The primary motif seems to be the same one... Scratch a Global Warming propagandist, and you'll find a Che Guevara T-shirt underneath.
You've simply affirmed the consequent. Scratch a global warming denier and underneath you'll find the laissez faire capitalist.
The difference is that Global Warming is confirmed by the consensus of climate scientists. The deniers claims are by reading the web sites of an economist and a TV weatherman.
I also hate discussions about topics like this, because it's just emotional shouting at eachother with facts only used to confirm what you feel is right. Even when people on this site would love to claim how intellectual they are, both sides are more about emotions and personal viewpoints than real science, we might now some good facts, read some interesting articles, but do we really know anything about climate science, all the subtle things,... everything that can't be easily found in popular science magazines or the few popular arguments from both sides that people keep repeating to prove their own feelings are the best.
Indeed. Which is why, rather then simply take an emotional or politically inspired opinion, a layman should accept what the consensus of scientists working in the field say. The current state of the science of AGW is what they say it is.
"I have no proof, as I said before: I don't need any." And that is the very definition of faith.
No it's not. Faith is a strong belief IN something, without evidence. The lack of a belief in something for which there is no evidence is not faith, it's lack of faith.
One need no faith to simply not believe that there is a teapot in orbit around Mars. One has a lack of faith that there is such a thing.
The whole "atheism is a faith" thing is just another irrational argument from the religiously inclined.
My entire posts have been pointing out the flaws in your posts. There's little point in me responding to bare faced lies. Go away child. End of conversation.
Oh really? A hypothesis doesn't need to be falsifiable?
a) All of science isn't "a hypothesis". b) No it doesn't. Popper describes an ideal. He doesn't suggest not scientifically studying those things for which there are not falsifiable theories. That's right wing religion c) The scientific method is not defined by Popper. Popper simply added his philosophy to a much larger whole.
Now then, are you a right winger? Yes. Are you a scientist? No. You've demonstrated that.
You seem to be stuck on an irrelevant question. "Climate Change" didn't replace "Global Warming". Both are valid phrases, describing different though related things. Both are occurring.
That's all interesting stuff regarding the USSR and it's downfall. Though of course it doesn't mean that communism itself is an unworkable system. Any more than a failed capitalist country means that capitalism is a system that can't work.
No, what I'm suggesting is that if you want something I can do, that we agree on a price for my time.
That might be what you are suggesting now. It wasn't what was in the post I responded to, which was a supply and demand argument. So don't say "No". It was. You can suggest something different now y all means, but don't deny your original argument.
The salary is "the price agreed upon" is a bogus argument, because it's starting from a position where one person (the employer) has power through wealth) and the other person has little more than his labour. A situation that has been put there in the first place by the capitalist system. It is not therefore an argument for the capitalist system, but just a description of one of it's features.
Your contempt for a market-based relationship between people who want things and the people who provide them is all I need to hear.
I haven't expressed any contempt. I simply have broader horizons than yours, seeing capitalism as simply one of very many possible systems. You see it is the one true way.
You don't think it's fair that someone who can produce something better or faster than the next guy is more valuable to the people who want those things. That's because your fundamental understanding of "fair" is twisted. How can I tell?
It must come from your imagination, as fairness of capitalism hasn't formed any part of anything I've said. Which is why you are forced to say: "Show a little intellectual honesty, how about, instead of pussyfooting around." I'm not making the anti-capitalist argument you want to argue with and that's frustrating you.
Think of the children and whatnot.
Really building up that straw man now, aren't you. You must be desperate.
Why is China's GDP bigger than India? Why is Pakistan bigger than Poland? Some countries are bigger than others. It doesn't follow that they have better political systems, let alone that they are fairer.
I say, "Because it's fairer" and you say, "nuh unh!"
I say you are wrong and illogical.
[China vs US] Per capita GDP will still be much lower.
US vs USSR, you were talking about total GDP. Now that has failed when talking about the comparison of 2 other powers, you are attempting to change the measure. Because your argument fails. Conclusive evidence that your argument was pure nonsense.
Larger implies fairer, because "fairer" generates "larger".
Gibberish.
More empirical evidence that Western capitalism is (as corrupt as it is) fairer than other systems: people are migrating here from there. If the US didn't have a relatively fairer system, people would be migrating "there" instead.
It may be evidence of greater wealth. It's not evidence of being fairer.
But, you say, the US had/has a much larger economy than the USSR (and now Russia)...
Quite. The USSR had to spend a much higher proportion of it's smaller GDP to keep up with American militarism. That's what bankrupted the state, not communism.
America having a bigger GDP than Russia doesn't mean America's political system was better. Just that their GDP was bigger. You don't somehow believe that if both states were capitalist they would have equally sized GDPs? Of course not - different countries have different sized GDPs.
In a decade or three, China with it's non-democratic state capitalism will have a greater GDP than the USA. Will you then believe that non-democratic state capitalism is superior to American capitalism? And is therefore "natural"?
sure, because capitalism generates more wealth for more people than communism. Oh, wait. That's what "economically fairER" means!
No it doesn't. Those are two different things. Larger doesn't mean fairer.
It is natural. There are very few people who can play top-level pro basketball. By definition, the best are chosen for their skills on the court, their ability and willingness to work with the team and coaches, etc. Far, far more people (billions of them?) are able to carry trays of beer around. Someone setting up a business to entertain crowds of people by displaying highly skilled competitive team athletics and serving them drinks have to do what they have to do in order to attract the right people to perform those tasks. Why would an athlete spend all of that time and energy working out, practicing, risking injuries, and all the rest if your preferred system would prohibit the team from paying them more than they'd earn for doing a job that requires less effort, no commitment, and which almost anyone could do?
What you are suggesting is that pay should be decided by supply and demand. That's a feature of capitalism, it's not "natural" by any stretch of the imagination. That you think it is is simply a symptom of you having grown up in a capitalist system, and not having the imagination to see that it's only one of an infinite number of possible systems.
And it's moral. Because the alternative is someone like you dictating what each skill is worth, or dictating that everyone must earn the same no matter how good or rare their skills may be.
No, that's just 2 of the possibilities.
People like you have ruined entire societies, and murdered hundreds of millions of people
You have no idea what my politics are. And you are quite ignorant if you think capitalism HASN'T ruined entire societies and murdered (pick a large number out of your ass) people.
to hide the fact that dictating relationships between buyers and sellers always fails.
And again you have a stab at another feature that you seem to think exists in every non-capitalistic system.
Broaden your political knowledge before rejecting everything other than that which you already live in.
Capitalism is not fair, but it is fairER. To put another way, it is the least unfair.
That's your belief.
That is why it has lasted longer than communism.
No it's not. That's simply wrong. When you say that, what you actually mean is that America won the cold war against the USSR. Which has nothing to do with the relative fairness of the two political systems. The cold war was won based on the economics of militarism. Not fairness.
See that "right"? That's where I agreed with your original statement of the advantage of backward compatibility. And right after that I list the cost. Pros and cons - that's what makes it debatable.
Is the guy whose parents decided not to teach him to string together complete sentences selling beer for minimum wage at a basketball game while a dozen multi-millionaires play a game on the court? If they were paid $50 a day less per game, do you really think that that would and should result in the guy who carries beer around being suddenly more valuable to the crowd that's there to watch?
Your question implies that the only way you can see the world is capitalistic. Which shows no defence of capitalism at all. You assume it's natural and moral that basketball players earn millions and beer sellers earn little. But there's nothing natural or moral about it at all. It's simply a political system you were probably born into, and have swallowed hook, line and sinker.
Capitalism is the currently dominant political system. That doesn't mean it's the ultimate one. Any more than feudalism was when it was the dominant political system.
Sadly, all other economic systems -- when implemented in large scale, and in the real world -- are even less fair. Otherwise, the Soviet Union would have survived while the US collapsed.
There's no logic in that statement. Fairness on the one hand, and winning an economic and military cold war on the other are completely different things.
A computer/tablet/phone should not be designed for like it is a printing press rolling out identical pages of dead trees! It's ok if something looks a little different on one screen vs another so long as it looks good and is usable.
That's the web philosophy. And where that is all that's required, then of course people do web sites.
However when producing educational textbooks, authors DO want complete control of what is on each page, and they want that without it arbitrarily needing to be scrollable if used on a device with too narrow a screen.
A well designed educational ebook is a far better experience than a web-site.
As to the interactivity bit - go take a look. iBook Authors has been reviewed and there's bound to be youtube videos too. The point is that the kinds of interaction of an ebook are in 99% of cases of only a few specific types. Zoom a part of a page. Play a video. Respond to touch. Replace one image with another. Do a quiz. So these things don't need a general purpose language. You just need the right widget, and feed it some data and some options.
Of course of you need something not in the standard set, then a new widget can be written. But that's an unusual case, and an author wouldn't typically do this themselves. From an author's POV it's all no-code WYSIGYG.
Right. But in order to support some of those old programs (many don't work), Windows has to keep all the old crappy libraries and APIs that haven't been current in decades hanging around.
Which is what makes Windows such bloatware, slows it down, causes many defects, and multiples potential security vectors.
Backwards compatibility isn't free. It doesn't just cost the developer, it costs the user.
I can't vouch for every car in existence, but every car I've come across. Including the ones we had when I was a kid, so that's back in the 1970s.
To be clear, I've certainly seen cars without child locks - but ones that do have child locks, all the ones I've seen can be switched off and on.
And I'm not sure I follow the logic of your 1st generation theory. When new features are added that might limit a user, that is the time when they are most often made to be optionally switched off. A manufacturer releasing child locks as a new feature wouldn't want to risk losing sales of the car to people people without kids, if it got a reputation for being awkward to get out of.
Slashdot Mirror
Thanks for confirming that your motivation for denying the science is indeed laissez faire capitalism.
The primary motif seems to be the same one... Scratch a Global Warming propagandist, and you'll find a Che Guevara T-shirt underneath.
You've simply affirmed the consequent. Scratch a global warming denier and underneath you'll find the laissez faire capitalist.
The difference is that Global Warming is confirmed by the consensus of climate scientists. The deniers claims are by reading the web sites of an economist and a TV weatherman.
I also hate discussions about topics like this, because it's just emotional shouting at eachother with facts only used to confirm what you feel is right. Even when people on this site would love to claim how intellectual they are, both sides are more about emotions and personal viewpoints than real science, we might now some good facts, read some interesting articles, but do we really know anything about climate science, all the subtle things, ... everything that can't be easily found in popular science magazines or the few popular arguments from both sides that people keep repeating to prove their own feelings are the best.
Indeed. Which is why, rather then simply take an emotional or politically inspired opinion, a layman should accept what the consensus of scientists working in the field say. The current state of the science of AGW is what they say it is.
"I have no proof, as I said before: I don't need any."
And that is the very definition of faith.
No it's not. Faith is a strong belief IN something, without evidence. The lack of a belief in something for which there is no evidence is not faith, it's lack of faith.
One need no faith to simply not believe that there is a teapot in orbit around Mars. One has a lack of faith that there is such a thing.
The whole "atheism is a faith" thing is just another irrational argument from the religiously inclined.
My entire posts have been pointing out the flaws in your posts. There's little point in me responding to bare faced lies. Go away child. End of conversation.
Oh really? A hypothesis doesn't need to be falsifiable?
a) All of science isn't "a hypothesis".
b) No it doesn't. Popper describes an ideal. He doesn't suggest not scientifically studying those things for which there are not falsifiable theories. That's right wing religion
c) The scientific method is not defined by Popper. Popper simply added his philosophy to a much larger whole.
Now then, are you a right winger? Yes.
Are you a scientist? No. You've demonstrated that.
Yes. And that "only" puts the existing theories â" than man's CO2 emissions are responsible for the warming â" on their heads.
It does nothing of the sort.
You seem to be stuck on an irrelevant question. "Climate Change" didn't replace "Global Warming". Both are valid phrases, describing different though related things. Both are occurring.
All you have done, though, is moaned about how unfair capitalism
I've done no such thing. I've simply pointed out the flaws in your posts.
I think the question here is whether you understand that a hypothesis needs to be falsifiable for it to be science. Do you?
You are mistaken. That's Popperism, not science. Very popular with right wingers that are not scientists.
Well, you need to haul back your slobbering, drooling politicians and CNN. I have a file of fraudulent rhetoric that is shameful and manipulative.
I don't need a file. I can switch the channel to Fox News and get fraudulent rhetoric that is shameful and manipulative 24/7 for 365 days of the year.
You think being in a country with a particular political system means being in favour of it?
That's all interesting stuff regarding the USSR and it's downfall. Though of course it doesn't mean that communism itself is an unworkable system. Any more than a failed capitalist country means that capitalism is a system that can't work.
No, what I'm suggesting is that if you want something I can do, that we agree on a price for my time.
That might be what you are suggesting now. It wasn't what was in the post I responded to, which was a supply and demand argument. So don't say "No". It was. You can suggest something different now y all means, but don't deny your original argument.
The salary is "the price agreed upon" is a bogus argument, because it's starting from a position where one person (the employer) has power through wealth) and the other person has little more than his labour. A situation that has been put there in the first place by the capitalist system. It is not therefore an argument for the capitalist system, but just a description of one of it's features.
Your contempt for a market-based relationship between people who want things and the people who provide them is all I need to hear.
I haven't expressed any contempt. I simply have broader horizons than yours, seeing capitalism as simply one of very many possible systems. You see it is the one true way.
You don't think it's fair that someone who can produce something better or faster than the next guy is more valuable to the people who want those things. That's because your fundamental understanding of "fair" is twisted. How can I tell?
It must come from your imagination, as fairness of capitalism hasn't formed any part of anything I've said. Which is why you are forced to say: "Show a little intellectual honesty, how about, instead of pussyfooting around." I'm not making the anti-capitalist argument you want to argue with and that's frustrating you.
Think of the children and whatnot.
Really building up that straw man now, aren't you. You must be desperate.
But why was it bigger?
Why is China's GDP bigger than India? Why is Pakistan bigger than Poland? Some countries are bigger than others. It doesn't follow that they have better political systems, let alone that they are fairer.
I say, "Because it's fairer" and you say, "nuh unh!"
I say you are wrong and illogical.
[China vs US] Per capita GDP will still be much lower.
US vs USSR, you were talking about total GDP. Now that has failed when talking about the comparison of 2 other powers, you are attempting to change the measure. Because your argument fails. Conclusive evidence that your argument was pure nonsense.
Larger implies fairer, because "fairer" generates "larger".
Gibberish.
More empirical evidence that Western capitalism is (as corrupt as it is) fairer than other systems: people are migrating here from there. If the US didn't have a relatively fairer system, people would be migrating "there" instead.
It may be evidence of greater wealth. It's not evidence of being fairer.
But, you say, the US had/has a much larger economy than the USSR (and now Russia)...
Quite. The USSR had to spend a much higher proportion of it's smaller GDP to keep up with American militarism. That's what bankrupted the state, not communism.
America having a bigger GDP than Russia doesn't mean America's political system was better. Just that their GDP was bigger. You don't somehow believe that if both states were capitalist they would have equally sized GDPs? Of course not - different countries have different sized GDPs.
In a decade or three, China with it's non-democratic state capitalism will have a greater GDP than the USA. Will you then believe that non-democratic state capitalism is superior to American capitalism? And is therefore "natural"?
sure, because capitalism generates more wealth for more people than communism.
Oh, wait. That's what "economically fairER" means!
No it doesn't. Those are two different things. Larger doesn't mean fairer.
It is natural. There are very few people who can play top-level pro basketball. By definition, the best are chosen for their skills on the court, their ability and willingness to work with the team and coaches, etc. Far, far more people (billions of them?) are able to carry trays of beer around. Someone setting up a business to entertain crowds of people by displaying highly skilled competitive team athletics and serving them drinks have to do what they have to do in order to attract the right people to perform those tasks. Why would an athlete spend all of that time and energy working out, practicing, risking injuries, and all the rest if your preferred system would prohibit the team from paying them more than they'd earn for doing a job that requires less effort, no commitment, and which almost anyone could do?
What you are suggesting is that pay should be decided by supply and demand. That's a feature of capitalism, it's not "natural" by any stretch of the imagination. That you think it is is simply a symptom of you having grown up in a capitalist system, and not having the imagination to see that it's only one of an infinite number of possible systems.
And it's moral. Because the alternative is someone like you dictating what each skill is worth, or dictating that everyone must earn the same no matter how good or rare their skills may be.
No, that's just 2 of the possibilities.
People like you have ruined entire societies, and murdered hundreds of millions of people
You have no idea what my politics are. And you are quite ignorant if you think capitalism HASN'T ruined entire societies and murdered (pick a large number out of your ass) people.
to hide the fact that dictating relationships between buyers and sellers always fails.
And again you have a stab at another feature that you seem to think exists in every non-capitalistic system.
Broaden your political knowledge before rejecting everything other than that which you already live in.
Capitalism is not fair, but it is fairER. To put another way, it is the least unfair.
That's your belief.
That is why it has lasted longer than communism.
No it's not. That's simply wrong. When you say that, what you actually mean is that America won the cold war against the USSR. Which has nothing to do with the relative fairness of the two political systems. The cold war was won based on the economics of militarism. Not fairness.
See that "right"? That's where I agreed with your original statement of the advantage of backward compatibility. And right after that I list the cost. Pros and cons - that's what makes it debatable.
Is the guy whose parents decided not to teach him to string together complete sentences selling beer for minimum wage at a basketball game while a dozen multi-millionaires play a game on the court? If they were paid $50 a day less per game, do you really think that that would and should result in the guy who carries beer around being suddenly more valuable to the crowd that's there to watch?
Your question implies that the only way you can see the world is capitalistic. Which shows no defence of capitalism at all. You assume it's natural and moral that basketball players earn millions and beer sellers earn little. But there's nothing natural or moral about it at all. It's simply a political system you were probably born into, and have swallowed hook, line and sinker.
Capitalism is the currently dominant political system. That doesn't mean it's the ultimate one. Any more than feudalism was when it was the dominant political system.
Sadly, all other economic systems -- when implemented in large scale, and in the real world -- are even less fair. Otherwise, the Soviet Union would have survived while the US collapsed.
There's no logic in that statement. Fairness on the one hand, and winning an economic and military cold war on the other are completely different things.
Where's the chart?
A computer/tablet/phone should not be designed for like it is a printing press rolling out identical pages of dead trees! It's ok if something looks a little different on one screen vs another so long as it looks good and is usable.
That's the web philosophy. And where that is all that's required, then of course people do web sites.
However when producing educational textbooks, authors DO want complete control of what is on each page, and they want that without it arbitrarily needing to be scrollable if used on a device with too narrow a screen.
A well designed educational ebook is a far better experience than a web-site.
As to the interactivity bit - go take a look. iBook Authors has been reviewed and there's bound to be youtube videos too. The point is that the kinds of interaction of an ebook are in 99% of cases of only a few specific types. Zoom a part of a page. Play a video. Respond to touch. Replace one image with another. Do a quiz. So these things don't need a general purpose language. You just need the right widget, and feed it some data and some options.
Of course of you need something not in the standard set, then a new widget can be written. But that's an unusual case, and an author wouldn't typically do this themselves. From an author's POV it's all no-code WYSIGYG.
Right. But in order to support some of those old programs (many don't work), Windows has to keep all the old crappy libraries and APIs that haven't been current in decades hanging around.
Which is what makes Windows such bloatware, slows it down, causes many defects, and multiples potential security vectors.
Backwards compatibility isn't free. It doesn't just cost the developer, it costs the user.
I can't vouch for every car in existence, but every car I've come across. Including the ones we had when I was a kid, so that's back in the 1970s.
To be clear, I've certainly seen cars without child locks - but ones that do have child locks, all the ones I've seen can be switched off and on.
And I'm not sure I follow the logic of your 1st generation theory. When new features are added that might limit a user, that is the time when they are most often made to be optionally switched off. A manufacturer releasing child locks as a new feature wouldn't want to risk losing sales of the car to people people without kids, if it got a reputation for being awkward to get out of.