call them like minded people... those who in a popular election you would rely upon utter to have any significance what so ever. They're your allies whether you like it or not.
I've no idea what it is you're trying to say.
Without them the halls of politics you'd be one man.
You don't know how I vote.
As to science... Sigh. You're going to go full on creationist on me aren't you? I have to personally prove carbon dating. I have to argue against all your theories about dinosaurs. I have to go through geology, stellar astronomy, and basically everything to explain the simple fact that the world isn't 6000 years old. that's what you're asking here. You're saying "prove the world is older then 6000 years old." But fine... I'll make a half assed attempt at it. I can't do better in a reasonable amount of time or in this medium.
Are you on crack? You claimed the Laffer Curve is science. I asked you on what basis it was science. You first of all start on about creationism, and you then go on to prove you haven't the first idea what science is, using an argument worthy of a junior school child.
The Theory of The Laffer Curve assumes that at 0% tax rate the tax take is zero. That's true, although tax isn't the only means by which a government has revenue. It further assumes that at 100% the tax take will also be zero because no one will do anything taxable. That's not true, as people have other motives for doing things than money. It will be small, but not zero.
But OK, it's not too unreasonable so far. The next bit is where the Laffer curve is false, and your decription of why you believe in it (and describe your belief is as "science) is cretinous.
Here it is. The Theory (and therefor you) assume that: 1) The tax rate is the only (or perhaps the overriding) input by which the tax take varies. That's wrong. 3) That the curve on the graph is a smooth one with a single maxima. There's absolutely no science behind the chart being that shape. Yes, it can indeed be a jaggy line that goes up and down predictably. Unless you prove by scientific means that it is not. And no economist, nor you, have done this. Despite all the economic data for many years in hundreds of countries.
The Laffer curve is a philosophical theory, not a scientific one. And your blind belief in it is religious, not scientific.
It's an open question. But Stephen Hawking says that time started with the Big Bang. That the question of what was before the big bang is meaningless because the big bang created space/time. Thus the Beginning of time is the Big Bang. The big bang singularity is of space/time and matter.
Michael Sweet created CUPS. He sold it to Apple, thus realising a reward for all his work. The fact that they both chose to have an OSS licence on the source code doesn't mean either of them own anything more to the freetards out there.
There's no extinguish. The Linux only bits continue to be available in another project.
Quality is too low? Wow of all the arguments against OSS you could have chosen - too techie-oriented, the names are funny, not "integrated" - you said the quality was too low, likely the poorest possible argument. I don't think you've ever used FOSS apps.
You think wrong. Back in the days when I used to have a PC, I used to have a tradition of once a year trying out the latest and most highly recommended Linux distribution. Every year it was a mess, and I unhappily accepted I'd have to keep going with Windows for another year. More the fool me for believing that one year it would really be The Year of Linux.
Once OSX got to the Jaguar release, I switched to Mac instead, and never looked back. Its everything Linux isn't.
I've tried Open Office (in the days before it became Libre Office. It's shit. MS Office is pretty bad, but it looks great compared with Open Office.
I've tried GIMP. Photoshop has a lot wrong with it, but it's fantastic when compared to GIMP.
I've tried Emacs, Vi, Vim, Pico. All shit compared with the better Mac and Windows programmers editors.
etc.
And lack of any "shared vision" is a good thing - even if that vision were a very good one. What if all of OSS followed Canonical's vision, we'd all be stuck with a horrible condescending UI.
How is the example of [what you believe to be] a bad UI evidence that following a good vision is a bad thing.
But lets face it there aren't (m)any examples of good OSS UIs.
It's funny that you're denying it exists in this post because half of your allies are saying that NO ONE denies it.
What allies? I speak for only my self. And if they are saying the opposite from me it's particularly bizarre to label them as my allies.
Your denial is what I wanted. Your denial proved my argument that all ideologies... or at least yours in addition to the republicans will ignore science if they find it to be inconvenient to their argument.
What science? You're just asserting it's true. That's not science.
As to why science hasn't found the exact point on the curve, that probably has something to do with economists not being handed nations to perform economic experiments upon. What do you think sport?
I think you don't understand science. It's perfectly possible to do science just with observation, you don't need control. Take astronomy for example.
You could conclude then that economics isn't a science
Of course economics isn't a science. It's philosophy (and not natural philosophy either.)
There is no such thing as "before the beginning of time". The entire notion makes no sense. It is a statement without meaning.
Of course. But who are you quoting there? I didn't say anything about before the beginning of time. I said since the beginning of time. And that does make perfect sense, and has meaning.
The reason I used it is that the current state of physics has no idea what happened at the beginning of time. The term singularity is used, but they don't really know what that means. Scientific understanding of the universe starts explaining the world from fraction of a second after the beginning of time.
Oxford English Dictionary: "a story, poem, or picture which can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning, typically a moral or political one"
Dictionary.com: "a representation of an abstract or spiritual meaning through concrete or material forms; figurative treatment of one subject under the guise of another."
There is no requirement that it be essential or true. It's obviously likely that the writer of the allegory thinks it's a truth. But that doesn't mean it is one. And even if we can prove that the message isn't a true one, it would still qualify as an allegory.
Sorry, but the fact that the bible has allegories is not proof of God. I realize that disappoints you.
Yeah, I was bing flip about the big bang and evolution being the message behind the Genesis allegory. But the point is valid. If you're going to excuse some elements of the Bible from being provably wrong because they are allegories, then you have to accept that any part of the bible might be an allegory. Including God.
In fact I think the former Bishop of Edinburgh believes that the biblical god is an allegory, and there isn't really a god.
An allegory is a story that reveals an essential truth through a figurative setting.
Not quite. An allegory is a story that reveals an idea through a figurative setting. There's no requirement that it be essential or true.
And of course if you're going to excuse the Bible as being allegory, and thus the specifics no longer matter, Genesis could just as easily be an allegory for the big bang and evolution as for a god.
Fiction most certainly belongs in the bible. The bible freely mixes fact and fiction.
I want growth. I think growth makes us stronger as a species, I think it increases the rate at which we advance, and I thus think it enhances our ability to survive in an enormous, bleak, and hostile universe.
Come back in 20 years time when human growth but a finite Earth means that you can only afford gas and meat as occasional luxuries.
I'm told they're working on artificial meat hamburgers though.
It actually does and has repeatedly. Though it is unpopular with those that don't want to admit that there is a connection between raising taxes and reducing economic output.
For the sake of argument, say that the Laffer Curve was true. No one has yet managed to identify the point at which the peak of the curve is.* So it might be at 70%. That would mean that raising the tax rate to anything up to 70% is a good thing.
Much of the difference between the productivity of the US economy over the last 30 years versus europe can be attributed to much higher taxes.
What's productivity? It's a measure of the extent to which you exploit people. It's a method of increasing the wealth gap.
Government shouldn't be about maximising productivity. It should be about maximising equitable quality of life.
Look at pretty much any measure of quality of life or happiness, and most of Europe has the USA beaten.
Try it... find a crack head... an actual crack head... ideally he should be in withdraw but not cleaning himself up. Just shivvering and the picture of a human mess. Then give him a billion dollars to start an industrial concern.
I wasn't previously aware that Keynsian economics required states to invest in crack heads. But if you say thats the way it works it must be true.
Keynesianism worked a threat at rebuilding Britain after the ravages of WWII. Of course they spent money on things like housing and a public health service, not crack heads, so it wasn't real Keynesianism.
Even though it was actually Keynes that was doing it...
Science is about having an open mind. But in many cases, if you question some theory you are branded as a nut. Science is always in flux as we learn more. Once upon a time there was the law of conservation of matter... until this nut named Albert Einstein said "O'rly?"
The world is best served by having scientists with open minds.Having a few scientists opposed to the majority scientific opinion is useful, so long as their outlet for that is doing research. In a minority of cases they might find something, and move science forward. And at worse all they waste is their time and some research money. Note that I'm not excluding amateur scientists from this group. But amateur scientists need to understand the scientific method, and be experts in their chosen field. Most laymen that question majority scientific opinion are not that.
Having scientists that are opposed to the majority scientific opinion, and just do propaganda for money is not a good thing.
The world is not best served by having lay people question the majority scientific opinion. They have no ability to explore their contrariness with the scientific method. They are probably wrong in their beliefs, and may harm themselves (in the case of belief in quack medicine) or the entire nation/world by exercising their voting rights poorly.
The world is definitively not best served by politicians that are opposed to the majority scientific opinion. Again, because they are not trained in science they are likely to be wrong. Have no way of distinguishing whether they are right or wrong. And can do grave damage to the people, the country and the world in their ignorance.
You take as your example the conservation of matter. For sure in that case it wasn't a complete explanation of the way the universe works. And it's good that Einstein felt he could challenge it. But the theory worked well enough outside of nuclear considerations that laymen were well served in following it, even though it wasn't a complete understanding of the universe. Had laymen not accepted the theory, they would have been less well served. Anything they could come up with in their non-scientific way would describe the world worse than the theory of conservation of mass did.
Bringing it back up to today's issues, it's good to have a few scientists question AGW. So long as they channel that questioning into research. They'll probably find that they are wrong, just as Muller and the other scientists working on BEST did. But the worst they are going to do is waste their time and some research money. It's not good to have scientists do anti-concensus propaganda for pay though.
Then there's absolutely no point in laymen or politicians challenging the majority view on AGW. They don't have the training to make their views worthwhile, are incapable of doing real scientific research to advance the state of scientific understanding. And their almost certainly incorrect views cause damage to the world.
The ancient greeks would disagree with you. Except they couldn't since Christ wouldn't be around for a few hundred years, so they wouldn't know what Christianity was.
I noticed you didn't mention Ron Paul. The mainstream media cringes every time they do; they try not to, but he's starting to gain momentum, especially among the patriots
I guess you haven't seen the results of the primaries. And this is the third time he's tried running for president.
Reality don't seem to register too well with libertarians.
So science is only climate science and evolutionary biology. If you disagree with the popular findings in this field then you must be against all science.
I've seen people that are outclassed in tennis matches try that one. "Of course I wasn't really trying to win...".
So science is only climate science and evolutionary biology. If you disagree with the popular findings in this field then you must be against all science.
Well it certainly indicates you don't believe in the scientific method.
I'd say no. But then I'm not a Christian. I did however go to Catholic school, and it was indeed taught in religious education class that ever since Adam and Eve, men have one less rib than women.
To properly understand scripture, you must read it in the way that it was written. The genesis creation story is an allegory, and not meant to be taken literally.
Fine. I have no problem with god as an allegory. It's the idiots that think there really is a god I have a problem with.
FWIW, I'm a Christian who believes in both creation and evolution.
That's a coincidence, I'm a mathematician who believes in both statistics and that rubbing a rabbit's foot can make me win the lottery. Even though it hasn't so far...
Slashdot Mirror
Well I was thinking about residential primaries, where the candidates are actually known to the people doing the voting.
But still good catch.
Is your name Dennis Prager or something?
Of course Bush/Cheney wont be prosecuted for War Crimes. But that doesn't change the fact that they should be.
call them like minded people... those who in a popular election you would rely upon utter to have any significance what so ever. They're your allies whether you like it or not.
I've no idea what it is you're trying to say.
Without them the halls of politics you'd be one man.
You don't know how I vote.
As to science... Sigh. You're going to go full on creationist on me aren't you? I have to personally prove carbon dating. I have to argue against all your theories about dinosaurs. I have to go through geology, stellar astronomy, and basically everything to explain the simple fact that the world isn't 6000 years old. that's what you're asking here. You're saying "prove the world is older then 6000 years old." But fine... I'll make a half assed attempt at it. I can't do better in a reasonable amount of time or in this medium.
Are you on crack? You claimed the Laffer Curve is science. I asked you on what basis it was science. You first of all start on about creationism, and you then go on to prove you haven't the first idea what science is, using an argument worthy of a junior school child.
The Theory of The Laffer Curve assumes that at 0% tax rate the tax take is zero. That's true, although tax isn't the only means by which a government has revenue. It further assumes that at 100% the tax take will also be zero because no one will do anything taxable. That's not true, as people have other motives for doing things than money. It will be small, but not zero.
But OK, it's not too unreasonable so far. The next bit is where the Laffer curve is false, and your decription of why you believe in it (and describe your belief is as "science) is cretinous.
Here it is. The Theory (and therefor you) assume that:
1) The tax rate is the only (or perhaps the overriding) input by which the tax take varies. That's wrong.
3) That the curve on the graph is a smooth one with a single maxima. There's absolutely no science behind the chart being that shape. Yes, it can indeed be a jaggy line that goes up and down predictably. Unless you prove by scientific means that it is not. And no economist, nor you, have done this. Despite all the economic data for many years in hundreds of countries.
The Laffer curve is a philosophical theory, not a scientific one. And your blind belief in it is religious, not scientific.
How did you do? Far worse than I imagined.
It's an open question. But Stephen Hawking says that time started with the Big Bang. That the question of what was before the big bang is meaningless because the big bang created space/time. Thus the Beginning of time is the Big Bang. The big bang singularity is of space/time and matter.
Michael Sweet created CUPS. He sold it to Apple, thus realising a reward for all his work. The fact that they both chose to have an OSS licence on the source code doesn't mean either of them own anything more to the freetards out there.
There's no extinguish. The Linux only bits continue to be available in another project.
Quality is too low? Wow of all the arguments against OSS you could have chosen - too techie-oriented, the names are funny, not "integrated" - you said the quality was too low, likely the poorest possible argument. I don't think you've ever used FOSS apps.
You think wrong. Back in the days when I used to have a PC, I used to have a tradition of once a year trying out the latest and most highly recommended Linux distribution. Every year it was a mess, and I unhappily accepted I'd have to keep going with Windows for another year. More the fool me for believing that one year it would really be The Year of Linux.
Once OSX got to the Jaguar release, I switched to Mac instead, and never looked back. Its everything Linux isn't.
I've tried Open Office (in the days before it became Libre Office. It's shit. MS Office is pretty bad, but it looks great compared with Open Office.
I've tried GIMP. Photoshop has a lot wrong with it, but it's fantastic when compared to GIMP.
I've tried Emacs, Vi, Vim, Pico. All shit compared with the better Mac and Windows programmers editors.
etc.
And lack of any "shared vision" is a good thing - even if that vision were a very good one. What if all of OSS followed Canonical's vision, we'd all be stuck with a horrible condescending UI.
How is the example of [what you believe to be] a bad UI evidence that following a good vision is a bad thing.
But lets face it there aren't (m)any examples of good OSS UIs.
It's funny that you're denying it exists in this post because half of your allies are saying that NO ONE denies it.
What allies? I speak for only my self. And if they are saying the opposite from me it's particularly bizarre to label them as my allies.
Your denial is what I wanted. Your denial proved my argument that all ideologies... or at least yours in addition to the republicans will ignore science if they find it to be inconvenient to their argument.
What science? You're just asserting it's true. That's not science.
As to why science hasn't found the exact point on the curve, that probably has something to do with economists not being handed nations to perform economic experiments upon. What do you think sport?
I think you don't understand science. It's perfectly possible to do science just with observation, you don't need control. Take astronomy for example.
You could conclude then that economics isn't a science
Of course economics isn't a science. It's philosophy (and not natural philosophy either.)
You have quite a talent for being wrong.
The Ancient Greek period started about 800BC and went on till about 600AD. You're probably thinking of Ancient Egypt.
There is no such thing as "before the beginning of time". The entire notion makes no sense. It is a statement without meaning.
Of course. But who are you quoting there? I didn't say anything about before the beginning of time. I said since the beginning of time. And that does make perfect sense, and has meaning.
The reason I used it is that the current state of physics has no idea what happened at the beginning of time. The term singularity is used, but they don't really know what that means. Scientific understanding of the universe starts explaining the world from fraction of a second after the beginning of time.
Oxford English Dictionary: "a story, poem, or picture which can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning, typically a moral or political one"
Dictionary.com: "a representation of an abstract or spiritual meaning through concrete or material forms; figurative treatment of one subject under the guise of another."
There is no requirement that it be essential or true. It's obviously likely that the writer of the allegory thinks it's a truth. But that doesn't mean it is one. And even if we can prove that the message isn't a true one, it would still qualify as an allegory.
Sorry, but the fact that the bible has allegories is not proof of God. I realize that disappoints you.
Yeah, I was bing flip about the big bang and evolution being the message behind the Genesis allegory. But the point is valid. If you're going to excuse some elements of the Bible from being provably wrong because they are allegories, then you have to accept that any part of the bible might be an allegory. Including God.
In fact I think the former Bishop of Edinburgh believes that the biblical god is an allegory, and there isn't really a god.
An allegory is a story that reveals an essential truth through a figurative setting.
Not quite. An allegory is a story that reveals an idea through a figurative setting. There's no requirement that it be essential or true.
And of course if you're going to excuse the Bible as being allegory, and thus the specifics no longer matter, Genesis could just as easily be an allegory for the big bang and evolution as for a god.
Fiction most certainly belongs in the bible. The bible freely mixes fact and fiction.
I want growth. I think growth makes us stronger as a species, I think it increases the rate at which we advance, and I thus think it enhances our ability to survive in an enormous, bleak, and hostile universe.
Come back in 20 years time when human growth but a finite Earth means that you can only afford gas and meat as occasional luxuries.
I'm told they're working on artificial meat hamburgers though.
It actually does and has repeatedly. Though it is unpopular with those that don't want to admit that there is a connection between raising taxes and reducing economic output.
For the sake of argument, say that the Laffer Curve was true. No one has yet managed to identify the point at which the peak of the curve is.* So it might be at 70%. That would mean that raising the tax rate to anything up to 70% is a good thing.
Much of the difference between the productivity of the US economy over the last 30 years versus europe can be attributed to much higher taxes.
What's productivity? It's a measure of the extent to which you exploit people. It's a method of increasing the wealth gap.
Government shouldn't be about maximising productivity. It should be about maximising equitable quality of life.
Look at pretty much any measure of quality of life or happiness, and most of Europe has the USA beaten.
* = Because it's not true.
Try it... find a crack head... an actual crack head... ideally he should be in withdraw but not cleaning himself up. Just shivvering and the picture of a human mess.
Then give him a billion dollars to start an industrial concern.
I wasn't previously aware that Keynsian economics required states to invest in crack heads. But if you say thats the way it works it must be true.
Keynesianism worked a threat at rebuilding Britain after the ravages of WWII. Of course they spent money on things like housing and a public health service, not crack heads, so it wasn't real Keynesianism.
Even though it was actually Keynes that was doing it...
Democrats on economics for example... little things like the Laffer curve that they swear doesn't exist in one breath...
If they do, then thy are correct. The Laffer curve, theory against reality.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Neo-Laffer_curve.svg
and then in the next suggest we have an international minimum tax.
If they do, that's no contradiction. A low tax country could take business away from a higher tax country regardless of the laffer curve being hokum.
Science is about having an open mind. But in many cases, if you question some theory you are branded as a nut. Science is always in flux as we learn more. Once upon a time there was the law of conservation of matter... until this nut named Albert Einstein said "O'rly?"
The world is best served by having scientists with open minds.Having a few scientists opposed to the majority scientific opinion is useful, so long as their outlet for that is doing research. In a minority of cases they might find something, and move science forward. And at worse all they waste is their time and some research money. Note that I'm not excluding amateur scientists from this group. But amateur scientists need to understand the scientific method, and be experts in their chosen field. Most laymen that question majority scientific opinion are not that.
Having scientists that are opposed to the majority scientific opinion, and just do propaganda for money is not a good thing.
The world is not best served by having lay people question the majority scientific opinion. They have no ability to explore their contrariness with the scientific method. They are probably wrong in their beliefs, and may harm themselves (in the case of belief in quack medicine) or the entire nation/world by exercising their voting rights poorly.
The world is definitively not best served by politicians that are opposed to the majority scientific opinion. Again, because they are not trained in science they are likely to be wrong. Have no way of distinguishing whether they are right or wrong. And can do grave damage to the people, the country and the world in their ignorance.
You take as your example the conservation of matter. For sure in that case it wasn't a complete explanation of the way the universe works. And it's good that Einstein felt he could challenge it. But the theory worked well enough outside of nuclear considerations that laymen were well served in following it, even though it wasn't a complete understanding of the universe. Had laymen not accepted the theory, they would have been less well served. Anything they could come up with in their non-scientific way would describe the world worse than the theory of conservation of mass did.
Bringing it back up to today's issues, it's good to have a few scientists question AGW. So long as they channel that questioning into research. They'll probably find that they are wrong, just as Muller and the other scientists working on BEST did. But the worst they are going to do is waste their time and some research money. It's not good to have scientists do anti-concensus propaganda for pay though.
Then there's absolutely no point in laymen or politicians challenging the majority view on AGW. They don't have the training to make their views worthwhile, are incapable of doing real scientific research to advance the state of scientific understanding. And their almost certainly incorrect views cause damage to the world.
War crimes.
The ancient greeks would disagree with you. Except they couldn't since Christ wouldn't be around for a few hundred years, so they wouldn't know what Christianity was.
I noticed you didn't mention Ron Paul. The mainstream media cringes every time they do; they try not to, but he's starting to gain momentum, especially among the patriots
I guess you haven't seen the results of the primaries. And this is the third time he's tried running for president.
Reality don't seem to register too well with libertarians.
So science is only climate science and evolutionary biology.
If you disagree with the popular findings in this field then you must be against all science.
I've seen people that are outclassed in tennis matches try that one. "Of course I wasn't really trying to win...".
So science is only climate science and evolutionary biology.
If you disagree with the popular findings in this field then you must be against all science.
Well it certainly indicates you don't believe in the scientific method.
I'd say no. But then I'm not a Christian. I did however go to Catholic school, and it was indeed taught in religious education class that ever since Adam and Eve, men have one less rib than women.
To properly understand scripture, you must read it in the way that it was written. The genesis creation story is an allegory, and not meant to be taken literally.
Fine. I have no problem with god as an allegory. It's the idiots that think there really is a god I have a problem with.
FWIW, I'm a Christian who believes in both creation and evolution.
That's a coincidence, I'm a mathematician who believes in both statistics and that rubbing a rabbit's foot can make me win the lottery. Even though it hasn't so far...
How do you come to that conclusion?