Re:Actually, there is some evidence about EMI/RFI
on
Tinfoil Hat House
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· Score: 1
Lower frequency RF, like living under a broadcast tower [...]
It depends on the power of the transmissions. I don't recall if it was the Sears Tower, but I remember watching a documentary on a building that mentioned they had to power down the transmission tower at the top of it in order to do routine maintenance. If they didn't, the transmit power was so great that it would cause irreparable harm or possibly even death to anyone climbing up into it.
The poster who claimed there's no evidence of harmful EMF probably has a very narrow concept of what exactly constitutes EMF.
In the absence of clues to differentiate your usage, I assumed you meant it as it is most commonly used. Even so, my comment still stands. I never claimed there was no "authority," either.
You are looking for universal truth as a constant
Hardly. It's unclear to me how you reached that conclusion. I've never argued for a knowable universal truth.
[D]o you believe that these are not capable of being hard sciences?
Certainly they are capable of it. They just don't resemble anything like a hard science currently. The forecast for the future isn't very rosy in that regard, either. That does not preclude the possibility of it happening at some point, though.
Believing that we should utilize a falsehood like "inalienable rights" supports both of these views
If something is useful from the standpoint of reaching your moral goals (taking for granted that it does not contradict them, or it wouldn't actually have a net use), and moral constructs are the only absolute truth (the only thing knowable), then usefulness certainly can be equated with truth. You just have to make sure "usefulness" isn't sloppily defined. As for it being a "falsehood," that can only be if it is not a part of one's moral goals. If it is antithetical, it is "false." If it is beneficial, it is "true." For those who see it as having no bearing, it is irrelevant. It may be false from your point of view, but given that you define truth to be composed of only what you have constructed in your mind, your truth or falsehood is functionally irrelevant to anyone else.
It seems that the major point of contention now is this apparent belief that I am relying on the concept of universally knowable constants. If this is the case, let me dispel it. I am not.
You're only talking about removing labels, not actually removing the institutions or concepts from the world, thus logically you could only be referring to abstract things.
If tomorrow everyone ceases to understand "government" or any of the extensions of it, nothing physical would cease to exist. "Government" does not exist in a tangible manner except by the actions of people acting with a belief in the idea. If people stopped believing in trees, it would not make trees go away.
If they were actually removed, then people would interact differently, which would make them different people.
I never said it wouldn't have an effect. Certainly it would. Beliefs lead individuals to certain actions. Alter those beliefs and you alter the pattern of actions. You can rationalize a network of relationships into a single, physical entity, but that doesn't actually make that entity physical.
You are claiming that belief makes some things "less abstract".
Reprint where you believe I said that, and I'll clear up what I actually meant. Belief makes certain actions more likely, not "less abstract."
[T]yranny is imposition of arbitrariness relative to one's own perspective.
Tyranny is classically defined as a single person wielding absolute power within the confines of a certain area. If you wish to define it as arbitrariness relative to one's own perspective then anything can be a tyranny. Just because laws are passed does not make them any less arbitrary where someone who has no direct hand in them is concerned. Writing something down does not make it any less arbitrary than verbally pronouncing something. Both can be changed within the blink of an eye. The law does not preclude the powerful from arbitrary decisions, or from stacking the legal process against those who would seek redress. It seems you hold ideals as utopian as any you accuse me of having. Nowhere in the world does the "government" work as you would have it, in strict subordination to a set of moral goals.
You claim governments derive their authority from these moral goals, yet reject a fundame
Your assertion that language has changed, does not make my usage of it imprecise.
That was never my contention. Quite the contrary, it was you contending that I was imprecise.
See:
Precision in language cannot be gained the same way one sharpens a knife. The sharpness does not depend on who uses it. However, most words can be used in innumerable fashions, so precision comes only through agreeing on the same definitions. Just because you do not agree with my definitions does not make me imprecise, any more than my disagreeing with yours makes you so.
A word can be precisely defined and still fail to communicate the idea, that does not mean it was imprecisely defined.
Perhaps you should apply this assertion to your claim that I am imprecise in my language.
Given the nihilistic and relativist nature of your epistemology
That's funny. I never said there was no meaning or purpose in existence. I just don't believe anyone has ever accurately determined an absolute meaning or purpose. As for relativism, you appear firmly on that page as well: I may not be able to know something absolutely and My moral goals, on the other hand, are knowable as they are entirely mental constructs[referring to the basis of "truth"]. If "truth" isn't relative, what is the absolute, unchanging basis for it? Or is it only "absolute" for each person (essentially arbitrary and relative when viewed in general).
There need not be only one meaning for a word. There need only be one meaning for a single usage.
You're restating my position. Different pages again. For words in general, your first sentence is right. For specific instances of communication, your second sentence is right.
[Epistemology] is the search for objective knowledge.
A major branch of philosophy that concerns the forms, nature, and preconditions of knowledge.
Not necessarily objective knowledge. Part of the search is attempting to answer the question of whether objective knowledge exists and if it exists in a form comprehensible to finite beings.
Firmly inside the realm of metaphysics.
Epistemology asks the question "How do I know what I know?"
And provides no answers, only conjecture based as much on fact as a discussion of whether God exists up in Heaven. I should clarify, when I use the term "science," I mean a hard science, rather than a soft science that cannot provide anything resembling a controlled environment.
You equate the source of authority for the government with the existence of the government.
I did no such thing. I was equating something physical with an abstract extension of that physical thing. Both "authority" and "government" are abstract extensions of physical things, and I was not comparing two abstracts in any of those three examples.
You put more importance on labels of tangible objects and less importance on labels of intangible objects i.e. ideas.
That's an interesting stance given that this discussion started regarding my supportive position on labels of intangible things (secession, inalienable rights, belief).
Tyranny is [everything that exists without written laws]
I don't agree with your definition of tyranny, so response to this will be unproductive.
The only way that authority disappears is if we no longer believe
So you do agree that ultimately the law only exists by a group's belief in it.
I'd give Anarchy a week [...]
I would certainly agree with you, but I think your definition of "law" would have to slip a little bit here to be realistic. Warlords who rise out of anarchy tend to rule by verbal decree for a while before getting around to writing it all down neatly into the law books.
For step 1-3, try something more along these lines: Fax a copy of two utility bills in your name to city/county/state records department. Get birth certificate in the mail at address on utility bills.
Start at step 6.
For those of you who don't personally know, this is the procedure to obtain a birth certificate from the police state of New York. Last I checked, Illinois required no verification of identity whatsoever, but that's been a couple years.
If you could not use a knife to reproduce a wood cut, would you suddenly claim the original's craftsman was nothing more than a victum of luck? Would it be impossible to recreate the wood cut without reporducing all the craftsman's tools or his workshop in every detail?
I don't see how your example follows. Since you claim to operate with more precision, I would assume you place yourself in the category of the craftsman, and me as the bumbler with a dull knife attempting to recreate your piece.
Only, I was never attempting to recreate any of your positions, only to clarify my own, since you as yet seem to fail to understand my position.
The one part I would agree with is that there are multiple paths and different tools one can use to achieve the same result. There are many paths in language to describe the same idea. The only catch is that both parties need to be on the same page. It is still my contention that we are not on the same page.
It's not a manipulation of language, as my intent is to clarify, not decieve.
manipulate: to handle or use, esp. with skill. Perhaps that is enough clarification of my use of the term "manipulate in that sentence? I guess It is an exercise in clarification wasn't enough.:)
Other usage is fine
Other usage is only fine if you don't care about precise understanding. For precisely conveying an idea, you must exclude other usage so that all parties understand exactly what remains. Otherwise, there is always the chance that some other meaning of all or part of the language used will be attributed to your message. That is a frequent pitfall of any in-depth discussion, especially those where participants are particularly dug-in to their position, and have a hard time looking at it in terms other than those they most closely associate with (something I am frequently guilty of).
Law is precise for a reason
Law is ideally precise. If it were precise in reality, void for vagueness would not be part of legal doctrine.
It is hardly mental masturbation, that's like saying the scientific method is mental masturbation.
Epistemology is a mental exercise with its entire basis grounded in opinion. The scientific method is grounded in logic. Using one method you can argue that the other method is entirely baseless. I would hardly equate the two.:)
To say that one posesses "inalienable rights" is to support a falsified statement.
From the standpoint of tangible reality, you are right. From that same standpoint, "the" government is a false idea. It does not exist anywhere but the minds of people. Erase the term "government" from everyone's mind, and there would be no physical change to the world anymore than if you erased the concepts of "forests" or "rights". The people are still the same people, they just interact differently. If you no longer have "forests," the trees do not disappear, they simply are not described the same way.
Outside of law, there is simply the arbitrary imposition of moral goals aka tyranny.
There are very few areas that currently exist outside "the law." All of the current tyrants have countries that exist inside "the law." Simply having laws does not negate a tyranny, and not having "laws" (written instruments of a ruling authority) does not mean you have tyranny. Just because something is not in category A does not immediately mean it falls into category B. There are many more possibilities out there than (written instruments OR tyranny).
The authority of the laws of the US are moral goals of the Constitution.
And if nobody believes in the moral goals of the Constitution anymore, what is the basis?
All language is a construct, morality is a construct.
I agree completely. The "validity" of both are based on shared belief in them, just as the validity
You're ignoring the the pertinent Congressional decision on Sept. 28th 1787.
Not ignoring. I wasn't aware of it. It appears I was wrong. Thank you for pointing out this bit of evidence that I had overlooked.
It's not semantics, you're claiming that the idea of rights, somehow has more force because people hold certain beliefs.
I still hold to both. The most profound differences here are as a result of differences of opinion regarding word usage. You accuse me of imprecision in language, yet the very roots of our language imprecisely reflect their various meanings today. You attempt to attribute very narrow definitions to each word so as to preclude any other use. I frequently do the same. It is an exercise in clarification of position, of manipulating language to convey a sense of exactly what your stated position is. What it is not is an excursion down the road to find absolute truth (epistemology), which is ultimately nothing more than mental masturbation. I will grant you that the two are frequently not so very far apart though.
How is this no different than a religious cult? Is the entire basis of our civilization that fragile? I claim that the evidence states otherwise. The psychological observation you've made here has no bearing on law or legal theory. This isn't a matter of disagreement on wording, and the question of authority in a Liberal legal system is a question of epistemology.
It is not any different, and it's hardly any more fragile than the basis for any other human interaction. They are both expressions of the same psychological drives.
It appears you were under the misconception that I was arguing law or legal theory. I was not. Rather, my statements are about something I see to be above any law or legal theory.
History has shown time and again that self-determination (the "rights" to rebellion, self-defense, secession, etc.) supercedes the law, because the law is easily perverted. The law is a construct like religion, a tool. Ergo, not an argument about the law.
That doesn't make it the basis for law, or where the source of authority for law comes from.
No, but if you disagree, please let me in on what the real basis of the law is. Then we can get on with an actual epistemological discussion, which will end in a comparison of beliefs and opinions (the only definitive result of any such discussion).
This is different than the use of the terms faith and belief you've used elsewhwere. Faith in society to enforce it's laws has a measureable history, like a credit score. That's a far cry from a faith in a deity for which there is no physical evidence. Equivocating the two uses of faith here does not follow logically.
See:Part of your problem here seems to actually be a problem of semantics. You are mixing meanings of words in ways to support your arguments, that's sloppy. If you were more precise in your language, then you might see the inconsistencies in your assertions.
If you are willing to mask your intentions, then why should I believe any of your intentions.
You should use your own judgement, and then come to a decision as to whether to believe what I say. Or not. It doesn't actually matter to me one way or the other, because at the end of the day it will still just be your opinion, regardless of the basis you used to determine it. The same can be said for me, or anyone else.
That said, you have no reason to believe I support rights even if I explain a perfectly logical (to you) basis for supporting them. Your experience is the sole determining factor for what you decide is truth. Ultimately, your definition of truth is solely your own responsibility. I have no desire for you to believe anything in particular, only a desire to trade information.
An assertion of fact, as to the nature of an idea is not simply a matter of opinion.
The unanimous vote would have been to send the Constitution to the states. Hence, that vote legitimized the procedure of moving to the Constitution with only 9 states.
No, the unanimous requirement is that all 9 States agree. Article XIII. It's clear as a bell. If all 9 states do not agree, the action is not valid. It's no different than if an item were unanimously sent to the current States with a requirement of 2 States ratifying.
The Constitution has specific ammendment requirements in Article 5, which would need to be fulfilled to change to another document. Any ammendments that come out of a Constitutional Convention must be ratified by 3/4's of the states in order to pass. 2 states couldn't just adopt a new Constitution, convention or no convention.
You mean like the specific requirements of AoC XIII, which were not adhered to? The new Constitution went into effect before all 9 States ratified it, in violation of Article XIII.
The right to rebel morally has always been recognized by those who share the rebel's moral goals and opposed by those who don't.
Replace "rebel" with * and you've got a pretty good general statement there.:)
It's not semantics, it's epistemology.
I wasn't arguing the theory of knowledge, rather an interpretation of words. "Semantics" is more suited to my position than "epistemology." Your belief may vary, but arguing which words better suit the argument furthers confirms the semantic basis for disagreement.:)
If the basis for you're laws authority isn't some natural enforcement, you'd better understand what is the ultimate mechanism for enforcement.
There is no "natural" enforcement of any rights. The ultimate enforcement of anything is control, which invariably terminates with superior physical power concentrated in one form or another. I really have no idea what your point with this statement is.
Rights get their power from the civil contract, faith in society to enforce it's laws based on past experience, nothing more.
What's your definition of faith then? I always defined it as a type of belief...
All rights are positive law [...]
And the basis of all law is this civil contract which is in turn based on faith in society.
It's a false power, easily dispelled as any other myth.
Like Christianity, or Islam, or Judaism, or Hinduism, etc. Easily dispelled, like any other myth. Haven't checked your barometer for the longevity of "false powers" have you? Belief is a powerful thing, even if you choose to deny that fact.
You're allowed to irrationally continue advocating a false belief.
Why, thank you for allowing me to do such a thing. Last I checked, understanding something is not completely (or even partially) true and still choosing to support the dissemination of the idea is not irrational if you also understand your purpose for doing so. I understand my purpose for supporting a concept I understand to be not necessarily true, because I also understand the effect that can have on others. Yes it is deceptive, but it also serves a purpose, just as many many other causes are supported through intentional misinformation.
Political opinions are rational choices, and can be attacked regardless of your moral opinion. Your moral opinion may be valid, but your political opinions are not so by default since they can be measured.
Please, do tell how you rationalize the difference between the two, especially since you call them both opinions. How exactly is it that you measure an opinion?
Seems like a perfectly legal transition, which in no way means secession was legitimatized by the process.
It was illegitimate under the AoC because once 9 states ratified it, those member states ceased to view the AoC as governing documents, a fact that was in direct contravention of the requirement for unanimity.
We could have a new Constitutional Convention tommorrow, and have that Convention draft a document requiring only 2 states to ratify it for it to be formally adopted by those states. That would be in direct contravention of our current governing document, whether or not the rest of the states eventually supported the move. I'm not saying the secession from the government under the Articles of Confederation was either right or wrong, simply that it was in violation of the governing document at the time. Civility does not make something legal. Legality does not make something right.
While you may argue there are no absolute rights, it is all a matter of semantics. I certainly agree there is no natural force that insures victory, or even compels action in the face of overwhelming odds.
You can as easily say there is no right to defend yourself. Rebellion is simply an organized defenes against an organization who claims control over that individual/group that is in the act of rebellion.
The definition of "rights" is very subjective in nature, but rights derive their power from belief. Thus, it is necessary to support the belief in rights by speaking in absolute, rather than relative, terms. Since I support the concept of rights, I speak of them in absolute terms rather than subjectively, in order to lend power to the concept.
Thus, there are in fact absolute rights. You may say otherwise, I just won't agree with your argument.:)
You say it's revisionism, yet fail completely in the rest of your post to mention how.
I never claimed Lincoln supported slavery, I claimed he supported the Union and used the Emancipation Proclamation as leverage against the South.
I never claimed he had no opportunity to avoid the Civil War. I doubt he wanted to avoid it, as in fact the Civil War played into his attempts to empower the Federal Government and make the Union stronger. It did.
So am I completely missing your point, or did you intentionally fail to support your first sentence?
Or try getting married to someone of the same sex in Massachusetts, see how many other states honor the marriage.
Or, try to get a state to pay you a debt (ie jury duty payment) in gold or silver coin, also mandated by the Constitution.
The Constitution exists only as long as people believe in it (much like the value of paper money, or anything else written on paper). Most Americans today have no idea what's in the Constitution, hence there is no consistent belief in its tenets. As a result of this, it basically does not exist past what people see on Law & Order.
The American Civil War was as much about slavery as it was anything else, regardless of what some neo confederates say.
Slavery was the catalyst, but Lincoln only cared about the Union. If you bothered to pull out a textbook with copies of his speeches on the issue, you'd know that he would have guaranteed the institution of slavery in perpetuity if he had thought it would maintain the integrity of the Union. Lincoln would have sold his own mother into slavery if it guaranteed the integrity of the Union.
Just read the Emancipation Proclamation if you don't want to believe it was about something other than slavery. If it was about slavery, it would have freed all the slaves, not just those in the Confederacy.
As for gp's assertion that several northern states were allowed to keep slaves for years after the end of the war, I'd have to have more info to start research before I'd really believe that.
The idea that such a right might exist came more from fertile imaginations than any logical study of the law or historical precedent.
By "such a right" are you referring to the right of secession? If so, what do you think happened with the reforamtion of the United States of America under the current Constitution?
The United States was governed by the rticles of Confederation, which required unanimous consent of the members for changes. The Constitutional Convention required ratification by only 9 of the 13 members of the country as organized under the Articles of Confederation. Ergo, the ratification of the Constitution constituted a secession from the government formed under the Articles of Confederation.
Now, all 13 eventually ratified the new Constitution, but it came into force once the first 9 had ratified it. At that point in time, they formally seceded from the Union under the AoC (ignored the provision that all changes to government required unanimous consent).
This action cemented the notion that secession was legitimate, even if it was not allowed under the previous form of government.
Fast forward to Lincoln, and his claim that no such right of secession existed. His source for this "fact" was none other than the Articles of Confederation. He read something into a no-longer-current historical document that had already been determined by the Union to be illegitimate. Ergo, Lincoln's interpretation of the Articles of Confederation that no right of secession existed was illegitimate.
Whether it is "officially" recognized or not, all political divisions have an absolute right to remove themselves from higher governance should that governance become contrary to their own right to self-determination.
If secession wasn't what you were talking about, I apologize for the diatribe on an issue that won't really become extraordinarily important (to most people, at least) for a few more years yet.:)
No, Windows doesn't have an inate ability to do anything better. Nowhere in gp's statement did I read a claim that this was the case. "Best" does not denote just pure technical capacity. It can mean many things, such as user experience or availability of professional-quality product.
To further belabor the point and repeatedly kick a dead horse, the general gaming experience on Linux blows compared to what is available for Windows. This is not due to a technical fault in Linux. It is also not due some technical superiority in Windows. It is simply a description of the current market experience.
There was no BS in gp's statement. I don't like Microsoft either, but I like knee-jerk, unthinking FUD even less.
I've got an old int. SCSI S&F 2006 2X that's still kicking. Had to fix a minor problem with the rubber suspension points, but I think that was more as a result of the near-car wreck the computer was involved in (car was fine, but the rapid deceleration coupled with an unrestrained computer was not fun).:)
It's just like everything else out there. The more mature an industry is, the lower the average quality of that industry's products.
If that's true, then why isn't it written "a'i'n't"?
There's no convention for compound contractions in the English language, so it's written to mimic a real contraction (i.e. a verb concatenated with "n't" to denote the negative of that verb). If you disagree, please define the verb "ai."
Yes it does: "am not".
I had not considered that one, but it still doesn't conform to any of the necessary corollary affirmative conjugations, only negative conjugations. It is still a contraction of a word that doesn't exist. If it is to be recognized as anything but slang, it should completely fill the role that it is used for, not just a part of that role.
Your chart doesn't show an actual hole, it simply shows that there is only one contractive alternative to "I am not" rather than the 2 that several others have. If you notice, each of your examples includes a contraction of both the verb/subject and the verb/negative, each with an identical meaning.
Writing "I'm not" serves the same purpose as "I ain't" with the same number of characters. What this really shows is that there are simply unneccesary duplications in several of the most common contractive statements. We don't need more of those.:)
I'm not saying that the language can't or shouldn't change, I'm mostly just arguing for the sake of argument (though I still don't think "ain't" should ever be considered anything but slang).:)
And ain't has just as good a pedigree as any other n't contraction, why wouldn't you want it in the dictionary?
No it doesn't. The "ai" portion of "ain't" is a concatenation of the first letters in "are" and "is." When written out, "ain't" means "are is not."
The verb bases are both derived from the infinitive "to be," but the term defies the accepted conjugation conventions for that infinitive. It does not fill in any hole in the language, but serves rather to supplant the contractions of the present-tense conjugations of "to be" without also providing non-contracted versions of those same conjugated verbs. More than anything else I would guess that to be the reason that it has suffered a cold reception.
If "ain't" is a distinctly necessary word, so should the conjugation "I/you/we/he/she/it/they ai" be valid and distinct. It would certainly simplify the conjugation of "to be," but I doubt it's going to happen.:)
Congresspeople are those who are born without that part of the brain, or have had it removed at some point, or are simply not human in the first place.
RFIDs aren't necessarily passive. They could easily be made powered. They're passive in most applications because the problems introduced by powering them are usually related to the necessity of small size for the application.
We're talking about vehicles here, which have their own power source. It would be easy to put RFID into vehicles that are powered transmitters. Even if that power is limited to milliwatts, the range is increased drastically. The implications of this are huge.
Fortunately, RFID can be jammed just like any other radio wave.
"Well, what we have here is a high-speed chase. Nascar has a lot of drivers going really fast, and things of that nature, so there might be a connection here."
Only in the event that there is publicity surrounding their failure to address the issue would it conceivably harm them. There is an entrenched user base for their product, particularly around the common demographic of those people who are unaware of competition and probably wouldn't be bothered to change if they were aware.
Among those who already have an understanding of the issues, there is usually ample capability to change and deal with the ramifications of those changes.
Microsoft has been rewarded for paying lip service to compliance while failing to implement the same in their products. I still see no real reason why they would choose to actually address the issue at this time. It's not hurting their bottom line at the moment, and there's no accurate forecast to predict that it will in the near future.
I wasn't saying that a test page is a bad idea, just that there's no real reason for Microsoft to take the challenge seriously (in practice, even if they appear to take it seriously from a PR perspective). I understand and agree with many of your points, but much of it requires that there is popular media coverage of the issue and enough people (who otherwise would not have bothered switching) end up switching away from their browser as a result. I'd love to see and end of IE dominance in the market. I think it's a horrible, slow, bloated monstrosity. From Microsoft's standpoint though, it's successful in spite of itself.
Microsoft would more than likely simply ignore the challenge completely. What do they have to gain (at this point) from actually producing a standards-compliant browser?
Now, perhaps if FireFox continues to chew up the percentages of web browser usage, they might try it for PR purposes, but that's hardly an issue at the moment. Microsoft is more of an in-the-moment company (unless you're speaking of up-and-coming products, where they announce competing programs years before they actually plan to implement the changes).
Slashdot Mirror
Lower frequency RF, like living under a broadcast tower [...]
It depends on the power of the transmissions. I don't recall if it was the Sears Tower, but I remember watching a documentary on a building that mentioned they had to power down the transmission tower at the top of it in order to do routine maintenance. If they didn't, the transmit power was so great that it would cause irreparable harm or possibly even death to anyone climbing up into it.
The poster who claimed there's no evidence of harmful EMF probably has a very narrow concept of what exactly constitutes EMF.
That may not be so far from the truth.
After all, the color PURPLE is a trademark of 3M.
(I kid you not.)
A car that isn't electronically controlled. :)
:)
Reminds me of the old clip in Fallout of the car advertisement: All analog! No electronics!
(Or some such thing, been years since I played it.
Nihilism can also mean there is no authority.
In the absence of clues to differentiate your usage, I assumed you meant it as it is most commonly used. Even so, my comment still stands. I never claimed there was no "authority," either.
You are looking for universal truth as a constant
Hardly. It's unclear to me how you reached that conclusion. I've never argued for a knowable universal truth.
[D]o you believe that these are not capable of being hard sciences?
Certainly they are capable of it. They just don't resemble anything like a hard science currently. The forecast for the future isn't very rosy in that regard, either. That does not preclude the possibility of it happening at some point, though.
Believing that we should utilize a falsehood like "inalienable rights" supports both of these views
If something is useful from the standpoint of reaching your moral goals (taking for granted that it does not contradict them, or it wouldn't actually have a net use), and moral constructs are the only absolute truth (the only thing knowable), then usefulness certainly can be equated with truth. You just have to make sure "usefulness" isn't sloppily defined. As for it being a "falsehood," that can only be if it is not a part of one's moral goals. If it is antithetical, it is "false." If it is beneficial, it is "true." For those who see it as having no bearing, it is irrelevant. It may be false from your point of view, but given that you define truth to be composed of only what you have constructed in your mind, your truth or falsehood is functionally irrelevant to anyone else.
It seems that the major point of contention now is this apparent belief that I am relying on the concept of universally knowable constants. If this is the case, let me dispel it. I am not.
You're only talking about removing labels, not actually removing the institutions or concepts from the world, thus logically you could only be referring to abstract things.
If tomorrow everyone ceases to understand "government" or any of the extensions of it, nothing physical would cease to exist. "Government" does not exist in a tangible manner except by the actions of people acting with a belief in the idea. If people stopped believing in trees, it would not make trees go away.
If they were actually removed, then people would interact differently, which would make them different people.
I never said it wouldn't have an effect. Certainly it would. Beliefs lead individuals to certain actions. Alter those beliefs and you alter the pattern of actions. You can rationalize a network of relationships into a single, physical entity, but that doesn't actually make that entity physical.
You are claiming that belief makes some things "less abstract".
Reprint where you believe I said that, and I'll clear up what I actually meant. Belief makes certain actions more likely, not "less abstract."
[T]yranny is imposition of arbitrariness relative to one's own perspective.
Tyranny is classically defined as a single person wielding absolute power within the confines of a certain area. If you wish to define it as arbitrariness relative to one's own perspective then anything can be a tyranny. Just because laws are passed does not make them any less arbitrary where someone who has no direct hand in them is concerned. Writing something down does not make it any less arbitrary than verbally pronouncing something. Both can be changed within the blink of an eye. The law does not preclude the powerful from arbitrary decisions, or from stacking the legal process against those who would seek redress. It seems you hold ideals as utopian as any you accuse me of having. Nowhere in the world does the "government" work as you would have it, in strict subordination to a set of moral goals.
You claim governments derive their authority from these moral goals, yet reject a fundame
It's frequently easier to get out of wet sand than it is to get out of dry sand.
Your assertion that language has changed, does not make my usage of it imprecise.
That was never my contention. Quite the contrary, it was you contending that I was imprecise.
See:
Precision in language cannot be gained the same way one sharpens a knife. The sharpness does not depend on who uses it. However, most words can be used in innumerable fashions, so precision comes only through agreeing on the same definitions. Just because you do not agree with my definitions does not make me imprecise, any more than my disagreeing with yours makes you so.
A word can be precisely defined and still fail to communicate the idea, that does not mean it was imprecisely defined.
Perhaps you should apply this assertion to your claim that I am imprecise in my language.
Given the nihilistic and relativist nature of your epistemology
That's funny. I never said there was no meaning or purpose in existence. I just don't believe anyone has ever accurately determined an absolute meaning or purpose. As for relativism, you appear firmly on that page as well: I may not be able to know something absolutely and My moral goals, on the other hand, are knowable as they are entirely mental constructs[referring to the basis of "truth"]. If "truth" isn't relative, what is the absolute, unchanging basis for it? Or is it only "absolute" for each person (essentially arbitrary and relative when viewed in general).
There need not be only one meaning for a word. There need only be one meaning for a single usage.
You're restating my position. Different pages again. For words in general, your first sentence is right. For specific instances of communication, your second sentence is right.
[Epistemology] is the search for objective knowledge.
A major branch of philosophy that concerns the forms, nature, and preconditions of knowledge.
Not necessarily objective knowledge. Part of the search is attempting to answer the question of whether objective knowledge exists and if it exists in a form comprehensible to finite beings.
Firmly inside the realm of metaphysics.
Epistemology asks the question "How do I know what I know?"
And provides no answers, only conjecture based as much on fact as a discussion of whether God exists up in Heaven. I should clarify, when I use the term "science," I mean a hard science, rather than a soft science that cannot provide anything resembling a controlled environment.
You equate the source of authority for the government with the existence of the government.
I did no such thing. I was equating something physical with an abstract extension of that physical thing. Both "authority" and "government" are abstract extensions of physical things, and I was not comparing two abstracts in any of those three examples.
You put more importance on labels of tangible objects and less importance on labels of intangible objects i.e. ideas.
That's an interesting stance given that this discussion started regarding my supportive position on labels of intangible things (secession, inalienable rights, belief).
Tyranny is [everything that exists without written laws]
I don't agree with your definition of tyranny, so response to this will be unproductive.
The only way that authority disappears is if we no longer believe
So you do agree that ultimately the law only exists by a group's belief in it.
I'd give Anarchy a week [...]
I would certainly agree with you, but I think your definition of "law" would have to slip a little bit here to be realistic. Warlords who rise out of anarchy tend to rule by verbal decree for a while before getting around to writing it all down neatly into the law books.
[Law is] tangible because it's enforced.
No, the enforcement is a tang
For step 1-3, try something more along these lines: Fax a copy of two utility bills in your name to city/county/state records department. Get birth certificate in the mail at address on utility bills.
Start at step 6.
For those of you who don't personally know, this is the procedure to obtain a birth certificate from the police state of New York. Last I checked, Illinois required no verification of identity whatsoever, but that's been a couple years.
If you could not use a knife to reproduce a wood cut, would you suddenly claim the original's craftsman was nothing more than a victum of luck? Would it be impossible to recreate the wood cut without reporducing all the craftsman's tools or his workshop in every detail?
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I don't see how your example follows. Since you claim to operate with more precision, I would assume you place yourself in the category of the craftsman, and me as the bumbler with a dull knife attempting to recreate your piece.
Only, I was never attempting to recreate any of your positions, only to clarify my own, since you as yet seem to fail to understand my position.
The one part I would agree with is that there are multiple paths and different tools one can use to achieve the same result. There are many paths in language to describe the same idea. The only catch is that both parties need to be on the same page. It is still my contention that we are not on the same page.
It's not a manipulation of language, as my intent is to clarify, not decieve.
manipulate: to handle or use, esp. with skill.
Perhaps that is enough clarification of my use of the term "manipulate in that sentence? I guess It is an exercise in clarification wasn't enough.
Other usage is fine
Other usage is only fine if you don't care about precise understanding. For precisely conveying an idea, you must exclude other usage so that all parties understand exactly what remains. Otherwise, there is always the chance that some other meaning of all or part of the language used will be attributed to your message. That is a frequent pitfall of any in-depth discussion, especially those where participants are particularly dug-in to their position, and have a hard time looking at it in terms other than those they most closely associate with (something I am frequently guilty of).
Law is precise for a reason
Law is ideally precise. If it were precise in reality, void for vagueness would not be part of legal doctrine.
It is hardly mental masturbation, that's like saying the scientific method is mental masturbation.
Epistemology is a mental exercise with its entire basis grounded in opinion. The scientific method is grounded in logic. Using one method you can argue that the other method is entirely baseless. I would hardly equate the two.
To say that one posesses "inalienable rights" is to support a falsified statement.
From the standpoint of tangible reality, you are right. From that same standpoint, "the" government is a false idea. It does not exist anywhere but the minds of people. Erase the term "government" from everyone's mind, and there would be no physical change to the world anymore than if you erased the concepts of "forests" or "rights". The people are still the same people, they just interact differently. If you no longer have "forests," the trees do not disappear, they simply are not described the same way.
Outside of law, there is simply the arbitrary imposition of moral goals aka tyranny.
There are very few areas that currently exist outside "the law." All of the current tyrants have countries that exist inside "the law." Simply having laws does not negate a tyranny, and not having "laws" (written instruments of a ruling authority) does not mean you have tyranny. Just because something is not in category A does not immediately mean it falls into category B. There are many more possibilities out there than (written instruments OR tyranny).
The authority of the laws of the US are moral goals of the Constitution.
And if nobody believes in the moral goals of the Constitution anymore, what is the basis?
All language is a construct, morality is a construct.
I agree completely. The "validity" of both are based on shared belief in them, just as the validity
You're ignoring the the pertinent Congressional decision on Sept. 28th 1787.
Not ignoring. I wasn't aware of it. It appears I was wrong. Thank you for pointing out this bit of evidence that I had overlooked.
It's not semantics, you're claiming that the idea of rights, somehow has more force because people hold certain beliefs.
I still hold to both. The most profound differences here are as a result of differences of opinion regarding word usage. You accuse me of imprecision in language, yet the very roots of our language imprecisely reflect their various meanings today. You attempt to attribute very narrow definitions to each word so as to preclude any other use. I frequently do the same. It is an exercise in clarification of position, of manipulating language to convey a sense of exactly what your stated position is. What it is not is an excursion down the road to find absolute truth (epistemology), which is ultimately nothing more than mental masturbation. I will grant you that the two are frequently not so very far apart though.
How is this no different than a religious cult? Is the entire basis of our civilization that fragile? I claim that the evidence states otherwise. The psychological observation you've made here has no bearing on law or legal theory. This isn't a matter of disagreement on wording, and the question of authority in a Liberal legal system is a question of epistemology.
It is not any different, and it's hardly any more fragile than the basis for any other human interaction. They are both expressions of the same psychological drives.
It appears you were under the misconception that I was arguing law or legal theory. I was not. Rather, my statements are about something I see to be above any law or legal theory.
History has shown time and again that self-determination (the "rights" to rebellion, self-defense, secession, etc.) supercedes the law, because the law is easily perverted. The law is a construct like religion, a tool. Ergo, not an argument about the law.
That doesn't make it the basis for law, or where the source of authority for law comes from.
No, but if you disagree, please let me in on what the real basis of the law is. Then we can get on with an actual epistemological discussion, which will end in a comparison of beliefs and opinions (the only definitive result of any such discussion).
This is different than the use of the terms faith and belief you've used elsewhwere. Faith in society to enforce it's laws has a measureable history, like a credit score. That's a far cry from a faith in a deity for which there is no physical evidence. Equivocating the two uses of faith here does not follow logically.
See: Part of your problem here seems to actually be a problem of semantics. You are mixing meanings of words in ways to support your arguments, that's sloppy. If you were more precise in your language, then you might see the inconsistencies in your assertions.
If you are willing to mask your intentions, then why should I believe any of your intentions.
You should use your own judgement, and then come to a decision as to whether to believe what I say. Or not. It doesn't actually matter to me one way or the other, because at the end of the day it will still just be your opinion, regardless of the basis you used to determine it. The same can be said for me, or anyone else.
That said, you have no reason to believe I support rights even if I explain a perfectly logical (to you) basis for supporting them. Your experience is the sole determining factor for what you decide is truth. Ultimately, your definition of truth is solely your own responsibility. I have no desire for you to believe anything in particular, only a desire to trade information.
An assertion of fact, as to the nature of an idea is not simply a matter of opinion.
Asserting that an idea is
The unanimous vote would have been to send the Constitution to the states. Hence, that vote legitimized the procedure of moving to the Constitution with only 9 states.
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No, the unanimous requirement is that all 9 States agree. Article XIII. It's clear as a bell. If all 9 states do not agree, the action is not valid. It's no different than if an item were unanimously sent to the current States with a requirement of 2 States ratifying.
The Constitution has specific ammendment requirements in Article 5, which would need to be fulfilled to change to another document. Any ammendments that come out of a Constitutional Convention must be ratified by 3/4's of the states in order to pass. 2 states couldn't just adopt a new Constitution, convention or no convention.
You mean like the specific requirements of AoC XIII, which were not adhered to? The new Constitution went into effect before all 9 States ratified it, in violation of Article XIII.
The right to rebel morally has always been recognized by those who share the rebel's moral goals and opposed by those who don't.
Replace "rebel" with * and you've got a pretty good general statement there.
It's not semantics, it's epistemology.
I wasn't arguing the theory of knowledge, rather an interpretation of words. "Semantics" is more suited to my position than "epistemology." Your belief may vary, but arguing which words better suit the argument furthers confirms the semantic basis for disagreement.
If the basis for you're laws authority isn't some natural enforcement, you'd better understand what is the ultimate mechanism for enforcement.
There is no "natural" enforcement of any rights. The ultimate enforcement of anything is control, which invariably terminates with superior physical power concentrated in one form or another. I really have no idea what your point with this statement is.
Rights get their power from the civil contract, faith in society to enforce it's laws based on past experience, nothing more.
What's your definition of faith then? I always defined it as a type of belief...
All rights are positive law [...]
And the basis of all law is this civil contract which is in turn based on faith in society.
It's a false power, easily dispelled as any other myth.
Like Christianity, or Islam, or Judaism, or Hinduism, etc. Easily dispelled, like any other myth. Haven't checked your barometer for the longevity of "false powers" have you? Belief is a powerful thing, even if you choose to deny that fact.
You're allowed to irrationally continue advocating a false belief.
Why, thank you for allowing me to do such a thing. Last I checked, understanding something is not completely (or even partially) true and still choosing to support the dissemination of the idea is not irrational if you also understand your purpose for doing so. I understand my purpose for supporting a concept I understand to be not necessarily true, because I also understand the effect that can have on others. Yes it is deceptive, but it also serves a purpose, just as many many other causes are supported through intentional misinformation.
Political opinions are rational choices, and can be attacked regardless of your moral opinion. Your moral opinion may be valid, but your political opinions are not so by default since they can be measured.
Please, do tell how you rationalize the difference between the two, especially since you call them both opinions. How exactly is it that you measure an opinion?
Seems like a perfectly legal transition, which in no way means secession was legitimatized by the process.
:)
It was illegitimate under the AoC because once 9 states ratified it, those member states ceased to view the AoC as governing documents, a fact that was in direct contravention of the requirement for unanimity.
We could have a new Constitutional Convention tommorrow, and have that Convention draft a document requiring only 2 states to ratify it for it to be formally adopted by those states. That would be in direct contravention of our current governing document, whether or not the rest of the states eventually supported the move. I'm not saying the secession from the government under the Articles of Confederation was either right or wrong, simply that it was in violation of the governing document at the time. Civility does not make something legal. Legality does not make something right.
While you may argue there are no absolute rights, it is all a matter of semantics. I certainly agree there is no natural force that insures victory, or even compels action in the face of overwhelming odds.
You can as easily say there is no right to defend yourself. Rebellion is simply an organized defenes against an organization who claims control over that individual/group that is in the act of rebellion.
The definition of "rights" is very subjective in nature, but rights derive their power from belief. Thus, it is necessary to support the belief in rights by speaking in absolute, rather than relative, terms. Since I support the concept of rights, I speak of them in absolute terms rather than subjectively, in order to lend power to the concept.
Thus, there are in fact absolute rights. You may say otherwise, I just won't agree with your argument.
You say it's revisionism, yet fail completely in the rest of your post to mention how.
I never claimed Lincoln supported slavery, I claimed he supported the Union and used the Emancipation Proclamation as leverage against the South.
I never claimed he had no opportunity to avoid the Civil War. I doubt he wanted to avoid it, as in fact the Civil War played into his attempts to empower the Federal Government and make the Union stronger. It did.
So am I completely missing your point, or did you intentionally fail to support your first sentence?
Or try getting married to someone of the same sex in Massachusetts, see how many other states honor the marriage.
Or, try to get a state to pay you a debt (ie jury duty payment) in gold or silver coin, also mandated by the Constitution.
The Constitution exists only as long as people believe in it (much like the value of paper money, or anything else written on paper). Most Americans today have no idea what's in the Constitution, hence there is no consistent belief in its tenets. As a result of this, it basically does not exist past what people see on Law & Order.
Welcome to the USA.
Papers please, comrade.
The American Civil War was as much about slavery as it was anything else, regardless of what some neo confederates say.
Slavery was the catalyst, but Lincoln only cared about the Union. If you bothered to pull out a textbook with copies of his speeches on the issue, you'd know that he would have guaranteed the institution of slavery in perpetuity if he had thought it would maintain the integrity of the Union. Lincoln would have sold his own mother into slavery if it guaranteed the integrity of the Union.
Just read the Emancipation Proclamation if you don't want to believe it was about something other than slavery. If it was about slavery, it would have freed all the slaves, not just those in the Confederacy.
As for gp's assertion that several northern states were allowed to keep slaves for years after the end of the war, I'd have to have more info to start research before I'd really believe that.
The idea that such a right might exist came more from fertile imaginations than any logical study of the law or historical precedent.
:)
By "such a right" are you referring to the right of secession? If so, what do you think happened with the reforamtion of the United States of America under the current Constitution?
The United States was governed by the rticles of Confederation, which required unanimous consent of the members for changes. The Constitutional Convention required ratification by only 9 of the 13 members of the country as organized under the Articles of Confederation. Ergo, the ratification of the Constitution constituted a secession from the government formed under the Articles of Confederation.
Now, all 13 eventually ratified the new Constitution, but it came into force once the first 9 had ratified it. At that point in time, they formally seceded from the Union under the AoC (ignored the provision that all changes to government required unanimous consent).
This action cemented the notion that secession was legitimate, even if it was not allowed under the previous form of government.
Fast forward to Lincoln, and his claim that no such right of secession existed. His source for this "fact" was none other than the Articles of Confederation. He read something into a no-longer-current historical document that had already been determined by the Union to be illegitimate. Ergo, Lincoln's interpretation of the Articles of Confederation that no right of secession existed was illegitimate.
Whether it is "officially" recognized or not, all political divisions have an absolute right to remove themselves from higher governance should that governance become contrary to their own right to self-determination.
If secession wasn't what you were talking about, I apologize for the diatribe on an issue that won't really become extraordinarily important (to most people, at least) for a few more years yet.
No, Windows doesn't have an inate ability to do anything better. Nowhere in gp's statement did I read a claim that this was the case. "Best" does not denote just pure technical capacity. It can mean many things, such as user experience or availability of professional-quality product.
To further belabor the point and repeatedly kick a dead horse, the general gaming experience on Linux blows compared to what is available for Windows. This is not due to a technical fault in Linux. It is also not due some technical superiority in Windows. It is simply a description of the current market experience.
There was no BS in gp's statement. I don't like Microsoft either, but I like knee-jerk, unthinking FUD even less.
I've got an old int. SCSI S&F 2006 2X that's still kicking. Had to fix a minor problem with the rubber suspension points, but I think that was more as a result of the near-car wreck the computer was involved in (car was fine, but the rapid deceleration coupled with an unrestrained computer was not fun). :)
It's just like everything else out there. The more mature an industry is, the lower the average quality of that industry's products.
If that's true, then why isn't it written "a'i'n't"?
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There's no convention for compound contractions in the English language, so it's written to mimic a real contraction (i.e. a verb concatenated with "n't" to denote the negative of that verb). If you disagree, please define the verb "ai."
Yes it does: "am not".
I had not considered that one, but it still doesn't conform to any of the necessary corollary affirmative conjugations, only negative conjugations. It is still a contraction of a word that doesn't exist. If it is to be recognized as anything but slang, it should completely fill the role that it is used for, not just a part of that role.
Your chart doesn't show an actual hole, it simply shows that there is only one contractive alternative to "I am not" rather than the 2 that several others have. If you notice, each of your examples includes a contraction of both the verb/subject and the verb/negative, each with an identical meaning.
Writing "I'm not" serves the same purpose as "I ain't" with the same number of characters. What this really shows is that there are simply unneccesary duplications in several of the most common contractive statements. We don't need more of those.
I'm not saying that the language can't or shouldn't change, I'm mostly just arguing for the sake of argument (though I still don't think "ain't" should ever be considered anything but slang).
And ain't has just as good a pedigree as any other n't contraction, why wouldn't you want it in the dictionary?
:)
No it doesn't. The "ai" portion of "ain't" is a concatenation of the first letters in "are" and "is." When written out, "ain't" means "are is not."
The verb bases are both derived from the infinitive "to be," but the term defies the accepted conjugation conventions for that infinitive. It does not fill in any hole in the language, but serves rather to supplant the contractions of the present-tense conjugations of "to be" without also providing non-contracted versions of those same conjugated verbs. More than anything else I would guess that to be the reason that it has suffered a cold reception.
If "ain't" is a distinctly necessary word, so should the conjugation "I/you/we/he/she/it/they ai" be valid and distinct. It would certainly simplify the conjugation of "to be," but I doubt it's going to happen.
Congresspeople are those who are born without that part of the brain, or have had it removed at some point, or are simply not human in the first place.
RFIDs aren't necessarily passive. They could easily be made powered. They're passive in most applications because the problems introduced by powering them are usually related to the necessity of small size for the application.
We're talking about vehicles here, which have their own power source. It would be easy to put RFID into vehicles that are powered transmitters. Even if that power is limited to milliwatts, the range is increased drastically. The implications of this are huge.
Fortunately, RFID can be jammed just like any other radio wave.
We need new TLDs so that the domain speculation companies can register tens of thousands more domain names and auction them on eBay. :)
Of course. Also, anyone who runs from the police.
"Well, what we have here is a high-speed chase. Nascar has a lot of drivers going really fast, and things of that nature, so there might be a connection here."
This goes back to "What do they have to gain?"
Only in the event that there is publicity surrounding their failure to address the issue would it conceivably harm them. There is an entrenched user base for their product, particularly around the common demographic of those people who are unaware of competition and probably wouldn't be bothered to change if they were aware.
Among those who already have an understanding of the issues, there is usually ample capability to change and deal with the ramifications of those changes.
Microsoft has been rewarded for paying lip service to compliance while failing to implement the same in their products. I still see no real reason why they would choose to actually address the issue at this time. It's not hurting their bottom line at the moment, and there's no accurate forecast to predict that it will in the near future.
I wasn't saying that a test page is a bad idea, just that there's no real reason for Microsoft to take the challenge seriously (in practice, even if they appear to take it seriously from a PR perspective). I understand and agree with many of your points, but much of it requires that there is popular media coverage of the issue and enough people (who otherwise would not have bothered switching) end up switching away from their browser as a result. I'd love to see and end of IE dominance in the market. I think it's a horrible, slow, bloated monstrosity. From Microsoft's standpoint though, it's successful in spite of itself.
Microsoft would more than likely simply ignore the challenge completely. What do they have to gain (at this point) from actually producing a standards-compliant browser?
Now, perhaps if FireFox continues to chew up the percentages of web browser usage, they might try it for PR purposes, but that's hardly an issue at the moment. Microsoft is more of an in-the-moment company (unless you're speaking of up-and-coming products, where they announce competing programs years before they actually plan to implement the changes).