The United States has long hated diesel cars. I can't think of a single domestic automaker that has a diesel car.
Who even cares about the domestic automakers anymore? They make shitty overpriced cars and only make a profit on financing. Volkswagen TDI's are fairly easy to find in this country.
On top of that, it is not always easy to find diesel. In the Chicago area it was a complete pain to find a station that sold diesel for my old Mercedes. I was thankful that there was one near my home, but the next nearest one was four towns away.
Interesting. In Washington (the state) it isn't difficult at all to find diesel. Have you tried checking truck stops?
How in the world does ending the life of a person not affect a person? I thought one of your core arguments was that making an irreversible decision was infringing on the rights of the infant because it would limit their choice as an adult? Isn't ending the life of someone significantly WORSE?
Maybe. On the other hand, killing an infant ensures that the adult never comes to exist, and (arguably) there is no one whose rights could be violated. Simply cutting off parts of the infant will violate the rights of the adult that comes to exist. There are delicate issues of personhood and identity over time involved here, and I'm not strongly enough committed on those questions to even have an opinion. I avoid it because there's little point in discussing something I don't have an opinion on.
I see your reasoning. You are not considering what rights an infant has, just the rights of the eventual adult. I disagree with that logic, because I do not believe an adult has a right to all possible choices.
Neither do I. I argue that choices about things like basic health, bodily integrity, and so forth are privileged. You, on the other hand, have no particular respect for freedom of choice at all, so it's no wonder we keep talking past each other.
the best part about this is that you can't stop yourself from replying to someone who has crushed every stupid post you make and still doesn't give a fuck what you think.
Yeah, I have nothing against feeding trolls when they're so untalented at it that they only make themselves look bad.
And all this time I thought "mislaid" referred to the types of mistakes people make when they get too drunk at a party. People other than us, obviously.
Circumcision is something that ultimately affects an adult, abortion and infanticide aren't. I don't have a settled opinion about either abortion or infanticide, nor are the rights of the infant qua infant even relevant to my argument. Nothing I'm saying is getting through to you here, so it's best that we end this discussion.
It's the entire basis of my point (well, one of two). You can't arrest someone for harming another human being if you can't prove harm. I do not count a "denial of choice" as harm unless something measurable was lost in the denial of that choice. Since there is no proof that having an uncircumcised penis is better than having an infant-circumcised penis, I fail to see how any harm has been inflicted.
In order to be consistent with that principle, you'd have to agree with prohibiting bacon, as per my previous examples.
Nelson Mandela is another one time out of ten that it does work. Leonard Peltier, John Brown, thousands of Chinese people at Tiananmen Square, and many others would agree with me.
1) Does he fly commercial? If not, does he "airpool"? If the answer is no to those questions, fuck him. Any excuse he gives as to why he isn't doing these things is just that, an excuse.
As far as I'm aware, he has a private jet. Whether and how he uses it, compared to other forms of air travel, I don't know: I don't have a personal obsession with the man. How that affects your opinion of Al Gore as a person is just a red herring though--Gore or no Gore, the issue is still climate change.
What is hypocritical, however, is how critics will categorically condemn Gore for using a private jet, without even bothering to understand the reasons why his doing so might be justified. That's the exact kind of dogmatic, closed-minded thinking those same people will criticize environmentalists for (and of which far too many environmentalists are guilty). Environmentalism shouldn't be some sort of dogma where causing one bit of ecological damage is a capital offense--all it requires is properly considering the long-term ecological impacts of what we do and introducing those concerns into our cost-benefit analysis. When you look at how we've handled industrial pollution (through cap and trade systems), we've essentially encoded that into the free market by monetizing ecological costs.
2) Why isn't "I need it for work" a good enough reason for me and my SUV? Or everyone else?
If you actually need your SUV for work, that is a good enough reason.
The fact is, most of us are going to use energy throughout our daily lives, and some of that energy is going to have to come from fossil fuels in the medium term. No one is blaming you because you need your SUV for work. While each of us can do a little here and there to cut back, actually preventing the long-term negative consequences of global warming is going to require something more than that. Like many goals it can be accomplished through the market, with carbon taxes or cap-and-trade systems for carbon emissions, but it will require a degree of innovation, changes in infrastructure, and new patterns of development in the developing world.
So maybe the real problem is that you do need an SUV for work. Maybe we can solve that problem (depending on your work), maybe we can't--but if we can improve the infrastructure so less people are driving less weight, less often, over less distance while living better lives, why wouldn't we do that? In the meantime, let's try and reduce or eliminate the harm that your SUV or Gore's jet has on the environment by improving engine efficiency or finding alternative means of powering these vehicles.
So could the oil executives. Look, I can't speak for Gore but no sensible person wants to ban private jets. The idea is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by making the market bear the cost. Gore is personally trying to do this at great personal cost by buying carbon offsets, but policywise, using the same type of cap-and-trade system we use to restrict other pollutants for carbon will serve this goal as well.
Considering how our current society is set up, it's almost impossible to take part in it, let alone be an influential member of it, without generating greenhouse gases. That's the problem. Everything has to change at once and Gore's not a hypocrite for pointing that out to people.
The GP was saying that his book taught the global cooling trend. You know, back in the mid-20th century, when there was a sharp and sustained drop in global temperatures, in spite of increasing emissions? Everybody thought the earth was going into another ice age. Surely such a radical change in scientific thought, going from extreme predictions of one end of the spectrum to hysterical claims on the opposite, is enough to shake a reasonable person's confidence in climatologists?
List of terms you've stretched beyond recognition: "sharp", "sustained", "everybody", "radical change", "extreme predictions", "hysterical claims".
If Gore really wanted to reduce his carbon footprint, he'd use the internet to "meet" with people - but that wouldn't generate as much $$$$ as personal appearance do.
Also, if you're a large company or a government considering future development, the slick oil exec with a private jet is going to win you over if the only alternative voice is an eccentric vice-president who lives in a one-room apartment trying to videoconference with you over iChat. Gore, like many people, needs air travel to do his work. Since Gore isn't asking anyone to forego air travel entirely he's not at all a hypocrite for not doing so himself--especially when his doing so is part and parcel of convincing others to take action against global warming.
All I can say is that, statistically, you are lucky. There are scientific studies that clearly demonstrate a connection between obesity/smoke exposure and health problems.
I wasn't that fat, and my mom made sure I wasn't too exposed to the smoke, so there are issues of degree here. Circumcision isn't a matter of degree. That's what makes it more clear-cut.
There is no such study linking mental or physical health to circumcision.
That's still beside the point, and if you haven't learned that already I don't know how to make it more clear to you.
You're going to be dead for 10^120 years (not that you'll stop being dead when the universe dies of heat death, but there will no longer be anything to compare you to) and you think money is more important than your day-to-day happiness?
No, his argument is more that all things held equal, money enhances your day-to-day happiness. Specifically, you don't have to worry so much about working if you have savings to tide you over and you can take longer and more interesting vacations. You also get to retire earlier, which depending on how much you enjoy work could be a good thing.
The way I see it, Microsoft is fighting. Which is step 3 of 4 in Ghandi's formula for success: "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win."
What Gandhi left out is that, nine times out of ten, the fourth step is "then you're never heard from again".
Kids slowly gain rights as they get older - they are born with very few. Even if they ARE born with some "right to no harm" (and I believe they are), we as a society have not decided to enforce that right except in grossly negligent cases, which I would hope you wouldn't classify circumcision as.
Obviously this is true. But kids turn into adults who have more rights, and the rights of this ultimate adult that are in question here.
In a society where it is perfectly legal to smoke a cigarette in your family room while seated next to your kids, I just find it hard to believe that you would find circumcision to be such a big deal. Are you going to start taking kids away from smokers? Last I checked, asthma was no more curable than missing foreskin, and a hell of a lot more severe. What about people who don't feed their kids all that well? I'm not talking gross malnutrition - I'm just talking about a lot of junk food so that the kids are pretty overweight and their IQ a few points lower... isn't that taking away some choice from the kids? Are you going to lock up a pregnant lady when she lights up a cigarette? Don't get me wrong, I'm not condoning this behavior - just trying to point out how vanishingly minor circumcision is on the scale of problems children face during their early development.
I was a fat kid growing up, and my mom smoked, but I wasn't circumcised. Personally, I wouldn't give up my foreskin to change the other two things around, so I don't think it's minor at all. (I don't have asthma and my mom didn't smoke when she was pregnant with me--there's a special place in hell for mothers that do, though, and IIRC drinking during pregnancy is so strongly linked to FAS that it's legally considered child abuse in some places.)
Slashdot Mirror
So in other words, you aren't concerned about freedom of choice, only "demonstrable harm". I argue that's a poor standard.
Who even cares about the domestic automakers anymore? They make shitty overpriced cars and only make a profit on financing. Volkswagen TDI's are fairly easy to find in this country.
On top of that, it is not always easy to find diesel. In the Chicago area it was a complete pain to find a station that sold diesel for my old Mercedes. I was thankful that there was one near my home, but the next nearest one was four towns away.Interesting. In Washington (the state) it isn't difficult at all to find diesel. Have you tried checking truck stops?
Maybe. On the other hand, killing an infant ensures that the adult never comes to exist, and (arguably) there is no one whose rights could be violated. Simply cutting off parts of the infant will violate the rights of the adult that comes to exist. There are delicate issues of personhood and identity over time involved here, and I'm not strongly enough committed on those questions to even have an opinion. I avoid it because there's little point in discussing something I don't have an opinion on.
I see your reasoning. You are not considering what rights an infant has, just the rights of the eventual adult. I disagree with that logic, because I do not believe an adult has a right to all possible choices.Neither do I. I argue that choices about things like basic health, bodily integrity, and so forth are privileged. You, on the other hand, have no particular respect for freedom of choice at all, so it's no wonder we keep talking past each other.
Yeah, I have nothing against feeding trolls when they're so untalented at it that they only make themselves look bad.
And all this time I thought "mislaid" referred to the types of mistakes people make when they get too drunk at a party. People other than us, obviously.
"Why isn't "I need it for work" a good enough reason for me and my SUV? Or everyone else?" isn't a factual question, dumbass.
"Teh lulz", obviously. At this point SCO is a practical joke perpetuated by multimillionaires.
Why aren't you capable of using Google instead of trolling?
"Just so we're clear, I don't care what you think."
Then why the fuck did you even ask me, asshole?
Go fuck your mother in hell.
Well in that case I think you were moderated correctly from the outset, and it was a mistake for me to respond to you in good faith. Go to hell.
Circumcision is something that ultimately affects an adult, abortion and infanticide aren't. I don't have a settled opinion about either abortion or infanticide, nor are the rights of the infant qua infant even relevant to my argument. Nothing I'm saying is getting through to you here, so it's best that we end this discussion.
To their adult child? Look, we aren't getting anywhere. You almost had the point a few posts back, but you lost it.
In order to be consistent with that principle, you'd have to agree with prohibiting bacon, as per my previous examples.
Nelson Mandela is another one time out of ten that it does work. Leonard Peltier, John Brown, thousands of Chinese people at Tiananmen Square, and many others would agree with me.
That was the other 1 time out of 10.
As far as I'm aware, he has a private jet. Whether and how he uses it, compared to other forms of air travel, I don't know: I don't have a personal obsession with the man. How that affects your opinion of Al Gore as a person is just a red herring though--Gore or no Gore, the issue is still climate change.
What is hypocritical, however, is how critics will categorically condemn Gore for using a private jet, without even bothering to understand the reasons why his doing so might be justified. That's the exact kind of dogmatic, closed-minded thinking those same people will criticize environmentalists for (and of which far too many environmentalists are guilty). Environmentalism shouldn't be some sort of dogma where causing one bit of ecological damage is a capital offense--all it requires is properly considering the long-term ecological impacts of what we do and introducing those concerns into our cost-benefit analysis. When you look at how we've handled industrial pollution (through cap and trade systems), we've essentially encoded that into the free market by monetizing ecological costs.
2) Why isn't "I need it for work" a good enough reason for me and my SUV? Or everyone else?If you actually need your SUV for work, that is a good enough reason.
The fact is, most of us are going to use energy throughout our daily lives, and some of that energy is going to have to come from fossil fuels in the medium term. No one is blaming you because you need your SUV for work. While each of us can do a little here and there to cut back, actually preventing the long-term negative consequences of global warming is going to require something more than that. Like many goals it can be accomplished through the market, with carbon taxes or cap-and-trade systems for carbon emissions, but it will require a degree of innovation, changes in infrastructure, and new patterns of development in the developing world.
So maybe the real problem is that you do need an SUV for work. Maybe we can solve that problem (depending on your work), maybe we can't--but if we can improve the infrastructure so less people are driving less weight, less often, over less distance while living better lives, why wouldn't we do that? In the meantime, let's try and reduce or eliminate the harm that your SUV or Gore's jet has on the environment by improving engine efficiency or finding alternative means of powering these vehicles.
So could the oil executives. Look, I can't speak for Gore but no sensible person wants to ban private jets. The idea is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by making the market bear the cost. Gore is personally trying to do this at great personal cost by buying carbon offsets, but policywise, using the same type of cap-and-trade system we use to restrict other pollutants for carbon will serve this goal as well.
Considering how our current society is set up, it's almost impossible to take part in it, let alone be an influential member of it, without generating greenhouse gases. That's the problem. Everything has to change at once and Gore's not a hypocrite for pointing that out to people.
List of terms you've stretched beyond recognition: "sharp", "sustained", "everybody", "radical change", "extreme predictions", "hysterical claims".
Also, if you're a large company or a government considering future development, the slick oil exec with a private jet is going to win you over if the only alternative voice is an eccentric vice-president who lives in a one-room apartment trying to videoconference with you over iChat. Gore, like many people, needs air travel to do his work. Since Gore isn't asking anyone to forego air travel entirely he's not at all a hypocrite for not doing so himself--especially when his doing so is part and parcel of convincing others to take action against global warming.
I wasn't that fat, and my mom made sure I wasn't too exposed to the smoke, so there are issues of degree here. Circumcision isn't a matter of degree. That's what makes it more clear-cut.
There is no such study linking mental or physical health to circumcision.That's still beside the point, and if you haven't learned that already I don't know how to make it more clear to you.
No, his argument is more that all things held equal, money enhances your day-to-day happiness. Specifically, you don't have to worry so much about working if you have savings to tide you over and you can take longer and more interesting vacations. You also get to retire earlier, which depending on how much you enjoy work could be a good thing.
You know, the main reason it's so difficult to debunk these rants isn't because they're wrong so much as because they're meaningless.
What Gandhi left out is that, nine times out of ten, the fourth step is "then you're never heard from again".
Obviously this is true. But kids turn into adults who have more rights, and the rights of this ultimate adult that are in question here.
In a society where it is perfectly legal to smoke a cigarette in your family room while seated next to your kids, I just find it hard to believe that you would find circumcision to be such a big deal. Are you going to start taking kids away from smokers? Last I checked, asthma was no more curable than missing foreskin, and a hell of a lot more severe. What about people who don't feed their kids all that well? I'm not talking gross malnutrition - I'm just talking about a lot of junk food so that the kids are pretty overweight and their IQ a few points lower... isn't that taking away some choice from the kids? Are you going to lock up a pregnant lady when she lights up a cigarette? Don't get me wrong, I'm not condoning this behavior - just trying to point out how vanishingly minor circumcision is on the scale of problems children face during their early development.I was a fat kid growing up, and my mom smoked, but I wasn't circumcised. Personally, I wouldn't give up my foreskin to change the other two things around, so I don't think it's minor at all. (I don't have asthma and my mom didn't smoke when she was pregnant with me--there's a special place in hell for mothers that do, though, and IIRC drinking during pregnancy is so strongly linked to FAS that it's legally considered child abuse in some places.)