No, I'm arguing that an expensive space trip isn't worth a huge investment in attention and money.
Or more specifically, I'm arguing against the tacit justification for space travel that many people seem to make, which is that travel to Mars, for example, will do something wonderful.
My point is, if we're going to invest that much effort in something, let's put it towards something that's more clearly helpful to people: medicine, pursuit of peace, etc.
Like a moonshot, those pursuits also won't give people's lives abiding meaning, but at least it could lessen human suffering some.
Actually, it's the U.S. laws of corporate governance that say say a corporation can't be altruistic. Publicly traded corporations must maximize profits of their shareholders.
I can't find the actual law that says this, but people who seem reliable cite summarize the law, including:
The truth is my job is to help Microsoft have a clear, unbiased and knowledgeable understanding of Open Source Software (OSS): the technology, the development models, how the community works, the pros and cons, and the mechanics of the overall process. So, no, Microsoft is not out to exterminate Linux or Open Source, Linux and Open Source Software will continue to be part of the software industry.
His job isn't to exterminate Linux, just get accurate info about it to M$.
In other news, the AEGIS radar system on a DD(G) guided missle cruiser doesn't kill enemies. It just gives fire control information to the ship, which then uses surface-to-air missles to kill the enemies.
The US won the arms race with the USSR because, more or less, we could afford it more than they could.
Do we really want version 2 of that match with China? If economics argely influence the outcome as it did via the USSR, then I'm not to keen on starting this race.
Adolf Hitler (no, he wasn't really Catholic), Mao Tse Tung, Pol Pot, Vladimir Stalin, Vladimir Lenin. These are some of the best known athiestic leaders. Go ahead - add up their bodycounts.
My point is this: the worst massacres seem to stem from athiestic leaders, not religious leaders. Somehow their innate morality didn't affect their actions the way you'd hope.
I think it's like this: Everyone develops a worldview, either thiestic, athiestic, or whatever. Most of us find that our moral reasoning leads to conclussions that conflict with our moral instincts. For example, should I give $20 to a hungry drug addict? My instincts say yes, my reasoning says no. Similar thing about fighting in wars.
I think there are some worldviews in which that overriding of moral instinct with moral reasoning leads to really bad results. I.e., Hitler, Marx, etc.
I think smart athiests in general risk falling into that group. They tend to conclude that morality is a nice and useful convention, but nothing more. I.e., there's no reason to follow it beyond the utilitarian benefits of everyone acting morally. So when a smart athiest concludes that acting morally isn't in his best interests, nothing restrains him from acting according to his self-serving desires.
First, unless you presuppose that God doesn't exist, then I.D. is testable: If God exists then when you die you may be able to get the answer.
Second, in this sense I.D. is untestable, to is evolution. The scientific method cannot test whether or not a past event occured. Therefore on your view, historical evolution is nor more of a hypothesis than I.D. is, because we lack the means to test it.
Let's keep the Government's representatives' religious beliefs and traditions out of our personal lives please.
Sounds good. Let's start with abolishing the laws against torturing people who disagree with the current government's views.
My point: It's not possible to entirely divorce laws from religion. What laws we consider acceptable are based on our notion of the "good", and our notion of the "good" is partially informed by religious (or a-religious) beliefs.
The most recent attempts that come to mind for government rule based on athiesm are the Third Reich and the government of China. Not really the kind of governments I'm keen to live under.
Neither evolution and I.D. belong in the Science classroom. They're both historical hypothesis.
Given the historical powers of science and theology, however, theology has more potential for supporting historical claims. At least theoreticaly...
Science cannot demonstrate what happened in the past, but it can be used to demonstrate that certain hypothesis about what happened in the past are plausible, given the way the physics seems to work now.
Theology however has authoritative divine revelation - a direct expression of the genuine truth. So in theory, as long as you don't start out with the assumption that divine revelation is bunk, then it has the capacity for making claims about history with more certainty than science can ever make.
Let the rehashed arguments begin. Let me summarize 90% of the forthcoming posts...
25%: Creationists are stupid idiots who are basically Luddite Talibans without the beards.
40%: Creationists are wrong for x y z reasons.
10%: Defending particular versions of creationism that are basically compatible with the non-metaphysical aspects of evolution.
15%: We went to Iraq for the oil. And people in Kansas are stupid.
So how about we just skip the posting on this article, and move on to the next? The repetitious was the Slashdot community deals with posts regarding evolution is boring.
You didn't say where the employer derives a legal right to do this. You just (successfully) made the point that an employer has an interest in such rules existing.
Except under the George W. administration, there's a difference between what an employer sees as beneficial to his business, and what an employer has the freedom to do.
Better than Atari 2600
on
Xbox 360 for $300
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Way back in the day (maybe 1980?) I got an Atari 2600 for Christmas, and I think it cost $250. Games cost about $25, IIRC.
Accoding to
http://www.westegg.com/inflation/
that Atari 2600 would cost $634.91, and each cartridge would cost $63.49, in 2005 dollars.
So Xbox 360 is actually a great deal compared to the Atari 2600 if you just look at price.
The commonly mentioned categories of logical fallacy, such as ad hominem, actually have more validity than they're typically ascribed. The problem is that much of the arguments in those cases are tacit.
For example, take the case of the original post. In an ideal world, we'd have the time to investigate the claims and arguments of everyone. But really we have to be selective because we just can't afford to dedicate a lifetime of research into every claim someone makes. Thus, we really benefit from having a fast way of deciding who's worth paying serious attention to and who's not.
An ad hominem attack is valid in the sense that is says, "Joe Schmo isn't worth your time to consider. He's biased, so you can't take his claims as automatically true, and so you shouln't waste your time on them. Save your time for source of information that are less biased." The problem is, ad hominem is rarely described in this way because the real argument is different than the alleged argument.
And in this sense, ad hominem's tacit logic regards a 2nd order issue (the nature of a debate) than a 1st order one the content of the debate). So it makes for a lousy sound bite, regardless of how valid an argument it is.
I work on AUV design. In general, the hardware is not the hard part. Creating AI software for controlling the things is an insanely difficult task if you want the AUV to to more than just drive around in circles.
So don't get excited about the depth / battery life claim. Get excited if they said that, even in a laboratory, they can get an AUV to fix a pipe that's not even covered with sediment.
On a tangent, the biggest cause of battlefield casualties is actually dehydration. Soldiers forget to drink when they're in combat, and it catches up with them.
Play Alien vs. Predator 2 in the dark. When you're a marine and hunting around hallways for an alien, it's time to break out the Depends Undergarments.
Slashdot Mirror
So why doesn't he charge $0.01, rather than $5k?
Imagine the excitement: thousands of Slashdot users could get their first roll in a sack!
No, I'm arguing that an expensive space trip isn't worth a huge investment in attention and money.
Or more specifically, I'm arguing against the tacit justification for space travel that many people seem to make, which is that travel to Mars, for example, will do something wonderful.
My point is, if we're going to invest that much effort in something, let's put it towards something that's more clearly helpful to people: medicine, pursuit of peace, etc.
Like a moonshot, those pursuits also won't give people's lives abiding meaning, but at least it could lessen human suffering some.
Maybe it's because people just realize it's boring.
We've seen that getting to the moon, and mars, basically meant jack s#*t to our lives.
It didn't make war go away.
It didn't eliminate the painful lack of genuine purpose that many of us long for.
It didn't make politicians any less corruptable by money.
It didn't make falling in love any less wonderful.
It didn't make chocolate taste any better / worse.
It brought us Tang. Ye-haw.
I can't find the actual law that says this, but people who seem reliable cite summarize the law, including:
http://www.resurgence.org/resurgence/issues/hinkle y213.htm
His job isn't to exterminate Linux, just get accurate info about it to M$.
In other news, the AEGIS radar system on a DD(G) guided missle cruiser doesn't kill enemies. It just gives fire control information to the ship, which then uses surface-to-air missles to kill the enemies.
The US won the arms race with the USSR because, more or less, we could afford it more than they could.
Do we really want version 2 of that match with China? If economics argely influence the outcome as it did via the USSR, then I'm not to keen on starting this race.
Adolf Hitler (no, he wasn't really Catholic), Mao Tse Tung, Pol Pot, Vladimir Stalin, Vladimir Lenin. These are some of the best known athiestic leaders. Go ahead - add up their bodycounts.
My point is this: the worst massacres seem to stem from athiestic leaders, not religious leaders. Somehow their innate morality didn't affect their actions the way you'd hope.
I think it's like this: Everyone develops a worldview, either thiestic, athiestic, or whatever. Most of us find that our moral reasoning leads to conclussions that conflict with our moral instincts. For example, should I give $20 to a hungry drug addict? My instincts say yes, my reasoning says no. Similar thing about fighting in wars.
I think there are some worldviews in which that overriding of moral instinct with moral reasoning leads to really bad results. I.e., Hitler, Marx, etc.
I think smart athiests in general risk falling into that group. They tend to conclude that morality is a nice and useful convention, but nothing more. I.e., there's no reason to follow it beyond the utilitarian benefits of everyone acting morally. So when a smart athiest concludes that acting morally isn't in his best interests, nothing restrains him from acting according to his self-serving desires.
Several things worth mentioning...
First, unless you presuppose that God doesn't exist, then I.D. is testable: If God exists then when you die you may be able to get the answer.
Second, in this sense I.D. is untestable, to is evolution. The scientific method cannot test whether or not a past event occured. Therefore on your view, historical evolution is nor more of a hypothesis than I.D. is, because we lack the means to test it.
Sounds good. Let's start with abolishing the laws against torturing people who disagree with the current government's views.
My point: It's not possible to entirely divorce laws from religion. What laws we consider acceptable are based on our notion of the "good", and our notion of the "good" is partially informed by religious (or a-religious) beliefs.
The most recent attempts that come to mind for government rule based on athiesm are the Third Reich and the government of China. Not really the kind of governments I'm keen to live under.
That's because your athiesm is a product of your culture ;)
:)
(I'm actually agnostic, but I just wanted to poke you a little
Neither evolution and I.D. belong in the Science classroom. They're both historical hypothesis.
Given the historical powers of science and theology, however, theology has more potential for supporting historical claims. At least theoreticaly...
Science cannot demonstrate what happened in the past, but it can be used to demonstrate that certain hypothesis about what happened in the past are plausible, given the way the physics seems to work now.
Theology however has authoritative divine revelation - a direct expression of the genuine truth. So in theory, as long as you don't start out with the assumption that divine revelation is bunk, then it has the capacity for making claims about history with more certainty than science can ever make.
Let the rehashed arguments begin. Let me summarize 90% of the forthcoming posts...
25%: Creationists are stupid idiots who are basically Luddite Talibans without the beards.
40%: Creationists are wrong for x y z reasons.
10%: Defending particular versions of creationism that are basically compatible with the non-metaphysical aspects of evolution.
15%: We went to Iraq for the oil. And people in Kansas are stupid.
So how about we just skip the posting on this article, and move on to the next? The repetitious was the Slashdot community deals with posts regarding evolution is boring.
You didn't say where the employer derives a legal right to do this. You just (successfully) made the point that an employer has an interest in such rules existing.
Except under the George W. administration, there's a difference between what an employer sees as beneficial to his business, and what an employer has the freedom to do.
Accoding to http://www.westegg.com/inflation/ that Atari 2600 would cost $634.91, and each cartridge would cost $63.49, in 2005 dollars.
So Xbox 360 is actually a great deal compared to the Atari 2600 if you just look at price.
Actually, you're on to something!
PTO examiners should be rated/bonused on their success in finding convincing evidence of prior art or obviousness.
Then we'd have good reason to expect that anything left over would be a reasonable candidate for patenting.
This actually seems like a really good idea to me.
I was about to ask whether it was the lions-based Voltron, or the "stupid" cars-based one. Crap that's embarassing.
Worse... "My Buddy." (Is the commercial jingle stuck in your mind yet? Bwuhahahahahhah....)
The commonly mentioned categories of logical fallacy, such as ad hominem, actually have more validity than they're typically ascribed. The problem is that much of the arguments in those cases are tacit.
For example, take the case of the original post. In an ideal world, we'd have the time to investigate the claims and arguments of everyone. But really we have to be selective because we just can't afford to dedicate a lifetime of research into every claim someone makes. Thus, we really benefit from having a fast way of deciding who's worth paying serious attention to and who's not.
An ad hominem attack is valid in the sense that is says, "Joe Schmo isn't worth your time to consider. He's biased, so you can't take his claims as automatically true, and so you shouln't waste your time on them. Save your time for source of information that are less biased." The problem is, ad hominem is rarely described in this way because the real argument is different than the alleged argument.
And in this sense, ad hominem's tacit logic regards a 2nd order issue (the nature of a debate) than a 1st order one the content of the debate). So it makes for a lousy sound bite, regardless of how valid an argument it is.
So don't get excited about the depth / battery life claim. Get excited if they said that, even in a laboratory, they can get an AUV to fix a pipe that's not even covered with sediment.
On a tangent, the biggest cause of battlefield casualties is actually dehydration. Soldiers forget to drink when they're in combat, and it catches up with them.
Play Alien vs. Predator 2 in the dark. When you're a marine and hunting around hallways for an alien, it's time to break out the Depends Undergarments.
The distinction between HIV and AIDS is pointless in most conversations.