to enjoy the freedoms you have now without the philisophical underpinnings which were fleshed out into unalienable rights, now held up by most governments and legal systems throughout the world."
Philosophy is speculation and speculation has its place. But philosophy is not science. Science would rather trivially PROVE that if you actually had any unalienable rights you wouldn't need governments and legal systems to hold them up!
"Likewise, don't go bashing philosophy like you know better - smarter men than you have been thinking about these things for thousands of years."
"Not sure why anybody thought this was news, I remember reading about it in my Pschology 101 textbook."
Medicine at least usually qualifies as pseudo-science. There are even some areas where there is real science and applied science happening.
Psychology doesn't even make anything that remotely resembles a serious effort at being a pseudo-science let alone real science. Sure, given the sure number of ridiculous assumptions and assertions in psychology it stands to reason it will hit the mark sometime and this may be the time but lets not pretend it was for the right reasons.
Next you'll bring in some nonsense from a philosophy class!
"I think therefore I am." That is a rather bold assumption even more so if the inverse is implied that things that don't think, aren't. "It can't just all be me because of the other people." Unless you are imagining the other people. "The other people have to be real because I don't know what they are thinking." Maybe they aren't thinking anything beyond what they've said? Maybe you prefer to think there are other people so you delude yourself into thinking you don't know their thoughts?
That leap you made in assuming that 'external stimulus', parental crisis, and children in survival mode were all automatically related is the difference between science and psychology. Even if this study proved that nurturing results in dramatic brain size reduction (and with a sample size of two and no controls it doesn't prove or even support much of anything) it hasn't connected the nurturing to external stimulus and if external stimulus were the cause it could hypothetically be replaced with other stimuli. And I'm not sure where the leap to survival mode comes in or if a baby has enough external awareness to enter it or perhaps to ever leave it but there definitely is nothing in this finding to support an idea like that.
My intention isn't so much to harp on your logic. The association you are making may well be valid and there is absolutely nothing wrong with an individual speculating on such topics. I'm more annoyed with this study and maybe with psychology and other ologies that have nothing to do with science.
It isn't just the pirating itself. It is the word of mouth that follows when the games and movies are discussed with friends and co-workers.
With music and games borrowing makes more sense because it is like sampling. But for consume once or consume rarely material like books and movies borrowing doesn't add anything so much as world of mouth. You could have 1000 people read your book and have every single one of them buy it, or you could have 100,000 people read your book and have 10,000 of them buy it. Which method do you think does a better job of boosting your next book's sales? Same with movies except all those people might be crediting a genre or a studio, or a couple actors, rather than the writer getting the credit.
Do people still pirate music? Pandora is more than sufficient for that.
I don't even think people listen to music anymore. They just shake their asses to bass thump patterns at clubs.
I do this already. Like many I buy content that uses open and sharable policies. The stuff that isn't open I don't buy.
Unfortunately, most of the best content is locked behind DRM so rather than live a life devoid of entertainment and culture I pirate that content. The pirating still supports the companies because it is a form of advertising.
No doubt but the problem with regulation surrounding the FDA is the legal protection that is afforded to entities that have jumped through FDA hoops. Get rid of FDA indemnification of FDA approved products and we will be closer to fixing those things. But it isn't like we can get rid of the FDA and regulation in healthcare either.
At the end of the day healthcare is a field where the only morally acceptable profit is nothing because anything else denies essential care to those who need it. At the same time nothing is certainly not fair to healthcare providers. Even 'at cost' is hyper inflated.
The free market is simply a poor choice for healthcare. There is no room for the overhead of giving the lawyers, researchers (who are working on CYA data at the behest of lawyers), manufacturer, distributor, insurance companies, hospital and doctors healthy cuts in the profits on literally every item. Every one of these groups makes insane profits despite having a handful of excuses for why they have to charge so much. The only ones not driving fast cars and living in million dollar homes are the consumers.
A few weeks back while making dinner I sliced a fingertip. It was off the tip where I couldn't stitch it and substantial enough that I wasn't sure if it would heal on its own. So I wrapped some gauze on it and went to the hospital. After a 5 hour wait they got me in. A medical technician invested the 5 minutes it took to put a little piece of cellulose web on the finger that helps it coagulate and fresh gauze he also invested a minute in telling a physicians assistant to write a quick script for a small amount of pain medication.
What did a grand total from all staff of under 10 minutes of attention and a couple forms of cotton fuzz cost? $1600. My co-pay on that should be $150. If $150 were the entire charge it would be far far more than is reasonable. The only ones in the entire chain who lose out on the deal are myself and to a far lesser extent my employer.
The free market only works when the price the market will bear is less than "anything I can afford." At least it only works for consumers in that case and that is what people are willing to pay for essential healthcare. It has something to do with that "essential" part. The only morally tolerable profit one could make in this field is nothing because anything more means denying essential care to those who need it. Nothing isn't fair to the providers. Is the free market really the place to turn for a service that can not be morally profited on or denied under any circumstance to those who need it?
Even $329 is not exactly inexpensive and it is missing the capabilities of the advanced models. According to the engineer who buys them the parts that go into that device are $100 in LOW VOLUME. The difference between the low end model and the high end in terms of tech is just software. I can get free working equalizer code for a $8 pic micro-controller right now that can handle the 'advanced' capabilities and likely a noise reduction algorithm as well.
Games are one roadblock to Linux adoption that went away on its own at least with regard to desktop Linux. If you aren't a gamer you don't care about high end games and if you are a gamer you don't game on the PC anymore. Gaming is all about the console these days.
Fair enough. My comments were intended to be taken in the context of how the word is used here in the US not to be statements of what is or is not correct. I think it is fair to say that both are correct and the British usage was intended in the story. People often forget that language is first spoken and then attempts are made to codify how it is spoken into rules rather than it first being rules that define how one must speak.
I've asked around the office here and asked people to define tariff and essentially the result is the same with each of us. A tariff is a tax. Even the dictionary association to imports/exports or even trade didn't get mentioned when asking over a dozen individuals independently with no context. When an association to trade was suggested it was agreed after the fact but nobody mentioned it out of the gate. It seems as though American English dictionaries may need an update.
In British usage is the word usually attached to services from a utility or public service related company or would the charges listed on a restaurant menu technically be "tariffs?"
If you hope to remain competitive with people who have an always on internet connection it is pretty essential whether that be people who are competing for jobs or companies competing for business. Heck, even if you want to be competitive in terms of general knowledge and skills.
If you go more than a couple waking hours without searching for a piece of information on the Internet those missing bits of information are going to add up to you knowing a lot less about just about everything. It might take the form of mental bitrot over a course of years but that is ultimately going to lead to you being far more ignorant as a human being.
Essentials isn't just food, water, and shelter you know. In a modern society we include the things needed for proper mental development like education. Especially since your ability to find and obtain those physical essentials is related to your level of mental development.
During the course of composing this message I googled a piece information related to socket programming, details on the most effective nutrient composition for cultivating a mushroom I will be inoculating a bed in the backyard with in about 10 days, and found effective and interactive Morse code learning software.
Internet is a critical infrastructure service. Singling out 4G or other individual types of internet isn't very productive as it opens the door for nitpicking and debate. If one wants to argue 4G is essential (or not) the argument is whether internet is essential or not. In the modern world, it certainly is.
I'd say it is broader than imported goods and includes taxes on trade in general. For instance, I've heard the taxes imposed on a phone bill referred to as tariffs but the tariffs are government fees, if the charge originates with the private company then it is a "charge", "fee", or "surcharge" not a tax or tariff.
I do see the other definition listed in the dictionary but have never heard anyone use the word to refer to anything but a tax.
Just because congress writes a law doesn't mean that law applies to religious practice and churches even if the law explicitly says it does like the provisions of 501(c). I have direct knowledge of churches that have successfully beaten the IRS when the IRS insisted they needed to register and report their income and I know of others who lost. Some interpret the law as meaning there can be no special exceptions for churches other read it as indicating that acts of congress don't apply to churches. There is historical basis to believe the founders intended the later.
The only universal constant in how courts apply this today is that health and welfare of living creatures is considered to override the immunity granted to the church. Given that the religious practices of the puritans infringed upon the health and welfare of humans this restriction probably wasn't intended by the founding fathers but it seems reasonable enough to me.
Communion wine is one example and I'm surprised you have the odd idea that minors may not legally take communion. Rastafarians can possess and smoke marijuana legally and have used their religious beliefs as a defense successfully. Peyote by the Native Americans is another example, it applies everywhere not just on the reservation where they have sovereignty. The catholic church used their religious protections to impede the prosecution of priests for child molestation.
"The tariffs have been announced for Britain's first 4G network and they include a data cap"
I tend to agree that human life and welfare and critical infrastructure shouldn't be left to the ravages of greed but tariffs are normally levied by government not free market.
"Instead what came out from the meeting was "because we had lots of small earthquakes you don't have to worry anymore"."
This was not said. It is what was heard.
"The duty of care would have been to remind people that they live in a dangerous region, that their houses are most likely badly built and that they thus _always_ are in danger of death when they are in their beds."
This is exactly what they did say.
Not that it would make much difference. The practical result of "you live in a dangerous region and your houses are badly built" is for people to go home and sleep in their beds. What else would they do? They certainly aren't going to sleep outside forever.
Since the result of either statement is the same, the question is whether or not someone is criminally culpable comes down to the nothing more than whether or not they used proper cover your ass language. Personally, I'd rather encourage people feeling safe to speak frankly than encourage them to hedge their statements so their asses will be covered if something unexpected happens.
People are too quick to hold others to account for being wrong. Everyone can be wrong, usually for the same reason, they had reason to believe their diagnosis of a problem was higher probability than the actual outcome and only ruled out less likely possibilities to the extent that it was an efficient use of time or was reasonably possible.
That is why people in other professions undergo peer review when being wrong leads to serious consequences. Doctors are a good example of this. There should be an independent review board of peers to assess when someone like this is accused of wrong. We should also probably stop using the word prediction. Maybe we should simply call it an assessment. Assessment implies an evaluation and therefore an assertion of opinion and not fact.
The entire reason you employ geologists and seismologists is to make predictions. It is SUPPOSED to well known, well established, and common knowledge that their assessments are best guess. Maybe we just need to stop using the word 'prediction.'
Like doctors, people in these fields should be judged by peers for things they did in their professional capacity not unqualified third parties like courts. The consequence of acting inappropriately should not be criminal charges but loss of employment and licensing so that they can not work in a similar capacity in the future.
Slashdot Mirror
Those representatives are generally lawyers and if they aren't they have staffed lawyers doing their work for them or both.
Next you are going to insist that legislation only be passed in small readable length modules of 50 pages or less and that it be written in common English rather than legalese.
Give me a fsckin break. It was the scum bag lawyers that wrote the BS patent laws in the first place.
Lawyers write convoluted and complicated laws. Lawyers then interpret those laws in precedent setting arbitrary ways that no reasonable adult would derive from the text of said laws. Then lawyers charge people for interpreting and exploiting those laws. It's a vicious cycle. Every bullshit lawsuit is possible because of lawyers, was advised by a lawyer, executed by a lawyer, and presided over by a lawyer.
Without lawyers legal documents would be as clear as any other written work and you wouldn't need lawyers. Without lawyers people trying to exploit bs technical errors in the wording of a document could be tossed out or punished. Without lawyers juries would still have the final say in what happens to their peers with no exception.
Turns out god plays dice after all
This is proof that D&D contains all the secrets to life, the universe, and everything!
"I know your trying really hard to perform reductio ad absurdum here - unfortunately you seem to have failed to understand the meaning of 'am' in this context. A little reading; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cogito_ergo_sum"
Wikipedia articles make poor sources since you can edit them to support your argument when posting. Fortunately, it appears you forgot to do that. There is nothing in that article that refutes anything I said. I didn't do any reducing, the argument is reduced to absurdity on it's face or rather "I think therefore I am" is not absurd so much as completely unsupported. Refer to the criticisms section in your own Wikipedia article. This kind of broken logic results when one starts from the assumption of the existence of "God". The tree of life in Jewish cabala has a root shared with many other faiths that begins with a single point of light in the darkness becoming aware of itself. That point is God and everything else in creation is the result of an explosive process of God logically dividing itself. Until one can establish that the property of "thinking" necessitates existence the core foundation of the "God" of most of the world is on fairly shaky ground.
Note, I haven't actually given my opinion on the whether or not Descartes was correct. Rather I've pointed out that he didn't prove the point.
"We LIVE philosophy and, just as a small example, you wouldn't be able to enjoy the freedoms you have now without the philisophical underpinnings which were fleshed out into unalienable rights, now held up by most governments and legal systems throughout the world."
Philosophy is speculation and speculation has its place. But philosophy is not science. Science would rather trivially PROVE that if you actually had any unalienable rights you wouldn't need governments and legal systems to hold them up!
"Likewise, don't go bashing philosophy like you know better - smarter men than you have been thinking about these things for thousands of years."
Perhaps, but you aren't one of them.
"Not sure why anybody thought this was news, I remember reading about it in my Pschology 101 textbook."
Medicine at least usually qualifies as pseudo-science. There are even some areas where there is real science and applied science happening.
Psychology doesn't even make anything that remotely resembles a serious effort at being a pseudo-science let alone real science. Sure, given the sure number of ridiculous assumptions and assertions in psychology it stands to reason it will hit the mark sometime and this may be the time but lets not pretend it was for the right reasons.
Next you'll bring in some nonsense from a philosophy class!
"I think therefore I am." That is a rather bold assumption even more so if the inverse is implied that things that don't think, aren't.
"It can't just all be me because of the other people." Unless you are imagining the other people.
"The other people have to be real because I don't know what they are thinking." Maybe they aren't thinking anything beyond what they've said? Maybe you prefer to think there are other people so you delude yourself into thinking you don't know their thoughts?
That leap you made in assuming that 'external stimulus', parental crisis, and children in survival mode were all automatically related is the difference between science and psychology. Even if this study proved that nurturing results in dramatic brain size reduction (and with a sample size of two and no controls it doesn't prove or even support much of anything) it hasn't connected the nurturing to external stimulus and if external stimulus were the cause it could hypothetically be replaced with other stimuli. And I'm not sure where the leap to survival mode comes in or if a baby has enough external awareness to enter it or perhaps to ever leave it but there definitely is nothing in this finding to support an idea like that.
My intention isn't so much to harp on your logic. The association you are making may well be valid and there is absolutely nothing wrong with an individual speculating on such topics. I'm more annoyed with this study and maybe with psychology and other ologies that have nothing to do with science.
"Look, you are asking for something that does not exist."
That doesn't make the methodology used valid. There is no shortage of BS hocus pocus in the medical field.
"For me that points to malnutrition (which is not uncommon in these situations) – not just lower quality of food."
You get malnutrition from eating low quality food.
It isn't just the pirating itself. It is the word of mouth that follows when the games and movies are discussed with friends and co-workers.
With music and games borrowing makes more sense because it is like sampling. But for consume once or consume rarely material like books and movies borrowing doesn't add anything so much as world of mouth. You could have 1000 people read your book and have every single one of them buy it, or you could have 100,000 people read your book and have 10,000 of them buy it. Which method do you think does a better job of boosting your next book's sales? Same with movies except all those people might be crediting a genre or a studio, or a couple actors, rather than the writer getting the credit.
Do people still pirate music? Pandora is more than sufficient for that.
I don't even think people listen to music anymore. They just shake their asses to bass thump patterns at clubs.
I do this already. Like many I buy content that uses open and sharable policies. The stuff that isn't open I don't buy.
Unfortunately, most of the best content is locked behind DRM so rather than live a life devoid of entertainment and culture I pirate that content. The pirating still supports the companies because it is a form of advertising.
The NYT wouldn't have published the article about someone in the US in the first place.
No doubt but the problem with regulation surrounding the FDA is the legal protection that is afforded to entities that have jumped through FDA hoops. Get rid of FDA indemnification of FDA approved products and we will be closer to fixing those things. But it isn't like we can get rid of the FDA and regulation in healthcare either.
At the end of the day healthcare is a field where the only morally acceptable profit is nothing because anything else denies essential care to those who need it. At the same time nothing is certainly not fair to healthcare providers. Even 'at cost' is hyper inflated.
The free market is simply a poor choice for healthcare. There is no room for the overhead of giving the lawyers, researchers (who are working on CYA data at the behest of lawyers), manufacturer, distributor, insurance companies, hospital and doctors healthy cuts in the profits on literally every item. Every one of these groups makes insane profits despite having a handful of excuses for why they have to charge so much. The only ones not driving fast cars and living in million dollar homes are the consumers.
A few weeks back while making dinner I sliced a fingertip. It was off the tip where I couldn't stitch it and substantial enough that I wasn't sure if it would heal on its own. So I wrapped some gauze on it and went to the hospital. After a 5 hour wait they got me in. A medical technician invested the 5 minutes it took to put a little piece of cellulose web on the finger that helps it coagulate and fresh gauze he also invested a minute in telling a physicians assistant to write a quick script for a small amount of pain medication.
What did a grand total from all staff of under 10 minutes of attention and a couple forms of cotton fuzz cost? $1600. My co-pay on that should be $150. If $150 were the entire charge it would be far far more than is reasonable. The only ones in the entire chain who lose out on the deal are myself and to a far lesser extent my employer.
The free market only works when the price the market will bear is less than "anything I can afford." At least it only works for consumers in that case and that is what people are willing to pay for essential healthcare. It has something to do with that "essential" part. The only morally tolerable profit one could make in this field is nothing because anything more means denying essential care to those who need it. Nothing isn't fair to the providers. Is the free market really the place to turn for a service that can not be morally profited on or denied under any circumstance to those who need it?
Even $329 is not exactly inexpensive and it is missing the capabilities of the advanced models. According to the engineer who buys them the parts that go into that device are $100 in LOW VOLUME. The difference between the low end model and the high end in terms of tech is just software. I can get free working equalizer code for a $8 pic micro-controller right now that can handle the 'advanced' capabilities and likely a noise reduction algorithm as well.
Games are one roadblock to Linux adoption that went away on its own at least with regard to desktop Linux. If you aren't a gamer you don't care about high end games and if you are a gamer you don't game on the PC anymore. Gaming is all about the console these days.
Bandwidth is limited but any moment in which the pipe is not 100% utilized is a wasted opportunity.
Fair enough. My comments were intended to be taken in the context of how the word is used here in the US not to be statements of what is or is not correct. I think it is fair to say that both are correct and the British usage was intended in the story. People often forget that language is first spoken and then attempts are made to codify how it is spoken into rules rather than it first being rules that define how one must speak.
I've asked around the office here and asked people to define tariff and essentially the result is the same with each of us. A tariff is a tax. Even the dictionary association to imports/exports or even trade didn't get mentioned when asking over a dozen individuals independently with no context. When an association to trade was suggested it was agreed after the fact but nobody mentioned it out of the gate. It seems as though American English dictionaries may need an update.
In British usage is the word usually attached to services from a utility or public service related company or would the charges listed on a restaurant menu technically be "tariffs?"
If you hope to remain competitive with people who have an always on internet connection it is pretty essential whether that be people who are competing for jobs or companies competing for business. Heck, even if you want to be competitive in terms of general knowledge and skills.
If you go more than a couple waking hours without searching for a piece of information on the Internet those missing bits of information are going to add up to you knowing a lot less about just about everything. It might take the form of mental bitrot over a course of years but that is ultimately going to lead to you being far more ignorant as a human being.
Essentials isn't just food, water, and shelter you know. In a modern society we include the things needed for proper mental development like education. Especially since your ability to find and obtain those physical essentials is related to your level of mental development.
During the course of composing this message I googled a piece information related to socket programming, details on the most effective nutrient composition for cultivating a mushroom I will be inoculating a bed in the backyard with in about 10 days, and found effective and interactive Morse code learning software.
Internet is a critical infrastructure service. Singling out 4G or other individual types of internet isn't very productive as it opens the door for nitpicking and debate. If one wants to argue 4G is essential (or not) the argument is whether internet is essential or not. In the modern world, it certainly is.
4G in and of itself might not be an essential class of service but it is fair to put it under the umbrella of "internet" and internet is essential.
I'd say it is broader than imported goods and includes taxes on trade in general. For instance, I've heard the taxes imposed on a phone bill referred to as tariffs but the tariffs are government fees, if the charge originates with the private company then it is a "charge", "fee", or "surcharge" not a tax or tariff.
I do see the other definition listed in the dictionary but have never heard anyone use the word to refer to anything but a tax.
I'm sorry but you are mistaken.
Just because congress writes a law doesn't mean that law applies to religious practice and churches even if the law explicitly says it does like the provisions of 501(c). I have direct knowledge of churches that have successfully beaten the IRS when the IRS insisted they needed to register and report their income and I know of others who lost. Some interpret the law as meaning there can be no special exceptions for churches other read it as indicating that acts of congress don't apply to churches. There is historical basis to believe the founders intended the later.
The only universal constant in how courts apply this today is that health and welfare of living creatures is considered to override the immunity granted to the church. Given that the religious practices of the puritans infringed upon the health and welfare of humans this restriction probably wasn't intended by the founding fathers but it seems reasonable enough to me.
Communion wine is one example and I'm surprised you have the odd idea that minors may not legally take communion. Rastafarians can possess and smoke marijuana legally and have used their religious beliefs as a defense successfully. Peyote by the Native Americans is another example, it applies everywhere not just on the reservation where they have sovereignty. The catholic church used their religious protections to impede the prosecution of priests for child molestation.
"The tariffs have been announced for Britain's first 4G network and they include a data cap"
I tend to agree that human life and welfare and critical infrastructure shouldn't be left to the ravages of greed but tariffs are normally levied by government not free market.
"Instead what came out from the meeting was "because we had lots of small earthquakes you don't have to worry anymore"."
This was not said. It is what was heard.
"The duty of care would have been to remind people that they live in a dangerous region, that their houses are most likely badly built and that they thus _always_ are in danger of death when they are in their beds."
This is exactly what they did say.
Not that it would make much difference. The practical result of "you live in a dangerous region and your houses are badly built" is for people to go home and sleep in their beds. What else would they do? They certainly aren't going to sleep outside forever.
Since the result of either statement is the same, the question is whether or not someone is criminally culpable comes down to the nothing more than whether or not they used proper cover your ass language. Personally, I'd rather encourage people feeling safe to speak frankly than encourage them to hedge their statements so their asses will be covered if something unexpected happens.
"Apparently, some residents were sleeping outside until the reassurances from the scientists on the panel."
Which is odd since the scientists warned the area was prone to large quakes and said the buildings were unsafe.
People are too quick to hold others to account for being wrong. Everyone can be wrong, usually for the same reason, they had reason to believe their diagnosis of a problem was higher probability than the actual outcome and only ruled out less likely possibilities to the extent that it was an efficient use of time or was reasonably possible.
That is why people in other professions undergo peer review when being wrong leads to serious consequences. Doctors are a good example of this. There should be an independent review board of peers to assess when someone like this is accused of wrong. We should also probably stop using the word prediction. Maybe we should simply call it an assessment. Assessment implies an evaluation and therefore an assertion of opinion and not fact.
The entire reason you employ geologists and seismologists is to make predictions. It is SUPPOSED to well known, well established, and common knowledge that their assessments are best guess. Maybe we just need to stop using the word 'prediction.'
Like doctors, people in these fields should be judged by peers for things they did in their professional capacity not unqualified third parties like courts. The consequence of acting inappropriately should not be criminal charges but loss of employment and licensing so that they can not work in a similar capacity in the future.