I'm commenting on this topic late, so no one will ever read this except maybe you. But it is gratifying to know that at least one other person can look at the movie and say "Taken at face value, it sucks. Oh, it's satire, you say? Well as satire, it *also* sucks."
It has been noted many times that a work of satire cannot be too close to the thing it is satirizing, or it will simple *become* that thing. As far as I am concerned, Exhibit A would be this movie.
In fact, the last time I saw it, I remember thinking "I honestly cannot remember a movie that was more of a sneering insult from the director to his audience."
Then, you can take it to the next level with Ben Goodger's Smartsearch extension. With it, you can highlight terms in the browser, then use the contextual menu to search for those terms using the Quick Searches you already defined!
OK. I'm not trying to belittle you; I'm trying to help you. Keep that in mind as you read this.
They interfered with and then outright stopped inspections when they learned the US was planting CIA agents as American inspection team members.
No, they began interfering with inspections from day one. Ken Pollack's book, "The Threatening Storm," contains a good, readable chronology of all of Saddam's many, many, many efforts to delay, confuse and/or obstruct the inspection process. You really ought to read it.
... like most Americans you missed the news cast the rest of the world got where half the administration is busy saying (CYA) they have no evidence that Iraq was linked to terrorist groups.
Let's ignore your stupidly patronizing "like most Americans" comment for a moment. I notice that somehow, despite the fact that half the administration was saying something, you somehow managed to avoid including a *single example*. This is because the belief you are clinging to is, quite simply, wrong. Whether you belief Iraq had any connections with Al Qaeda or not (see here and here, for example) Saddam had a long and rich history of working with a wide variety of other terrorist outfits. Remember where Abu Abbas turned up? How about Abu Nidal? Why would *any* member of the administration (much less *half* of them) say this when Saddam himself announced he was going to pay money to the families of suicide bombers in Israel/Palestine?
We really did give him all that stuff he gassed the kurds with back in the 80's.
Another reply to this post already debunked this, so I won't go into it, except to point out that Saddam didn't NEED the U.S. to obtain chemical weapons. Any state with even a small amount of resources can easily synthesize those. It's just that most states DON'T.
if you care so much about the kurds, you should see what all that depleted uranium we dumped over there in ammunition is doing to them.
See here for a comprehensive overview of the "threat" surrounding depleted uranium. The scientific consensus: It's bunk. As for the claims you make in another post, about the increased cancer rate, you can't find any authoritative source for that, since there are none. Those numbers were invented out of whole cloth as pure Iraqi propaganda, meant to convince gullible suckers who will believe anything that casts the U.S. in a bad light.
You posted this to the wrong thread. I think you meant to post it to the thread about how spammers used long, rambling, nonsensical strings of random words to defeat bayesian filters.
As an interesting aside, a great deal of work has been done (of course) analyzing the mentality of convicts. James Q. Wilson has done some particularly interesting work in this area.
I remember one of his findings (this is from about 10 years ago, so forgive me if my memory is a little hazy) was that it wasn't that the criminals were necessarily *dumber* than average, but that they tended to have a much shorter *time horizon*: that is, the will or ability to delay immediate gratification in favor of future rewards.
Of course, this also doesn't factor in those who didn't get caught.
It should be noted that the intro to this piece -- and indeed, the BBC headline itself -- are a little misleading.
1. There is only one real fact in the piece: The British ambassador to Washington said that the American secretary of defense told him that "it was no longer obvious to him that the United States could not use force." Earthshaking, huh?
The rest of the piece is just more-or-less informed speculation.
2. Of course, I'm not trying to say American military planners *didn't* draw up contingency plans for seizing oil assets. In fact, quite the opposite: If they didn't, then they weren't doing their jobs. The BBC seems to consider this a remarkable revelation, but allow me to humbly suggest it would be more remarkable if military planners *didn't* include this fairly obvious scenario in their contingency planning.
A middle-aged family man and professional diplomat sits in the middle of space awaiting the Cylons, who haven't shown up at one of these meetings in 40 years. Suddenly the doors open, and in walks a sexy woman, dressed for a formal cocktail party and flanked by two huge robot guards. She comes around the desk, plants one on his kisser, AND HE STARTS MAKING OUT WITH HER!!!!!
NO SANE PERSON IN THE HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE WOULD EVER REACT LIKE THAT!! WHAT THE *$*#! KIND OF GALACTI-CRACK WERE THE WRITERS SMOKING!?!?!
And this doesn't even go into the question: Why didn't the cylons just blow up the station to begin with? What could the point of all that possibly have been?
So I'm wondering: Is there anyone who actually *liked* this scene?
Sometime in the mid- to early-90s, I read the book "Catch me if you can" by con-artist-turned-security-consultant Frank Abagnale. You may have seen the recent Spielberg movie based on this. This was in the pre-ATM days, but if I recall correctly, one of his scams was similar. First he would go to a uniform store and get a security guard uniform. Then he would have a professional looking sign printed up saying something like: "Night deposit out of order -- Leave deposit with security guard."
Anyway, at night, he would put up the sign and station himself outside a bank's night deposit drop box with a big bin. He says people would actually come up and toss bags of cash into the bin, because they just had an innate trust of people in uniform.
You know, when you communicate via computer like this, in a forum where argument reigns supreme, it is difficult to avoid seeming hostile or aggressive in your replies. As you read this, try to keep in mind that I'm neither. You raise some good points, but I think if you consider them a little longer, you'll also realize each has an answer.
1. Are weapons of mass destruction really a reason to go to war? By your logic we should go to war with India, Pakistan, North Korea, The United States, and several other countries.
This is one of those arguments that seems to makes sense--after all, shouldn't we be consistent in our actions?--until one thinks about it carefully.
Perhaps the foremost rule of war is "Choose Your Battles." Just because there are more than one threats to our security doesn't mean we are somehow obligated to respond equally to all of them. It's like saying we can't arrest all murderers, so we shouldn't arrest any. Or that we shouldn't have helped England in WWII, because we didn't help China against the Japanese.
More specifically, in the four cases you cited there are all good reasons not to go to war.
a) India. India is a peaceful and remarkably stable democracy. There is no threat it might provide nuclear weapons to Muslim fanatics. After all, India is mostly Hindu, and the Islamofascists hate them just as much as they hate us.
b) Pakistan. Pakistan already has nuclear weapons. This is worrisome indeed. So why don't we go to war with Pakistan? Because they might use them against us. Think about it. We went to war against Hussein in part because we didn't want him to become like Pakistan. But in the case of Pakistan itself, it's too late.
c) North Korea. North Korea may or may not already have nuclear weapons, but it doesn't need them. It's already got an ace in the hole: Thousands of pieces of conventional artillery dug into hardened emplacements and pointed at Seoul, pop. 10.5 million. It's difficult to imagine any scenario against North Korea that doesn't result in the deaths of >100,000 South Korean civilians.
d) The U.S. We'd go to war... with ourselves?
2. There is also doubt as to whether he had WMDs.
There certainly is doubt about whether Saddam had WMDs. There was also some doubt about it before we invaded Iraq. *That's why we invaded*. You really ought to read that Weekly Standard article again. That was the whole point. The UN demanded that Hussein satisfactorily demonstrate that he did *not* have WMDs. He refused.
3. How do we know they didn't exaggerate the numbers of WMDS to appear more dangerous?
Well, if this is in fact what he did, he succeeded. He did indeed make Iraq appear more dangerous. Of course, it was an incredibly stupid thing to do. In a collossal misreading of the Americans, he failed to understand the affect that 9/11 had on them. After that attack, the Americans decided they could no longer afford to ignore the potential "danger" he presented.
How many people actually voted on the post? Why don't the percentages add up to 100? And the post was almost totally factual--why would anyone mod it as overrated?
Actually, I specifically chose *that* block of text because I passionately believe in it, and find it incredibly moving.
Also, you really ought to read my post again. You are so ready to see me as "defend[ing] the current administration's self-indulgent behavior" that you overlook the fact that I don't actually *do* that anywhere in my post.
2) Why we went to war. You've heard the saying that no one is so blind as he who will not see?
3) I assume you're talking about the recession, which started when Clinton was in office, according to official government figures. Well gosh, where to begin.
4) Sure. We're going to the moon so Bush can distract us from a bad e-mail bill passed by Congress.
5) Sure. We're going to the moon so Bush can distract us from the RIAA and MPAA.
I could go on...
I'm sure you could. But I'd rather you didn't. - Alaska Jack
This block of text inserted to overcome Slashdot's stupid average-characters per line rule: WHEN in the Course of human Events, it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the Separation.
WE hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness -- That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, i
First, let me apologize. With my U.S.-o-centric thinking, I assumed you lived in the U.S. I probably would have worded my answers a little differently had I known this, as you may live in a country with a different conception of the rights of the citizen as opposed to the authority of the government.
Second, you mentioned using pepper spray and the like. I live in a relatively wild area, so I am quite familiar with pepper spray as a defense against bears. If I was a burglar, I would simply a) wear goggles, and b) pack a gun. Threat neutralized.
Third, the training issue. I would have no problems with stipulating that a gun owner would have to pass some sort of training course, similar to those one goes through to get a driver's license.
Finally, your critique about a culture of violence probably does contain some elements of truth. (It may surprise you to hear me say that; in my experience, most gun-control advocates assume pro-gun types are a bunch of unreflective neanderthals. I hope your mind is open to the possibility this may not be the case.) It is also a huge and difficult issue, about which many books have been written.
My own feeling is the answer is a better educational system for our young people, especially those in inner cities. But that would require some experimentation with different models, and there are certain elements of our society -- most specifically, teacher's unions -- with a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. Children be damned, they fight tooth and nail any proposal to try other models; vouchers, for example. They claim to be fighting for the children, of course, but in reality their fear isn't that these experiments will *fail*; it's that they will *succeed*, and we will find a way to give our children a better education at a lower cost.
There has a been a very small backlash against this educational monopoly. Whether it continues to grow or is squashed remains to be seen.
The law may give you right to kill the guy when he threatens you or your family's safety but it doesn't absolve you from any moral or emotional issues that most certainly would arise.
That's why I said I was glad I didn't have to kill the guy. For crying out loud, I'm not a cold-blooded assassin.
Look, you sound like a decent guy, and I'm not some nutcase who's going to heap abuse on you. But you suggested that firearms have no societal benefit. Here's a link I really should have posted to begin with. It's part of a weblog maintained by Clayton Cramer, an amateur historian who was one of those who helped expose the Michael Bellesiles fraud. It's a long, long list of articles culled from newspapers about civilians using guns in self-defense. It's not comprehensive, of course: It's just what his readers send him. But it's pretty extensive, and might help change your might about the "no societal benefit" thing.
No need to get hostile. I really don't have strong feelings about it one way or the other. The other responder posted a link where I can read more about Evolutionary Theorists' responses to Intelligent Design, and I am going to do so.
Let me just make two quick points, and again, these are not offered in a hostile spirit. First, the irrreducible complexity problem is obviously not "utter bullshit." Whether one believes in ID or not, IC is a serious critique of evol. theory, serious enough to send evol. theorists scrambling to find evolutinary precursors and the like. The IC hypothesis may be *wrong*, but that doesn't mean it's "utter bullshit" in the sense of being foolish or insincere.
Second, I would just note that stone masonry arches are indeed irreducibly complex, and we do indeed build them one stone at a time. On the other hand, "we" are intelligent designers.
I'll assume under that snottiness is a serious argument. And I'll admit I consider it a decent argument. But there are powerful counterarguments as well.
The argument is, basically, that people need weapons for either hunting or self-defense, and, therefore, they should only be allowed to have those kinds of weapons appropriate to each venture. So you're talking either hunting rifles only, or (if you concede that people should be allowed to defend themselves outside their homes) hunting rifles and small handguns with limited range and capacity. And they'd all be registered.
The problem is, even those pro-gun people who might normally accept those conditions don't believe you'd stop there. They believe those would only be the first steps in an effort to ban guns entirely. And the sad thing is, they're probably right. On a pro-gun website (I'm sorry, I can't remember which one) I once ran across a set of quotes from officials of various gun-control organizations which basically stated as much.
Perhaps we should adopt both approaches: First register all guns - complete with ballistic fingerprinting, etc. - then require every household in America to contain one.
Look, I'm going to try to be patient here. You clearly are not aware of most of the recent research regarding gun ownership and gun violence. Most of it is trending *away* from all those things the gun-control crowd claimed in the 60s, 70s and 80s; things which to you seem obvious but have no real basis in fact.
1. If "guns kill people", wouldn't more guns = more people getting killed? Yet this clearly does not seem to be the case. Rural areas of the West are riddled with guns, yet the rate of violent crime is relatively low.
Areas with strict gun control laws tend to have the highest rates of gun violence. Does this mean the laws themselves cause the violence? No, of course not. But criminals will always be able to get guns somewhere. Heck, you can find instructions for *making* crude guns on the internet. I'm sure you've heard the old cliche "When guns are criminalized, only criminals will have guns." Well, it's a cliche because it's true.
2. "They provide no measurable benefit to society."
Quick story: It's 2 a.m. My wife's in bed and I'm working at my computer when something smacks against the window next to me. At first, I think it must be my brother, coming over to my house and messing with me. But it's some crazy, semi-coherent due with blood all over his face, saying something about someone trying to kill him.
I kept him outside, handed him a blanket through the window, turned on the light outside, shut off all the lights inside, and called the cops. For the next twenty minutes I talked to him through the window, trying to calm him down (he was clearly "on" something -- I have no idea what). He walked around the house and tried to find a way in.
Twenty minutes later, the cops arrived. *That was a long twenty minutes* -- plenty of time for him to smash his way inside and do who knows what. But I wasn't too worried: I had a Ruger Redhawk tucked into the back of my waistband.
I'm glad I didn't have to kill that guy. But you'll never convince me guns provide no measureable benefit.
3. I could go on and on here, but I don't see much point. Just remember, when you hear a statistic like "a gun in the home means a 40% (or whatever) increase in the likelihood of a gun-related death)" look closely. Does it include burglars who were shot? Does it include suicides? Does it count the people whose lives were saved by a) shooting and killing intruders, b) wounding intruders, c) firing into the air and scaring off intruders, or d) simply showing a weapon to an intruder? Does it take into account the crimes never committed, because the potential perp feared an armed response?
There's a lot more. Try reading some of the recent gun control research (Eugene Volokh and Glenn Reynolds are two good places to start), or googling for "gun control myths" or something like that.
4. Finally, there is one single entity in this world responsible for you and your safety: You. We've assigned to the state the responsibility to extract vengeance, but THE STATE CANNOT ENSURE YOUR PERSONAL SAFETY, OR THAT OF THOSE YOU LOVE. If you prefer to pretend that it can, that's your choice. But you're really just playing a game of odds, and you have no right to force others to play that game as well.
I'm joking, of course -- mostly. Anyway, thank you for a lucid response. I'm not entirely convinced, but you make a good case.
It's kind of a funny test of Occam's Razor, isn't it? Which is the "simpler" explanation? A) To say we simply evolved by chance, rather than as the result of manipulation by some unseen but all-powerful deity, or B) It's simpler to suggest that someone was controlling the process as opposed to a preposterously unlikely combination of events. It strikes me that the case can be made that each of these are "simpler" than the other, and that what one chooses to believe probably says more about the chooser than it does about the actual likelihood of either.
Also, the sequence of events resulting in the lifeless universe you mentioned: Isn't that the ultimate example of the old "If a tree fell in the forest" question? I mean, if the universe exists as a bunch of cold rocks floating in space, with no one there to acknowledge its existence, can it really be said to exist in any practical way?
But enough of that. I'd like to read up on the 'irreducible complexity' problem WRT the eye. Can you point me in the right direction?
It should be noted that serious questions have been raised about Lott's statistical methods in this book. I don't know enough about statistics to know if the criticisms are valid or not, but I do know they have caused other highly regarded second amendment scholars to suggest caution, and distance themselves from him (in the academic sense, not the "Ok now, back away slowwllyyy" sense).
HOWEVER: There is another important factor here. When Lott's critics adjust his findings in ways they say are more statistically valid, they show (or so they claim) that crime rates don't drop with increasing gun ownership. *But they also show that rates don't show a statistically significant INCREASE, either.*
This in itself is a very important finding, since the central claim of gun control proponents has been that if you make it easier for people to own guns, the crime rate will go UP. Lott's research suggests that isn't the case.
2. Despite what the following may suggest, I don't know much about "Intelligent Design." But from the context I think I get a pretty good idea of what it means.
3. I don't care much about either side of the debate. In other words, emotionally, I don't have a dog in this fight. And I don't think emotion helps solve these questions anyway.
4. Even I can see that there are some problems that Evolutionary Theory hasn't adequately explained, the nonreducible complexity problem perhaps foremost among these. And that's a pretty fundamental problem. I'm not saying Evolutionary Theory won't come up with a convincing way to explain this. But it hasn't yet.*
5. You may indeed have "superior counter-argument[s]." But your analogy to a lottery winner is silly. A lottery, after all, is the product of *sound of slap on the forehead* intelligent design. There is a foreordained conclusion created by the people that run the lottery: The fact that there will be one winner. Sure, they don't know exactly who that will be, but so what? In the context of the analogy, that's like saying you don't know exactly what individuals evolution will produce. So?
The relevant alternative is not for someone other than Bob to win the lottery -- the alternative is for there to *be no lottery at all*. And yet once an intelligently designed lottery is established, it becomes inevitable that someone/(some planet) will will win/(evolve life), because that is the whole point of the scheme.
I look forward to reading your superior counter-argument.
- Alaska Jack
* A few years back I read a whole book -- it's name and author (Gould, maybe?), of course, completely escape me -- purporting to address the nonreducible complexity problem. It was monumentally unconvincing. It sort of gave the reader the feeling "Geez, if this is the best they could do...". Then again, perhaps the problem has been more successfully addressed elsewhere.
1. Paper Ballot 2. Pen or pencil 3. Assistance for the statistically insignificant minority physically unable to use aforementioned. 4. Monitoring of ballot transportation and counting by anyone who cares to do so.
Any problems with that? Sure. But the system as a whole compares favorably to pretty much every other proposal and *their* inherent drawbacks.
The only thing I would add is perhaps giving each ballot a number, then later publishing the results on-line (i.e., ballot number such-and-such registered the following votes... ).
I always thought the best improvement/. could make would be to incorporate a navigational sidebar for comments, of the type Google uses when you do a Google Groups search. That's a very useful and intuitive interface IMHO.
Slashdot Mirror
How do scammers pad their feedback? Do they "buy" things from themselves?
- Alaska Jack
Doc -
I'm commenting on this topic late, so no one will ever read this except maybe you. But it is gratifying to know that at least one other person can look at the movie and say "Taken at face value, it sucks. Oh, it's satire, you say? Well as satire, it *also* sucks."
It has been noted many times that a work of satire cannot be too close to the thing it is satirizing, or it will simple *become* that thing. As far as I am concerned, Exhibit A would be this movie.
In fact, the last time I saw it, I remember thinking "I honestly cannot remember a movie that was more of a sneering insult from the director to his audience."
- Alaska Jack
One of your points overlooks one of Fire(n)'s best features: Quick Searches.
These let you set up pretty much any search you want to, using just the URL bar. For example, mine is set up so that typing:
g = Google search
gg = Google Groups search
movie = IMDb title search
actor = IMDb person search
word = Dictionary.com search
That way you can get rid of the search bar, and save a lot of toolbar real estate.
See this for more info.
Then, you can take it to the next level with Ben Goodger's Smartsearch extension. With it, you can highlight terms in the browser, then use the contextual menu to search for those terms using the Quick Searches you already defined!
OK. I'm not trying to belittle you; I'm trying to help you. Keep that in mind as you read this.
They interfered with and then outright stopped inspections when they learned the US was planting CIA agents as American inspection team members.
No, they began interfering with inspections from day one. Ken Pollack's book, "The Threatening Storm," contains a good, readable chronology of all of Saddam's many, many, many efforts to delay, confuse and/or obstruct the inspection process. You really ought to read it.
Let's ignore your stupidly patronizing "like most Americans" comment for a moment. I notice that somehow, despite the fact that half the administration was saying something, you somehow managed to avoid including a *single example*. This is because the belief you are clinging to is, quite simply, wrong. Whether you belief Iraq had any connections with Al Qaeda or not (see here and here, for example) Saddam had a long and rich history of working with a wide variety of other terrorist outfits. Remember where Abu Abbas turned up? How about Abu Nidal? Why would *any* member of the administration (much less *half* of them) say this when Saddam himself announced he was going to pay money to the families of suicide bombers in Israel/Palestine?
We really did give him all that stuff he gassed the kurds with back in the 80's.
Another reply to this post already debunked this, so I won't go into it, except to point out that Saddam didn't NEED the U.S. to obtain chemical weapons. Any state with even a small amount of resources can easily synthesize those. It's just that most states DON'T.
if you care so much about the kurds, you should see what all that depleted uranium we dumped over there in ammunition is doing to them.
See here for a comprehensive overview of the "threat" surrounding depleted uranium. The scientific consensus: It's bunk. As for the claims you make in another post, about the increased cancer rate, you can't find any authoritative source for that, since there are none. Those numbers were invented out of whole cloth as pure Iraqi propaganda, meant to convince gullible suckers who will believe anything that casts the U.S. in a bad light.
Sound familiar?
- Alaska Jack
You posted this to the wrong thread. I think you meant to post it to the thread about how spammers used long, rambling, nonsensical strings of random words to defeat bayesian filters.
Alaska Jack
As an interesting aside, a great deal of work has been done (of course) analyzing the mentality of convicts. James Q. Wilson has done some particularly interesting work in this area.
I remember one of his findings (this is from about 10 years ago, so forgive me if my memory is a little hazy) was that it wasn't that the criminals were necessarily *dumber* than average, but that they tended to have a much shorter *time horizon*: that is, the will or ability to delay immediate gratification in favor of future rewards.
Of course, this also doesn't factor in those who didn't get caught.
It should be noted that the intro to this piece -- and indeed, the BBC headline itself -- are a little misleading.
1. There is only one real fact in the piece: The British ambassador to Washington said that the American secretary of defense told him that "it was no longer obvious to him that the United States could not use force." Earthshaking, huh?
The rest of the piece is just more-or-less informed speculation.
2. Of course, I'm not trying to say American military planners *didn't* draw up contingency plans for seizing oil assets. In fact, quite the opposite: If they didn't, then they weren't doing their jobs. The BBC seems to consider this a remarkable revelation, but allow me to humbly suggest it would be more remarkable if military planners *didn't* include this fairly obvious scenario in their contingency planning.
- Alaska Jack
Let me get this straight:
A middle-aged family man and professional diplomat sits in the middle of space awaiting the Cylons, who haven't shown up at one of these meetings in 40 years. Suddenly the doors open, and in walks a sexy woman, dressed for a formal cocktail party and flanked by two huge robot guards. She comes around the desk, plants one on his kisser, AND HE STARTS MAKING OUT WITH HER!!!!!
NO SANE PERSON IN THE HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE WOULD EVER REACT LIKE THAT!! WHAT THE *$*#! KIND OF GALACTI-CRACK WERE THE WRITERS SMOKING!?!?!
And this doesn't even go into the question: Why didn't the cylons just blow up the station to begin with? What could the point of all that possibly have been?
So I'm wondering: Is there anyone who actually *liked* this scene?
- Mystified in Alaska
Sometime in the mid- to early-90s, I read the book "Catch me if you can" by con-artist-turned-security-consultant Frank Abagnale. You may have seen the recent Spielberg movie based on this. This was in the pre-ATM days, but if I recall correctly, one of his scams was similar. First he would go to a uniform store and get a security guard uniform. Then he would have a professional looking sign printed up saying something like: "Night deposit out of order -- Leave deposit with security guard."
Anyway, at night, he would put up the sign and station himself outside a bank's night deposit drop box with a big bin. He says people would actually come up and toss bags of cash into the bin, because they just had an innate trust of people in uniform.
You know, when you communicate via computer like this, in a forum where argument reigns supreme, it is difficult to avoid seeming hostile or aggressive in your replies. As you read this, try to keep in mind that I'm neither. You raise some good points, but I think if you consider them a little longer, you'll also realize each has an answer.
1. Are weapons of mass destruction really a reason to go to war? By your logic we should go to war with India, Pakistan, North Korea, The United States, and several other countries.
This is one of those arguments that seems to makes sense--after all, shouldn't we be consistent in our actions?--until one thinks about it carefully.
Perhaps the foremost rule of war is "Choose Your Battles." Just because there are more than one threats to our security doesn't mean we are somehow obligated to respond equally to all of them. It's like saying we can't arrest all murderers, so we shouldn't arrest any. Or that we shouldn't have helped England in WWII, because we didn't help China against the Japanese.
More specifically, in the four cases you cited there are all good reasons not to go to war.
a) India. India is a peaceful and remarkably stable democracy. There is no threat it might provide nuclear weapons to Muslim fanatics. After all, India is mostly Hindu, and the Islamofascists hate them just as much as they hate us.
b) Pakistan. Pakistan already has nuclear weapons. This is worrisome indeed. So why don't we go to war with Pakistan? Because they might use them against us. Think about it. We went to war against Hussein in part because we didn't want him to become like Pakistan. But in the case of Pakistan itself, it's too late.
c) North Korea. North Korea may or may not already have nuclear weapons, but it doesn't need them. It's already got an ace in the hole: Thousands of pieces of conventional artillery dug into hardened emplacements and pointed at Seoul, pop. 10.5 million. It's difficult to imagine any scenario against North Korea that doesn't result in the deaths of >100,000 South Korean civilians.
d) The U.S. We'd go to war ... with ourselves?
2. There is also doubt as to whether he had WMDs.
There certainly is doubt about whether Saddam had WMDs. There was also some doubt about it before we invaded Iraq. *That's why we invaded*. You really ought to read that Weekly Standard article again. That was the whole point. The UN demanded that Hussein satisfactorily demonstrate that he did *not* have WMDs. He refused.
3. How do we know they didn't exaggerate the numbers of WMDS to appear more dangerous?
Well, if this is in fact what he did, he succeeded. He did indeed make Iraq appear more dangerous. Of course, it was an incredibly stupid thing to do. In a collossal misreading of the Americans, he failed to understand the affect that 9/11 had on them. After that attack, the Americans decided they could no longer afford to ignore the potential "danger" he presented.
Say, can you help me understand how this works?
The moderation results on that comment were:
Moderation +1
20% Insightful
40% Overrated
20% Interesting
How many people actually voted on the post? Why don't the percentages add up to 100? And the post was almost totally factual--why would anyone mod it as overrated?
Thanks for whatever insight you can provide.
- AJ
Actually, I specifically chose *that* block of text because I passionately believe in it, and find it incredibly moving.
Also, you really ought to read my post again. You are so ready to see me as "defend[ing] the current administration's self-indulgent behavior" that you overlook the fact that I don't actually *do* that anywhere in my post.
1) So? Come on, get serious.
2) Why we went to war. You've heard the saying that no one is so blind as he who will not see?
3) I assume you're talking about the recession, which started when Clinton was in office, according to official government figures. Well gosh, where to begin.
Service Sector Hiring Hits 3.5-Year High
NASDAQ, Dow Soar on Productivity Gains
For Home Loans, a Steady Market
Two Reports Indicate Recovery Is Taking Hold
Productivity Makes Best Gains in 20 Years
Auto Sales Rise with Economy
Shares Reach 18-Month Highs on Manufacturing News
Holiday Spending Shows Strength
Reports Indicate the Economy is Continuing its Expansion
Economy's Growth Is Revised Upward to 8.2%
U.S. Economic Growth Hits New Records
Number of New Jobless Claims Fell Last Week
Housing Starts In October Near 18-Year High
Economists Expect An Increase of 135,000 Jobs
Consumer Prices Steady After Four-Month Climb
Durable Goods Jump, Jobless Claims Drop
4) Sure. We're going to the moon so Bush can distract us from a bad e-mail bill passed by Congress.
5) Sure. We're going to the moon so Bush can distract us from the RIAA and MPAA.
I could go on ...
I'm sure you could. But I'd rather you didn't. - Alaska Jack
This block of text inserted to overcome Slashdot's stupid average-characters per line rule: WHEN in the Course of human Events, it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the Separation. WE hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness -- That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, i
Who is Johnson? - AJ
bhima -
First, let me apologize. With my U.S.-o-centric thinking, I assumed you lived in the U.S. I probably would have worded my answers a little differently had I known this, as you may live in a country with a different conception of the rights of the citizen as opposed to the authority of the government.
Second, you mentioned using pepper spray and the like. I live in a relatively wild area, so I am quite familiar with pepper spray as a defense against bears. If I was a burglar, I would simply a) wear goggles, and b) pack a gun. Threat neutralized.
Third, the training issue. I would have no problems with stipulating that a gun owner would have to pass some sort of training course, similar to those one goes through to get a driver's license.
Finally, your critique about a culture of violence probably does contain some elements of truth. (It may surprise you to hear me say that; in my experience, most gun-control advocates assume pro-gun types are a bunch of unreflective neanderthals. I hope your mind is open to the possibility this may not be the case.) It is also a huge and difficult issue, about which many books have been written.
My own feeling is the answer is a better educational system for our young people, especially those in inner cities. But that would require some experimentation with different models, and there are certain elements of our society -- most specifically, teacher's unions -- with a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. Children be damned, they fight tooth and nail any proposal to try other models; vouchers, for example. They claim to be fighting for the children, of course, but in reality their fear isn't that these experiments will *fail*; it's that they will *succeed*, and we will find a way to give our children a better education at a lower cost.
There has a been a very small backlash against this educational monopoly. Whether it continues to grow or is squashed remains to be seen.
- Alaska Jack
The law may give you right to kill the guy when he threatens you or your family's safety but it doesn't absolve you from any moral or emotional issues that most certainly would arise.
That's why I said I was glad I didn't have to kill the guy. For crying out loud, I'm not a cold-blooded assassin.
Look, you sound like a decent guy, and I'm not some nutcase who's going to heap abuse on you. But you suggested that firearms have no societal benefit. Here's a link I really should have posted to begin with. It's part of a weblog maintained by Clayton Cramer, an amateur historian who was one of those who helped expose the Michael Bellesiles fraud. It's a long, long list of articles culled from newspapers about civilians using guns in self-defense. It's not comprehensive, of course: It's just what his readers send him. But it's pretty extensive, and might help change your might about the "no societal benefit" thing.
- Alaska Jack
No need to get hostile. I really don't have strong feelings about it one way or the other. The other responder posted a link where I can read more about Evolutionary Theorists' responses to Intelligent Design, and I am going to do so.
Let me just make two quick points, and again, these are not offered in a hostile spirit. First, the irrreducible complexity problem is obviously not "utter bullshit." Whether one believes in ID or not, IC is a serious critique of evol. theory, serious enough to send evol. theorists scrambling to find evolutinary precursors and the like. The IC hypothesis may be *wrong*, but that doesn't mean it's "utter bullshit" in the sense of being foolish or insincere.
Second, I would just note that stone masonry arches are indeed irreducibly complex, and we do indeed build them one stone at a time. On the other hand, "we" are intelligent designers.
I'll assume under that snottiness is a serious argument. And I'll admit I consider it a decent argument. But there are powerful counterarguments as well.
The argument is, basically, that people need weapons for either hunting or self-defense, and, therefore, they should only be allowed to have those kinds of weapons appropriate to each venture. So you're talking either hunting rifles only, or (if you concede that people should be allowed to defend themselves outside their homes) hunting rifles and small handguns with limited range and capacity. And they'd all be registered.
The problem is, even those pro-gun people who might normally accept those conditions don't believe you'd stop there. They believe those would only be the first steps in an effort to ban guns entirely. And the sad thing is, they're probably right. On a pro-gun website (I'm sorry, I can't remember which one) I once ran across a set of quotes from officials of various gun-control organizations which basically stated as much.
Perhaps we should adopt both approaches: First register all guns - complete with ballistic fingerprinting, etc. - then require every household in America to contain one.
Look, I'm going to try to be patient here. You clearly are not aware of most of the recent research regarding gun ownership and gun violence. Most of it is trending *away* from all those things the gun-control crowd claimed in the 60s, 70s and 80s; things which to you seem obvious but have no real basis in fact.
1. If "guns kill people", wouldn't more guns = more people getting killed? Yet this clearly does not seem to be the case. Rural areas of the West are riddled with guns, yet the rate of violent crime is relatively low.
Areas with strict gun control laws tend to have the highest rates of gun violence. Does this mean the laws themselves cause the violence? No, of course not. But criminals will always be able to get guns somewhere. Heck, you can find instructions for *making* crude guns on the internet. I'm sure you've heard the old cliche "When guns are criminalized, only criminals will have guns." Well, it's a cliche because it's true.
2. "They provide no measurable benefit to society."
Quick story: It's 2 a.m. My wife's in bed and I'm working at my computer when something smacks against the window next to me. At first, I think it must be my brother, coming over to my house and messing with me. But it's some crazy, semi-coherent due with blood all over his face, saying something about someone trying to kill him.
I kept him outside, handed him a blanket through the window, turned on the light outside, shut off all the lights inside, and called the cops. For the next twenty minutes I talked to him through the window, trying to calm him down (he was clearly "on" something -- I have no idea what). He walked around the house and tried to find a way in.
Twenty minutes later, the cops arrived. *That was a long twenty minutes* -- plenty of time for him to smash his way inside and do who knows what. But I wasn't too worried: I had a Ruger Redhawk tucked into the back of my waistband.
I'm glad I didn't have to kill that guy. But you'll never convince me guns provide no measureable benefit.
3. I could go on and on here, but I don't see much point. Just remember, when you hear a statistic like "a gun in the home means a 40% (or whatever) increase in the likelihood of a gun-related death)" look closely. Does it include burglars who were shot? Does it include suicides? Does it count the people whose lives were saved by a) shooting and killing intruders, b) wounding intruders, c) firing into the air and scaring off intruders, or d) simply showing a weapon to an intruder? Does it take into account the crimes never committed, because the potential perp feared an armed response?
There's a lot more. Try reading some of the recent gun control research (Eugene Volokh and Glenn Reynolds are two good places to start), or googling for "gun control myths" or something like that.
4. Finally, there is one single entity in this world responsible for you and your safety: You. We've assigned to the state the responsibility to extract vengeance, but THE STATE CANNOT ENSURE YOUR PERSONAL SAFETY, OR THAT OF THOSE YOU LOVE. If you prefer to pretend that it can, that's your choice. But you're really just playing a game of odds, and you have no right to force others to play that game as well.
Yes, but what would be the point?
I'm joking, of course -- mostly. Anyway, thank you for a lucid response. I'm not entirely convinced, but you make a good case.
It's kind of a funny test of Occam's Razor, isn't it? Which is the "simpler" explanation? A) To say we simply evolved by chance, rather than as the result of manipulation by some unseen but all-powerful deity, or B) It's simpler to suggest that someone was controlling the process as opposed to a preposterously unlikely combination of events. It strikes me that the case can be made that each of these are "simpler" than the other, and that what one chooses to believe probably says more about the chooser than it does about the actual likelihood of either.
Also, the sequence of events resulting in the lifeless universe you mentioned: Isn't that the ultimate example of the old "If a tree fell in the forest" question? I mean, if the universe exists as a bunch of cold rocks floating in space, with no one there to acknowledge its existence, can it really be said to exist in any practical way?
But enough of that. I'd like to read up on the 'irreducible complexity' problem WRT the eye. Can you point me in the right direction?
- Alaska Jack
It should be noted that serious questions have been raised about Lott's statistical methods in this book. I don't know enough about statistics to know if the criticisms are valid or not, but I do know they have caused other highly regarded second amendment scholars to suggest caution, and distance themselves from him (in the academic sense, not the "Ok now, back away slowwllyyy" sense).
HOWEVER: There is another important factor here. When Lott's critics adjust his findings in ways they say are more statistically valid, they show (or so they claim) that crime rates don't drop with increasing gun ownership. *But they also show that rates don't show a statistically significant INCREASE, either.*
This in itself is a very important finding, since the central claim of gun control proponents has been that if you make it easier for people to own guns, the crime rate will go UP. Lott's research suggests that isn't the case.
1. I believe in evolution.
...". Then again, perhaps the problem has been more successfully addressed elsewhere.
2. Despite what the following may suggest, I don't know much about "Intelligent Design." But from the context I think I get a pretty good idea of what it means.
3. I don't care much about either side of the debate. In other words, emotionally, I don't have a dog in this fight. And I don't think emotion helps solve these questions anyway.
4. Even I can see that there are some problems that Evolutionary Theory hasn't adequately explained, the nonreducible complexity problem perhaps foremost among these. And that's a pretty fundamental problem. I'm not saying Evolutionary Theory won't come up with a convincing way to explain this. But it hasn't yet.*
5. You may indeed have "superior counter-argument[s]." But your analogy to a lottery winner is silly. A lottery, after all, is the product of *sound of slap on the forehead* intelligent design. There is a foreordained conclusion created by the people that run the lottery: The fact that there will be one winner. Sure, they don't know exactly who that will be, but so what? In the context of the analogy, that's like saying you don't know exactly what individuals evolution will produce. So?
The relevant alternative is not for someone other than Bob to win the lottery -- the alternative is for there to *be no lottery at all*. And yet once an intelligently designed lottery is established, it becomes inevitable that someone/(some planet) will will win/(evolve life), because that is the whole point of the scheme.
I look forward to reading your superior counter-argument.
- Alaska Jack
* A few years back I read a whole book -- it's name and author (Gould, maybe?), of course, completely escape me -- purporting to address the nonreducible complexity problem. It was monumentally unconvincing. It sort of gave the reader the feeling "Geez, if this is the best they could do
1. Paper Ballot
... ).
2. Pen or pencil
3. Assistance for the statistically insignificant minority physically unable to use aforementioned.
4. Monitoring of ballot transportation and counting by anyone who cares to do so.
Any problems with that? Sure. But the system as a whole compares favorably to pretty much every other proposal and *their* inherent drawbacks.
The only thing I would add is perhaps giving each ballot a number, then later publishing the results on-line (i.e., ballot number such-and-such registered the following votes
Not very sexy, but there you go.
I hope the master/slave devices weren't coupled together with male/female connectors.
I always thought the best improvement /. could make would be to incorporate a navigational sidebar for comments, of the type Google uses when you do a Google Groups search. That's a very useful and intuitive interface IMHO.