I think you may have missed my point. Never once in this thread have I argued that porn should be banned, or that there were no marriages for which is helped.
Yes. But your point seems to be that because correlation is causation, we should never make any inferences in life that presume causation. If so, have fun with that.
I agree. I was making an inference. The post was clearly against the banning of porn. And the only other point it made was that some PSA's against porn are ridiculous.
So with a conspicuous silence about whether or not porn actually can be harmful (which is the underlying assumption both in banning and in those PSA's), I figured I'd put in my 2 cents.
Having been married for plenty of years, I've concluded that pornography can actually quite harmful to some marriages if not most marriages.
You might argue that the government shouldn't censor pornography. But there's a big leap from that libertarian viewpoint, to implying that porn is generally harmless. Which is the underlying sentiment I took away from the line, "(There have also been some awesomely ridiculous pornography PSAs.)"
I was trying to appeal to the metaphysical position that a person's worthiness of life doesn't appreciably change in the moments before birth vs. the moments after birth.
I tried to efficiently state that point by using the word "infant" to refer to fetuses. But perhaps a wordier version of my point was warranted.
That's not even hyperbole, just a basic opinion on when "personhood" begins that differs from the majority opinion.
Agreed. In my post, I wasn't really trying to trade hyperbole for hyperbole. I was trying, however, to use the same tone as that of the post to which I replied. My goal was to demonstrate the bias that's often present in the Slashdot moderator community.
Well, sure, but we can't all have jobs developing CNC software that controls the machinery that makes wooden salad bowls to be used in clothes-making factories!
Everything from banking to communications to public transport relies on computers these days so it seems obvious to me that everyone should have at least basic understanding of computer science concepts / how computers work, instead of viewing them just as magic boxes. I honestly can't see why that shouldn't be taught in schools...
I think that logic would equally justify teaching to all school children plumbing, electrical work, HVAC, and basic lightbulb manufacturing.
Yeah. Imagine all the productive drunk-driving deaths that would never have happened. Or the families ruined by alcoholism. Or people who were raped or become pregnant only because they were drunk at the time.
I'm not arguing that Prohibition was a good idea. But I think you're glossing over the possible up-sides of an alcohol-free society.
The truth is that hactivisism alone is not a sufficient cause of corporate data breaches. A variety of issues come into play: corporate laxity in IT, a preference for fast deployment of services over careful security scrutiny, absence of strong legal consequences against corporations for permitting data breaches, programming languages/environments that make it easy to deploy vulnerable services, lack of fine-grained data permissions at the hardware/network/OS level, etc.
Remove any one of those factors, and the rate of data breaches would likely go down significantly. I'm not sure where Verizon gets off picking just one of them.
I see this as a case where someone with a only-slightly-rare character flaw was paired up with a roommate who was highly vulnerable to bullying.
I'd say a large fraction of college-age males are prone to significantly evil and/or stupid acts as well. To everyone's harm, a situation arose where such cruelty and stupidity met with a particularly vulnerable victim.
That sounds nice, but as a taxpayer I really don't feel like paying for someone to major in English literature. Some majors are mostly about personal fulfillment, with little chance of deeply improving the public's well-being.
Or more to the point, given that taxes are collected under the threat of violence, there better be a darn good reason to tax people to pay for someone else's education.
The MBA's, pols, and lobbyists that run our society can't seem to understand that supply and demand applies to other people as well.
What makes you think they don't get it? They have all the incentive in the world to create a glut of engineers on the labor market, and who are personally on the hook for the costs of their training. (And there's even something for the bankers: student loans can't be discharged through bankruptcy in the U.S.)
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Sorry, meant to write, "... correlation isn't causation ..."
I think you may have missed my point. Never once in this thread have I argued that porn should be banned, or that there were no marriages for which is helped.
Yes. But your point seems to be that because correlation is causation, we should never make any inferences in life that presume causation. If so, have fun with that.
I agree. I was making an inference. The post was clearly against the banning of porn. And the only other point it made was that some PSA's against porn are ridiculous.
So with a conspicuous silence about whether or not porn actually can be harmful (which is the underlying assumption both in banning and in those PSA's), I figured I'd put in my 2 cents.
Okay, but you realize I'm not saying it it should be banned, right?
I believe you missed my point. I was not arguing at all that porn should be outlawed.
I was arguing against an tacit attitude I was picking up from the post, which is that it's silly to avoid porn.
I'm not arguing that it should pornography should be legislated away. I'm just arguing that someone is no fool for avoiding it, especially if married.
Having been married for plenty of years, I've concluded that pornography can actually quite harmful to some marriages if not most marriages.
You might argue that the government shouldn't censor pornography. But there's a big leap from that libertarian viewpoint, to implying that porn is generally harmless. Which is the underlying sentiment I took away from the line, "(There have also been some awesomely ridiculous pornography PSAs.)"
Fair point. Perhaps my post was off-topic.
Perhaps not all terrorists want to be martyrs.
Poor word choice on my part.
I was trying to appeal to the metaphysical position that a person's worthiness of life doesn't appreciably change in the moments before birth vs. the moments after birth.
I tried to efficiently state that point by using the word "infant" to refer to fetuses. But perhaps a wordier version of my point was warranted.
Agreed. In my post, I wasn't really trying to trade hyperbole for hyperbole. I was trying, however, to use the same tone as that of the post to which I replied. My goal was to demonstrate the bias that's often present in the Slashdot moderator community.
The terrorists aren't trying to get on our airplanes. The terrorists are blowing up Planned Parenthood clinics.
No, they're murdering infants by the hundreds of thousands.
Now here's the fun part (probably): Watch my post get modded into oblivion, while the parent stays at "5".
So what is the case for declarative GUI programming?
I'm a big fan of pure functional languages, but it's not obvious to me why declarative languages are especially suited to GUI's.
That's not butter.
Well, sure, but we can't all have jobs developing CNC software that controls the machinery that makes wooden salad bowls to be used in clothes-making factories!
You insensitive clod.
I think that logic would equally justify teaching to all school children plumbing, electrical work, HVAC, and basic lightbulb manufacturing.
If they can't violate the 1st Amendment, then why can they violate the 4th?
Is this just setting up a contradiction that will land in the Supreme Court?
Yeah. Imagine all the productive drunk-driving deaths that would never have happened. Or the families ruined by alcoholism. Or people who were raped or become pregnant only because they were drunk at the time.
I'm not arguing that Prohibition was a good idea. But I think you're glossing over the possible up-sides of an alcohol-free society.
The truth is that hactivisism alone is not a sufficient cause of corporate data breaches. A variety of issues come into play: corporate laxity in IT, a preference for fast deployment of services over careful security scrutiny, absence of strong legal consequences against corporations for permitting data breaches, programming languages/environments that make it easy to deploy vulnerable services, lack of fine-grained data permissions at the hardware/network/OS level, etc.
Remove any one of those factors, and the rate of data breaches would likely go down significantly. I'm not sure where Verizon gets off picking just one of them.
I see this as a case where someone with a only-slightly-rare character flaw was paired up with a roommate who was highly vulnerable to bullying.
I'd say a large fraction of college-age males are prone to significantly evil and/or stupid acts as well. To everyone's harm, a situation arose where such cruelty and stupidity met with a particularly vulnerable victim.
So, geohump, what line of business are you in?
That sounds nice, but as a taxpayer I really don't feel like paying for someone to major in English literature. Some majors are mostly about personal fulfillment, with little chance of deeply improving the public's well-being.
Or more to the point, given that taxes are collected under the threat of violence, there better be a darn good reason to tax people to pay for someone else's education.
What makes you think they don't get it? They have all the incentive in the world to create a glut of engineers on the labor market, and who are personally on the hook for the costs of their training. (And there's even something for the bankers: student loans can't be discharged through bankruptcy in the U.S.)
Damn straight. We need horn-rimmed glasses and pocket protectors to be in style again.