Can you name any measurement that isn't indirect in some way?
"Indirect" can be thought to mean "by observing other natural phenomena", opposed by "direct" meaning "observing only phenomena happening with specifically built measurement device".
Directness starts at the point where everything is specifically constructed for the measurement, and wouldn't be happening without the measurement device or measurement operation.
Like, measuring amount of light by using an artificial sensor that gives out well defined signal would be a direct measurement. The signal from the sensor exists and is valid only when sensor is set up to receive light and send the signal. Also the correlation between amount of light and signal value can be adjusted by the design of the measuring device.
On the other hand, measuring amount of light by measuring sugar content and flow in a tree's sap would be an indirect measurement of amount of light. The amount of sugar in the sap isn't affected by it being measured, it's a "natural" occurrence. Also correlation between signal value (amount of sugar) and amount of light can't be adjusted by adjusting the measuring device. it's But it could well be a direct measurement of amount of sugar in the sap.
Above distinction is meaningful, so I'd say it's at least better than what you apparently propose (that all measurement is indirect, there's no direct measurement of anything).
And you as a hardcore geek didn't think about having it tattood as a mirror image so you can read it in the mirror. That's a lot of minus points for you dude!;)
Clearly you're either an owl / a yoga master / supernaturally possessed, or you've never actually tried to read anything tattooed to your in your back with just one mirror...
If a commercial entity had invented the Internet it would have functioned like the AOL of 1993 where all content has to be approved by a single corporation. That corporation would collect a tax on all transactions. It would kick out anyone it did not agree with. It would be far, far different than the Internet we have today and it would have undoubtedly happened much later.
Sort of like how iOS apps work today... And it's only a matter of time before there'll be a transparent filtering proxy, through which all the Internet traffic to all iOS devices must go. I mean, it's a wet dream of every IT corporation, but iOS is currently the only platform where it might actually work, enabled by both built-in walled garden technology, and by popularity especially among those who wouldn't care.
Non-free, closed-source binary blobs running on the CPU in the kernel are bad, I fully agree. They can corrupt system memory in terrible, subtle ways, and without the source code it's nearly impossible to diagnose problems. Non-free, closed-source binary blobs running on an external device with completely separate microcontroller, RAM, etc? What's wrong with that?
At least one angle is, when distributing closed firmware, they're distributing blobs with unknown functionality. Especially in these days when it's fashinable to be suspicious of cyber warfare, do you feel completely at ease with all the closed code written by unknown subcontractors in [a country with government you don't trust at all], shuffling all your data through it?
If it's open, it doesn't matter so much where it comes from, as it's practical to check what it actually does.
Of course there's firmware in the devices too, but eg. Debian isn't distributing that firmware, it's sort of out of their hands. Distributing potential spyware as part of their distribution, much harder to wash their hands off that, except by not distributing.
What most of the rest of the world considers "extreme right".
Error: Insufficient evidence/no evidence given
It's basic statistics. Just plot possible realities in left-right axis, and mark extreme right and extreme extreme right on the axis. You'll see that almost all points on the axis are closer to extreme right than extreme extreme right.
Frankly, I'd have have the system skewed towards some hypothetical 'deliberately keeping people sick' which we've never seen, then the actual health insurance industry, which has no incentive whatsoever to provide any care at all.
Well, that's just the thing with mandatory health insurance that insurance companies have to grant to anybody. They don't have much choice. And trying to skimp on the basic health care costs will lead to much more expensive conditions. It's far cheaper to treat things in their early stages, than wait until they're serious.
Any insurance based health system should be geared towards exploiting this effect. If insurance companies can't avoid paying for, say, cancer treatment, then you can be sure they'll employ some very bright mathematicians to determine what's the optimal ratio of paying for yearly checkups and often getting away with cheap early treatment, compared to not paying for checkups but then having to often pay for the really expensive extreme treatments. Not to mention, keeping customers healthier than competition will keep them loyal, allowing you to maintain same prices as your competitors, but with better profit margins.
I'd rather secure my own machine than rely on the goodwill of corporations to protect me from malicious sites.
A common fallacy about security. Extra layer of security is always an extra layer of security. Not to mention, with software, you're always at the mercy of others, such as operating system maintainers and software developers. You depend on them not creating exploitable bugs, and promptly fixing discovered ones, since some are generated anyway.
So, the first half of your discussion is a great explanation of why the guys running those projects don't want to cooperate. It has nothing to do with why those of us paying the bill shouldn't force them to do so anyway.
If the past century of the so called communist countries has taught us anything, it's that real people don't work that way. Results of forced co-operation can't match results of real competition, even if co-operation theoretically has twice the resources. There are things you just can't force.
Not to mention, work is shared, by sharing the results. Established results of others may be verified, but they're not done "from the scratch". Instead new research is done based on previous shared results of everybody.
If it's not a right here either, then please tell me, what is it here? What's the English word for it?
Privilege.
A privilege applied universally is still a privilege.
I'm pretty sure you're using world "privilege" wrong here, I think it's wrong English to say "you have privilege to health care", that sounds just strange.
"The right to health care is a privilege granted only by the most civilized of today's nations." Now that sounds more like valid English to me (wether I agree with the statement itself or not).
You can't re-define common words used by others to fit your ideology. Try adding defining words instead, such as "negative", "positive", "implicit", "granted" etc. rights, if you hope for a meaningful conversation.
If I'm getting an organ transplant, I want the guy who is the best, not the guy who is the cheapest. I will gladly pay for expertise and skill.
But what if you can't? Do you then rather have a cheap surgeon, or die without the transplant?
Also, if I understand correctly, you're arguing for a system, where family wealth is a large factor in determines who can be a doctor. Isn't that automatically inferior to a system where personal ability, talent and dedication are the critical factors? Wouldn't it be ideal to make the pool of potential MD students as large as possible, and then filter the best on personal merits, instead of family wealth?
1) Which we've decided to do for some reason, when the actual problem is people need health care. But our national debate has gotten so fucked up we can't even talk about that.
The thing about private health care is, it conflicts with capitalism and free market. Health care gets most profits when people are as sick as possible, or at least as much in need of continuous health "care" services as possible, while still being able to pay for it. But what people need is health care that keeps them as healthy as possible, and in as little need of continuous health care services as possible.
So an insurance approach does actually make some sense. It would be in the interests of the insurance company to keep people as healthy as they can, so they receive the insurance money but don't have to pay for expensive things.
I'd say, for a working system, it's either a "socialist" health care system with no profit incentive, or an insurance based system where people pay a company that has financial interest to keep them as healthy as possible.
Not that I think there are extremely few doctors and even not many health care company managers, who'd deliberately keep people sick to get more money. But people are people, and when the financial/selfish incentive is to do one thing, while moral incentive is to do other... Well, there's bound to be some drifting towards the middle (hopefully from the moral direction...)
There's no incentive in a free market to provide a service to every single person regardless of ability to pay. And yet we as a society have for the most part decided that health care should be a right granted to everyone.
1. You can't grant rights to people, rights are your natural state and outside forces can only prevent you from exercising them, not grant them to you. Modern health care is not a right, it's someone's goods and services.
Eh, modern health care is a right, at least in my society. I know it's a right, because there are societies where it's not a right. In both societies, health care is someone's goods and services, but further comparison shows a difference: Here I have something more than similar people have in some other places, and the "something" is the "right to health care", as far as I know English language.
If it's not a right here either, then please tell me, what is it here? What's the English word for it?
Wooshh... which ironically is also the sound of wanting the additional benefit from "projectile vomiting over my boss's desk" What's a few minutes mild suffering, for some payback that just keeps on giving;)
It's possible to achieve temporary projectile vomiting with lower-tech substances than programmable bacteria. Probably easier to get too, I'm pretty sure every ambulance and emergency room has them, for poisoning cases and such. I'm pretty sure you could come up with something with basic kitchen supplies, such as, I don't know, salt...
The USA already gives out US$800 a month per person on avergae for social security, schooling, and welfare -- why not just give every citizen a check for that amoutn every month. Seems fairer to me than a "needs" based or "age" based criterion for public assistance.
I'm all for fixed "basic income" or however you might call it, combined with flat tax rate. Even if in theory, "aid to everybody only according to their need" is an excellent principle, it breaks as soon as there is a human or a set of rules made by humans, which determines the need. And same applies to taxation and all kinds of tax breaks. And only way to fix it without leaving fellow humans to suffer hunger (and risk civil unrest) is flat rate support for everybody (probalby increasing by age for young, possibly again increasing for the elderly after certain age, who have presumably "served their time" and now need more support than most people), flat rate tax on everybody on every income received (either including or excluding the "basic income", which ever produces least bureaucracy, with flat rate tax there's difference only for accountants pushing money bits around), no questions asked.
(Of course there are still special cases, such as genuinely handicapped people, real world is never that ideal, but if a special rule applies to, say, over 5% of the people, it should apply to everybody.)
what you are missing is, the SELL part in the 'sell you print supplies'. you need to have money to BUY those print supplies. if you dont, you wont have them.
What's even worse, you have BUY food. People forced to buy food just to stay alive, now there's the American freedom for you!
Seriously, if you need to buy people, then it's expensive, but if you and your fellows are the people, and you need to just buy supplies, then really, money is not a big issue, because so relatively little of it is needed.
If there are people who want to be heard, there's nothing stopping them in so called "free world" and nothing to fear in it. That's why so called "free world" is actually is as free as it gets in today's world.
Two things. First, I'm not totally against a symbiotic relationship between animals an humans, in which animals can be seen as workers. So maybe there can be a state where humans consume animal products (that don't involve killing) in smaller amounts, as delicacies. Transition to such a state is also seamless. But it's not very likely since "humanity" only works in a deontological manner (it's either right or wrong).
Second, I don't think getting rid of livestock would make it worse. Consuming plants is more economical for starters. So there doesn't need to be an enormous change in our bean production in order to continue feeding people. Plus, everyone would be healthier, a huge economical benefit.
Besides, the change wouldn't be overnight, so this is probably a non-issue.
So in your ideal world, what role would animals have? Would vast human fields be fenced off from wilderness, devoid of any larger animal life, and any animals wandering there caught and returned to wilderness area? Or would you have herds of wild herbivores wandering human fields, controlled by packs of wild predators? Or what?
The first option I find extremely sad. I'd rather turn human fields to richer ecosystem than they're now, not poorer! Also it would be somewhat impractical, and no doubt you'd find catching animals that got to the fields too traumatic experience for them, and wouldn't accept it anyway.
The second option I find unworkable in economical terms, at least if humans would not be allowed to heavily control the wild animals by either directly killing when necessary, or catching and releasing elsewhere (often to die on their own there, in a new environment, but meh). It'd also be something of a waste if humans weren't allowed to at least take part in hunt of herbivores along with other predators, as the amount of predators needed to keep herbivores so much in check that it wouldn't ruin farming would be... a lot.
Why would we believe it right to treat others as our "resources"? Thats a terrible way to describe one another, "you're my resource" !
I don't find it at all terrible. I mean, I'm a (valuable, I believe) resource to my employer. And if I felt I weren't, I'd be actively looking for a new job, before they also figured out I weren't a resource for them.
I think you're confusing being a resource, and being just a resource. Humans aren't (or shouldn't be) just resources, but both humans and resources, even to public companies. Animals shouldn't be just resources either, but if an animal wishes to exist by getting it's food from humans, it had better be a resource that is worth the food it eats at least in some way, to someone...
And there's nothing terrible about it, it's basic natural law, and a very fundamental at that (physical laws of thermodynamics and flow of energy, basic principles of all kinds of evolution driving things generally towards maximal utilization of energy flowing through a system). It's not only that the energy used by an animal must come from somewhere (thermodynamics), but that animal has to be the best at using that energy, or soon something better at it will take it's place (evolution).
I dont think there can be shades of "what is property and who is another being", do you? Someone is either someONE or someTHING.
I think there can be shades of that. Being "just a property" would imply the owner can do whatever he pleases with it (as long as it does not harm other parties with a legally valid interest in that property). Animal owner can't do whatever he pleases with the animal they own, there are all kinds of restrictions on animal treatment (and a good thing too). So while animals are property too, they're something else too. Degrees and shades, no absolute.
Could we use an example from my second last blog post please? I commented here, as I've mentioned already, about the ad I saw calling Chickens "IT".
How do you feel about the ad, in regards to the videos of my Chicken Friends also on the page? How would we define a time when its "right" for us to override any Right they have to NOT be property?
Property is a human concept, and I don't see how chickens have a right to not be property, whatever that means (I mean, they'd die very quickly and uncomfortably as soon as they stopped being "property").
Chickens are warm and fuzzy and cute, and I can see how someone would get emotional about them getting killed the way they do. But if humans do to them nothing worse, than what would happen to them (or their closet wild ancestors) regularly in nature, then I don't really see an ethical problem for myself. That amount of individuals meeting a gruesome end is larger than it would be in nature, doesn't change the fundamental issue.
It may be "perverted" from some point of view, but it's still "circle of life" (or whatever you might want to call it). Instead of trying to stop the circle, you should try to fix it so it's perhaps less "perverted".
If there's a choice between not existing at all, or living and then being killed, then in most cases (depending on circumstances), I'd choose living, even though it implies also suffering and death.
Interesting. Not a popular view I guess, but I don't have any argument against it. Then, for instance, you would have a duty of having four kids instead of one, at the expense of their life quality?
I'll also allow a bit of selfishness, which in my case means, four kids are too much;-). However, considering a number of factors, including both personally selfish, and the whole of Earth biosphere including it's future, I'd say 4-5 grandchildren for my parents would be nice, and also 4-5 grandchildren for me, eventually. Earth and Sun can support only limited amount of diversity (both biodiversity and cultural diversity), depending on state of evolution, and today and especially in the future also state of human technology.
My impression is, that you think that number of future offspring for certain species of livestock should be very close to zero, because for those species existence implies being taken advantage of by humans in various ways. This is what I don't really agree to. Our (western, but probably others too) agricultural system and food production is messed up in many ways, but getting rid of all livestock that ends up as human food would only make it worse.
Note: below I'm not arguing for humans having "right" to mistreat animals, I'm arguing for humans having "right" to use other animals for purposes that involve having them killed or otherwise taken advantage of (just like animals in general use other animals like that).
"...through a complex web of intermediates, I pay farmers so they let me live. I also pay "my" police and military to let me live by not letting other people to kill me."
Hmm, I'm not sure where you live in the world Urkki, but in my country, people are NOT put to death for being out of employment!;-) I liked hearing of how you "pay off" government officials too! I think you'd be doing us all a favour for telling us know where you're talking about! It seems like the world is "black and white", of Nanny State vs Police State, I'll thank my lucky stars that I were born in a "socialist" nation, where my right to LIVE is recognised!
Unemployed, and those actually unable to work aren't put to death in my country either, but that doesn't remove the fact that they, too, have to pay money to the "farmer racket" to receive food. We just have this system where those unemployed etc, receive money from the society, so they can pay and not starve (or resort to theft and begging of course, but fortunately they do get enough money so this is rare).
Some countries might give out food coupons or something instead, but here it's just money, part of which then has to be used for food, under the threat of death by starvation. Barbaric, eh?
I dont see it as a matter of "giving up a right", if we stop killing others. Was it such a big hassle to "give up the right to have slaves" in America? It probably was GREAT, for the Whites, to be in control of another, to class them as "below us", a "thing" or "possession".
Quotes on Slavery comes in handy for these discussions,
Yeah, but you just have to draw a line somewhere. You could draw the line at anything that has DNA, or you could draw the line at your closest relatives.
What makes slavery quotes totally irrelevant is, that you can take a slave, release him and hire him to work for you, equal to people you had employed already when you had him as a slave. Now good luck doing anything like this with livestock... Maybe with great apes and dolphins you could work something out, but that's about it.
So please, can the slavery comparison, at least I find it rather bad taste to compare slaves (past and unfortunately present too) to livestock.
I dont see myself as having "lost" any right by not killing others, be they human or nonhuman.
Trying to switch from anybody not being allowed to do something to you personally not having done that? That's not very nice.
Maybe you're stoic enough to not notice, but I bet most people would really feel they've lost an important right if they lost the right to kill different human parasites, even pre-emptively. So clearly there's inherent right to kill something, and you have to go "up" from there and at some point decide, the right to kill stops here. Or you could go down from your family or something, and decide that right to kill starts here, same thing really.
RE Ethical Killing, hmm, I think we could debate semantics here. I agree with self defence, if someone, be they human or nonhuman, were attacking me, I'd defend myself. Rabid Dogs are not common in my area, do they come with the territory of nations where "you have to pay to live"?;-)
And just why do you think rabid dogs are rare, even in climate where winter doesn't kill them? Think about it for a moment...
I understand that to be an integral part in how we deal with others, if we see them as "subhuman", an "it", or as our equal, think of war propaganda, about "dehumanising the enemy". In such cases, we "justify killing them"
If they agreed to it (without being deceived), then I guess I'd have to agree with it.
How do you know the animals would agree to it if we could communicate with them? Just because they can't understand doesn't mean they want to be killed.
Yeah, but that wanting to live happens on the instinctual level in (almost all) animals. It's not really the same thing than conscious will to live through understanding at least something about life and death. I mean, instincts and conscious thinking about life and death can be in conflict in humans, so clearly they're separate things.
Instincts tell a lot of things, they're automated responses to maximize survival in the most common case of whatever situation. They're not a useful guideline for deciding what's ethical and what's not.
Like, avoiding being stung is in the instincts of humans. It doesn't make it unethical to give injections to small children who can't understand the issue and just don't want a needle to be stuck into their flesh.
I personally find eating ethically raised animals just fine morally.
Just a simple question: would you find this okay if it were done to humans who were bred solely for this purpose, as long as they were treated nicely before they were slaughtered (just assume that eating humans is healthy in this example).
If they agreed to it (without being deceived), then I guess I'd have to agree with it. Who am I to say they have no right to agree to that. However, anybody would have hard time to convince me that they (and their mothers) really did agree to it, because it's so much against human nature.
Livestock are not able to really understand, nor able to make that level of decisions, and are mostly unable to live independent of humans, so different rules apply to them. Note, different, not "no rules".
I'd probably put other great apes in same category as humans here, possibly also whales, but that's not something I need to deal with in my daily life. I've chosen to not eat whale when traveling though. It was sort of "I'm not sure about this, so I'll just have beef", partly emotional decision. But it's a blurry and arbitrary line, and I'm mostly fine with different eople drawing it at different places (though obviously there's other blurry and arbitrary line to what is absolutely not ok for anybody to do, in my opinion).
"the question is a non-sequitur, caring or not caring doesn't affect what rights somebody has".
Well of course it affects (though it sucks as an explanation).
I didn't quite understand how it can affects rights? In my view "rights" are given from outside (be it society or a god or whatever), and what individual thinks doesn't really affect their rights in any way. It may affect what they actually do, but it does not affect if they have a right to do that.
Why is your view of animal rights focused on suffering and not right to live? Because you care about one and not the other.
Eh? I care about both but my view is more focused on right to live, as in right to exist. If there's a choice between not existing at all, or living and then being killed, then in most cases (depending on circumstances), I'd choose living, even though it implies also suffering and death. But again, this is not absolute, depends on circumstances.
If I am to state my opinion, I would say that if we are to bestow rights to non-human animals, why base them on our irrational feelings and not extend human values towards animals? I can guarantee you that the animal wants to live more than it is displeased by suffering. Pleasure/suffering have no meaning if your will does not matter. etc. etc.
Domesticated animals depend on humans controlling their lives. If humans and human buildings vanished, most livestock and pets would die in short order (some individuals of some species would certainly survive and eventually evolve into new species adapted to life without humans).
On the other hand, if those animals vanished instead, it would not affect humans that much overall. So it's clear where the control and responsibility is.
Whatever we do about domesticated animals, it's a human decision. Even if we choose to let certain species of pets or livestock to go extinct so their exploitation may stop, that's a human decision to make/let that happen (especially as it would require some enforcing, as not all people would agree). It's also human decision to make life on earth less rich, if the extinct species is not replaced by another (also able to live that close to humans).
A comment on this link, first FAQ questions kind of answers my original quesition:
Question 1: Domestic animals, such as cows and pigs, and laboratory rats would not exist were it not for our bringing them into existence in the first place for our purposes. So is it not the case that we are free to treat them as our resources?
However, I'd change the last sentence, the question, to be: "So is it not the case that we can treat them as our resources to some degree?"
To that question, I can easily say that in my opinion yes, to some degree. World is not black and white.
I'll answer your question seriously, although I found it shocking!
"earn their living"? Do you "earn your keep" by paying me for allowing you to live?
You? Maybe, depends what you do, but most likely yes, a tiny bit and very indirectly, but yes! I earn my keep by doing work Effectively, through a complex web of intermediates, I pay farmers so they let me live. I also pay "my" police and military to let me live by not letting other people to kill me. I also pay those that for whatever reason can't support themselves, to avoid being killed by crime and and riots caused by hunger (I pay indirectly, but in some less fortunate parts of the world, people have to pay directly, or suffer the consequences).
So yes, I do have to work, so I can pay in order to be allowed to live!
Why would other animals? What gives us any more right to harm another, human or nonhuman, any more than I'd have the right to invade another country, kill all the humans (and nonhumans) there?
Right to kill is basic right in nature, as evidenced in all levels, throughout the entire about 4 billion years of life. So you're asking the wrong question. The right question is to ask, why should this right be taken away in certain cases.
In human societies, the answer is (in very general terms), that otherwise human society could not exist. Accepting human society implies giving up that right. Still some don't give it up, but then society reacts against that in different ways, and as a result there's some evolutionary pressure to instinctively give up that right in most cases.
There are also good reasons to give up right to indiscriminately kill other living beings. There are legitimate, rational reasons to not eat a lot of meat. There are also good human reasons to treat animals well. However, you're saying we should completely give up the right of killing other creatures, a right that has 4 billion years of history. Why?
Urkki, I would say there is absolutely no such thing as an "ethical" way to kill others.
Sure there are. I don't think you believe it's unethical to kill a flatworm in human gut, and you probably agree that it's actually unethical (for a doctor for example) to refuse to kill it. Also, I don't think you find it unethical to kill a rabid dog, instead of letting it die of the rabies after spreading it some more. Etc. Lots of cases where killing is ethical. The line between ethical and unethical is arbitrary, and even you have to draw that line, no matter how much you'd like to believe there's no such line and all killing is unethical.
Slashdot Mirror
Can you name any measurement that isn't indirect in some way?
"Indirect" can be thought to mean "by observing other natural phenomena", opposed by "direct" meaning "observing only phenomena happening with specifically built measurement device".
Directness starts at the point where everything is specifically constructed for the measurement, and wouldn't be happening without the measurement device or measurement operation.
Like, measuring amount of light by using an artificial sensor that gives out well defined signal would be a direct measurement. The signal from the sensor exists and is valid only when sensor is set up to receive light and send the signal. Also the correlation between amount of light and signal value can be adjusted by the design of the measuring device.
On the other hand, measuring amount of light by measuring sugar content and flow in a tree's sap would be an indirect measurement of amount of light. The amount of sugar in the sap isn't affected by it being measured, it's a "natural" occurrence. Also correlation between signal value (amount of sugar) and amount of light can't be adjusted by adjusting the measuring device. it's But it could well be a direct measurement of amount of sugar in the sap.
Above distinction is meaningful, so I'd say it's at least better than what you apparently propose (that all measurement is indirect, there's no direct measurement of anything).
And you as a hardcore geek didn't think about having it tattood as a mirror image so you can read it in the mirror. That's a lot of minus points for you dude! ;)
Clearly you're either an owl / a yoga master / supernaturally possessed, or you've never actually tried to read anything tattooed to your in your back with just one mirror...
If a commercial entity had invented the Internet it would have functioned like the AOL of 1993 where all content has to be approved by a single corporation. That corporation would collect a tax on all transactions. It would kick out anyone it did not agree with. It would be far, far different than the Internet we have today and it would have undoubtedly happened much later.
Sort of like how iOS apps work today... And it's only a matter of time before there'll be a transparent filtering proxy, through which all the Internet traffic to all iOS devices must go. I mean, it's a wet dream of every IT corporation, but iOS is currently the only platform where it might actually work, enabled by both built-in walled garden technology, and by popularity especially among those who wouldn't care.
Non-free, closed-source binary blobs running on the CPU in the kernel are bad, I fully agree. They can corrupt system memory in terrible, subtle ways, and without the source code it's nearly impossible to diagnose problems. Non-free, closed-source binary blobs running on an external device with completely separate microcontroller, RAM, etc? What's wrong with that?
At least one angle is, when distributing closed firmware, they're distributing blobs with unknown functionality. Especially in these days when it's fashinable to be suspicious of cyber warfare, do you feel completely at ease with all the closed code written by unknown subcontractors in [a country with government you don't trust at all], shuffling all your data through it?
If it's open, it doesn't matter so much where it comes from, as it's practical to check what it actually does.
Of course there's firmware in the devices too, but eg. Debian isn't distributing that firmware, it's sort of out of their hands. Distributing potential spyware as part of their distribution, much harder to wash their hands off that, except by not distributing.
Error: Vague or undefined term "left"
What most of the rest of the world considers "extreme right".
Error: Insufficient evidence/no evidence given
It's basic statistics. Just plot possible realities in left-right axis, and mark extreme right and extreme extreme right on the axis. You'll see that almost all points on the axis are closer to extreme right than extreme extreme right.
Frankly, I'd have have the system skewed towards some hypothetical 'deliberately keeping people sick' which we've never seen, then the actual health insurance industry, which has no incentive whatsoever to provide any care at all.
Well, that's just the thing with mandatory health insurance that insurance companies have to grant to anybody. They don't have much choice. And trying to skimp on the basic health care costs will lead to much more expensive conditions. It's far cheaper to treat things in their early stages, than wait until they're serious.
Any insurance based health system should be geared towards exploiting this effect. If insurance companies can't avoid paying for, say, cancer treatment, then you can be sure they'll employ some very bright mathematicians to determine what's the optimal ratio of paying for yearly checkups and often getting away with cheap early treatment, compared to not paying for checkups but then having to often pay for the really expensive extreme treatments. Not to mention, keeping customers healthier than competition will keep them loyal, allowing you to maintain same prices as your competitors, but with better profit margins.
I'd rather secure my own machine than rely on the goodwill of corporations to protect me from malicious sites.
A common fallacy about security. Extra layer of security is always an extra layer of security. Not to mention, with software, you're always at the mercy of others, such as operating system maintainers and software developers. You depend on them not creating exploitable bugs, and promptly fixing discovered ones, since some are generated anyway.
So, the first half of your discussion is a great explanation of why the guys running those projects don't want to cooperate. It has nothing to do with why those of us paying the bill shouldn't force them to do so anyway.
If the past century of the so called communist countries has taught us anything, it's that real people don't work that way. Results of forced co-operation can't match results of real competition, even if co-operation theoretically has twice the resources. There are things you just can't force.
Not to mention, work is shared, by sharing the results. Established results of others may be verified, but they're not done "from the scratch". Instead new research is done based on previous shared results of everybody.
If it's not a right here either, then please tell me, what is it here? What's the English word for it?
Privilege.
A privilege applied universally is still a privilege.
I'm pretty sure you're using world "privilege" wrong here, I think it's wrong English to say "you have privilege to health care", that sounds just strange.
"The right to health care is a privilege granted only by the most civilized of today's nations." Now that sounds more like valid English to me (wether I agree with the statement itself or not).
You can't re-define common words used by others to fit your ideology. Try adding defining words instead, such as "negative", "positive", "implicit", "granted" etc. rights, if you hope for a meaningful conversation.
If I'm getting an organ transplant, I want the guy who is the best, not the guy who is the cheapest. I will gladly pay for expertise and skill.
But what if you can't? Do you then rather have a cheap surgeon, or die without the transplant?
Also, if I understand correctly, you're arguing for a system, where family wealth is a large factor in determines who can be a doctor. Isn't that automatically inferior to a system where personal ability, talent and dedication are the critical factors? Wouldn't it be ideal to make the pool of potential MD students as large as possible, and then filter the best on personal merits, instead of family wealth?
health insurance(1):
1) Which we've decided to do for some reason, when the actual problem is people need health care. But our national debate has gotten so fucked up we can't even talk about that.
The thing about private health care is, it conflicts with capitalism and free market. Health care gets most profits when people are as sick as possible, or at least as much in need of continuous health "care" services as possible, while still being able to pay for it. But what people need is health care that keeps them as healthy as possible, and in as little need of continuous health care services as possible.
So an insurance approach does actually make some sense. It would be in the interests of the insurance company to keep people as healthy as they can, so they receive the insurance money but don't have to pay for expensive things.
I'd say, for a working system, it's either a "socialist" health care system with no profit incentive, or an insurance based system where people pay a company that has financial interest to keep them as healthy as possible.
Not that I think there are extremely few doctors and even not many health care company managers, who'd deliberately keep people sick to get more money. But people are people, and when the financial/selfish incentive is to do one thing, while moral incentive is to do other... Well, there's bound to be some drifting towards the middle (hopefully from the moral direction...)
There's no incentive in a free market to provide a service to every single person regardless of ability to pay. And yet we as a society have for the most part decided that health care should be a right granted to everyone.
1. You can't grant rights to people, rights are your natural state and outside forces can only prevent you from exercising them, not grant them to you. Modern health care is not a right, it's someone's goods and services.
Eh, modern health care is a right, at least in my society. I know it's a right, because there are societies where it's not a right. In both societies, health care is someone's goods and services, but further comparison shows a difference: Here I have something more than similar people have in some other places, and the "something" is the "right to health care", as far as I know English language.
If it's not a right here either, then please tell me, what is it here? What's the English word for it?
Wooshh... which ironically is also the sound of wanting the additional benefit from "projectile vomiting over my boss's desk" ;)
What's a few minutes mild suffering, for some payback that just keeps on giving
It's possible to achieve temporary projectile vomiting with lower-tech substances than programmable bacteria. Probably easier to get too, I'm pretty sure every ambulance and emergency room has them, for poisoning cases and such. I'm pretty sure you could come up with something with basic kitchen supplies, such as, I don't know, salt...
The USA already gives out US$800 a month per person on avergae for social security, schooling, and welfare -- why not just give every citizen a check for that amoutn every month. Seems fairer to me than a "needs" based or "age" based criterion for public assistance.
I'm all for fixed "basic income" or however you might call it, combined with flat tax rate. Even if in theory, "aid to everybody only according to their need" is an excellent principle, it breaks as soon as there is a human or a set of rules made by humans, which determines the need. And same applies to taxation and all kinds of tax breaks. And only way to fix it without leaving fellow humans to suffer hunger (and risk civil unrest) is flat rate support for everybody (probalby increasing by age for young, possibly again increasing for the elderly after certain age, who have presumably "served their time" and now need more support than most people), flat rate tax on everybody on every income received (either including or excluding the "basic income", which ever produces least bureaucracy, with flat rate tax there's difference only for accountants pushing money bits around), no questions asked.
(Of course there are still special cases, such as genuinely handicapped people, real world is never that ideal, but if a special rule applies to, say, over 5% of the people, it should apply to everybody.)
what you are missing is, the SELL part in the 'sell you print supplies'.
you need to have money to BUY those print supplies. if you dont, you wont have them.
What's even worse, you have BUY food. People forced to buy food just to stay alive, now there's the American freedom for you!
Seriously, if you need to buy people, then it's expensive, but if you and your fellows are the people, and you need to just buy supplies, then really, money is not a big issue, because so relatively little of it is needed.
If there are people who want to be heard, there's nothing stopping them in so called "free world" and nothing to fear in it. That's why so called "free world" is actually is as free as it gets in today's world.
As opposed to all the grants that are given to anybody who attaches 'Effects of Global Warming on...' to there research title?
I kind of suspect total of these grants is less than total bonuses of oil company CEOs... :-)
Two things. First, I'm not totally against a symbiotic relationship between animals an humans, in which animals can be seen as workers. So maybe there can be a state where humans consume animal products (that don't involve killing) in smaller amounts, as delicacies. Transition to such a state is also seamless. But it's not very likely since "humanity" only works in a deontological manner (it's either right or wrong).
Second, I don't think getting rid of livestock would make it worse. Consuming plants is more economical for starters. So there doesn't need to be an enormous change in our bean production in order to continue feeding people. Plus, everyone would be healthier, a huge economical benefit.
Besides, the change wouldn't be overnight, so this is probably a non-issue.
So in your ideal world, what role would animals have? Would vast human fields be fenced off from wilderness, devoid of any larger animal life, and any animals wandering there caught and returned to wilderness area? Or would you have herds of wild herbivores wandering human fields, controlled by packs of wild predators? Or what?
The first option I find extremely sad. I'd rather turn human fields to richer ecosystem than they're now, not poorer! Also it would be somewhat impractical, and no doubt you'd find catching animals that got to the fields too traumatic experience for them, and wouldn't accept it anyway.
The second option I find unworkable in economical terms, at least if humans would not be allowed to heavily control the wild animals by either directly killing when necessary, or catching and releasing elsewhere (often to die on their own there, in a new environment, but meh). It'd also be something of a waste if humans weren't allowed to at least take part in hunt of herbivores along with other predators, as the amount of predators needed to keep herbivores so much in check that it wouldn't ruin farming would be... a lot.
Maybe there's a third option you're imagining?
Why would we believe it right to treat others as our "resources"? Thats a terrible way to describe one another, "you're my resource" !
I don't find it at all terrible. I mean, I'm a (valuable, I believe) resource to my employer. And if I felt I weren't, I'd be actively looking for a new job, before they also figured out I weren't a resource for them.
I think you're confusing being a resource, and being just a resource. Humans aren't (or shouldn't be) just resources, but both humans and resources, even to public companies. Animals shouldn't be just resources either, but if an animal wishes to exist by getting it's food from humans, it had better be a resource that is worth the food it eats at least in some way, to someone...
And there's nothing terrible about it, it's basic natural law, and a very fundamental at that (physical laws of thermodynamics and flow of energy, basic principles of all kinds of evolution driving things generally towards maximal utilization of energy flowing through a system). It's not only that the energy used by an animal must come from somewhere (thermodynamics), but that animal has to be the best at using that energy, or soon something better at it will take it's place (evolution).
I dont think there can be shades of "what is property and who is another being", do you? Someone is either someONE or someTHING.
I think there can be shades of that. Being "just a property" would imply the owner can do whatever he pleases with it (as long as it does not harm other parties with a legally valid interest in that property). Animal owner can't do whatever he pleases with the animal they own, there are all kinds of restrictions on animal treatment (and a good thing too). So while animals are property too, they're something else too. Degrees and shades, no absolute.
Could we use an example from my second last blog post please? I commented here, as I've mentioned already, about the ad I saw calling Chickens "IT".
How do you feel about the ad, in regards to the videos of my Chicken Friends also on the page? How would we define a time when its "right" for us to override any Right they have to NOT be property?
Property is a human concept, and I don't see how chickens have a right to not be property, whatever that means (I mean, they'd die very quickly and uncomfortably as soon as they stopped being "property").
Chickens are warm and fuzzy and cute, and I can see how someone would get emotional about them getting killed the way they do. But if humans do to them nothing worse, than what would happen to them (or their closet wild ancestors) regularly in nature, then I don't really see an ethical problem for myself. That amount of individuals meeting a gruesome end is larger than it would be in nature, doesn't change the fundamental issue.
It may be "perverted" from some point of view, but it's still "circle of life" (or whatever you might want to call it). Instead of trying to stop the circle, you should try to fix it so it's perhaps less "perverted".
If there's a choice between not existing at all, or living and then being killed, then in most cases (depending on circumstances), I'd choose living, even though it implies also suffering and death.
Interesting. Not a popular view I guess, but I don't have any argument against it. Then, for instance, you would have a duty of having four kids instead of one, at the expense of their life quality?
I'll also allow a bit of selfishness, which in my case means, four kids are too much ;-). However, considering a number of factors, including both personally selfish, and the whole of Earth biosphere including it's future, I'd say 4-5 grandchildren for my parents would be nice, and also 4-5 grandchildren for me, eventually. Earth and Sun can support only limited amount of diversity (both biodiversity and cultural diversity), depending on state of evolution, and today and especially in the future also state of human technology.
My impression is, that you think that number of future offspring for certain species of livestock should be very close to zero, because for those species existence implies being taken advantage of by humans in various ways. This is what I don't really agree to. Our (western, but probably others too) agricultural system and food production is messed up in many ways, but getting rid of all livestock that ends up as human food would only make it worse.
Note: below I'm not arguing for humans having "right" to mistreat animals, I'm arguing for humans having "right" to use other animals for purposes that involve having them killed or otherwise taken advantage of (just like animals in general use other animals like that).
"...through a complex web of intermediates, I pay farmers so they let me live. I also pay "my" police and military to let me live by not letting other people to kill me."
Hmm, I'm not sure where you live in the world Urkki, but in my country, people are NOT put to death for being out of employment! ;-) I liked hearing of how you "pay off" government officials too! I think you'd be doing us all a favour for telling us know where you're talking about! It seems like the world is "black and white", of Nanny State vs Police State, I'll thank my lucky stars that I were born in a "socialist" nation, where my right to LIVE is recognised!
Unemployed, and those actually unable to work aren't put to death in my country either, but that doesn't remove the fact that they, too, have to pay money to the "farmer racket" to receive food. We just have this system where those unemployed etc, receive money from the society, so they can pay and not starve (or resort to theft and begging of course, but fortunately they do get enough money so this is rare).
Some countries might give out food coupons or something instead, but here it's just money, part of which then has to be used for food, under the threat of death by starvation. Barbaric, eh?
I dont see it as a matter of "giving up a right", if we stop killing others. Was it such a big hassle to "give up the right to have slaves" in America? It probably was GREAT, for the Whites, to be in control of another, to class them as "below us", a "thing" or "possession".
Quotes on Slavery comes in handy for these discussions,
Yeah, but you just have to draw a line somewhere. You could draw the line at anything that has DNA, or you could draw the line at your closest relatives.
What makes slavery quotes totally irrelevant is, that you can take a slave, release him and hire him to work for you, equal to people you had employed already when you had him as a slave. Now good luck doing anything like this with livestock... Maybe with great apes and dolphins you could work something out, but that's about it.
So please, can the slavery comparison, at least I find it rather bad taste to compare slaves (past and unfortunately present too) to livestock.
I dont see myself as having "lost" any right by not killing others, be they human or nonhuman.
Trying to switch from anybody not being allowed to do something to you personally not having done that? That's not very nice.
Maybe you're stoic enough to not notice, but I bet most people would really feel they've lost an important right if they lost the right to kill different human parasites, even pre-emptively. So clearly there's inherent right to kill something, and you have to go "up" from there and at some point decide, the right to kill stops here. Or you could go down from your family or something, and decide that right to kill starts here, same thing really.
RE Ethical Killing, hmm, I think we could debate semantics here. I agree with self defence, if someone, be they human or nonhuman, were attacking me, I'd defend myself. Rabid Dogs are not common in my area, do they come with the territory of nations where "you have to pay to live"? ;-)
And just why do you think rabid dogs are rare, even in climate where winter doesn't kill them? Think about it for a moment...
I understand that to be an integral part in how we deal with others, if we see them as "subhuman", an "it", or as our equal, think of war propaganda, about "dehumanising the enemy". In such cases, we "justify killing them"
If they agreed to it (without being deceived), then I guess I'd have to agree with it.
How do you know the animals would agree to it if we could communicate with them? Just because they can't understand doesn't mean they want to be killed.
Yeah, but that wanting to live happens on the instinctual level in (almost all) animals. It's not really the same thing than conscious will to live through understanding at least something about life and death. I mean, instincts and conscious thinking about life and death can be in conflict in humans, so clearly they're separate things.
Instincts tell a lot of things, they're automated responses to maximize survival in the most common case of whatever situation. They're not a useful guideline for deciding what's ethical and what's not.
Like, avoiding being stung is in the instincts of humans. It doesn't make it unethical to give injections to small children who can't understand the issue and just don't want a needle to be stuck into their flesh.
I personally find eating ethically raised animals just fine morally.
Just a simple question: would you find this okay if it were done to humans who were bred solely for this purpose, as long as they were treated nicely before they were slaughtered (just assume that eating humans is healthy in this example).
If they agreed to it (without being deceived), then I guess I'd have to agree with it. Who am I to say they have no right to agree to that. However, anybody would have hard time to convince me that they (and their mothers) really did agree to it, because it's so much against human nature.
Livestock are not able to really understand, nor able to make that level of decisions, and are mostly unable to live independent of humans, so different rules apply to them. Note, different, not "no rules".
I'd probably put other great apes in same category as humans here, possibly also whales, but that's not something I need to deal with in my daily life. I've chosen to not eat whale when traveling though. It was sort of "I'm not sure about this, so I'll just have beef", partly emotional decision. But it's a blurry and arbitrary line, and I'm mostly fine with different eople drawing it at different places (though obviously there's other blurry and arbitrary line to what is absolutely not ok for anybody to do, in my opinion).
"the question is a non-sequitur, caring or not caring doesn't affect what rights somebody has".
Well of course it affects (though it sucks as an explanation).
I didn't quite understand how it can affects rights? In my view "rights" are given from outside (be it society or a god or whatever), and what individual thinks doesn't really affect their rights in any way. It may affect what they actually do, but it does not affect if they have a right to do that.
Why is your view of animal rights focused on suffering and not right to live? Because you care about one and not the other.
Eh? I care about both but my view is more focused on right to live, as in right to exist. If there's a choice between not existing at all, or living and then being killed, then in most cases (depending on circumstances), I'd choose living, even though it implies also suffering and death. But again, this is not absolute, depends on circumstances.
If I am to state my opinion, I would say that if we are to bestow rights to non-human animals, why base them on our irrational feelings and not extend human values towards animals? I can guarantee you that the animal wants to live more than it is displeased by suffering. Pleasure/suffering have no meaning if your will does not matter. etc. etc.
Domesticated animals depend on humans controlling their lives. If humans and human buildings vanished, most livestock and pets would die in short order (some individuals of some species would certainly survive and eventually evolve into new species adapted to life without humans).
On the other hand, if those animals vanished instead, it would not affect humans that much overall. So it's clear where the control and responsibility is.
Whatever we do about domesticated animals, it's a human decision. Even if we choose to let certain species of pets or livestock to go extinct so their exploitation may stop, that's a human decision to make/let that happen (especially as it would require some enforcing, as not all people would agree). It's also human decision to make life on earth less rich, if the extinct species is not replaced by another (also able to live that close to humans).
The last resource I'd direct you to would again be the Abolitionist Approach website,
http://www.abolitionistapproach.com/
A comment on this link, first FAQ questions kind of answers my original quesition:
Question 1: Domestic animals, such as cows and pigs, and laboratory rats would not exist were it not for our bringing them into existence in the first place for our purposes. So is it not the case that we are free to treat them as our resources?
However, I'd change the last sentence, the question, to be: "So is it not the case that we can treat them as our resources to some degree?"
To that question, I can easily say that in my opinion yes, to some degree. World is not black and white.
I'll answer your question seriously, although I found it shocking!
"earn their living"? Do you "earn your keep" by paying me for allowing you to live?
You? Maybe, depends what you do, but most likely yes, a tiny bit and very indirectly, but yes! I earn my keep by doing work Effectively, through a complex web of intermediates, I pay farmers so they let me live. I also pay "my" police and military to let me live by not letting other people to kill me. I also pay those that for whatever reason can't support themselves, to avoid being killed by crime and and riots caused by hunger (I pay indirectly, but in some less fortunate parts of the world, people have to pay directly, or suffer the consequences).
So yes, I do have to work, so I can pay in order to be allowed to live!
Why would other animals? What gives us any more right to harm another, human or nonhuman, any more than I'd have the right to invade another country, kill all the humans (and nonhumans) there?
Right to kill is basic right in nature, as evidenced in all levels, throughout the entire about 4 billion years of life. So you're asking the wrong question. The right question is to ask, why should this right be taken away in certain cases.
In human societies, the answer is (in very general terms), that otherwise human society could not exist. Accepting human society implies giving up that right. Still some don't give it up, but then society reacts against that in different ways, and as a result there's some evolutionary pressure to instinctively give up that right in most cases.
There are also good reasons to give up right to indiscriminately kill other living beings. There are legitimate, rational reasons to not eat a lot of meat. There are also good human reasons to treat animals well. However, you're saying we should completely give up the right of killing other creatures, a right that has 4 billion years of history. Why?
Urkki, I would say there is absolutely no such thing as an "ethical" way to kill others.
Sure there are. I don't think you believe it's unethical to kill a flatworm in human gut, and you probably agree that it's actually unethical (for a doctor for example) to refuse to kill it. Also, I don't think you find it unethical to kill a rabid dog, instead of letting it die of the rabies after spreading it some more. Etc. Lots of cases where killing is ethical. The line between ethical and unethical is arbitrary, and even you have to draw that line, no matter how much you'd like to believe there's no such line and all killing is unethical.