The theory would be something along the lines of...
"We just manufactured an extra body. It appears no different from the original. Thus either the duplicate has a soul, and a soul is a physical part of the body (aka brain), or the new being has no soul, and therefore, neither does anyone."
Flawed logic, in my opinion... how can anyone really be sure that other people have thoughts... perhaps I am the only being who has them, and all the others are just pretending as it were.
It's a distribution problem. Recall U.S. efforts to "feed the hungry" in a bunch of third-world countries... local warlords take all the food, the people end up no better off...
Actually this is higly useful if you, say, want to catch a 12:01 showing of Star Wars Ep. III at a popular theatre... Buy the tickets at home 3 weeks out.
You still have to show up 5 or 6 hours early to get good seats, but you don't have to worry about tickets (which will be sold out several days in advance).
Well, I've heard two differing opinions from libertarians about this issue.
Viewpoint #1: Seeing as one of the few responsabilities of the federal government is to provide for the common defense, it would be within the governments authority to take steps to prevent terrorist attacks. They could collect intelligence (but not by spying inside the US), put the army on the border of the US instead of in places like Iraq, control immigration, including stomping on people who overstay their visas and sending them home (or to jail, depending on what else they've done).
Viewpoint #2: If we were not a major player in world politics by sending military support and invading forces all over the world we'd be less likely to be targetted. In addition, if there was no single real military -- just bunches of people with guns in militias, there'd be nothing of interest to target anyway -- after all, how can you topple a government that really isn't there to begin with.
My personal opinion is that Viewpoint #1 has some sense to it, and that it could be expanded upon a bit to make a sensible "foreign policy" out of.
My other personal opinion on this matter is that Viewpoint #2 is insane, as the terrorists don't particularly care about the U.S. government, so much as killing Americans... Why else attack civilian organizations?
So... yeah... Viewpoint #1 is how libertarian's would stop Al Qaeda, and Viewpoint #2 is how they would... erm... not stop Al Qaeda.
Our current policy of attacking suspected terrorists everywhere in the world, and then letting them cross the border and get valid Driver's Licenses without providing any ID documents whatsoever is... erm... shall we say, not likely to succeed.
-- On a side-note some of the true anarchists who also carry the banner of the libertarian would say that eventually private security companies would rise up and do about the same thing that our government does now. I'm not sure how that's any better, and I definitely see how that could take centuries at least, so... I don't buy it... but hey...
Sure, I'll pick up the libertarian viewpoint on this one.
Simple. If there were a collection of companies that made and operated rockets in space, and no government organization mandating that all either meet certain minimum safety guidelines or inform all passengers of the risk, then guess what would happen.
There'd be an annual Consumer Reports indicating the safety and general goodness of every brand of rocket, and every Spaceline, comparing each on 50 different categories...
And if they didn't, the insurance companies that would inevitably be called upon to insure space vehicles would do their own tests so that they could decide how much to charge each. This information would then be made available to the public, mostly by the recipients of the "5 star safety rating" advertising on TV.
The government isn't the only entity capable or interested in insuring (or measuring) safety, contrary to increasingly popular beliefs.
I don't know that much about oil drilling costs, but putting a 50% tax on Iraqi oil would mean that Iraq would have to charge at most 75% of what the "open market" does.
Since the open market is essentially a cartel, thus keeping prices extremely high compared with "production" costs, there would be room for Iraq to charge considerably less than the going rate and still probably make a profit.
Remember that oil is currently in the $40 - $50 / barrel range, when not much more than a year ago it dipped into the $26-$27 range... I do not believe that the cost of drilling and shipping the oil increased that much... if Iraq sold its oil for $25/barrel, after taxes it'd be $37.50. That would still be a bargain price on the current market.
Not that I'm recommending such a tax -- I don't think it is appropriate or fair. However, it would not completely obliterate the Iraqi oil market. It would take the cartel deciding to boost production to lower prices so that Iraq was forced to either sell oil at a loss or stop producting all together that would make it so that nobody bought Iraqi oil.
Oh, come on... cellphones rarely last longer than the 1-2 year contracts people sign anyway...
And besides, they're practically free anyway. I mean, I just got a new cellphone... I picked the "upgraded" model that cost a whole $59.99...
It has a 1-year warranty, and I have to keep it at least 21 months. If I get a new one sooner, then I have to pay the $250 buy-a-cellphone-without-new-service fee. But guess what... in 21 months I can get a new one. And I probably will -- the things are made so cheaply (so that they can be sold for only $0 - $60 or so) that they rarely last longer than that anyway...
Slashdot Mirror
Its not spam.
It is, however, [e-]mail fraud
since all the books are 3-dimensional, and the area is only 2-dimensional:
0.00 LoC fit inside the cross-sectional area of a pulsar.
The theory would be something along the lines of...
"We just manufactured an extra body. It appears no different from the original. Thus either the duplicate has a soul, and a soul is a physical part of the body (aka brain), or the new being has no soul, and therefore, neither does anyone."
Flawed logic, in my opinion... how can anyone really be sure that other people have thoughts... perhaps I am the only being who has them, and all the others are just pretending as it were.
Cool... that way the cube grows over time, until it spills out of the datacenter and covers the world in its data-y goodness!!
Correct. Food is not a production problem.
It's a distribution problem. Recall U.S. efforts to "feed the hungry" in a bunch of third-world countries... local warlords take all the food, the people end up no better off...
I assume, however, if I want my kid to go to the store and buy a copy of GTA for me on his way home from school, you will stop me.
Right?
Hey, I have a crazy idea. Let the credit card companies implement whatever random requirements they want in order to help security.
Oh, wait. They already did.
And either way you've killed a bunch of angry drunk guys who didn't see it coming.
More important is how many humans on airplanes will it kill?
I bet you could if you tried...
In Soviet Russia Blimp Crashes YOU!
err... wait...
(Apparently I can't resist either)
Actually this is higly useful if you, say, want to catch a 12:01 showing of Star Wars Ep. III at a popular theatre... Buy the tickets at home 3 weeks out.
You still have to show up 5 or 6 hours early to get good seats, but you don't have to worry about tickets (which will be sold out several days in advance).
Linus has to spend the money and time to get a patent of foo_open() which may or may not be valid.
Linus only has to write foo_open() for it to be automatically covered by copyright.
No it's not.
Just put it in you Gameboy Player... that thing still plays Gameboy / Gameboy Color / Gameboy Advance... alas but it does not do DS...
In Soviet Russia Slashdot Cliches YOU!
there are already .AOL files... they were special AOL-only graphics... did they get rid of those ever? Haven't been on AOL since Version 2 for DOS...
Forgive me for taking your joke seriously.
(Or don't and just deal with it; your choice)
Well, I've heard two differing opinions from libertarians about this issue.
Viewpoint #1: Seeing as one of the few responsabilities of the federal government is to provide for the common defense, it would be within the governments authority to take steps to prevent terrorist attacks. They could collect intelligence (but not by spying inside the US), put the army on the border of the US instead of in places like Iraq, control immigration, including stomping on people who overstay their visas and sending them home (or to jail, depending on what else they've done).
Viewpoint #2: If we were not a major player in world politics by sending military support and invading forces all over the world we'd be less likely to be targetted. In addition, if there was no single real military -- just bunches of people with guns in militias, there'd be nothing of interest to target anyway -- after all, how can you topple a government that really isn't there to begin with.
My personal opinion is that Viewpoint #1 has some sense to it, and that it could be expanded upon a bit to make a sensible "foreign policy" out of.
My other personal opinion on this matter is that Viewpoint #2 is insane, as the terrorists don't particularly care about the U.S. government, so much as killing Americans... Why else attack civilian organizations?
So... yeah... Viewpoint #1 is how libertarian's would stop Al Qaeda, and Viewpoint #2 is how they would... erm... not stop Al Qaeda.
Our current policy of attacking suspected terrorists everywhere in the world, and then letting them cross the border and get valid Driver's Licenses without providing any ID documents whatsoever is... erm... shall we say, not likely to succeed.
--
On a side-note some of the true anarchists who also carry the banner of the libertarian would say that eventually private security companies would rise up and do about the same thing that our government does now. I'm not sure how that's any better, and I definitely see how that could take centuries at least, so... I don't buy it... but hey...
Sure, I'll pick up the libertarian viewpoint on this one.
Simple. If there were a collection of companies that made and operated rockets in space, and no government organization mandating that all either meet certain minimum safety guidelines or inform all passengers of the risk, then guess what would happen.
There'd be an annual Consumer Reports indicating the safety and general goodness of every brand of rocket, and every Spaceline, comparing each on 50 different categories...
And if they didn't, the insurance companies that would inevitably be called upon to insure space vehicles would do their own tests so that they could decide how much to charge each. This information would then be made available to the public, mostly by the recipients of the "5 star safety rating" advertising on TV.
The government isn't the only entity capable or interested in insuring (or measuring) safety, contrary to increasingly popular beliefs.
I *know* I have.
Teachers are in positions of power. Students are most definitely the "ruled"
People in power rarely like being challenged by those they can exert said power over.
But your parents probably didn't treat you in the same way.
I know that my parents did things much differently with me than they did with my brother.
PII-450 did in fact exist.
I just retired a machine that used it.
It is flamebait because it challenges one of the core slashdot beliefs:
/. to add +5 for "flamebait" and you'll find them.
In this case, that all AMD products are infinitely superior to all Intel products simply due to the fact that AMD made them.
Similarly, one would expect a post which mentioned that Linux is not the greatest operating system ever created -- and that Mac OS X isn't either.
There are other similar tenets of the Slashdot religion, just set up
That depends...
I don't know that much about oil drilling costs, but putting a 50% tax on Iraqi oil would mean that Iraq would have to charge at most 75% of what the "open market" does.
Since the open market is essentially a cartel, thus keeping prices extremely high compared with "production" costs, there would be room for Iraq to charge considerably less than the going rate and still probably make a profit.
Remember that oil is currently in the $40 - $50 / barrel range, when not much more than a year ago it dipped into the $26-$27 range... I do not believe that the cost of drilling and shipping the oil increased that much... if Iraq sold its oil for $25/barrel, after taxes it'd be $37.50. That would still be a bargain price on the current market.
Not that I'm recommending such a tax -- I don't think it is appropriate or fair. However, it would not completely obliterate the Iraqi oil market. It would take the cartel deciding to boost production to lower prices so that Iraq was forced to either sell oil at a loss or stop producting all together that would make it so that nobody bought Iraqi oil.
changing out cellphones every few years?
Oh, come on... cellphones rarely last longer than the 1-2 year contracts people sign anyway...
And besides, they're practically free anyway. I mean, I just got a new cellphone... I picked the "upgraded" model that cost a whole $59.99...
It has a 1-year warranty, and I have to keep it at least 21 months. If I get a new one sooner, then I have to pay the $250 buy-a-cellphone-without-new-service fee. But guess what... in 21 months I can get a new one. And I probably will -- the things are made so cheaply (so that they can be sold for only $0 - $60 or so) that they rarely last longer than that anyway...
I highly doubt that you use as much gas as I do -- I live about 30 miles from work. Even though I get good gas mileage, I still pay more tax.
'cept... nobody would agree to drive the carpool, as they'd be the one getting all the tax money and speeding tickets