Finally: have you thought about the ethics of using your student loans in this way? Were the loans given to you in order to help you pay for your expenses as a student? Do you think it's okay to ask someone to loan you money for one thing and then use that money for something else? Isn't that a form of lying?
Speaking of ethics - while there is a part of me that is looking for the maximum return on my investment, are there any slashdotters familiar with some well-performing AND ethically sound companies? For example, some environmentally conscious, good-for-the-community organizations, in comparison to oil, ammunition, and porn companies (which, while fun and lucrative, can leave you with a guilty conscience;) ).
I really can't explain this any better: just because people believe it, doesn't mean it's true! Belief and truth are not correlated!
Let me give you a concrete example. Let's say for the sake of argument, that you have testicles. We both believe that if I kick you in the testicles, you will experience pain. Pain, like race, is an abstract concept, difficult to scientifically measure, although there are physiological indicators that we can observe. What you're saying is "Because pain is all a thought in my head, and just because people believe in it, doesn't mean it's real!" I would then show you a couple of clips from bad movies where the villain injures his testicles in some way, and observe you wince. That is a social construct - you understand what that pain is, and although you don't experience it directly, you have some thoughts/understanding about what it is, and know it exists. And if you disagree, I kick you in the nuts, saying "why are you all crumpled up on the floor like that? Pain is just a thought in your head."
"ontological status in society as substantial as the ontological status of brute facts". See that? It means that these 'social constructions' have a 'status' in that society that is just as 'real' as "facts". So 'social constructions' are different from 'facts': facts exist - 'not-facts' don't exist.
Again, you contradict yourself. "as substantial as" can be replaced by "is equal to." And at this point, you're arguing that because you can't "see" the Earth moves around the sun, that it must not be.
*At this point, I give up, it's like trying to argue the existence of God with an Aetheist. I could care less about your religious beliefs, but as a psychologist, the fact is thoughts are real, and shape your behavior. Acknowledging that you make decisions, whether intentionally, or unintentionally, based on someone's appearance, is the first step in going about changing those behaviors.
Anything that exists only because people believe in it - doesn't really exist. Gravity exists on it's own, 'race' does not.
Go back and re-read what I said before, and re-read the definition of social construct, 'cause you're not getting it. By it's very definition, a social construct is as real as the other facts of the world. Just because you choose to ignore it, doesn't mean that it doesn't exist as a reality for billions of other people on the planet, whose lives are shaped by its arbitrariness.
The "truth of history"? I just don't understand what this 'truth of history' means to you - to me, it simply means 'the truth'.
That's exactly what I mean. You can't answer many of the "why" questions of history without discussing race. "Why was this war fought?" "Because this group of people with one skin tone thought this other group with a different skin tone were evil." "What happened after that?" "These people were treated unfairly." "Why?" "Because they were viewed as less than human." "Why?" "Because their skin color was different." Yes, it's more complex than that, but race is undeniably a factor in human history of conflict. Attempting to explain history, or answer the "Why are we here on this reservation?" question to an indigenous kid, or "why don't we know all of the old language and ceremonies?" without acknowledging race is very much like the history of the Earth revolving around the sun. The "discovery" that the Earth revolves around the sun is hardly revoluntionary (pardon the pun), without the inclusion of Galileo Galilei running afoul of the Catholic church. Leaving out that detail takes away from how controversial the idea was at the time, why its adoption was slow to occur, and answers the question "Why was this simple idea so hard to believe?"
I'm pretty sure the truth of history is that Europeans showed up and fucked the natives over because they believed the natives were a separate 'type' of human, and that the European 'type' was superior. Nothing about that 'truth of history' suggest that 'race' exists.
Again, you contradict yourself. Europeans fucked the natives over because they believed the natives were a separate "type" of human. How does that not involve race? Sure, it involved some illogical, unscientific, and unfair thinking. But unfortunately, that's what race is.
the amount of tension on the parawing cable would scare the crap out of me, especially if I had to deal with that thing in/prior to bad weather.
So, much like a normal sailboat, you can reef the wing/sail which reduces the surface for the wind to act on. In a serious storm, the tension might still be there, but then again, so would the regular engine.;)
I should explain further then: I mean to say that 'race' (that is the idea that there are human sub-species) is wrong. Not 'immorally' wrong but scientifically, logically, wrong.
This may come as a surprise to you, but I agree with most of that. There are no such things as human sub-species. "Race" as a classification originates out of an illogical, arbitrary process, that has little scientific evidence. But going back to the Wikipedia definition of social construct then: "they have an ontological status in society as substantial as the ontological status of brute facts." So just because it is illogical and unscientific, it does not mean that "race" doesn't exist. "Race" is as much a fact of our lives as gravity is.
Um, maybe I'm just grasping here but perhaps 'racial inequality' wouldn't exist if 'race' didn't exist...
You might be right. If you have a "reset" button for human history to test that theory out, I'm all for it.:-)
as an indigenous person, I have a family and social history that I share with a number of other people,
So, your culture is dependant on the idea that you are a separate 'race' from others? Your customs are derived from the idea that the First Peoples are different from the Europeans? Now, and again perhaps I'm just talking crazy here, but perhaps these customs are based in something other than 'race'. I was under the impression that these customs were created before ideas of 'race' developed in North America, before the Europeans arrived.
Sorry to say, you are talking crazy. Look carefully at what you quoted there. I am certainly not a separate sub-species. You're correct that the origins of our culture and customs were developed long before the Europeans arrived. However, our history was, in part, dictated by the European concept of race, and are now (for better and for worse) part of our understanding of ourselves, how we got to be where we are in the present, and our understanding of how we fit into the universe. Our culture and our history are certainly more important to our individual identities than the arbitrariness of this category of "race," but a simple statement suggesting the elimination of "race" gives me pause. If race is eliminated, it eliminates the truth of history. However, as we acknowledge that "race" is "an elephant in the room," we can figure out how it got there and how to get it out.
Look, here is the problem. First, you say "Race doesn't exist," followed by "Race only exists as a social construct." It seems insconsistent. Although Wikipedia wouldn't be my normal first choice of a reference, their article on Social Construction states:
"Social constructionism is a school of thought that attempts, to varying degrees, to analyze seemingly natural and given phenomena in terms of social constructs. Connotations of such analysis may seem to include made-up, accidental, arbitrary, and unreal, though this is rarely what social constructionists who use the term have in mind, for, according to most social constructionists, social constructions are very much real - they are a part of, or sometimes the entirety of, lived reality. Indeed, they have an ontological status in society as substantial as the ontological status of brute facts."
Acknowledging the existence of race, and historical racial inequities that contribute to present racial inequities might get us to a place where human beings can begin to transcend those parts of our identity.
You state your own identity is made up in part of another social construct (being Canadian). Not everyone states that their race is the most important part of their identity, but it is still important, even for people who have the luxury of ignoring it in the daily lives of others. It doesn't eliminate the fact that the majority of the people we used to call "black" are economically, educationally, and socially disadvantaged because of a shared history of discrimination.
Why does a person have to have a 'race' to have a cultural identity?
Just like people who identify themselves as "Canadian" have a shared history, as an indigenous person, I have a family and social history that I share with a number of other people, that plays out in my daily life, because a society I'm surrounded by made "race" a reality. I can't (and would not want to) give up that part of an identity that has meaning to me, any more than you would want to give up being "Canadian," because the shared history of you, your family, and your country has meaning to you.
The point isn't to ignore racism, it's to ignore race. The only reason racism exists is because race exists. If no one believed that skin colour defined a grouping of people, then there would be no group.
That's like saying, "There will be no poverty anymore if we didn't have any money." Of course, there was wealth and poverty before money (measured in land, livestock, and ownership of other people). There will be racism (an "us" vs. a "them") if race didn't exist - in the form of sexism, homophobia, competing religious ideologies, and catty middle school cafeteria insults about intelligence.
Race is a fundamental part of people's idenities, both empowering as well as harmful. Moreover, they are as central to identity as gender, language, and religion, if not moreso, so claiming that we should e-race the world is really not a very helpful effort. You give me three practical steps toward getting people to ignore race (something they SEE everytime they look at ANY person, whether or not they're right), and in the time it takes you to come up with them, I could come up with at least twenty practical steps to combatting racism that don't involve denying a person's right to a cultural identity and group.
I applaud your effort but perhaps you should go take a ride on the short-bus to school from now on.
Nothing helps an argument like insulting a person, now does it? I applaud your winning argument, you jackass.
I repeat: "Stop making race a big deal, and race stops being a big deal."
That's right! If you don't acknowledge its existence, it's not really there! Let's look to the myth of the noble Ostrich for an example of how to behave! (/sarcasm)
What's this "identity theft addict" balonium? Do you call bank robbers "bank robbing addicts"? All bad behavior is not addiction. The guy is a lowlife crook who found an easy way to make money and kept coming back to it, plain and simple.
According to one of the investigators, ""We were surprised at how forthcoming he was," Mr. Ruh said. "He was very proud of his accomplishments."
Looking back at some of Mr. Sharma's other comments in the article, I began to check off a number of traits that may or may not be evident: Glib and superficial charm; Grandiose sense of self-worth; Need for stimulation; Pathological lying; Conning and manipulativeness; Lack of remorse or guilt; Shallow affect; Callousness and lack of empathy; Parasitic lifestyle; Poor behavioral controls; Promiscuous sexual behavior; Early behavior problems; Lack of realistic, long-term goals; Impulsivity; Irresponsibility; Failure to accept responsibility for own actions; Many short-term marital relationships; Juvenile delinquency; Revocation of conditional release; Criminal versatility.
Many police cars here carry cameras on thier dashboards and tape you when they cops pull you over for a ticket!
Yup. And they are there for lots of good reasons. Not to spy on you, but in this day and age when police officers are often thrown into "he said/she said" court cases, video taped evidence is a good way to show something much closer to the truth. I think we often overlook that police officer behavior can also be watched, in addition to the behavior of the suspect.
There's lost that don't follow that script -- Hannibal for one, which is why I mentioned that actually. [SPOILER] Hannibal Lecter kills lots of people, dissects and eats some, and lives happily ever after with Clarice. Bestseller. Also see books by Clive Barker, etc.
That's why I put "good guys" and "bad guys" in quotes... While cannabalism is not good, Lecter is the "good guy" character we end up cheering for. We develop a kind of sympathy for him. SOme might even call him an anti-hero. However, there are no heros in child porn.
When I started counselling when I found out I had Asperger syndrome, the first thing she said is "its all confidential unless I think you will cause harm to anyone, anyone will cause harm to you, or anything involving children" so at the end of the day, if people who look at this want help, they cant get it.
Then you or your therapist did not do a thorough job in covering the details of confidentiality. If you (or someone who has a concern about getting treatment for pedophilia) ask, the therapist should tell you that there must be 1. an identifiable victim and 2. clear and imminent danger, in order to break confidentiality. There are people who specialize in the treatment of those with pedophillic interests, and help is available. And an honest, no-denial, no-BS, dialogue is necessary, and can be accomplished, without breaking those rules of confidentiality. When the confidentiality is broken, it is with good reason.
I think at least 4 of the top 5 are about murder, some presenting killing and rape in great, loving detail. Why then do not the millions of readers of these books find their appetites for murder and rape whetted? Why is it perfectly acceptable for maiden aunts to read Hannibal on a bus? Do any of them go home and crack open someone's skull to eat fresh brains?
How about simply because the murder isn't "glorified" or condoned? The interest that many people have in those books could be that the "good guys" win and the "bad guys" go punished.
In child porn on the other hand, someone is violated and disrespected in a terrible way. There is no known resolution where the bad guy gets caught. In fact, as the images are perpetuated throughout the Internet, the criminal is continuing to "brag" about the successful commission of their crime, and encourages others to do the same.
My experience? I perform much worse on these substances. Sometimes I'm jittery and cannot focus. At times I think and work so fast that I make many carless errors that end up taking me more time to fix than if I had done the work slower and did it right the first time. The drugs that kept me up and allowed me to work longer just took more of me the next day.
There is an interesting psychological phenomina that no-one else has mentioned, that your post reminded me of: State-Dependent Memory. Put simply, if you are learning the material while "sober," being on drugs impairs your memory. If you're on drugs when you're studying and on drugs when you take the test, then you tend to do about as well as "normal" for you. The basis for this is a 1977 study of people who drank alcohol and did a Memory test.
Or, in paraphrasing my professor, "You know that time you went out to the bar, and had a few drinks, got that hottie's number, and say 'I'll call you tomorrow' (and mean it)? Then the next day you wake up and can't remember the number? Try heading back to the bar, not just to try and run into them again, but to have those cues of the environment, emotions, and being under the same level of intoxication. It might help you remember. Or, if not, you'll have a few beers and you will care less about it."
No way should you be able to stop a murderer, or someone having consentual sex with your 8 year old daughter, you don't get to control what they do.
I'm probably starting a needless off-topic rant here, but sex with an 8-year-old is never consentual. 8-year-olds aren't able to give consent to anything.
If I were making the rules; game rating should he based on the illegality of the activities in the game -- if there's murder or similar - keep it away from my kids. If it's minor misdemeanors (like this new game sounds like) that's better.
But what kind of boring videogame would that be?
"Hey kids! From the makers of the classic game 'Don't Run With Scissors!' comes 'Look Both Ways Before Crossing the Street!'"
I've been pursuing my PhD in Psychology for many years now, and the final piece for me was to take an internship for a year. Unfortunately, my plans fell through, and I ended up staying in California, where I ended up living with my significant other. Instead of me heading off on internship, she got accepted into graduate school, and I planned to move across the country to be with her. (I even turned down a 3-year contract job as a researcher, to follow her). Within a week of getting out there, however, an internship position opened up at a place I wanted to work. Unfortunately, it was a 5-hour drive away. Which isn't horrific, it just means we end up doing what you're worried about doing - just seeing each other on the weekends. Although we were disappointed that it ended up that way, we both knew the sooner that I got that done, the better. So I'm off on internship now. Of course, now that my internship is almost done, I'm looking to move back to find a job in her state.
I suppose the lesson here is that although you might move the family together, you never know what will happen. All things to those who wait, yadda yadda.
After the tragic death of Sparky and many others of his kind, I propose a memorial for our fallen robot heroes, with their rank, lifespan, and name visible for all to see.
Yes, you are being ridiculous. Nobody would consider such rice to be "human". I feel sorry for you because you are either stupid enough to actually think we might think a few human genes makes something human or you are just a sadly misinformed person with regards to how religious people think.
I didn't mean to ask because I was feeling particularly troll-ish or stupid (although, I didn't have any coffee in my system at the time I posted that). I was genuinely curious if anyone else thought that some Christian organization might object to genetically modified rice, because genetic modification is "playing God," or based on their belief of when human life begins. As the grandparent post suggested, if Muslims and Jews object to food that has incorporated pig genes, I didn't think it would be that far a leap. If numerous "Christian" organizations believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible, or that the world is flat, or Jesus was white, then what stops them from extending the "life begins at conception" argument to "a human life is determined/identified by its genetic material," to this? I don't think you can flat out say "nobody would think that."
On a side note, I sit on a couple of my church's national boards, and am constantly surprised by the weird and uninformed questions that get asked to various committees. I know most religious people would agree with you - God gave us brains for a reason. I think that God wishes we'd use them more often.
I was going to go a slightly different direction with this thought: I wonder if some Christian fundamentalists (are there any on slashdot, and why?;) ) if they thought that adding human genes to rice means that the rice is human. I mean, they have already determined that life begins at conception, and that killing a fetus is wrong. Does having human genes confer a "soul" onto this rice? How much further a leap is it for someone to object to harvesting rice on religious grounds?
that's a problem for people that only believe what they see on what they presume to be un-alterable video tape... but why not just ask the people that watched it happen.
As any psychologist will tell you, your memory is pretty easily alterable. Elizabeth Loftus is probably the most prominent name in the area of altering memories, and has done a number of interesting experiments.
My favorite experiment involves counting the number of passes that people make with a pair of basketballs in this video here (someone warn the University of Illinois, they might experience a slashdotting!).
After you've watched the tape, you can read about how perceptive you are (or aren't) in this article.
I can only assume that your argument is based on the assumption that there are lots of people with bombs on airplanes and that therefore there is a need to give carte blanche to air marshals. The only problem with this argument is that planes are not blowing up all the time nor are there lots of thwarted plots.
Well, your first mistake is making unwarranted assumptions. In fact, my thinking was closer to the opposite. First, I don't think law enforcement officials should ever get carte blanche in any situation. All of their actions should be overseen, scrutinized, and their actions should fit the circumstances (and if their behavior doesn't fit, they get prosecuted to the full extent of the law). Second, if the Air Marshals were seeing this kind of bizarre behavior all the time, then I would expect their training would be different, and the situation would be handled differently.
So what? Do all people travelling from there get shot? No, apparently only people acting crazy.
I'm saying that the chances of smuggling something from Columbia are slightly higher, so I imagine they're already suspicious. When you believe that your life and lives you are sworn to protect are being threatened by a person who is behaving in a crazy way, then what would you do in that officer's place?
A bomb small enough to go undetected would not do a lot of damage on the ground. It might have killed the agents, however, depending on how close they were. Even if he had some really evil explosives, more than a few pounds would be very hard to conceal.
Well, maybe I'm being "creative" (the result of too many bad movies, I'm sure) but a bomb could be elsewhere on the plane, and the detonator was all he had. What if it was near the hundred of gallons of jet fuel that are on planes and at airports? The point is, they did not know at that time. Hindsight is 20-20.
The air marshal program is nothing but a dog-and-pony show to give people a sense of security.
I'll agree that there is a great deal of false security involved in air transportation. However, they were placed in an unfortunate no-win situation, (if nothing, read the last paragraph) and having well-publicized security in place is a deterrent to some people who might attempt something outrageous.
Tell me again how these agents were doing their part to make air travel safer?
Let me flip that around - Tell me how you'd explain to the general population how allowing a mentally ill guy who is making bomb threats run free around an airport is safe or acceptable? I'm not saying that the answer is "shoot him, no questions," but the limited amount of information and the limited amount of time to make a different decision in this case just is not there. (Again, hindsight 20-20, and they are in a no-win situation).
They should be, since they apparently are allowed to shoot people for things they say.
As a mental health professional (PhD in Clinical Psychology), who has worked with dangerous populations (severely mentally ill people, both in and out of the legal system), the air marshals thought processes and training does not have time to include doing provisional rule-out diagnoses of mental illness. Even if they did have time to diagnose him with bipolar, or paranoid schizophrenia, he could still have a bomb and intend to harm people. They have to be law enforcement officers first.
That backpack had been x-rayed before it got on the plane.
1. He was traveling from Medellin, Columbia, a place not well-known for security and cooperation with law-enforcement. 2. Although I can't find more recent link to back it up right now, I'm sure that air marshals are aware that airport security still has a high failure rate at identifying dangerous materials coming on and off planes.
They didn't shoot him in the leg to stop him, they shot him dead!
Again, this is part of their training. Aiming for an arm or leg increases the chance of missing and hitting unintended targets. If he had a bomb, wounding him may have prompted him to try and detonate it.
You see no problem with the fact that plain-clothes officers shoot unarmed people to death because they will not follow orders yelled at them? No problem in the fact that these officers are not prosecuted, rather touted as heroes? Too bad for Mr. Alpizar he didn't get a trial, but hey, he had dark skin and said 'bomb', he should have known better, he deserved to die. Right?
The CNN article I linked to previously stated that both officers had clean records from their previous jobs. I don't think they should be touted as heroes though, and Mr. Alpizar certainly didn't deserve to die. They were people doing their job, in a way consistent with their training, in a manner that would be upheld by the court.
Given their limited available information, they took steps to protect the greatest number of people.
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Finally: have you thought about the ethics of using your student loans in this way? Were the loans given to you in order to help you pay for your expenses as a student? Do you think it's okay to ask someone to loan you money for one thing and then use that money for something else? Isn't that a form of lying?
;) ).
Speaking of ethics - while there is a part of me that is looking for the maximum return on my investment, are there any slashdotters familiar with some well-performing AND ethically sound companies? For example, some environmentally conscious, good-for-the-community organizations, in comparison to oil, ammunition, and porn companies (which, while fun and lucrative, can leave you with a guilty conscience
I really can't explain this any better: just because people believe it, doesn't mean it's true! Belief and truth are not correlated!
Let me give you a concrete example. Let's say for the sake of argument, that you have testicles. We both believe that if I kick you in the testicles, you will experience pain. Pain, like race, is an abstract concept, difficult to scientifically measure, although there are physiological indicators that we can observe. What you're saying is "Because pain is all a thought in my head, and just because people believe in it, doesn't mean it's real!" I would then show you a couple of clips from bad movies where the villain injures his testicles in some way, and observe you wince. That is a social construct - you understand what that pain is, and although you don't experience it directly, you have some thoughts/understanding about what it is, and know it exists. And if you disagree, I kick you in the nuts, saying "why are you all crumpled up on the floor like that? Pain is just a thought in your head."
"ontological status in society as substantial as the ontological status of brute facts". See that? It means that these 'social constructions' have a 'status' in that society that is just as 'real' as "facts". So 'social constructions' are different from 'facts': facts exist - 'not-facts' don't exist.
Again, you contradict yourself. "as substantial as" can be replaced by "is equal to." And at this point, you're arguing that because you can't "see" the Earth moves around the sun, that it must not be.
*At this point, I give up, it's like trying to argue the existence of God with an Aetheist. I could care less about your religious beliefs, but as a psychologist, the fact is thoughts are real, and shape your behavior. Acknowledging that you make decisions, whether intentionally, or unintentionally, based on someone's appearance, is the first step in going about changing those behaviors.
Anything that exists only because people believe in it - doesn't really exist. Gravity exists on it's own, 'race' does not.
Go back and re-read what I said before, and re-read the definition of social construct, 'cause you're not getting it. By it's very definition, a social construct is as real as the other facts of the world. Just because you choose to ignore it, doesn't mean that it doesn't exist as a reality for billions of other people on the planet, whose lives are shaped by its arbitrariness.
The "truth of history"? I just don't understand what this 'truth of history' means to you - to me, it simply means 'the truth'.
That's exactly what I mean. You can't answer many of the "why" questions of history without discussing race. "Why was this war fought?" "Because this group of people with one skin tone thought this other group with a different skin tone were evil." "What happened after that?" "These people were treated unfairly." "Why?" "Because they were viewed as less than human." "Why?" "Because their skin color was different." Yes, it's more complex than that, but race is undeniably a factor in human history of conflict. Attempting to explain history, or answer the "Why are we here on this reservation?" question to an indigenous kid, or "why don't we know all of the old language and ceremonies?" without acknowledging race is very much like the history of the Earth revolving around the sun. The "discovery" that the Earth revolves around the sun is hardly revoluntionary (pardon the pun), without the inclusion of Galileo Galilei running afoul of the Catholic church. Leaving out that detail takes away from how controversial the idea was at the time, why its adoption was slow to occur, and answers the question "Why was this simple idea so hard to believe?"
I'm pretty sure the truth of history is that Europeans showed up and fucked the natives over because they believed the natives were a separate 'type' of human, and that the European 'type' was superior. Nothing about that 'truth of history' suggest that 'race' exists.
Again, you contradict yourself. Europeans fucked the natives over because they believed the natives were a separate "type" of human. How does that not involve race? Sure, it involved some illogical, unscientific, and unfair thinking. But unfortunately, that's what race is.
the amount of tension on the parawing cable would scare the crap out of me, especially if I had to deal with that thing in/prior to bad weather.
;)
So, much like a normal sailboat, you can reef the wing/sail which reduces the surface for the wind to act on. In a serious storm, the tension might still be there, but then again, so would the regular engine.
This may come as a surprise to you, but I agree with most of that. There are no such things as human sub-species. "Race" as a classification originates out of an illogical, arbitrary process, that has little scientific evidence. But going back to the Wikipedia definition of social construct then: "they have an ontological status in society as substantial as the ontological status of brute facts." So just because it is illogical and unscientific, it does not mean that "race" doesn't exist. "Race" is as much a fact of our lives as gravity is.
Um, maybe I'm just grasping here but perhaps 'racial inequality' wouldn't exist if 'race' didn't exist...
You might be right. If you have a "reset" button for human history to test that theory out, I'm all for it.
So, your culture is dependant on the idea that you are a separate 'race' from others? Your customs are derived from the idea that the First Peoples are different from the Europeans? Now, and again perhaps I'm just talking crazy here, but perhaps these customs are based in something other than 'race'. I was under the impression that these customs were created before ideas of 'race' developed in North America, before the Europeans arrived.
Sorry to say, you are talking crazy. Look carefully at what you quoted there. I am certainly not a separate sub-species. You're correct that the origins of our culture and customs were developed long before the Europeans arrived. However, our history was, in part, dictated by the European concept of race, and are now (for better and for worse) part of our understanding of ourselves, how we got to be where we are in the present, and our understanding of how we fit into the universe. Our culture and our history are certainly more important to our individual identities than the arbitrariness of this category of "race," but a simple statement suggesting the elimination of "race" gives me pause. If race is eliminated, it eliminates the truth of history. However, as we acknowledge that "race" is "an elephant in the room," we can figure out how it got there and how to get it out.
Acknowledging the existence of race, and historical racial inequities that contribute to present racial inequities might get us to a place where human beings can begin to transcend those parts of our identity.
You state your own identity is made up in part of another social construct (being Canadian). Not everyone states that their race is the most important part of their identity, but it is still important, even for people who have the luxury of ignoring it in the daily lives of others. It doesn't eliminate the fact that the majority of the people we used to call "black" are economically, educationally, and socially disadvantaged because of a shared history of discrimination.
Why does a person have to have a 'race' to have a cultural identity?
Just like people who identify themselves as "Canadian" have a shared history, as an indigenous person, I have a family and social history that I share with a number of other people, that plays out in my daily life, because a society I'm surrounded by made "race" a reality. I can't (and would not want to) give up that part of an identity that has meaning to me, any more than you would want to give up being "Canadian," because the shared history of you, your family, and your country has meaning to you.
The point isn't to ignore racism, it's to ignore race. The only reason racism exists is because race exists. If no one believed that skin colour defined a grouping of people, then there would be no group.
That's like saying, "There will be no poverty anymore if we didn't have any money." Of course, there was wealth and poverty before money (measured in land, livestock, and ownership of other people). There will be racism (an "us" vs. a "them") if race didn't exist - in the form of sexism, homophobia, competing religious ideologies, and catty middle school cafeteria insults about intelligence.
Race is a fundamental part of people's idenities, both empowering as well as harmful. Moreover, they are as central to identity as gender, language, and religion, if not moreso, so claiming that we should e-race the world is really not a very helpful effort. You give me three practical steps toward getting people to ignore race (something they SEE everytime they look at ANY person, whether or not they're right), and in the time it takes you to come up with them, I could come up with at least twenty practical steps to combatting racism that don't involve denying a person's right to a cultural identity and group.
I applaud your effort but perhaps you should go take a ride on the short-bus to school from now on.
Nothing helps an argument like insulting a person, now does it? I applaud your winning argument, you jackass.
I repeat: "Stop making race a big deal, and race stops being a big deal."
That's right! If you don't acknowledge its existence, it's not really there! Let's look to the myth of the noble Ostrich for an example of how to behave! (/sarcasm)
What's this "identity theft addict" balonium? Do you call bank robbers "bank robbing addicts"? All bad behavior is not addiction. The guy is a lowlife crook who found an easy way to make money and kept coming back to it, plain and simple.
According to one of the investigators, ""We were surprised at how forthcoming he was," Mr. Ruh said. "He was very proud of his accomplishments."
Looking back at some of Mr. Sharma's other comments in the article, I began to check off a number of traits that may or may not be evident: Glib and superficial charm; Grandiose sense of self-worth; Need for stimulation; Pathological lying; Conning and manipulativeness; Lack of remorse or guilt; Shallow affect; Callousness and lack of empathy; Parasitic lifestyle; Poor behavioral controls; Promiscuous sexual behavior; Early behavior problems; Lack of realistic, long-term goals; Impulsivity; Irresponsibility; Failure to accept responsibility for own actions; Many short-term marital relationships; Juvenile delinquency; Revocation of conditional release; Criminal versatility.
Those traits make up a common psychopath.
Many police cars here carry cameras on thier dashboards and tape you when they cops pull you over for a ticket!
Yup. And they are there for lots of good reasons. Not to spy on you, but in this day and age when police officers are often thrown into "he said/she said" court cases, video taped evidence is a good way to show something much closer to the truth. I think we often overlook that police officer behavior can also be watched, in addition to the behavior of the suspect.
There's lost that don't follow that script -- Hannibal for one, which is why I mentioned that actually. [SPOILER] Hannibal Lecter kills lots of people, dissects and eats some, and lives happily ever after with Clarice. Bestseller. Also see books by Clive Barker, etc.
That's why I put "good guys" and "bad guys" in quotes... While cannabalism is not good, Lecter is the "good guy" character we end up cheering for. We develop a kind of sympathy for him. SOme might even call him an anti-hero. However, there are no heros in child porn.
When I started counselling when I found out I had Asperger syndrome, the first thing she said is "its all confidential unless I think you will cause harm to anyone, anyone will cause harm to you, or anything involving children" so at the end of the day, if people who look at this want help, they cant get it.
Then you or your therapist did not do a thorough job in covering the details of confidentiality. If you (or someone who has a concern about getting treatment for pedophilia) ask, the therapist should tell you that there must be 1. an identifiable victim and 2. clear and imminent danger, in order to break confidentiality. There are people who specialize in the treatment of those with pedophillic interests, and help is available. And an honest, no-denial, no-BS, dialogue is necessary, and can be accomplished, without breaking those rules of confidentiality. When the confidentiality is broken, it is with good reason.
I think at least 4 of the top 5 are about murder, some presenting killing and rape in great, loving detail. Why then do not the millions of readers of these books find their appetites for murder and rape whetted? Why is it perfectly acceptable for maiden aunts to read Hannibal on a bus? Do any of them go home and crack open someone's skull to eat fresh brains?
How about simply because the murder isn't "glorified" or condoned? The interest that many people have in those books could be that the "good guys" win and the "bad guys" go punished.
In child porn on the other hand, someone is violated and disrespected in a terrible way. There is no known resolution where the bad guy gets caught. In fact, as the images are perpetuated throughout the Internet, the criminal is continuing to "brag" about the successful commission of their crime, and encourages others to do the same.
My experience? I perform much worse on these substances. Sometimes I'm jittery and cannot focus. At times I think and work so fast that I make many carless errors that end up taking me more time to fix than if I had done the work slower and did it right the first time. The drugs that kept me up and allowed me to work longer just took more of me the next day.
There is an interesting psychological phenomina that no-one else has mentioned, that your post reminded me of: State-Dependent Memory. Put simply, if you are learning the material while "sober," being on drugs impairs your memory. If you're on drugs when you're studying and on drugs when you take the test, then you tend to do about as well as "normal" for you. The basis for this is a 1977 study of people who drank alcohol and did a Memory test.
Or, in paraphrasing my professor, "You know that time you went out to the bar, and had a few drinks, got that hottie's number, and say 'I'll call you tomorrow' (and mean it)? Then the next day you wake up and can't remember the number? Try heading back to the bar, not just to try and run into them again, but to have those cues of the environment, emotions, and being under the same level of intoxication. It might help you remember. Or, if not, you'll have a few beers and you will care less about it."
I did, because it still ran Half-Life 2 and various mods for it. That was about the only reason I would dual-boot.
No way should you be able to stop a murderer, or someone having consentual sex with your 8 year old daughter, you don't get to control what they do.
I'm probably starting a needless off-topic rant here, but sex with an 8-year-old is never consentual. 8-year-olds aren't able to give consent to anything.
If I were making the rules; game rating should he based on the illegality of the activities in the game -- if there's murder or similar - keep it away from my kids. If it's minor misdemeanors (like this new game sounds like) that's better.
But what kind of boring videogame would that be?
"Hey kids! From the makers of the classic game 'Don't Run With Scissors!' comes 'Look Both Ways Before Crossing the Street!'"
I've been pursuing my PhD in Psychology for many years now, and the final piece for me was to take an internship for a year. Unfortunately, my plans fell through, and I ended up staying in California, where I ended up living with my significant other. Instead of me heading off on internship, she got accepted into graduate school, and I planned to move across the country to be with her. (I even turned down a 3-year contract job as a researcher, to follow her). Within a week of getting out there, however, an internship position opened up at a place I wanted to work. Unfortunately, it was a 5-hour drive away. Which isn't horrific, it just means we end up doing what you're worried about doing - just seeing each other on the weekends. Although we were disappointed that it ended up that way, we both knew the sooner that I got that done, the better. So I'm off on internship now. Of course, now that my internship is almost done, I'm looking to move back to find a job in her state.
I suppose the lesson here is that although you might move the family together, you never know what will happen. All things to those who wait, yadda yadda.
Oh, why didn't you take me instead, oh why!?!?!?
After the tragic death of Sparky and many others of his kind, I propose a memorial for our fallen robot heroes, with their rank, lifespan, and name visible for all to see.
Perhaps this could be an example?
I started on your tutorial, but two steps in Emacs closed on me.
Which is why the true test of computer literacy is this: Know your vi commands!
:wq!
Yes, you are being ridiculous. Nobody would consider such rice to be "human". I feel sorry for you because you are either stupid enough to actually think we might think a few human genes makes something human or you are just a sadly misinformed person with regards to how religious people think.
I didn't mean to ask because I was feeling particularly troll-ish or stupid (although, I didn't have any coffee in my system at the time I posted that). I was genuinely curious if anyone else thought that some Christian organization might object to genetically modified rice, because genetic modification is "playing God," or based on their belief of when human life begins. As the grandparent post suggested, if Muslims and Jews object to food that has incorporated pig genes, I didn't think it would be that far a leap. If numerous "Christian" organizations believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible, or that the world is flat, or Jesus was white, then what stops them from extending the "life begins at conception" argument to "a human life is determined/identified by its genetic material," to this? I don't think you can flat out say "nobody would think that."
On a side note, I sit on a couple of my church's national boards, and am constantly surprised by the weird and uninformed questions that get asked to various committees. I know most religious people would agree with you - God gave us brains for a reason. I think that God wishes we'd use them more often.
I was going to go a slightly different direction with this thought: I wonder if some Christian fundamentalists (are there any on slashdot, and why? ;) ) if they thought that adding human genes to rice means that the rice is human. I mean, they have already determined that life begins at conception, and that killing a fetus is wrong. Does having human genes confer a "soul" onto this rice? How much further a leap is it for someone to object to harvesting rice on religious grounds?
Or am I just being ridiculous?
that's a problem for people that only believe what they see on what they presume to be un-alterable video tape... but why not just ask the people that watched it happen.
As any psychologist will tell you, your memory is pretty easily alterable. Elizabeth Loftus is probably the most prominent name in the area of altering memories, and has done a number of interesting experiments.
My favorite experiment involves counting the number of passes that people make with a pair of basketballs in this video here (someone warn the University of Illinois, they might experience a slashdotting!).
After you've watched the tape, you can read about how perceptive you are (or aren't) in this article.
I can only assume that your argument is based on the assumption that there are lots of people with bombs on airplanes and that therefore there is a need to give carte blanche to air marshals. The only problem with this argument is that planes are not blowing up all the time nor are there lots of thwarted plots.
Well, your first mistake is making unwarranted assumptions. In fact, my thinking was closer to the opposite. First, I don't think law enforcement officials should ever get carte blanche in any situation. All of their actions should be overseen, scrutinized, and their actions should fit the circumstances (and if their behavior doesn't fit, they get prosecuted to the full extent of the law). Second, if the Air Marshals were seeing this kind of bizarre behavior all the time, then I would expect their training would be different, and the situation would be handled differently.
So what? Do all people travelling from there get shot? No, apparently only people acting crazy.
I'm saying that the chances of smuggling something from Columbia are slightly higher, so I imagine they're already suspicious. When you believe that your life and lives you are sworn to protect are being threatened by a person who is behaving in a crazy way, then what would you do in that officer's place?
A bomb small enough to go undetected would not do a lot of damage on the ground. It might have killed the agents, however, depending on how close they were. Even if he had some really evil explosives, more than a few pounds would be very hard to conceal.
Well, maybe I'm being "creative" (the result of too many bad movies, I'm sure) but a bomb could be elsewhere on the plane, and the detonator was all he had. What if it was near the hundred of gallons of jet fuel that are on planes and at airports? The point is, they did not know at that time. Hindsight is 20-20.
The air marshal program is nothing but a dog-and-pony show to give people a sense of security.
I'll agree that there is a great deal of false security involved in air transportation. However, they were placed in an unfortunate no-win situation, (if nothing, read the last paragraph) and having well-publicized security in place is a deterrent to some people who might attempt something outrageous.
Tell me again how these agents were doing their part to make air travel safer?
Let me flip that around - Tell me how you'd explain to the general population how allowing a mentally ill guy who is making bomb threats run free around an airport is safe or acceptable? I'm not saying that the answer is "shoot him, no questions," but the limited amount of information and the limited amount of time to make a different decision in this case just is not there. (Again, hindsight 20-20, and they are in a no-win situation).
They should be, since they apparently are allowed to shoot people for things they say.
As a mental health professional (PhD in Clinical Psychology), who has worked with dangerous populations (severely mentally ill people, both in and out of the legal system), the air marshals thought processes and training does not have time to include doing provisional rule-out diagnoses of mental illness. Even if they did have time to diagnose him with bipolar, or paranoid schizophrenia, he could still have a bomb and intend to harm people. They have to be law enforcement officers first.
That backpack had been x-rayed before it got on the plane.
1. He was traveling from Medellin, Columbia, a place not well-known for security and cooperation with law-enforcement. 2. Although I can't find more recent link to back it up right now, I'm sure that air marshals are aware that airport security still has a high failure rate at identifying dangerous materials coming on and off planes.
They didn't shoot him in the leg to stop him, they shot him dead!
Again, this is part of their training. Aiming for an arm or leg increases the chance of missing and hitting unintended targets. If he had a bomb, wounding him may have prompted him to try and detonate it.
You see no problem with the fact that plain-clothes officers shoot unarmed people to death because they will not follow orders yelled at them? No problem in the fact that these officers are not prosecuted, rather touted as heroes? Too bad for Mr. Alpizar he didn't get a trial, but hey, he had dark skin and said 'bomb', he should have known better, he deserved to die. Right?
The CNN article I linked to previously stated that both officers had clean records from their previous jobs. I don't think they should be touted as heroes though, and Mr. Alpizar certainly didn't deserve to die. They were people doing their job, in a way consistent with their training, in a manner that would be upheld by the court. Given their limited available information, they took steps to protect the greatest number of people.