So your point is that he was influenced by Ayn Rand's ideas to get into politics, but that he's decided to stick with some of her ideals, but reject her overall personal philosophy?
Since I know of hundreds of other people, including public figures, that could describe, I'm not really sure what your point is. There isn't a contradiction in not being a Randian Objectivist while still thinking Any Rand made some good points about government.
I just went to the Amtrak site and put in NY to LA. I can't get anything lower than $400 one-way. Perhaps I'm not hitting a magic combination of dates or something. The shortest duration listed? 67 hours.
I do know that having used Amtrak to get from DC to NY (their best route) I was happy to move near an Amtrak station (5 mins away) out west. Of course, when I tried to actually use the service, to get from AZ to NM (next door), their plan was that I'd go via LA and SLC and take more than a day at 3x the cost of a plane ticket. We ended up driving for 6 hours instead.
Outside of the DC-NY corridor, if Amtrak's schedule and route perfectly line up with what you need, it may be an enjoyable way to travel for a bit more money, but generally, it's ridiculous.
I work in a messaging/transmissions service that interfaces with pretty much the whole world, one way or another. We recently did a survey and... 80% of the software products out there in actual use with our products didn't quite support IPv6 fully yet. Oh, most were coming "soon", or in the next release, or in the roadmap for X.... but not yet.
Network level devices, routers, switches, firewalls, LBs, servers, storage, etc... have done a much better job of current revisions supporting IPv6. Now consider all the software out there that may need to be configured with an IP address configuration, setup to bind to a network port, etc... that was built when it was assumed an IP address was X.X.X.X ?
That's a much bigger and older world than a router running the latest network vendor OS.
So then you're back to running mixed IPv4 and IPv6, which means a lot of hassle and transition period, etc... without all the benefits.
From the article: "Transitioning to IPv6 will take much, much longer than anyone expects, mostly because there is no clear reason to move to IPv6 anytime soon."
Not everything works with IPv6 yet. Most stuff does, but most organizations still have some stuff that doesn't quite yet. It'd be great if it was all just transparent, but it's now.
Having seen Facebook's competence in other ways, I imagine that Facebook may not catch much with their monitoring process, but publicizing this story probably did more to deter pedophiles from using Facebook to make contacts than the actual monitoring process itself.
Since they're really just interested in not becoming known as a place where pedophiles can get dates and thus getting hit with say, Craigslist's reputational issues, the story that they are better at monitoring than they really are makes a lot of sense for them.
I think you mean mean workers walk out of one failing business model and are replaced by computers and robots in a better business model
Oh no! Whatever shall we do with all the people who don't have to work in the fields digging by hand when they start using a plow and a horse? What can we do with the people who run the plow and take care of the horses when we start using tractors?
Here's a hint, people being replaced by more efficient techniques and technology has been going on for a long time and ultimately results in a wealthier society for everyone as those people end up doing more productive things with their time.
Is there a transition whenever there is change? Sure there is. It doesn't mean the change is bad.
Attitudes like the above would have everyone digging ditches with their fingers still because stone spoons would put too many people out of work and force them to find something more valuable to do with their time.
so what is actually the huge problem with people in that lane who are not below the speed limit ?
First, they impede the flow of traffic. When the passing lane is used for passing, then cars are able to use more of the road capacity by spreading out along it, rather then being concentrated in fifty cars all piled up with short stopping distances behind two cars driving the same speed next to each other with a huge empty highway ahead of them. Second, in some states (like the one I live in), the speed limit is a recommendation, not a hard limit. If the majority of traffic is exceeding that recommendation, then it's considered safe to do so. So if you are on a rural highway driving the "speed limit" in the passing lane, you're going to have a major pile-up of traffic behind you who want to pass you. That's simply inconsiderate. What does it cost you to drive in the proper lane for not-passing? It's not like you're going to be driving at a different speed just because you're doing it in the correct lane? Third, among those people piled up behind you are going to be people who get tired of staring at the back of your car and end up passing you in a much more dangerous manner, pulling over to the right in a little gap, then passing and pulling back left into a little gap. That doesn't happen if people use the passing lane for "passing" instead of "driving".
If you aren't going to drive at least 5-10 mph faster than the person in the right lane in order to pass, then just drive in the right lane, either just ahead or just behind them. It doesn't cost you anything and many people will be safer and happier as a result.
Now just don't get me started on people who stop at the end of off-ramps that become their own right-lane and don't even require a merge... it's apparently completely unconscious habit, because all the signs say no stop required and the lane markers are clear that there is no stop required, but they seem to want to come to a stop and look for traffic anyway, as if it's going to jump over the curb to hit them as they drive...
So start your own stock exchange using your rules and see how popular it is. You'll make billions, right?
Oh wait, you mean people who are customers for stock exchanges don't actually prefer a stock exchange like that? Hmmm... maybe you should ask yourself why...
How about stuff like limit orders, like knowing what price you can sell a stock at right now, instead of a guess about an hour from now?
Even better, try offsetting the movement of the continents themselves against the change in sea level against the erosion that may occur in some measurement spots (you are using lots of measurement spots so you can average them to account for local tilt or drift, right?), all at millimeter precision over years of time.
These are not short term measurements and they do change over time. Anyone claiming the sea level somewhere is going to be lower/higher by some significant amount (i.e measured in feet where it starts to matter to anyone) at some future date is most likely full of B.S. But hey, make your prediction for 100 years from now, scare up some dollars and by the time you are shown to be right or wrong, no one will remember your prediction anyway.
People who make a living off the misfortune of others, like pay-day lenders, also have a fucked-up moral code.
How about the moral code of people who make a living off of giving better short-term credit options to people who would otherwise have to sell a valuable family possession (like a wedding ring) or go to a loan shark charging even higher rates and threatening violence if not paid back?
Oh, we're talking about the same group of people, pay-day lenders? How could that be....
Why do you want to force poor people with lousy credit to go to loan sharks instead of pay-day lenders? You realize that's the actual choice, right? It's not like you're lining up to loan them YOUR money.
Meanwhile, the 29.97% interest rate that the payday loans people charge (and that only because 30% is considered usury and is illegal) is in no way wrong? Even when you consider that the people who take payday loans are generally the poorest part of the population?
I agree with most of your post (No hacking here, just plain extortion on the basis of threatening to reveal stupidity), but the section on their interest rate being too high is a bit much.
Customers of payday loans don't take them out because they don't notice the platinum credit card offer in their mailbox. They take the loans out because they can't get credit any cheaper elsewhere.
So if you put the payday loan people out of business, or require them to only service customers who are less risky enough to charge lower rates to, where do their customers go after that? The answer is to even worse options, at best a pawnshop at even higher rates, or worse, loan sharks ready to smash a kneecap as a reminder to make your payments on time.
And then they'd arrest you for practicing medicine without a license once they found someone to admit they went to you for a hearing problem and you tested them.
Yeah, the formula is simple: 3rd party payer + AMA guild + government regulation = $3000 device
Compare the cost over time of things like laser eye surgery or cosmetic surgery not covered by 3rd party payers. Even those still have the other two parts of the cost equation.
Finally, do you ever wonder how many people die early or suffer each year because of the FDA?
Honestly, this has always confused me. It never even occurred to me that someone could take offense to it until I saw someone comment on it elsewhere.
If the members of the Democratic Party are offended by the reasonably shortened phrase Democrat Party, why do they call themselves Democrats?
I mean, the Democratic National Committee's public web site is Democrats.org!
Why is it offensive as a shorter, easier to say version of the Party name, but not offensive as a name for the members of that Party?
It just seems to smack of people trying to take offense at something... theories about some Republican somewhere using it in a derogatory way don't explain why many Democratic Party groups have called themselves Democrat-something or other over the years.
Anyway, never really made sense to me. I mean, calling Party members a Jackass or something, I can see how that's offensive, but Democrat??
Let's say I told you that I had a bunch of stuff you might want and I was going to "underprice" everything when offering it to you. Say, 50% less than you could purchase any of it elsewhere.
In what universe am I harming you? How are you not better off than if I decided to charge you more for my stuff?
Somehow when it comes to tariffs, people seem to lose their common sense....
If they want to sell us cheap stuff, we should keep buying it until they stop transferring their wealth to us, not tell them "No thanks, we'd rather waste resources making it for more ourselves."
Would this person's prosecution for causing an accident resulting in death deter other people from behaving similarly?
Do you really think that setting up regulations to ban or approve applications that are allowed to run on a computer would deter someone more than the possibility of causing death, either theirs or others? Have you thought through the enforcement regime required to ensure people don't have "unapproved" applications loaded on their car computer? Are we talking an annual inspection of their data, or what, you must be a government approved vehicle computer system or application provider? Gee, the possibilities for abuse are just endless, aren't they?
How about we skip all that and just hold people responsible for their actual actions that actually harm others, instead of creating a police and nanny state because we're afraid someone may misuse their freedom in some minor way "we" don't approve of?
What's next, regulations about the types of toilet paper, flushing mechanisms or light bulbs "we" approve of? Ridiculous, right?
How about, mind your own damn business until it actually affects you? Have people really lost sight of liberty so much? Or do they just not think things like this through?
but there is nothing to stop people from running other apps on their dashboard too
Why do you think what you want people do to with their cars is any of your business, as long as it doesn't involve hurting you or someone else?
Punish them if they do something stupid and cause a traffic accident... let them work out what they're allowed to do with their insurance company that may have to pay for the consequences, but how did we get to the point where joe anonymous may get a say via the police over what software people are allowed to run?
Passage is permitted, but fishing, mining, etc are not, since it's outside any nation's Exclusive Economic Zone (200 nautical miles from the coast baseline or the continental shelf, whichever comes first).
It's actually the opposite... a nations exclusive economic zone means they can exclude anyone else from mining, fishing, etc... there. If you are outside those areas in the ocean, it's no longer exclusive and anyone can do whatever they want, lay claim to whatever they want, etc...
The only restriction at that point is that unless you are flagged as the vessel of a particular nation which is willing to come out and defend you, you'll need to provide your own weapons for defense against any and all comers.
Once you're in space, essentially the same rules apply. Either you "belong" to a county on earth that will stand by you for defense (and the ones really capable of that haven't agreed to keep out, as you note), or else you are on your own. If there's no one with sovereignty over a place, saying it's "the province of all mankind" is like saying "beyond here be monsters" on a map. The people who actually live, work and pursue happiness there aren't likely to be paying much attention to you.
Science should NOT be corporate-funded, it should be grant-funded -- directly from a scientific organization like NIST, or indirectly via university (or other educational) departments. Corporations should be entitled to push money into a grant pool and should also be entitled to suggest problems to study, but there should be absolutely NO link between the providers of the money and the providers of the science. Scientists MUST be free to say a claim is wrong, obtain negative results or otherwise get results corporations aren't going to like. Sorry, the universe doesn't give a flying what your CEO says.
Have you considered that your system increases the incentive for scientists to just not say anything that government, or the NIST, or whoever manages the grant pool won't like? Or do you think that it'd be better to just give money to anyone who asks for it? If not, then someone has to decide. That someone ends up being the one that influences the scientists.
At least with a corporation, they're generally funding in the expectation of getting something useful at the end of the process. With too many government fundings, they're just looking for a bureaucratic check box or a way to protect their budget against everyone else by seeming to be more important than they really are.
What I find fascinating is that all the "pro-science" people apparently didn't even bother to read the actual study being discussed.
Looking at the original paper to see what the exact survey question was.
“The GSS asked respondents the following question: “I am going to name some institutions in this country. As far as the people running these institutions are concerned, would you say you have a great deal of confidence, only some confidence, or hardly any confidence at all in them [the Scientific Community]?”(page 172)
The confidence in “people running these institutions” was being measured, not “Science” itself. Seems like that's a pretty big difference....
... nearly 1/3 of the forest has been cut down in the last century.
There are more trees in the world now than there were a century ago.
People are likely skeptical because they notice exaggerated claims of doom and destruction that don't match reality and wonder why the solution to every problem seems to involve world socialism without any rational explanations given for the connection.
Give me a rational explanation of the expected benefits and costs of global warming over time with estimates costs for taking various actions now versus later (using a reasonable time and wealth level discount) and then maybe we can have a rational discussion about various scenarios.
OMG, da sky is falling! isn't exactly an argument, but it's usually what we hear instead.
If you say "I won't find anyone guilty of that law because I don't like it", then you are not doing your job as a jurur.
No, if you say, "I won't find anyone guilty of that law because in this case it violates a higher law, the constitution." then you are simply doing your duty as a juror.
John Jay, the 1st Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court, stated that jurors possess “a right to determine the law as well as the fact in controversy.”
You don't think that the founders, who had just been criminally prosecuted by the British and protected by juries, expected the right to a jury trial to protect people from unjust laws?
During the American Revolution, juries regularly acquitted colonists convicted under British laws and before the Civil War, juries acquitted abolitionists and slaves accused of violating the Fugitive Slave Act.
If you are on a jury, you hold in your hands the responsibility to determine if the person in front of you should be punished by the State. Don't think you can evade that responsibility by saying you will leave it to the government to decide if the law is just or not.
Slashdot Mirror
So your point is that he was influenced by Ayn Rand's ideas to get into politics, but that he's decided to stick with some of her ideals, but reject her overall personal philosophy?
Since I know of hundreds of other people, including public figures, that could describe, I'm not really sure what your point is. There isn't a contradiction in not being a Randian Objectivist while still thinking Any Rand made some good points about government.
Thus proving readin's point by stating what "you" think.
I just went to the Amtrak site and put in NY to LA. I can't get anything lower than $400 one-way. Perhaps I'm not hitting a magic combination of dates or something. The shortest duration listed? 67 hours.
I do know that having used Amtrak to get from DC to NY (their best route) I was happy to move near an Amtrak station (5 mins away) out west. Of course, when I tried to actually use the service, to get from AZ to NM (next door), their plan was that I'd go via LA and SLC and take more than a day at 3x the cost of a plane ticket. We ended up driving for 6 hours instead.
Outside of the DC-NY corridor, if Amtrak's schedule and route perfectly line up with what you need, it may be an enjoyable way to travel for a bit more money, but generally, it's ridiculous.
I work in a messaging/transmissions service that interfaces with pretty much the whole world, one way or another. We recently did a survey and ... 80% of the software products out there in actual use with our products didn't quite support IPv6 fully yet. Oh, most were coming "soon", or in the next release, or in the roadmap for X .... but not yet.
Network level devices, routers, switches, firewalls, LBs, servers, storage, etc... have done a much better job of current revisions supporting IPv6. Now consider all the software out there that may need to be configured with an IP address configuration, setup to bind to a network port, etc... that was built when it was assumed an IP address was X.X.X.X ?
That's a much bigger and older world than a router running the latest network vendor OS.
So then you're back to running mixed IPv4 and IPv6, which means a lot of hassle and transition period, etc... without all the benefits.
From the article:
"Transitioning to IPv6 will take much, much longer than anyone expects, mostly because there is no clear reason to move to IPv6 anytime soon."
Not everything works with IPv6 yet. Most stuff does, but most organizations still have some stuff that doesn't quite yet. It'd be great if it was all just transparent, but it's now.
Having seen Facebook's competence in other ways, I imagine that Facebook may not catch much with their monitoring process, but publicizing this story probably did more to deter pedophiles from using Facebook to make contacts than the actual monitoring process itself.
Since they're really just interested in not becoming known as a place where pedophiles can get dates and thus getting hit with say, Craigslist's reputational issues, the story that they are better at monitoring than they really are makes a lot of sense for them.
I think you mean mean workers walk out of one failing business model and are replaced by computers and robots in a better business model
Oh no! Whatever shall we do with all the people who don't have to work in the fields digging by hand when they start using a plow and a horse? What can we do with the people who run the plow and take care of the horses when we start using tractors?
Here's a hint, people being replaced by more efficient techniques and technology has been going on for a long time and ultimately results in a wealthier society for everyone as those people end up doing more productive things with their time.
Is there a transition whenever there is change? Sure there is. It doesn't mean the change is bad.
Attitudes like the above would have everyone digging ditches with their fingers still because stone spoons would put too many people out of work and force them to find something more valuable to do with their time.
so what is actually the huge problem with people in that lane who are not below the speed limit ?
First, they impede the flow of traffic. When the passing lane is used for passing, then cars are able to use more of the road capacity by spreading out along it, rather then being concentrated in fifty cars all piled up with short stopping distances behind two cars driving the same speed next to each other with a huge empty highway ahead of them.
Second, in some states (like the one I live in), the speed limit is a recommendation, not a hard limit. If the majority of traffic is exceeding that recommendation, then it's considered safe to do so. So if you are on a rural highway driving the "speed limit" in the passing lane, you're going to have a major pile-up of traffic behind you who want to pass you. That's simply inconsiderate. What does it cost you to drive in the proper lane for not-passing? It's not like you're going to be driving at a different speed just because you're doing it in the correct lane?
Third, among those people piled up behind you are going to be people who get tired of staring at the back of your car and end up passing you in a much more dangerous manner, pulling over to the right in a little gap, then passing and pulling back left into a little gap. That doesn't happen if people use the passing lane for "passing" instead of "driving".
If you aren't going to drive at least 5-10 mph faster than the person in the right lane in order to pass, then just drive in the right lane, either just ahead or just behind them. It doesn't cost you anything and many people will be safer and happier as a result.
Now just don't get me started on people who stop at the end of off-ramps that become their own right-lane and don't even require a merge... it's apparently completely unconscious habit, because all the signs say no stop required and the lane markers are clear that there is no stop required, but they seem to want to come to a stop and look for traffic anyway, as if it's going to jump over the curb to hit them as they drive...
So start your own stock exchange using your rules and see how popular it is. You'll make billions, right?
Oh wait, you mean people who are customers for stock exchanges don't actually prefer a stock exchange like that? Hmmm... maybe you should ask yourself why...
How about stuff like limit orders, like knowing what price you can sell a stock at right now, instead of a guess about an hour from now?
Even better, try offsetting the movement of the continents themselves against the change in sea level against the erosion that may occur in some measurement spots (you are using lots of measurement spots so you can average them to account for local tilt or drift, right?), all at millimeter precision over years of time.
These are not short term measurements and they do change over time. Anyone claiming the sea level somewhere is going to be lower/higher by some significant amount (i.e measured in feet where it starts to matter to anyone) at some future date is most likely full of B.S. But hey, make your prediction for 100 years from now, scare up some dollars and by the time you are shown to be right or wrong, no one will remember your prediction anyway.
People who make a living off the misfortune of others, like pay-day lenders, also have a fucked-up moral code.
How about the moral code of people who make a living off of giving better short-term credit options to people who would otherwise have to sell a valuable family possession (like a wedding ring) or go to a loan shark charging even higher rates and threatening violence if not paid back?
Oh, we're talking about the same group of people, pay-day lenders? How could that be....
Why do you want to force poor people with lousy credit to go to loan sharks instead of pay-day lenders? You realize that's the actual choice, right? It's not like you're lining up to loan them YOUR money.
Meanwhile, the 29.97% interest rate that the payday loans people charge (and that only because 30% is considered usury and is illegal) is in no way wrong? Even when you consider that the people who take payday loans are generally the poorest part of the population?
I agree with most of your post (No hacking here, just plain extortion on the basis of threatening to reveal stupidity), but the section on their interest rate being too high is a bit much.
Customers of payday loans don't take them out because they don't notice the platinum credit card offer in their mailbox. They take the loans out because they can't get credit any cheaper elsewhere.
So if you put the payday loan people out of business, or require them to only service customers who are less risky enough to charge lower rates to, where do their customers go after that? The answer is to even worse options, at best a pawnshop at even higher rates, or worse, loan sharks ready to smash a kneecap as a reminder to make your payments on time.
And then they'd arrest you for practicing medicine without a license once they found someone to admit they went to you for a hearing problem and you tested them.
Yeah, the formula is simple:
3rd party payer + AMA guild + government regulation = $3000 device
Compare the cost over time of things like laser eye surgery or cosmetic surgery not covered by 3rd party payers. Even those still have the other two parts of the cost equation.
Finally, do you ever wonder how many people die early or suffer each year because of the FDA?
Maybe your own bias for something "everyone knows" around you in your cocoon is just showing?
Here's a link to that super-conservative Republican loving rag the NY Times explaining how your facts are incorrect.
Honestly, this has always confused me. It never even occurred to me that someone could take offense to it until I saw someone comment on it elsewhere.
If the members of the Democratic Party are offended by the reasonably shortened phrase Democrat Party, why do they call themselves Democrats?
I mean, the Democratic National Committee's public web site is Democrats.org!
Why is it offensive as a shorter, easier to say version of the Party name, but not offensive as a name for the members of that Party?
It just seems to smack of people trying to take offense at something... theories about some Republican somewhere using it in a derogatory way don't explain why many Democratic Party groups have called themselves Democrat-something or other over the years.
Anyway, never really made sense to me. I mean, calling Party members a Jackass or something, I can see how that's offensive, but Democrat??
Instead, this administration is still smarting over the Solyndra failure and looking for someone who isn't running for re-election to take the blame.
No, they're probably looking to prop up several more Solyndras so they don't fail before the election.... but call my cynical, I suppose.
Let's say I told you that I had a bunch of stuff you might want and I was going to "underprice" everything when offering it to you. Say, 50% less than you could purchase any of it elsewhere.
In what universe am I harming you? How are you not better off than if I decided to charge you more for my stuff?
Somehow when it comes to tariffs, people seem to lose their common sense....
If they want to sell us cheap stuff, we should keep buying it until they stop transferring their wealth to us, not tell them "No thanks, we'd rather waste resources making it for more ourselves."
Skipping over the B.S., if you want actual scientific debate on global warming, here's a good summary of the discussion with links to pieces on both sides.
Would this person's prosecution for causing an accident resulting in death deter other people from behaving similarly?
Do you really think that setting up regulations to ban or approve applications that are allowed to run on a computer would deter someone more than the possibility of causing death, either theirs or others? Have you thought through the enforcement regime required to ensure people don't have "unapproved" applications loaded on their car computer? Are we talking an annual inspection of their data, or what, you must be a government approved vehicle computer system or application provider? Gee, the possibilities for abuse are just endless, aren't they?
How about we skip all that and just hold people responsible for their actual actions that actually harm others, instead of creating a police and nanny state because we're afraid someone may misuse their freedom in some minor way "we" don't approve of?
What's next, regulations about the types of toilet paper, flushing mechanisms or light bulbs "we" approve of? Ridiculous, right?
How about, mind your own damn business until it actually affects you? Have people really lost sight of liberty so much? Or do they just not think things like this through?
Why do you think what you want people do to with their cars is any of your business, as long as it doesn't involve hurting you or someone else?
Punish them if they do something stupid and cause a traffic accident... let them work out what they're allowed to do with their insurance company that may have to pay for the consequences, but how did we get to the point where joe anonymous may get a say via the police over what software people are allowed to run?
Passage is permitted, but fishing, mining, etc are not, since it's outside any nation's Exclusive Economic Zone (200 nautical miles from the coast baseline or the continental shelf, whichever comes first).
It's actually the opposite... a nations exclusive economic zone means they can exclude anyone else from mining, fishing, etc... there. If you are outside those areas in the ocean, it's no longer exclusive and anyone can do whatever they want, lay claim to whatever they want, etc...
The only restriction at that point is that unless you are flagged as the vessel of a particular nation which is willing to come out and defend you, you'll need to provide your own weapons for defense against any and all comers.
Once you're in space, essentially the same rules apply. Either you "belong" to a county on earth that will stand by you for defense (and the ones really capable of that haven't agreed to keep out, as you note), or else you are on your own. If there's no one with sovereignty over a place, saying it's "the province of all mankind" is like saying "beyond here be monsters" on a map. The people who actually live, work and pursue happiness there aren't likely to be paying much attention to you.
Have you considered that your system increases the incentive for scientists to just not say anything that government, or the NIST, or whoever manages the grant pool won't like? Or do you think that it'd be better to just give money to anyone who asks for it? If not, then someone has to decide. That someone ends up being the one that influences the scientists.
At least with a corporation, they're generally funding in the expectation of getting something useful at the end of the process. With too many government fundings, they're just looking for a bureaucratic check box or a way to protect their budget against everyone else by seeming to be more important than they really are.
Are you aware that the U.S. does 43% of the research in the world and industry funds 66% of that, the federal government 28% and colleges, non-profits and state governments the other 6%? You seem to think most research is political. It's not, it's looking for new things that will be useful and then figuring out how to turn them into something for people to actually benefit from. Your proposed system would likely wipe that out and the world would be a much poorer place as a result.
What I find fascinating is that all the "pro-science" people apparently didn't even bother to read the actual study being discussed.
Looking at the original paper to see what the exact survey question was.
“The GSS asked respondents the following question: “I am going to name some institutions in this country. As far as the people running these institutions are concerned, would you say you have a great deal of confidence, only some confidence, or hardly any confidence at all in them [the Scientific Community]?”(page 172)
The confidence in “people running these institutions” was being measured, not “Science” itself. Seems like that's a pretty big difference....
... nearly 1/3 of the forest has been cut down in the last century.
There are more trees in the world now than there were a century ago.
People are likely skeptical because they notice exaggerated claims of doom and destruction that don't match reality and wonder why the solution to every problem seems to involve world socialism without any rational explanations given for the connection.
Give me a rational explanation of the expected benefits and costs of global warming over time with estimates costs for taking various actions now versus later (using a reasonable time and wealth level discount) and then maybe we can have a rational discussion about various scenarios.
OMG, da sky is falling! isn't exactly an argument, but it's usually what we hear instead.
If you say "I won't find anyone guilty of that law because I don't like it", then you are not doing your job as a jurur.
No, if you say, "I won't find anyone guilty of that law because in this case it violates a higher law, the constitution." then you are simply doing your duty as a juror.
See STETTINIUS v. UNITED STATES and also pre-U.S. history to jury trials.
John Jay, the 1st Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court, stated that jurors possess “a right to determine the law as well as the fact in controversy.”
You don't think that the founders, who had just been criminally prosecuted by the British and protected by juries, expected the right to a jury trial to protect people from unjust laws?
During the American Revolution, juries regularly acquitted colonists convicted under British laws and before the Civil War, juries acquitted abolitionists and slaves accused of violating the Fugitive Slave Act.
If you are on a jury, you hold in your hands the responsibility to determine if the person in front of you should be punished by the State. Don't think you can evade that responsibility by saying you will leave it to the government to decide if the law is just or not.