If the government does not use money - it divides it up into other funds - do you honestly think the American people see the same economic benefit from a Stealth Bomber as they do hurricane relief. $2 Billion paid to construction workers and for housing/food assistance is a magnitude greater than 2 billion going to MAYBE 200 people building ONE Stealth Bomber.
Because, as you know, those 200 people are building the stealth bomber out of their own shit, instead of, oh, spending some of that 2 billion on parts and materials.
Here's a real world example. Occasionally in these forums, and others, I'll notice people making mistakes on the law. I'll quote the exact statute or case law which contradicts them. For that I'm rated as either a flamebait or a troll. For example, it's common knowledge to copyright attorneys that the constitutional purpose of copyright (and IP in general) is for the benefit of society. Someone wrote in these forums that the copyright holders have absolute rights over their works and that any benefit to society is irrelevant. Despite the fact that I quoted the US Constitution to prove my point, he still refused to budge in his utterly uninformed belief. What's to stop the same utterly informed beliefs from mucking up Wikipedia?
He could have been speaking in ethical terms, not in precise legal terms. "Do copyright holders have legitimate ethical rights to their works" and "Does the law recognize such a right" are two distinct questions that you and your opponent may have conflated.
It is rather ironic that you think that i am one of the people who cause a lot of the problems in this world. I believe it is people who resort to petty name calling in an otherwise civilised debate who cause the biggest problems of all.
You're free to believe that, but I didn't engage in petty name-calling, I simply identified the short-sightedness of your mentality and called it for what it was.
I don't mean to be flamebait, but is this really supposed to impress me? (Note to non-Americans, Richard Nixon is widely accepted to be one of our most corrupt and least popular Presidents. He was the only President ever to resign.) That's like being an anger therapist for Ron Artest or acting coach for David Caruso.
Bad analogy. If he was an ethical advisor for Nixon, that might be different.
and his conception of politics and economics is flavored by the neocon Chicagoite Ayn Rand nonsense.
If you knew anything about neoconservatism, Chicago School economics, or Ayn Rand, you would know how much of an idiot you just made of yourself.
The Boston Tea Party was pretty illegal, I'm sure.
The Boston Tea Party was a random act of vandalism against private businesses that was almost universally condemned by even the staunchest Patriots. So yeah, legality aside it was a bad decision.
have you tried living for 6 months without seeing a new movie?
Actually, the vast majority of all humans who have ever lived went their entire life without seeing a movie. It's whiny, spoiled, thoughtless brats like you who take it for granted that you're part of the slim minority who has that luxury that we have to blame for a lot of the problems in this world.
The truth is that it failed long ago and it just took this long for it to swing around. As for the rest? I've been hearing for years and years how Linux and open source was going to crush MS to a pulp. At the current pace it'll happen right around the year 2112.
Apple Lossless is just AAC at high enough bit rates not to lose any data. I have a few things encoded in Apple Lossless and they're the exact same file format as my AAC files.
It is interesting to note that the press release on PSFT's website mentions the value of the merger to the stockholders but makes absolutely no mention about the impact/value to its own customers.
That's because the stockholders own the company. Not the customers. If I own something and hire you to take care of it, and you sell it, I better get value out of it!
Re:What pathetic feeb is "bothered" by strangers?
on
New Games Journalism
·
· Score: 1
The thing is, those thoughts need to be acknowledged and understood, and [you/whoever] don't seem to be grasping that important fact.
We have to acknowledge that they exist, but we don't have to respect them like you're suggesting. We don't have to take them seriously enough to be offended by them. It might be worth someone's time (certainly not mine) to study how a potentially useful and productive human being turns into a racist piece of shit, but that's about the extent of it.
And we don't have to respect people (such as racists) as human beings when they regularly refuse to act like human beings.
Re:What pathetic feeb is "bothered" by strangers?
on
New Games Journalism
·
· Score: 1
Disregarding what other people say only increases the excessively apparent amount of disenfranchisement and alienation people experience in regards to the people around them.
And we shouldn't alienate racists? We should accept racism?
Acting like other peoples' opinions are completely meaningless is a selfish, childish position to hold and the fact that you hold it with such strength makes it fairly ironic that you try to criticize me, calling me "sad" or "pathetic".
Perhaps it is selfish, in the sense that it's selfish to refuse to subject yourself to the feelings of others. If someone expresses racist views, is that really someone whose views and opinions you should take seriously?
Most of us learn around the age of two or three to respect the thoughts/feelings of others.
That's because two and three year olds need to be controlled by others at all times. Adults have freedom, children can't. I can see why you have problems if you insist on always respecting the thoughts and feelings of others. Racist thoughts and feelings deserve no respect.
There's a legal principle (although apparently not anymore in California or Britain) that says your home is your castle. You are never legally expected to retreat from your own home.
The US government has already overstepped their constitutional bounds, and all our guns didn't stop it.
If the American people cared, the US government never would have overstepped its constitutional bounds, and we wouldn't have needed to use guns in order to stop it. And if the American people don't care, all the guns in the world won't make a difference.
The Founding Fathers wrote a good constitution, and a great bill of rights. They ensured that we'd be able to speak out and vote to control the government, and that the rights of minorities would be protected as well. There's only one thing they couldn't do. They couldn't insure that we Americans actually care. If we don't care, none of our rights and none of our restrictions on government will make a difference.
What does a gun achieve that less-lethal weapons don't? Apart from the person you don't like ending up dead instead of injured?
You have an overly optimistic view of less-lethal weapons. Life isn't like Star Trek, where you can set a phaser to stun and effectively, yet non-lethally, stop anyone in your way. In certain situations, less-lethal weapons are ineffective in terms of stopping a threat. In other situations, less-lethal weapons can kill just as effectively as a firearm. Similarly, firearms aren't always lethal, especially when the crook takes one look at it and runs before you need to make a shot at him. I've seen statistics that say in over 90% of cases, brandishing (but not firing) a gun is enough. (That said, it's a basic principle that one should never draw a gun without being ready to fire.) All in all, a gun achieves a LOT that less-lethal weapons don't. Criminals aren't deterred by the fear that they might be hit with mace or a taser. Criminals ARE deterred by the fear of taking a shotgun shell in their chest.
It's called insurance. In other words, "trust, but verify". The way the Constitution was designed, we have multiple safeguards, including the right to keep and bear arms, to ensure that the government doesn't overstep its bounds. Do Americans distrust our government? Yes--that's the only way to keep it trustworthy.
Yeah! Then the Dear Leader can finally reunify Korea under his mighty army! Old people will no longer be able to use email, because they will be living under communism!
Re:You're Confused (Score:1)
by Creedo (548980) on Friday December 10, @08:26AM (#11052137)
I wonder if they would mark any post in this thread as insightful.
Slashdot Mirror
If the government does not use money - it divides it up into other funds - do you honestly think the American people see the same economic benefit from a Stealth Bomber as they do hurricane relief. $2 Billion paid to construction workers and for housing/food assistance is a magnitude greater than 2 billion going to MAYBE 200 people building ONE Stealth Bomber.
Because, as you know, those 200 people are building the stealth bomber out of their own shit, instead of, oh, spending some of that 2 billion on parts and materials.
To be "fallen", you had to at one point be at a height. Darl wasn't.
Here's a real world example. Occasionally in these forums, and others, I'll notice people making mistakes on the law. I'll quote the exact statute or case law which contradicts them. For that I'm rated as either a flamebait or a troll. For example, it's common knowledge to copyright attorneys that the constitutional purpose of copyright (and IP in general) is for the benefit of society. Someone wrote in these forums that the copyright holders have absolute rights over their works and that any benefit to society is irrelevant. Despite the fact that I quoted the US Constitution to prove my point, he still refused to budge in his utterly uninformed belief. What's to stop the same utterly informed beliefs from mucking up Wikipedia?
He could have been speaking in ethical terms, not in precise legal terms. "Do copyright holders have legitimate ethical rights to their works" and "Does the law recognize such a right" are two distinct questions that you and your opponent may have conflated.
It is rather ironic that you think that i am one of the people who cause a lot of the problems in this world. I believe it is people who resort to petty name calling in an otherwise civilised debate who cause the biggest problems of all.
You're free to believe that, but I didn't engage in petty name-calling, I simply identified the short-sightedness of your mentality and called it for what it was.
"Speech Writer and Lawyer for Nixon"
I don't mean to be flamebait, but is this really supposed to impress me? (Note to non-Americans, Richard Nixon is widely accepted to be one of our most corrupt and least popular Presidents. He was the only President ever to resign.) That's like being an anger therapist for Ron Artest or acting coach for David Caruso.
Bad analogy. If he was an ethical advisor for Nixon, that might be different.
and his conception of politics and economics is flavored by the neocon Chicagoite Ayn Rand nonsense.
If you knew anything about neoconservatism, Chicago School economics, or Ayn Rand, you would know how much of an idiot you just made of yourself.
The Boston Tea Party was pretty illegal, I'm sure.
The Boston Tea Party was a random act of vandalism against private businesses that was almost universally condemned by even the staunchest Patriots. So yeah, legality aside it was a bad decision.
have you tried living for 6 months without seeing a new movie?
Actually, the vast majority of all humans who have ever lived went their entire life without seeing a movie. It's whiny, spoiled, thoughtless brats like you who take it for granted that you're part of the slim minority who has that luxury that we have to blame for a lot of the problems in this world.
The truth is that it failed long ago and it just took this long for it to swing around. As for the rest? I've been hearing for years and years how Linux and open source was going to crush MS to a pulp. At the current pace it'll happen right around the year 2112.
Was that a deliberate RUSH reference?
Would you give an example of a good reason for using torture against people?
Spammers?
Apple Lossless is just AAC at high enough bit rates not to lose any data. I have a few things encoded in Apple Lossless and they're the exact same file format as my AAC files.
It is interesting to note that the press release on PSFT's website mentions the value of the merger to the stockholders but makes absolutely no mention about the impact/value to its own customers.
That's because the stockholders own the company. Not the customers. If I own something and hire you to take care of it, and you sell it, I better get value out of it!
The thing is, those thoughts need to be acknowledged and understood, and [you/whoever] don't seem to be grasping that important fact.
We have to acknowledge that they exist, but we don't have to respect them like you're suggesting. We don't have to take them seriously enough to be offended by them. It might be worth someone's time (certainly not mine) to study how a potentially useful and productive human being turns into a racist piece of shit, but that's about the extent of it.
And we don't have to respect people (such as racists) as human beings when they regularly refuse to act like human beings.
Disregarding what other people say only increases the excessively apparent amount of disenfranchisement and alienation people experience in regards to the people around them.
And we shouldn't alienate racists? We should accept racism?
Acting like other peoples' opinions are completely meaningless is a selfish, childish position to hold and the fact that you hold it with such strength makes it fairly ironic that you try to criticize me, calling me "sad" or "pathetic".
Perhaps it is selfish, in the sense that it's selfish to refuse to subject yourself to the feelings of others. If someone expresses racist views, is that really someone whose views and opinions you should take seriously?
Most of us learn around the age of two or three to respect the thoughts/feelings of others.
That's because two and three year olds need to be controlled by others at all times. Adults have freedom, children can't. I can see why you have problems if you insist on always respecting the thoughts and feelings of others. Racist thoughts and feelings deserve no respect.
There's a legal principle (although apparently not anymore in California or Britain) that says your home is your castle. You are never legally expected to retreat from your own home.
It's a rare occasion indeed that Anonymous Coward gets mod points. Keep on trying, man!
The US government has already overstepped their constitutional bounds, and all our guns didn't stop it.
If the American people cared, the US government never would have overstepped its constitutional bounds, and we wouldn't have needed to use guns in order to stop it. And if the American people don't care, all the guns in the world won't make a difference.
The Founding Fathers wrote a good constitution, and a great bill of rights. They ensured that we'd be able to speak out and vote to control the government, and that the rights of minorities would be protected as well. There's only one thing they couldn't do. They couldn't insure that we Americans actually care. If we don't care, none of our rights and none of our restrictions on government will make a difference.
What does a gun achieve that less-lethal weapons don't? Apart from the person you don't like ending up dead instead of injured?
You have an overly optimistic view of less-lethal weapons. Life isn't like Star Trek, where you can set a phaser to stun and effectively, yet non-lethally, stop anyone in your way. In certain situations, less-lethal weapons are ineffective in terms of stopping a threat. In other situations, less-lethal weapons can kill just as effectively as a firearm. Similarly, firearms aren't always lethal, especially when the crook takes one look at it and runs before you need to make a shot at him. I've seen statistics that say in over 90% of cases, brandishing (but not firing) a gun is enough. (That said, it's a basic principle that one should never draw a gun without being ready to fire.) All in all, a gun achieves a LOT that less-lethal weapons don't. Criminals aren't deterred by the fear that they might be hit with mace or a taser. Criminals ARE deterred by the fear of taking a shotgun shell in their chest.
It's called insurance. In other words, "trust, but verify". The way the Constitution was designed, we have multiple safeguards, including the right to keep and bear arms, to ensure that the government doesn't overstep its bounds. Do Americans distrust our government? Yes--that's the only way to keep it trustworthy.
Yeah! Then the Dear Leader can finally reunify Korea under his mighty army! Old people will no longer be able to use email, because they will be living under communism!
Re:You're Confused (Score:1)
by Creedo (548980) on Friday December 10, @08:26AM (#11052137)
I wonder if they would mark any post in this thread as insightful.
Apparently not.
Because, obviously, police always have a tear gas canister lying around right when they need one.
If I'm sued for patent infringement when I punch my way out of my coffin when they bury me alive, I can mention Pai Mei's prior art!
Oh wait, different guy...
I love your sig in the context of this discussion :)
It's funny BECAUSE it's true!
The Jews are a nationality as much (or moreso) than they are a religion.