So it seems reasonable to me that the fear underlying zombies is of a catastrophic unraveling of civilization.
Yeah, that sounds right to me. Did they have this kind of fear back in the day? Lovecraft didn't deal with it, I know. Sure, the Eldritch horrors could destroy civilization, but I don't think he'd let civilization unravel, there would just be mass arrests of cultists and a futile war. Even War of the Worlds, was more of a war story than a civilization-is-no-more story.
There were ninja strippers, or at least ninja geisha or whatever. They were called kunoichi. You'd see her a lot, until it was time for her to take you out.
Yes because an angry mob is going to form to lynch the people who supported a petition for a law supporting fairer taxes.
No, but my point is the angry mob might form because they think you're a KKK sympathizer after seeing your name as a petition-signer on a biased anti-KKK website.
Maybe the should have thought of that before deciding to be bigots? If I'm a bad person, people will think less of me, seems pretty straightforward to me.
What about the general case? If the petition were against an unjust law, would you want its supporters to be able to harass, belittle, and diminish your civil rights because you want the law gone and because your name was public to them?
the declaration of independence was essentially a petition, and the signatories certainly faced consequences for attaching their names to the document.
The Declaration of Independence was a letter sent to the King, sent by people with significant influence to state their position. The signatures were an unavoidable side effect, necessary so that the King could see that those people were influential. Sure, John Hancock took distinct pride in his support of the Declaration, but that wasn't why he signed. Nowadays, those people could start a media campaign, and demonstrate their influence directly.
Petitions have a different role these days. They are analogous to a primary: they act as a gatekeeper to get legislation on the ballot. The names aren't important, just the numbers.
For one, there are laws against anything substantive (vandalism, assault, etc), and for another, if the majority of the public really DOES agree with them there should be no risk of ostracism.
It doesn't take the majority of the public to fuck up your life. All it takes is an activist minority. Or a couple of guys with anger issues and your name. Or your boss.
Yeah, this is true. Petitions do work as they are. I think they'd work better anonymously, but if you disagree, that's fine.
I just noticed, and I think it is telling, that I say "an issue" when you say "a cause."
I guess I take petitions less personally than you do. That helps explain why you are more against anonymity than I am. If your support involves you, personally, of course it would offend you if others' support is uninvolved and impersonal (i.e. anonymous).
Petitions have been used throughout their history to persecute the people that signed it. The declaration of independence was nothing more than a forceful petition as the people that signed it didn't truly represent anyone at the time (under English law). Signing a petition is the one of the ultimate forms of support for a cause because it publicly associates your name to the cause so your elected officials know how many people support it.
This is a good point. The idea behind the petition is that if a bunch of people feel strongly enough about an issue to put their names and reputations behind it, it is definitely worth checking with the rest of the populace, through a real vote.
But, I don't know, I think petitions have changed over time. The bunch of people role is taken over by activists, getting their message out there using television and media, rather than a signed letter to an official. Now, petitions are just a second-tier check for broad support, and that can be done by counting valid signatures then tossing the lot.
However there can be other bad things that happen to you if it comes out that you voted one way on something when you'd rather keep that private.
Yeah, and those bad things can still happen if sign a petition and your signature is made public. If you sign in support of something, you'll vote in support of something, and the bad guys will act accordingly.
you would simply need to turn to them and say "Yeah, I have no clue what the KKK was doing but the petition was for a valid law and I thought maybe they were making an attempt at being socially responsible instead of a being a gang of racist thugs. Mea Culpa."
Assuming you get the chance to do so, and aren't faced with an angry mob that ain't listening, or a midnight brick through the window.
So the question is, why do these people that support anti-gay marriage legislation not want to be known? What kind of agenda are they following? Saying different things to different parties?
I like crmarvin42's response above. He distinguishes an "activist" from a "supporter." I can support an issue by signing a petition without being willing to go out-and-out activist, without wanting to be drawn into debate, without wanting to be picketed.
You may feel strongly about your issues, but you must be aware that not everyone feels strongly about their own issues, and you should respect that. Let them have their privacy. Maybe they've got too much going on to spend the energy or time. Maybe they deal with crap all day and don't want any more. Maybe they are fundamentally apathetic.
And, yes, maybe they do have a public face and a private face. They are allowed. That cuts both ways, you know. A politician may need to maintain a homophobic public face to keep his position, but he uses that position to do a lot of good for the poor and disadvantaged.
Because voting has safeguards... petitions have none of these.
I'm not saying that petitions are the same as voting. I'm saying both should be anonymous. Anonymity (or the lack thereof) has no bearing on the safeguards you mention.
the entire point of a petition is "We proudly support this idea and are the ones that put you in office, do it!" That implies you are willing to take a stand on it.
Sez you. I don't only think of petitions as "proudly support," I also think of them as "fixing what is broken" or "we know you won't touch this issue, so we're forcing it." I may or may not want my name bandied about. Ideally, a petition would have a little opt-in checkbox to allow your signature to be made public.
Really? It's nobody's business that you're trying to influence legislators to do things that may affect the rights of people other than yourself?
Playing devil's advocate here, that's right. It isn't anyone's business. In any sort of participatory social system, it is everyone's task, even their duty, to try to bring about the society they want and establish a new norm. In the US, one of our options is to bring our pet issues to our legislators through referendum and try to get a law.
We can do that more effectively — you can do that more effectively for your own pet issues — without opponents going after us in person to intimidate us. They can go through the same, defusing channels as anyone else. This business of posting names of supporters of various pro- and anti-civil-union measures is just asking for trouble.
If they were the same it would be called 'voting'. It is not. It is a public record and should be treated as such. If people do not have the strength of their convictions then they shouldn't sign it. That is the point of peer pressure. It molds society into what is acceptable and what is not.
Well, you can't get to the safely anonymous "voting" stage without going through the dangerously exposed "petition" stage. Voting is anonymous for good reasons. Why don't the same reasons apply to the petition that allows the voting? Especially since your signature is going to predict your vote.
Then opposing gay marriage without making the same, or even greater level of effort to oppose straight marriage (since it's already established and will require significantly more work to overturn) is intellectually dishonest.
But we're talking petitions here. No one is standing on a corner asking for signatures to ban marriage altogether. I certainly see the sense in that position, and if there were such a petition, I could sign it. But there isn't, and I can at least limit the damage by signing the "overturn civil union" petition.
(Hypothetically, that is. Personally, I'm supporting the civil union law.)
Accountants are boring, soulless drones. "Weird" to them is wearing a different shade of beige than the rest of the accountants.
I don't know. Someone who deals with numbers that much, following labyrinthine trails of debits and credits, can't be entirely sane. They are at least distantly related to mathematicians, who are outright loons.
By non-Keplerian, they just mean a powered orbit. An orbit that needs the satellite to fire thrusters from time to time to keep on track. Maybe to shift from gravitational trough to gravitational trough, or maybe to keep the orbit from decaying.
Warhammer doesn't seem to have much of a problem with gold spammers. When the game first came out, there was already a dedicated feedback button for "Report Gold Spammer." I have never seen more than 7 gold-spam mail messages in my box. And, plus, gold is easy to come by in that game anyway. There is just no market for the spammers to tap into.
Slashdot Mirror
So it seems reasonable to me that the fear underlying zombies is of a catastrophic unraveling of civilization.
Yeah, that sounds right to me. Did they have this kind of fear back in the day? Lovecraft didn't deal with it, I know. Sure, the Eldritch horrors could destroy civilization, but I don't think he'd let civilization unravel, there would just be mass arrests of cultists and a futile war. Even War of the Worlds, was more of a war story than a civilization-is-no-more story.
you'll never see them if they're ninja strippers.
There were ninja strippers, or at least ninja geisha or whatever. They were called kunoichi. You'd see her a lot, until it was time for her to take you out.
Not everybody, as far as i know this is only common in Europe.
Are you nuts? Everyone has mythology filled with demons and barbarians.
Roman Polanski tested that, and look where it got him.
Rich, famous, admired, and protected?
Et voila!
Time Cube? Is that you?
Hell, originally, computers were all women. That was the job title for someone who sat down and made mathematical tables all day.
Based on how temperamental some of our electronic computers are, some would say they are still women.
Yes because an angry mob is going to form to lynch the people who supported a petition for a law supporting fairer taxes.
No, but my point is the angry mob might form because they think you're a KKK sympathizer after seeing your name as a petition-signer on a biased anti-KKK website.
Schuchat warned parents with sick children to be alert for signs that medical attention is required including ... turning blue or gray.
No shit. You mean that's not normal?
Guess I'd better get the little ones to the hospital.
And maybe stop nicknaming them "Grant" and "Lee."
Good thing I wasn't drinking coffee or I'd to clean out my keyboard. :-D
What about the general case? If the petition were against an unjust law, would you want its supporters to be able to harass, belittle, and diminish your civil rights because you want the law gone and because your name was public to them?
the declaration of independence was essentially a petition, and the signatories certainly faced consequences for attaching their names to the document.
The Declaration of Independence was a letter sent to the King, sent by people with significant influence to state their position. The signatures were an unavoidable side effect, necessary so that the King could see that those people were influential. Sure, John Hancock took distinct pride in his support of the Declaration, but that wasn't why he signed. Nowadays, those people could start a media campaign, and demonstrate their influence directly.
Petitions have a different role these days. They are analogous to a primary: they act as a gatekeeper to get legislation on the ballot. The names aren't important, just the numbers.
It doesn't take the majority of the public to fuck up your life. All it takes is an activist minority. Or a couple of guys with anger issues and your name. Or your boss.
Yeah, this is true. Petitions do work as they are. I think they'd work better anonymously, but if you disagree, that's fine.
I just noticed, and I think it is telling, that I say "an issue" when you say "a cause."
I guess I take petitions less personally than you do. That helps explain why you are more against anonymity than I am. If your support involves you, personally, of course it would offend you if others' support is uninvolved and impersonal (i.e. anonymous).
Interesting bit of human nature, there.
This is a good point. The idea behind the petition is that if a bunch of people feel strongly enough about an issue to put their names and reputations behind it, it is definitely worth checking with the rest of the populace, through a real vote.
But, I don't know, I think petitions have changed over time. The bunch of people role is taken over by activists, getting their message out there using television and media, rather than a signed letter to an official. Now, petitions are just a second-tier check for broad support, and that can be done by counting valid signatures then tossing the lot.
Yeah, and those bad things can still happen if sign a petition and your signature is made public. If you sign in support of something, you'll vote in support of something, and the bad guys will act accordingly.
Assuming you get the chance to do so, and aren't faced with an angry mob that ain't listening, or a midnight brick through the window.
I like crmarvin42's response above. He distinguishes an "activist" from a "supporter." I can support an issue by signing a petition without being willing to go out-and-out activist, without wanting to be drawn into debate, without wanting to be picketed.
You may feel strongly about your issues, but you must be aware that not everyone feels strongly about their own issues, and you should respect that. Let them have their privacy. Maybe they've got too much going on to spend the energy or time. Maybe they deal with crap all day and don't want any more. Maybe they are fundamentally apathetic.
And, yes, maybe they do have a public face and a private face. They are allowed. That cuts both ways, you know. A politician may need to maintain a homophobic public face to keep his position, but he uses that position to do a lot of good for the poor and disadvantaged.
I'm not saying that petitions are the same as voting. I'm saying both should be anonymous. Anonymity (or the lack thereof) has no bearing on the safeguards you mention.
Sez you. I don't only think of petitions as "proudly support," I also think of them as "fixing what is broken" or "we know you won't touch this issue, so we're forcing it." I may or may not want my name bandied about. Ideally, a petition would have a little opt-in checkbox to allow your signature to be made public.
Playing devil's advocate here, that's right. It isn't anyone's business. In any sort of participatory social system, it is everyone's task, even their duty, to try to bring about the society they want and establish a new norm. In the US, one of our options is to bring our pet issues to our legislators through referendum and try to get a law.
We can do that more effectively — you can do that more effectively for your own pet issues — without opponents going after us in person to intimidate us. They can go through the same, defusing channels as anyone else. This business of posting names of supporters of various pro- and anti-civil-union measures is just asking for trouble.
Well, you can't get to the safely anonymous "voting" stage without going through the dangerously exposed "petition" stage. Voting is anonymous for good reasons. Why don't the same reasons apply to the petition that allows the voting? Especially since your signature is going to predict your vote.
But we're talking petitions here. No one is standing on a corner asking for signatures to ban marriage altogether. I certainly see the sense in that position, and if there were such a petition, I could sign it. But there isn't, and I can at least limit the damage by signing the "overturn civil union" petition.
(Hypothetically, that is. Personally, I'm supporting the civil union law.)
Accountants are boring, soulless drones. "Weird" to them is wearing a different shade of beige than the rest of the accountants.
I don't know. Someone who deals with numbers that much, following labyrinthine trails of debits and credits, can't be entirely sane. They are at least distantly related to mathematicians, who are outright loons.
By non-Keplerian, they just mean a powered orbit. An orbit that needs the satellite to fire thrusters from time to time to keep on track. Maybe to shift from gravitational trough to gravitational trough, or maybe to keep the orbit from decaying.
Warhammer doesn't seem to have much of a problem with gold spammers. When the game first came out, there was already a dedicated feedback button for "Report Gold Spammer." I have never seen more than 7 gold-spam mail messages in my box. And, plus, gold is easy to come by in that game anyway. There is just no market for the spammers to tap into.