What will likely happen is that the SCOTUS will say "You can't retract self-incriminating evidence you provided on your own, but you can refrain from providing any more at any time
I hope they say exactly this. It would finally knock down one of the DUI Exceptions To The Constitution -- in this case, the one to the 5th amendment.
That all depends on how long you're willing to wait around, "daydreaming". Even if you firmly believe the revolution will come, it doesn't mean you're willing to forego a free OS (or whatever) till then.
That might be the most spectacular straw-man argument I've seen in awhile. How, exactly, does your scenario above -- invading a funeral with loud, insistent soapbox speeches -- in any way resemble the scenario we're discussing, i.e., placing a textual statement in one's profile, which others must take action to even see? Answer: it doesn't. In any way. You simply see any mention of sexual orientation as being "pushing an agenda" because you like to live in your little bubble where you comfortably ignore that differences in sexual orientation even exist.
Now, please take your fake-ass concern-trolling somewhere else.
Read the article?? How can you expect people to actively seek out idle stories, tag them repeatedly with "idleispants", post in the comments saying how idle is stupid and should die and they never read it, and read the article? Be reasonable!
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Xbox Live isn't a dating service, gay or straight.
So now only dating services are appropriate for mentioning one's sexual orientation?
I have yet to see anything that disputes that the user would have been similarly banned if they had "I'm heterosexual" in the profile.
So as long as it's theoretically possible for them to exercise similar assholishness to someone else, it's ok for them to exercise this assholishness? By the way, to the racial bigots out there, great news! So long as you hold that at some future time, you might discriminate against someone who's not black, you can discriminate all you want against blacks!
Like it or not, sexual orientation is a mature subject.
Not at all. If you see someone telling a four-year-old that someday he/she will grow up and marry a very nice woman/man, and no one objects, you've just witnessed an upper bound on the "maturity" of the subject of sexual orientation.
Frankly, it sounds to me like the user did, in fact, either have an agenda to push or was soliciting something.
[snip]
Oh, and if you think you're getting the whole story from the banned user, you're incredibly naive. Microsoft most certainly wouldn't ban a user so quickly unless either 1) the user was doing something much more questionable than merely having "lesbian" in her profile that she's not telling us here, or 2) she was warned beforehand about her behavior and chose to continue engaging in violating the terms of service.
Why are you so sure Microsoft is in the right and the user is in the wrong? Talk about pushing an agenda...
I really want to know just why did she feel compelled to express her sexual orientation in her profile?
Because people like you keep telling her that the person she is is not publicly acceptable, and she wants to tell them all to go to hell?
Because anything uncommon about oneself marks one as a member of a special group, and the less common, the more marked?
For the same reason she might say that she likes cats?
At any rate, I'm pretty sure that if I put something like, "I'm into bondage and have a latex fetish" in my profile, I'd be just as banned as she is, even though last time I checked, I'm straight.
I find it pretty telling about the way you think that you equate being gay with having a latex fetish.
Microsoft's gaming service is neither the time nor the place to express sexual preferences, and Microsoft was perfectly justified in banning this user.
I love it[1] when people express opinions using terms that assert absolute truth -- not "In my opinion, X is true" or "I think X is true". Just a bare, unadorned "X is true".
I don't have anything against gay people. What I do have a problem with are people--gay or straight or anything else--who use everything in life as a forum for their cause, even in "neutral" places such as an online gaming service.
There is no "neutral place" for sexual orientation. Everyone has a sexual orientation. It's like saying there's a city with no temperature, or a competition with no opponents.
In either event, she's doing the gay community a disservice by being needlessly confrontational
Whatever someone's sexual orientation is, if you allow people to communicate, it will eventually come into a conversation one way or another. I imagine she's really really tired of talking to someone for hours, only to make an offhanded remark about what her girlfriend said the other day, only to be interrupted with "don't you mean your boyfriend?", followed by alienation of some degree or ano
Re:Parents choose their baby's name
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To my mind, the base of the problem with the recording industry is that the labels are seen as some kind of conferrer of magical "blessed" status -- that if you work really hard, maybe some label will come and "sign you": sweep you off your feet to a wondrous world of superstardom, like you're Cinderella or something (not the band).
They should be thought of (and hired as) service providers: consulting, recording, reproduction, distribution, marketing. These are services they should simply charge set rates for to anyone who wants them and forget about controlling artists or enforcing (or holding) copyright. They (and we) would have a lot fewer headaches this way, I'm sure.
Your high school "probability class" didn't teach you enough.
According to this, there are about 228 million adults in the US.
According to this, 40% of US adults play videogames, or about 91.2 million.
According to this, a confidence level of 95% and a confidence interval of 10% can be achieved on a population of 91.2 million with a sample size of only 97.
In other words you want the bank to tell you whether or not you can afford the loan.
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It has nothing to do with what I want. Banks do, in actual fact, tell you whether you can afford the loan. (This may be a consumer protection law, I'm not sure without researching it.) Except since the Deregulate Business/Eviscerate Government Party Van arrived, they've been running quite the scam in lying about this. And now -- and this is a key point -- we're all boned because of it. And you seem more than happy to let all that happen, because you imagine that you are so super-competent that you couldn't possibly make a bad decision which will ruin your life, and that you're somehow an island apart from society and thus untouchable by the ravages the rest of us are subject to. Well, good luck with that, Superman -- we're all gonna be real sad the day you discover you're really Clark Kent.
The large percent of the population is having self-inflicted trouble. Penalizing the people who aren't having trouble by making them pay more for a product that is completely harmless when consumed in moderation makes absolutely zero sense.
Here, again, we see the attitude that you are above society and unaffected by it -- that harm to society as a whole has nothing to do with you, only those lameasses that have the temerity to make mistakes.
We're all in this boat together. And the sooner you learn that, the better off you'll be.
Orange juice actually has more calories in it than soda does and if consumed to excess would also lead to weight gain. Should we tax that too?
Depends -- is there an orange-juice-based health crisis going on? No? Then I guess not, huh?
I'm sorry but I don't think it's any business of the state what I choose to put into my body.
That's the beauty of a tax. It doesn't prevent, it merely discourages.
It's also none of your fucking business whether or not I wear a seat belt but the nanny staters managed to pass that into law too.
Easy fix: don't wear a seat belt, disable those nanny-state-required airbags, and ram your vehicle into a thick tree at high speed. You won't get a scratch, because you're impervious. That'll show 'em.
Who gets to hire the staff for the fact-checking agency? Politicians? Hmm, might the fact-checking agency then have a political slant?
Well, seeing as how a fact-checking agency has to check facts -- demonstrating how they found them out for sure -- I'd say it wouldn't matter.
Then again, facts have a well-known liberal bias, so maybe, huh?
Why don't you grow up and realize that most people are actually smart enough not to need Governmental assistance to figure out when someone is lying to them.
Counterexample: Republicans still win elections. (Hee hee.)
Bye!
I'm starting to think you're being deliberately obtuse. Observe:
Again, if I'm selling you something it's not my responsibility to make sure you can afford it or that it's the best deal possible for you. As long as I don't misrepresent my product (this mortgage is going to cost you $1000/mo forever when I know the rate is going to adjust in 3 years) I don't see what the problem is.
I didn't say anything...again...about "mak[ing] sure you can afford it or that it's the best deal possible". When did I say that? Seriously, you keep throwing that up like it's my point.
The point is that the bank says "We have criteria to make sure you're able to pay us back, since, obviously, we want you to pay us back. [Compute, compute] Ok! Looks like you're in great shape, let's do this!" Meanwhile, they know you can't (or didn't get enough information to know). They just want the commission for originating the loan, knowing they're going to be selling it as though it were good debt to some other sucker down the line who will have to deal with it instead of them. This, my obtuse friend, is known as "fraud" and "predatory lending". Preventing it is not, repeat, NOT, "hand-holding".
Next example.
Do nothing? Well, that's no help! Didn't you hear me? I said, "public health crisis"!
That's exactly what you do. If it was a public health crisis caused by outside factors (let's say TB for the sake of the argument) then Governmental intervention would be called for. If my neighbor has TB and opts not to get treatment he's placing my family and the entire community at risk.
If my neighbor is a fatty because he lives off soda and big macs that's no threat to me or the community and thus no business of the Government.
Ahem. PUBLIC HEALTH CRISIS. Meaning a large percentage of the population is having major trouble. Meaning the society is apt to lose many citizens/consumers/producers/etc., or the capacity thereof. Meaning if you don't do something, the whole state -- including you -- will suffer. Don't give me "hey, not my problem, man". The scenario I set up is specifically large and bad enough that you will have a problem. Yet you still sit there saying "why should I care, as long as I don't have to pay five cents extra for a soda". That's not just callous, that's self-sabotaging. Which makes me think, again, that you're making it your business not to get it.
Ok, one more.
Amazing. Now you want to regulate speech. I can say whatever I want about Mr. Obama as long as I'm not making threats on his life or person. If you don't like that then move somewhere else. Smart people realize that he isn't a Muslim -- you don't have the right to restrict my freedom of speech because of the 10% of us that are dumb enough to fall for internet rumors and innuendo.
Wow. On this one, you're just tossing in whole new concepts. I read and back up your idea for a fact-checking agency ("PRESS RELEASE: This crap about Obama being a Muslim is stupid, and you're stupid if you believe or repeat it.") and you switch to "you want to censor people!!1!". I'm getting dizzy from the changing-the-subject whiplash.
Why is that liberals always answer a question with a question?;)
Um...I'm rubber and you're glue?:)
after you reach the age of majority you bear a certain amount of responsibility for yourself. I don't expect the government to hold my hand throughout my lifetime and am perfectly happy to let the chips fall as they may regarding my decisions. I'll take the freedom to screw up over the benevolent government that seeks to protect me from myself any day of the week.
That's all well and good, but there is a difference between holding your hand and preventing fraud (or other crimes). It's one thing to tell you to make your decisions in such-and-such a way, and quite another to let someone else trick people (including possibly you) into some folly. And anyway, the point of any law is always supposed to be to protect the public. Your framing of the issue as one of nanny-state hand-holding could equally well be applied to nearly anything. E.g.: "Why should the government babysit me by insisting on making _____ illegal? I can take care of myself, dammit!" Fill in the blank: false advertising, selling unsafe food, driving like a maniac, insider trading, assault, even murder. It all comes down to the arguer's assertion of machismo.
Here in NY our Governor wants to impose an "obesity tax" on soda. I have a serious problem with that, because A) Soda in moderation is perfectly fine, B) A tax won't teach people moderation, C) If I know it's bad for me and decide to do it anyway then why should Albany or Washington care? I'm a grown up. My body, my choice, right?
Well, ignoring whatever the actual situation on the ground may be there, let's say for the sake of argument that the state of New York has so many people drinking so much soda that it's causing a genuine public health crisis. You're the government. What to do?
Do nothing? Well, that's no help! Didn't you hear me? I said, "public health crisis"!
Make it illegal to manufacture and sell soda that's not watered down to some specified level? You might have riots, you'd probably have people juicing their own soda back up at home anyway, and you'd almost certainly get voted out next go-round.
Make it illegal to drink more than a certain amount of soda per day? How the hell are you going to enforce that?
Public awareness campaign? Yeah, right. It might have some effect ten years from now, if you're really effective at it. Plus, you'll need money for that.
Start an R&D program to find out why the soda has the negative health effects, and come up with a reformulation that doesn't cause the problems (as much)? (And then legally require soda to be formulated that way, of course.) Well, if you can make it work, an engineering solution is always welcome. But there's no telling whether it can be done, or how long that will take, or whether there will be worse side-effects, without actually doing it. Plus, you need money for that, too.
Make the soda more expensive...somehow? If you made it expensive enough (and maybe gradually enough), it might actually discourage enough people from soda to do some good. And you'll have the most effect, obviously, on those buying the most soda. I can think of two ways to make it more expensive: tax it, or restrict production. The latter is tricky, as it doesn't take much of an error in setting the production cap to cause runaway hoarding, speculation, etc. -- a Soda Bubble. (Heh.) Taxes, on the other hand, generate revenue (with which you can fund that public awareness campaign and/or R&D program, if you want).
All things considered, taxing it isn't a bad way to go.
Typical partisan thinking. Anybody who doesn't agree with you is being "duped".
Why is it that liberals (or progressives or whatever you call yourselves these days) always assume that somebody who doesn't think we need the government to hold our hands thinks that people don't deserve to be protected?
Why is it that libertarians (or RonPaulItes or whatever you call yourselves these days) always try to belittle government protections by calling them "holding our hands"?
Again, if you didn't do the research on your own to figure that out then I don't have a lot of sympathy for you. If that makes me a cold son-of-a-bitch then so be it. If I'm selling you something it's not my job to make sure you can afford it. The bankers should probably be punished for a lot of reasons (fraud comes to mind) but that doesn't mean I'm not sick of this "think of all the people who can't think for themselves!" whining.
So you agree that the banks have wronged people, and that they need to be punished, but your overriding concern is that we make sure not to show the banks' victims any sympathy? Talk about whining...
Evil? That's a mighty big word you've used there. There's evil in this world -- open a history book, take a trip to Burma or try to enroll in school in Afghanistan as a female -- but calling a major American political party 'evil' just makes it that much harder to take you seriously. 1/3 of this country is 'evil'? Really? Give me a fucking break.
Just because one evil is more egregious than another does not excuse the lesser. And since I am a citizen of neither Burma nor Afghanistan (nor a history book), my immediate concern is to reduce the evils here and now at home.
And, no, 1/3 of this country isn't evil. The majority of that 1/3 is merely duped or bullied by the actually-evil remainder.
Have fun with the next four or eight years of Democratic dominance. I don't think you'll find that they do any better.
I read them myself and if there's something that I don't understand I seek advice or do research on the subject. Public libraries are free the last time I checked and should be ample to research most matters. For something with a 30 year commitment (i.e: mortgage), I would probably pay a lawyer for a consultation before I signed it, but to each their own.
As far as "economic advisers" go, if you haven't already figured out your budget situation and how much house you can afford then you have no business buying a house. It's not exactly rocket science to use a calculator. A spreadsheet is even more useful and can be comprehended by most people with a little bit of training and practice.
I see. And those who are not as assiduous as you don't deserve to be protected by the law? And those taking advantage of those people deserve to continue doing so without hindrance? So it would seem you believe.
Oh my gosh, whatever did we do before we had the government to sit with us at our closing and make sure the big bad bank didn't rip us off? Tell me, how can I get some government help getting my car fixed? I'm convinced that my mechanic is ripping me off but he's using big words like "catalytic converter" and I don't understand what he's talking about. Is there a government program somewhere that can teach me about this stuff?
So if I sell you something it's my responsibility to make sure that you can afford the product I'm selling you and that it represents the best deal possible for you?
Strawman much? We're talking about telling you that yes, you can afford what you are about to do with us and there will be no problems, knowing it's a lie.
I just stopped taking you seriously when your comments made it blatantly obvious that you are a political partisan.
Untrue. A partisan blindly supports something. I oppose -- and far from blindly -- something. And before you say "but there are good Republicans", there really haven't been any of note since a point some decades before I was born, which is saying something. So it's pretty safe to approximate the value to "always oppose".
Any serious examination of the last 20 years would discover that both major political parties are to blame for our current situation
In a sense, yes. The Democrats have repeatedly fallen down on the job of calling the Republicans on their crap.
Funny how you mentioned everything that the Republicans did wrong but were silent on the topic of the last Democratic President who pushed through free trade policies that have gutted the American working class, deregulation policies that would have made Reagan smile, censorship policies and copyright policies that we've all come to know and hate.
First, NAFTA. From your own link: "Following diplomatic negotiations dating back to 1990 between the three nations, the leaders gathered together in San Antonio Texas on December 17, 1992 to officially sign NAFTA. U.S. President George H.W. Bush, Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and Mexico's President Carlos Salinas, each responsible for spearheading and promoting the agreement, made history that day when they ceremoniously signed the agreement." Bush I rammed that crap through. No points to Clinton for not vigorously opposing it, not to mention it was the Congress that approved the thing, but there ya go.
The others: passed by veto-proof majority in a Republican-controlled congress. Again, no points to Clinton
Well, I can see by now your point is specifically not to understand my point, and to keep arguing. This behavior is know on Teh Internetz as "trolling". So, I'm done talking to you now.
The rest of this message is for anyone else still reading this (and my condolences to you). I merely want to make my point clear to you without more obfuscation by this trolling person (hereafter referred to as TTP).
It is simply this: yes, Virginia, there are traits that cannot be explained by handicap theory. This is directly contrary to what TTP has asserted. TTP is wrong.
It is not the "getting noticed" per se that the handicap principle refers to, but the "being burdened and surviving anyway".
No, it is about getting noticed. It's a theory about signaling. And if no one notices the signal, the signal fails and there's no point.
More specifically, it's about signaling fitness. It says "look, I can be really wasteful/ridiculous-looking/weird-acting and it still doesn't hurt me because I'm so awesome". Missing a leg would signal something rather different, I would think.
Then that makes you an idiot. I read everything that I sign and have little sympathy for those that don't. If I don't like what I read then I don't sign it. If I don't understand what I read then I postpone signing it until I can research it or find someone who does understand.
I see. So when you go to buy a house, you call up your lawyer and get him to review everything you sign, at N hundred dollars per hour. Also, you pay economic advisers to tell you whether what you're considering is feasible. It must be nice to be so rich. Unlike the rest of us "idiots", who assume that the law should and will, you know, actually protect us against being preyed upon, and against having our economy and society ruined. But I guess expecting a government of, by, and for the people to help its people is just stupid, huh?
The expert has the responsibility of being honest (otherwise it's fraud) but I dispute that the expert has the responsibility of holding the hands of the non-expert. Nobody held a gun to your head and forced you to sign that 50 year interest-only adjustable rate mortgage.
Uh-huh. And for them to tell you that you will be fine with that loan is still being honest, I guess.
Yes, it's all the fault of the Republicans. Sorry, this is where I stop taking you seriously.
Do so at your own peril. Republican mismanagement and policies that protect the select few and screw the rest of us are exactly what brought us to this point, and anyone who has been paying attention already knows this. Keep supporting them and you'll get exactly what you deserve. Sadly for the rest of us, we'll get what you deserve too.
So what? The point is that they could. The handicap principle allows you to make such an argument
No. No, it doesn't. The handicap principle is: "HEY LOOK at this...". If you can't perceive it, particularly as a detriment, then it can't fall under the principle.
"outlandish" features, whatever that means
Ones which get you noticed? And might also get you noticed by a predator? Isn't that exactly what we're talking about?
Ah, selective hearing. It's ironic that you quoted me and still only read part of my sentence. If you'd bothered to read it all you would have seen that I blamed poor lending standards as well as people who wanted to live beyond their means.
Oh, I saw it. But I decided to let slide the tactic of "no, we're all to blame, so let's not blame anyone in particular".
And the borrower doesn't share in the responsbility in that scenario? Would you take out a loan that you had no chance of being able to repay even if the bank was willing to let you do it?
I might, if they, being the authoritative money experts, told me it would be no problem and that this is all pretty standard and not to worry too much about it, just sign here plzkthx.
The expert has the responsibility in dealing with the non-expert to deal correctly and honestly, which didn't happen in this case, due to...you guessed it, insufficient regulation.
The citizenry does share some of the blame here. Have you seen the neighborhoods in CA and FL that were hardest hit by this? They are all filled with McMansions that invariably had two SUVs in the driveway and at least one big screen TV in the house. I have very little sympathy for this "keep up with the Jones'" manner of living.
I'm not going to defend rampant consumerism, but I will point out that if people think they can do it, they will. And what they think they can do is, unfortunately, increasingly determined by the same type of corporate pushers that got them into the outsize loan in the first place.
Also, it is instructive to remember that, not too long ago in this country, a simple blue-collar worker made enough to support a family (single income!), own a house and multiple cars, and live without too much worry about everything going sour. The laissez-faire attitudes inflicted on us since Reagan have swept that standard of living and that kind of job right out, to Mexico and China and so forth. But people still think that's the baseline norm available to them -- after all, things get gradually better over time, not worse, right? And, hey, I'm not even a lowly factory line worker, I'm a white-collar office worker! I should be even better off than that! Right? Unfortunately for this line of thinking, politics and policies do matter.
What we are seeing is reality crashing into theory.
However, the citizenry -- some of them -- did in fact vote the Republicans into office, so, ultimately, I suppose you're right about them having screwed up and needing to fix that mess, in a way.
The handicap principle allows you to "explain" literally any feature: either it helps the organism survive, or it helps the organism signal how it can survive even when burdened. This permits anything, so it explains nothing.
Untrue. It explains outlandish features, not "literally any"[1] feature. No one is going to argue that your misconfigured cell-wall protein #23425 makes the chicks hot and bothered for you.
[1] Scare-quoted because there's no such thing as "figuratively any".
Beyond that: no science can't disprove the existence of god. But science also can't disprove the existence of unicorns or leprechauns and no one seem to go into a tiffy when some one says those don't exist. For almost everything else the burden is on the person saying something exists.
There is a reason for this: people instill religion -- in a very serious, straight-faced way, backed up with whole organizations of other people and special locations and symbols and whatnot -- in their children before they can properly think for themselves. People (generally?) don't do this for unicorns and leprechauns and such. Even something like Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy is given relatively light and passing treatment, and so the lie wears off more easily. But the far more energetic indoctrination one receives in religion, together with network effects continuing into adulthood, means the concept gets lodged so deeply in one's mind that removing it -- or even attempting to do so -- becomes traumatic.
Wasn't it poor lending standards and people living beyond their means (i.e: greed on everyone's part) that got us into this mess?
Ah, blaming the victim.
No, absolutely not. It was the deregulation/lax regulation of the financial industry that allowed them to:
Mix bad debt up with good debt and pretend it was all good debt
Sell people on loans -- for commissions, of course -- regardless of the borrower's chances of being able to keep up with it, knowing the loan would be passed on to some other sucker anyway
Invent and sell bizarre financial instruments that no one understands
Massively speculate on essentials like fuel
In short, a lack of government regulation, brought on by the "leave those poor, poor corporations alone to do whatever they want" crowd. And now that the whole thing is crashing down, they only cry to blame the citizenry while simultaneously begging for handouts from them -- unregulated handouts, of course.
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I hope they say exactly this. It would finally knock down one of the DUI Exceptions To The Constitution -- in this case, the one to the 5th amendment.
That all depends on how long you're willing to wait around, "daydreaming". Even if you firmly believe the revolution will come, it doesn't mean you're willing to forego a free OS (or whatever) till then.
That might be the most spectacular straw-man argument I've seen in awhile. How, exactly, does your scenario above -- invading a funeral with loud, insistent soapbox speeches -- in any way resemble the scenario we're discussing, i.e., placing a textual statement in one's profile, which others must take action to even see? Answer: it doesn't. In any way. You simply see any mention of sexual orientation as being "pushing an agenda" because you like to live in your little bubble where you comfortably ignore that differences in sexual orientation even exist.
Now, please take your fake-ass concern-trolling somewhere else.
Read the article?? How can you expect people to actively seek out idle stories, tag them repeatedly with "idleispants", post in the comments saying how idle is stupid and should die and they never read it, and read the article? Be reasonable!
I still mourn for Suck.com.
So now only dating services are appropriate for mentioning one's sexual orientation?
So as long as it's theoretically possible for them to exercise similar assholishness to someone else, it's ok for them to exercise this assholishness? By the way, to the racial bigots out there, great news! So long as you hold that at some future time, you might discriminate against someone who's not black, you can discriminate all you want against blacks!
Not at all. If you see someone telling a four-year-old that someday he/she will grow up and marry a very nice woman/man, and no one objects, you've just witnessed an upper bound on the "maturity" of the subject of sexual orientation.
Why are you so sure Microsoft is in the right and the user is in the wrong? Talk about pushing an agenda...
Because people like you keep telling her that the person she is is not publicly acceptable, and she wants to tell them all to go to hell?
Because anything uncommon about oneself marks one as a member of a special group, and the less common, the more marked?
For the same reason she might say that she likes cats?
I find it pretty telling about the way you think that you equate being gay with having a latex fetish.
I love it[1] when people express opinions using terms that assert absolute truth -- not "In my opinion, X is true" or "I think X is true". Just a bare, unadorned "X is true".
There is no "neutral place" for sexual orientation. Everyone has a sexual orientation. It's like saying there's a city with no temperature, or a competition with no opponents.
Whatever someone's sexual orientation is, if you allow people to communicate, it will eventually come into a conversation one way or another. I imagine she's really really tired of talking to someone for hours, only to make an offhanded remark about what her girlfriend said the other day, only to be interrupted with "don't you mean your boyfriend?", followed by alienation of some degree or ano
I believe this is called the "Boy Named Sue" Effect.
Ahh, the wonders of the free market.
To my mind, the base of the problem with the recording industry is that the labels are seen as some kind of conferrer of magical "blessed" status -- that if you work really hard, maybe some label will come and "sign you": sweep you off your feet to a wondrous world of superstardom, like you're Cinderella or something (not the band).
They should be thought of (and hired as) service providers: consulting, recording, reproduction, distribution, marketing. These are services they should simply charge set rates for to anyone who wants them and forget about controlling artists or enforcing (or holding) copyright. They (and we) would have a lot fewer headaches this way, I'm sure.
Your high school "probability class" didn't teach you enough.
According to this, there are about 228 million adults in the US.
According to this, 40% of US adults play videogames, or about 91.2 million.
According to this, a confidence level of 95% and a confidence interval of 10% can be achieved on a population of 91.2 million with a sample size of only 97.
So, yes, you can draw something useful from that.
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It has nothing to do with what I want. Banks do, in actual fact, tell you whether you can afford the loan. (This may be a consumer protection law, I'm not sure without researching it.) Except since the Deregulate Business/Eviscerate Government Party Van arrived, they've been running quite the scam in lying about this. And now -- and this is a key point -- we're all boned because of it. And you seem more than happy to let all that happen, because you imagine that you are so super-competent that you couldn't possibly make a bad decision which will ruin your life, and that you're somehow an island apart from society and thus untouchable by the ravages the rest of us are subject to. Well, good luck with that, Superman -- we're all gonna be real sad the day you discover you're really Clark Kent.
Here, again, we see the attitude that you are above society and unaffected by it -- that harm to society as a whole has nothing to do with you, only those lameasses that have the temerity to make mistakes.
We're all in this boat together. And the sooner you learn that, the better off you'll be.
Depends -- is there an orange-juice-based health crisis going on? No? Then I guess not, huh?
That's the beauty of a tax. It doesn't prevent, it merely discourages.
Easy fix: don't wear a seat belt, disable those nanny-state-required airbags, and ram your vehicle into a thick tree at high speed. You won't get a scratch, because you're impervious. That'll show 'em.
Well, seeing as how a fact-checking agency has to check facts -- demonstrating how they found them out for sure -- I'd say it wouldn't matter.
Then again, facts have a well-known liberal bias, so maybe, huh?
Counterexample: Republicans still win elections. (Hee hee.) Bye!
I didn't say anything...again...about "mak[ing] sure you can afford it or that it's the best deal possible". When did I say that? Seriously, you keep throwing that up like it's my point. The point is that the bank says "We have criteria to make sure you're able to pay us back, since, obviously, we want you to pay us back. [Compute, compute] Ok! Looks like you're in great shape, let's do this!" Meanwhile, they know you can't (or didn't get enough information to know). They just want the commission for originating the loan, knowing they're going to be selling it as though it were good debt to some other sucker down the line who will have to deal with it instead of them. This, my obtuse friend, is known as "fraud" and "predatory lending". Preventing it is not, repeat, NOT, "hand-holding". Next example.
Ahem. PUBLIC HEALTH CRISIS . Meaning a large percentage of the population is having major trouble. Meaning the society is apt to lose many citizens/consumers/producers/etc., or the capacity thereof. Meaning if you don't do something, the whole state -- including you -- will suffer. Don't give me "hey, not my problem, man". The scenario I set up is specifically large and bad enough that you will have a problem. Yet you still sit there saying "why should I care, as long as I don't have to pay five cents extra for a soda". That's not just callous, that's self-sabotaging. Which makes me think, again, that you're making it your business not to get it. Ok, one more.
Wow. On this one, you're just tossing in whole new concepts. I read and back up your idea for a fact-checking agency ("PRESS RELEASE: This crap about Obama being a Muslim is stupid, and you're stupid if you believe or repeat it.") and you switch to "you want to censor people!!1!". I'm getting dizzy from the changing-the-subject whiplash.
Um...I'm rubber and you're glue? :)
That's all well and good, but there is a difference between holding your hand and preventing fraud (or other crimes). It's one thing to tell you to make your decisions in such-and-such a way, and quite another to let someone else trick people (including possibly you) into some folly. And anyway, the point of any law is always supposed to be to protect the public. Your framing of the issue as one of nanny-state hand-holding could equally well be applied to nearly anything. E.g.: "Why should the government babysit me by insisting on making _____ illegal? I can take care of myself, dammit!" Fill in the blank: false advertising, selling unsafe food, driving like a maniac, insider trading, assault, even murder. It all comes down to the arguer's assertion of machismo.
Well, ignoring whatever the actual situation on the ground may be there, let's say for the sake of argument that the state of New York has so many people drinking so much soda that it's causing a genuine public health crisis. You're the government. What to do?
All things considered, taxing it isn't a bad way to go.
I'm trying to be charitable here and give them
Why is it that libertarians (or RonPaulItes or whatever you call yourselves these days) always try to belittle government protections by calling them "holding our hands"?
So you agree that the banks have wronged people, and that they need to be punished, but your overriding concern is that we make sure not to show the banks' victims any sympathy? Talk about whining...
Just because one evil is more egregious than another does not excuse the lesser. And since I am a citizen of neither Burma nor Afghanistan (nor a history book), my immediate concern is to reduce the evils here and now at home.
And, no, 1/3 of this country isn't evil. The majority of that 1/3 is merely duped or bullied by the actually-evil remainder.
I think they could hardly do worse.
I see. And those who are not as assiduous as you don't deserve to be protected by the law? And those taking advantage of those people deserve to continue doing so without hindrance? So it would seem you believe.
Well, let's see: are you ruined for life if your mechanic overcharges you by $100? Also, as long as you're Googling, you might want to know that there are, in fact, regulations governing auto repair.
Strawman much? We're talking about telling you that yes, you can afford what you are about to do with us and there will be no problems, knowing it's a lie.
Untrue. A partisan blindly supports something. I oppose -- and far from blindly -- something. And before you say "but there are good Republicans", there really haven't been any of note since a point some decades before I was born, which is saying something. So it's pretty safe to approximate the value to "always oppose".
In a sense, yes. The Democrats have repeatedly fallen down on the job of calling the Republicans on their crap.
First, NAFTA. From your own link: "Following diplomatic negotiations dating back to 1990 between the three nations, the leaders gathered together in San Antonio Texas on December 17, 1992 to officially sign NAFTA. U.S. President George H.W. Bush, Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and Mexico's President Carlos Salinas, each responsible for spearheading and promoting the agreement, made history that day when they ceremoniously signed the agreement." Bush I rammed that crap through. No points to Clinton for not vigorously opposing it, not to mention it was the Congress that approved the thing, but there ya go.
The others: passed by veto-proof majority in a Republican-controlled congress. Again, no points to Clinton
Well, I can see by now your point is specifically not to understand my point, and to keep arguing. This behavior is know on Teh Internetz as "trolling". So, I'm done talking to you now.
The rest of this message is for anyone else still reading this (and my condolences to you). I merely want to make my point clear to you without more obfuscation by this trolling person (hereafter referred to as TTP).
It is simply this: yes, Virginia, there are traits that cannot be explained by handicap theory. This is directly contrary to what TTP has asserted. TTP is wrong.
No, it is about getting noticed. It's a theory about signaling. And if no one notices the signal, the signal fails and there's no point.
More specifically, it's about signaling fitness. It says "look, I can be really wasteful/ridiculous-looking/weird-acting and it still doesn't hurt me because I'm so awesome". Missing a leg would signal something rather different, I would think.
Have you actually read anything about this?
Obviously, my Netflix queue.
I see. So when you go to buy a house, you call up your lawyer and get him to review everything you sign, at N hundred dollars per hour. Also, you pay economic advisers to tell you whether what you're considering is feasible. It must be nice to be so rich. Unlike the rest of us "idiots", who assume that the law should and will, you know, actually protect us against being preyed upon, and against having our economy and society ruined. But I guess expecting a government of, by, and for the people to help its people is just stupid, huh?
Uh-huh. And for them to tell you that you will be fine with that loan is still being honest, I guess.
Do so at your own peril. Republican mismanagement and policies that protect the select few and screw the rest of us are exactly what brought us to this point, and anyone who has been paying attention already knows this. Keep supporting them and you'll get exactly what you deserve. Sadly for the rest of us, we'll get what you deserve too.
No. No, it doesn't. The handicap principle is: "HEY LOOK at this...". If you can't perceive it, particularly as a detriment, then it can't fall under the principle.
Ones which get you noticed? And might also get you noticed by a predator? Isn't that exactly what we're talking about?
Oh, I saw it. But I decided to let slide the tactic of "no, we're all to blame, so let's not blame anyone in particular".
I might, if they, being the authoritative money experts, told me it would be no problem and that this is all pretty standard and not to worry too much about it, just sign here plzkthx.
The expert has the responsibility in dealing with the non-expert to deal correctly and honestly, which didn't happen in this case, due to...you guessed it, insufficient regulation.
I'm not going to defend rampant consumerism, but I will point out that if people think they can do it, they will. And what they think they can do is, unfortunately, increasingly determined by the same type of corporate pushers that got them into the outsize loan in the first place.
Also, it is instructive to remember that, not too long ago in this country, a simple blue-collar worker made enough to support a family (single income!), own a house and multiple cars, and live without too much worry about everything going sour. The laissez-faire attitudes inflicted on us since Reagan have swept that standard of living and that kind of job right out, to Mexico and China and so forth. But people still think that's the baseline norm available to them -- after all, things get gradually better over time, not worse, right? And, hey, I'm not even a lowly factory line worker, I'm a white-collar office worker! I should be even better off than that! Right? Unfortunately for this line of thinking, politics and policies do matter.
What we are seeing is reality crashing into theory.
However, the citizenry -- some of them -- did in fact vote the Republicans into office, so, ultimately, I suppose you're right about them having screwed up and needing to fix that mess, in a way.
Untrue. It explains outlandish features, not "literally any"[1] feature. No one is going to argue that your misconfigured cell-wall protein #23425 makes the chicks hot and bothered for you.
[1] Scare-quoted because there's no such thing as "figuratively any".
There is a reason for this: people instill religion -- in a very serious, straight-faced way, backed up with whole organizations of other people and special locations and symbols and whatnot -- in their children before they can properly think for themselves. People (generally?) don't do this for unicorns and leprechauns and such. Even something like Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy is given relatively light and passing treatment, and so the lie wears off more easily. But the far more energetic indoctrination one receives in religion, together with network effects continuing into adulthood, means the concept gets lodged so deeply in one's mind that removing it -- or even attempting to do so -- becomes traumatic.
I so wish I still had my points from a few days ago...
Ah, blaming the victim.
No, absolutely not. It was the deregulation/lax regulation of the financial industry that allowed them to:
In short, a lack of government regulation, brought on by the "leave those poor, poor corporations alone to do whatever they want" crowd. And now that the whole thing is crashing down, they only cry to blame the citizenry while simultaneously begging for handouts from them -- unregulated handouts, of course.