The real cause, as you pointed to, is in regions with high death rates. In fact, the only strong corollary that has been statistically linked to a birth rate is the death rate of the area.
This can be seen by the fact that Europe has the lowest death rates and has the lowest birth rates--the native populations are declining in many European nations. The also holds true for the United States, Japan, et alii. --it is pan-culture, pan-race, pan-religion.
The trick then would be finding a way to use this to extend the life-expectancy of the developing peoples--and the requisite "quality of life".
Of course, if you can do that you'd be able to solve most of the global problems anyway.
--
It's the same with men as with horses and dogs:
nothing wants to die
Please forgive the next paragraph--it has been heavily filtered to be ND-safe.
"We" have been recently dealing with some VC firms. Before one meeting was scheduled, the suits were having a strategy briefing where they kept reiterating the mantra "Nothing we are doing requires innovation or creation of new technology"--with specific instructions to NOT cast the light of innovation upon the widget.
In fact, a CEO stated to me that [to paraphrase] "VCs want nothing to do with new technologies".
Luckily, the widget was all about doing brilliant things with existing and proven technologies to evolutionize the market...ahem....
WRT the tablua rasa, "expanded the argument" thing . . . Given that thought experiments have the requisite of being possible, I was merely pointing out that your counterexample, by being impossible, was invalid.
Your second example is even worse. Context appears to be to overwhelmed you here. First, bathrooms are not philosophy [well, maybe they are for some]. Second, what you claim as an absurdity is absolutely correct--the, shall we say, "bathroom experience" would be shared.
You seem to have missed the point in this regard--that is, no one can actually subtract h[im/er]self from their culture and history. Thus, human existence is a fundamentally shared experience.
Of course, there is also the quantum-physics problem of the observer/conciousness affecting the outcome of experiment. Obviously this carries the implication that observation/conciousness has a direct affect on the manifestation of "reality". If this is the case, then physical existence itself may be a shared experience.
I made some jokes . . . .
It's too late to back peddle now.
a claim is completely childish . . .
You piss on the floor, and then attempt to claim the high road? Please. If it bothers you to be held accountable for your behaviour and what you say, you should refrain from public posting.
I hope you're referring either to radioactive mutation . . .
Nope.
. . . or mitochondrial population fluctuations
Nope [is that what a 30 second Google search turned up for you?]
- because if not, then you're professing something that hands-on experimentation by Nazi scientists has directly disproved.
Three options to cover the entire field of genetics? If not [a] or [b] then it must be [c]? Now you are being silly.
this "race" is only distinguished from others by its religion
I don't think most folks would agree. One of the characteristics of Jewish people is that they are both a race and a religion. The rhetoric employed during the holocaust focused almost entirely on what we could now think of as genetic traits. Plus, I think the focus would be upon the why were killers killing, rather than why the victims were dying.
WRT the mediaeval times/cruelty etc . . . yes, horrible things have, in fact, happened in the name and even because of religion. I can't deny that at all. A good example would be the witch hunts which erupted across Europe in the Early Modern period (late 1500s)--almost entirely a Christian persecuting Christian situation [protestants killing catholics and different sects of each other].
My point with that is: this doesn't mean that an absence of religion would result in a decrease in these events. There is still not enough data to conclude, but it seems that as religious belief is curtailed that these kinds of oppressions and atrocities are on the rise.
It'll probably be another hundred years before we can tell.
These can also be derived without any religion by simple logic.
Has anyone succeeded in doing this? The problem is: why is anything right or wrong? Many species on this planet prey upon their own, almost all will brutally compete with their own for space, resources, mates, etc . . . why are humans to live by a separate set of rules? [thought continues after your next comment]
We live in a society and the only way to avoid chaos is a peaceful living, which can only be achieved by ensuring the equality of all.
Yes. But we are culturally biased towards this belief [that, I'm also arguing is the inertia/derivation of our once religious culture]. Why should we avoid chaos? Why not follow a highly chaotic, dynamic, and brutal "survival of the fittest" modus operandi?
Another even simplier way is "don't do to others what you don't want others do to you".
Again, why? What's wrong with "I'll take what I can, good luck stopping me"--one can logically justify this via the "Law of the Jungle/Darwinism/Survival of the Fittest" The peoples of Europe now are the ones who successfully out competed [id est, destroyed] the other--same with Mongolia, China, Rome, Greece, the ancient Israelites, the modern Americans . . .
In the past you had to meet your enemy face to face. Without this need the inhibition to hurt people drops quite a bit I would guess.
True. I heard a statistic once that the #1 cause of non-natural death was being killed in the 20th century is for a person to be killed by their own government. I would like to find out if this is true.
I'm making up the start of the Modern Age at the beginning of civil rights, which is probably different from what others think.
OK. Technically, the Modern Age actually ended at the beginning of the 20th century and are now in the Post Modern Age--I assumed your were referring to the historical label. In retrospect, that was a silly assumption of mine to make--sorry.
WRT Civil rights--who are the greatest civil rights activists? Martin Luther King Jr [a priest], Mahatma Gandhi [a holy man], [Bishop] Desmond Tutu . . . .
You are German? You use the English language more effectively than most Americans!
Is it true that your government will finance a student through a PhD if they can complete it?
P.S. I did not vote for Bush . . . they just put him in office anyway.
Re:Inflation.
on
Out of Gas
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
Another aspect that is overlooked is the proportion of petroleum-based products that are not gasoline.
Take a look around the room your in: --from here I have a desk, vinyl sided windows, two computers w/monitors, picture frames, book covers, folios, CDROMs, waste paper basket [and bag]. It seems that almost everything is made of petrol--people focus on the gas, but if it disappeared, lack of gas would not be the top problem on this list.
I'm curious to know how much petroleum goes to fuels vs products . . . anyone know?
Some related notes:
I believe that Chevron-Texaco posted its most profitable quarter EVER last month.
The process of petroleum use is so refined/efficient that it would be more efficient to simply burn the alternatives [e.g. corn-plastic] to heat the factories that petroleum-based products are fabricated in. [Or, this was the case a few years ago]. There's a long road of process engineering to hoe before we really even have the ability to replace petroleum in a serious manner [better start now!].
Rhetorical question: if the price of oil is not as high now as it was in 1981, why was the price of gas in 1981 about 1/3 of what is is now [adjusted, and from a US perspective]?
You seem to be missing the point that "organise" and "organize" are the same word. The usage of an 's' is somewhat antiquated, but it is not incorrect. You can refer to the OED for its etymology and see it quite plainly. Conjugating a verb shouldn't be confusing. One would also wonder how on Earth it got into Mozilla's spell-checker.
Done. Discussion over, I win.
Could you sound more juvenile?
you might have a point. But it doesn't, so you don't.
Yup, I guess you can.
Worst of all is the fact that you attempted to dismiss an argument based upon a triviality, rather than on its merits. The worst kind of deed in philosophy. Pathetic and shameful.
can you imagine somebody coming to a belief on his own, neither hearing it from someone else, nor relating it to another? If so, this is not "shared", and not (by your own definition) "organised".
A tabula rasa would require that they had never interacted with a single other living being [parents or society], have existed outside of any context of the thoughts of others [civilisation and its works (cities, art, writing, etc)]. This would require a single human living in a magic box and is, thus, in a non-trivial manner, impossible. One would wonder how he or she got there.
Additionally, it has been shown that humans can alter their own genetic code through their experiences in life and that this can be be passed along. The state of tabula rasa may not actually even be attainable in this circumstance.
I agree that there is a fundamental difference between individual belief and religion.
An interesting aspect of having "come to their own beliefs#148; is that, really , it doesn't seem possible. Everyone exists in the context of their society, family, history and even their language. All of these together make an inescapable paradigm that the individual exists within . . . an interesting thing to examine later.
I'd say that all teaching is somewhat dogmatic. Take the wave equation from quantum mechanics for example: it has no basis and is taken as truth because it explains a lot [which, IMO, is a fine thing to so scientifically]. The derivation of this to beyond most non-math/physicists types--but that is no reason to forbid the sharing of this knowledge [more likely, knowledge derived from it] with the plebeians.
Warning: next paragraph is an attempt to compress a few pages of thought into a few sentences . . ..
More to the point would be that if something is true then to make a system of common belief around it is not inherently wrong. Take laws like manslaughter or negligent homicide: both are based off of the tort law which is a derivation of the core ancient Jewish law [largely unchanged from what you'll see in Leviticus et alia]. The basis of which is "thou shall not kill", to which they replied "what if its on accident?" So, now you have interpretation and unless everyone is to become a theologian and lawyer the conclusions of the cognesceti will need to be handed out dogmatically. Ideally, one would be able to present their belief of truth in first principals and then debate it so some sort of conclusion--but this is nigh impossible in actuality.
It only proves that cruelty is not bound to religion.
Yes, that is EXACTLY what I am saying as a rebuttal to your statement [to paraphrase] "organised religion is proven to be dangerous".
are you really going to tell me that Hitler's hate for the Jews had nothing to do with religion?
Yes. His statements were almost entirely derisive of the Jewish race. There was no mention of killing the non-believers, that I recall [not that I'm definitive on this]. Anyway, Hitler also spent a lot of time lying and manipulating people with extraordinary efficiency--so, though I cannot speak for him, it seems to me that his motivations had nothing to do with religion.
He also killed almost all of the gypsies in occupied territories, which would not be religiously based.
My comment on pragmatism is in re the "danger of religion". Certainly, the individual is always choosing [whether in religion or not]--my point was that people, regardless, seem to choose what is convenient to their own situation. Thus, a solely pragmatic ethos could easily be a "survival of the fittest" construct.
Just think about the Middle Ages, they are not called the Dark Ages for naught. We had the holy crusades, the inquisition, the burning of witches and heretics (please note that I do not generalize this to all religions).
I've studied them . . . and you have an all-to-common misconception. They were called the "Dark Ages" because this title was retroactively applied by the intellectuals of the Renaissance [for the loss of knowledge that occurred after the fall of Rome]. As my mediaeval literature advisor stated "There was nothing 'Dark' or terrible about he mediaeval period."
As for The Inquisition [and the ~1500 people killed in it], most of it was political. One should also note that the scope of The Inquisition and Witch Trials was distorted poor translation where "tried by inquisition" was interpreted to be THE inquisition and not the common public court.
Additionally, most of the persecution of witches took place in the mid 16th to mid 17th centuries--definitively NOT part of the mediaeval age. The punishment during the mediaeval period was to b
To help you out, in English, the "-ed" suffix means that the subject is in a state of being in which the suffixed verb has already been applied.
So, in this case it becomes "brought order and organisation to".
Or, was it the "Z" to "S" transposition that confused you?
You see, a long long time ago in a land far away there was this place called "Angland"--it was inhabited by the Angles [the first half of the Anglo-Saxons] . . . what the heck am I wasting my time on this for?
On a more serious note: the connection between sharing of truth as fundamentally being a form of organiSation should be obvious. Proof of which, in this median, is too large to contain.
Sorry, but "organized belief" is a non-sense phrase [akin to "organized religion"]--with its implication that there is a contrary state.
If anything [ANYTHING] is true then to share that simple fact--whether scientific or faith based--is to have a doctrine [l. "teaching"].
Poof! You are now organised.
The only way around this is to state that not one thing in all of existence is universally true. This goes against science [regardless of frames of reference, because the rule of frames would be universally true] as much as it goes against religions.
And, of course, to state "no thing is universally true" is an oxymoron;-)
Perhaps, you could refine the definition to "highly institutionalised"--but then the definition is entirely arbitrary.
The Vatikan sais whats true and not and if you were a true Roman Catholic you would take these "facts" for granted. That's what religion is about.
Nope, that's not how it works--for Catholics or even the more organised Buddhists. Certainly, it is for some individuals and religions, but it is absolutely not a requisite of religion itself.
As to the danger of religion . . . I think you are scapegoating religion. Stalin, Hitler, Tse-Tung: the three greatest killers of all history and all three running fundamentally anti-religious regimes.
The problem there is simple: no one has ever come up with a basis for morality that is not arbitrarily based upon a religious belief. In its absence, there is only a pragmatic paradigm to found an ethos upon.
Whether or not it is pragmatic to "not kill" or to enslave, exploit, and slaughter for one's own benefit is left up to the individual. All of history seems to indicate what humans will do to each other if given a free hand.
The best fit for the data, scientifically speaking, appears to be that these things still happen in spite of religious beliefs and that religion plays a dampening affect upon erstwhile psychopathic behaviour of people and nations et alii.
Faith, and only faith gets the job done . . . . You'd have to actually read it to know that, though.
Let's read some, then [note that these passages are from both protestant and catholic translations]:
James 2:24 --
You see that a man is justified by works, and not by faith alone.
Reevlation 20:11:15 --
And I saw a great white throne and Him who sat upon it, from whose presence earth and heaven fled away, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books, according to their deeds. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead which were in them; and they were judged, every one of them according to their deeds.
Matthew 16:26:27 --
For what will a man be profited, if he gains the whole world, and forfeits his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? For the Son of Man is going to come in the glory of His Father with His angels; and will then recompense every man according to his deeds.
Revelation 2:23 --
And I will kill her children with pestilence; and all the churches will know that I am He who searches the minds and hearts; and I will give to each one of you according to your deeds.
Romans 2:5:11 --
But because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who will render to every man according to his deeds: to those who by perseverance in doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality, eternal life; but to those who are selfishly ambitious and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, wrath and indignation. There will be tribulation and distress for every soul of man who does evil, of the Jew first and also of the Greek, but glory and honor and peace to every man who does good, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For there is no partiality with God.
John 5:28:29 --
Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, And shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation.
I was in our staff meeting room the other week and another engineer came in stating something like "think there'd be a way to automagically do 3d in Flash?". [I know -0 about Flash].
15 minutes and later we had a method of assembling 3-d polygons as layers in 2-d and the ability to rotate in 3 axes.
Fortunately, an artist was there who demonstrated the physical method of doing perspective drawing and we turned that into a trig algorythm and you could now move through pseudo-3d space.
We just wanted to see if it was possible, so we didn't cross the colision, camera not actually at infinity, don't draw things behind you bridges . . . .
I've never taken a graphics course nor programmed in it, so I have no idea if this is how "for real" systems do it . . . . the point is, having the math backgroud we didn't need to have taken the CS course as we were able to derive it ourselves.
And, I guess that technically it's all trig [d*cos(artan(dx/dy) ) kind of stuff], fairly simple actually . . . but there's no way it would have been doable w/o having had the practice of Vector Calc back in the day.
I had to give one of our interns a 20 minute explanation of Set Theory et alia the other day to explain why doing a query to display a certain cross-section of data can take (literally) longer than the current age of the universe (if by join) or about 6 seconds (in-line sub queries).
One could probably figure that out from a Data Structures class [or wherever you happen to learn your "Big O()" notation] to derive the result of x*n as opposed to x^n! in computation . . . .
However, unless you are truly limiting yourself to that niche, I'd consider Vector Calc to be very important [necessitating Diff Calc, Integ Calc, Series Calc]. Not sure Linear Algebra is really that useful any more--all the libraries are written [unless you're doing compiler work]. Outside of academia [writing simulators/solvers for upper-tier physics projects].
To be honest, though. I don't thing one should be able to receive a college degree without having completed a full year of calculus anyway.
But if you want to be able to work in more than a few niche markets, you'd better have V-Calc, DE, LA, Stat down pat.
There also seems to be little encouragement for keeping students who have proven their worth. Additionally, the system is entirely focused on quickly getting a high-school student into college, totally ignoring those who wish to return to college [for further education] or can only go part-time.
While being a software developer, I've been going to school part-time [Physics/CS] at local-state-U. I already have an undergrad degree from one of the best US schools. I have a 4.0GPA and a 3.96GPA at the schools I attend, and a 4.0GPA in my previous programme.
Over the last five years of schooling [part-time degrees are agonisingly slow to get], I have received ONE offer for financial assistance [and I didn't qualify, since I can only go part-time].
I don't work this hard for a direct reward per se--it's more a manifestation of my OCD that I will, in fact, redo a report/experiment/project that I received a 99% on if given the opportunity to redo it.
However, I'm amazed at how utterly unimportant being the best student in almost every* class actually is.
Meanwhile, other countries [e.g., Germany] recognise the huge future benefit of having PhDs and will actually fund their schooling. Not surprisingly, most of the graduate students in my department [and most of the professors] are not Americans, which, though refreshing, is an indicator that higher education is not actually of perceived value to the American system--a system that will use it's own financial aid to fund foreign students [I don't actually know if we receive quid por quo funding in return--we had better].
If Americans want to have Americans working in science and technology, they should strongly consider funding the students who are interested and capable of it.
I saw some research into this a while back [like 5-7 years]. It turns out that, for a family, a 2nd income needs to be more than ~35k$ to offset the increased costs of not having a home-maker [in re the United States].
It is important to note that this was not a calculated "equivalent income" when hired out [which would be about twice that value]. This is in terms of the additional costs incurred by not having someone taking care of the house/kids, the higher taxes on both incomes that result, etc. It also did not account for the increased medical and crime problems that also correlate.
Most incomes are less than 25k$, so most dual-income families are probably doing themselves a disservice.
Our family went to single income and we do OK [my wife decided she hated her research job anyway, "Most scientists aren't"]. We gave up the 2nd car [garaged my 60's muscle car], which saves 200$+/month in gas/maintenance/insurance [that's 3.3k$ pre-tax per year]. That, and cancelling niceties like broadband/cable, and we can afford to keep out little house in a God-awful bullet-ridden neighbourhood.
The irony: [and this is germane to many comments, above]. If I we didn't make these financially conservative moves and went towards foreclosure we would have qualified to get one of the newer, larger, and much better assisted-income "Habitat for Humanity" houses one block up the street.
But I'm sure every generation for the past 200 years has said that, "Kids today aren't willing to work as hard". It can't have been true every time, or otherwise we would have died out by now.
Yes. I once saw a translation of an Ægyptian scroll which detailed the declination of their society and the problems of their disrespectful and recalcitrant youth.
In another thread in here, we got to talking about US incomes. The/roadblock to the middle class/, disparity of incomes and such.
The US population would be more useful to the corporations if they were largely working poor--perhaps that is the intent. As we have recently seen with the pharmaceutical. companies influence with the prescription drug package where the US government DID NOT negotiate a group-rate for the plan . . . the government is now willing to bankrupt itself, and therefore the American people, at the whim of its corporate masters.
Kurt Vonnegut's Player Piano did a good job in predicting the future of American culture, looks like what he missed is that they will be slaves to corporations and not of the government [that is, apparently, already is enslaved].
In the wealthiest nation of the world, 1-in-7 are now living in poverty. WTF?
I saw an interesting statistic that [~1996], a 2nd income needed to make 35k$/year [pre-tax] to break even with the additional costs involved [2nd car, insurance on it, more take-out dinners, childcare, increased likelihood of health problems, etc].
For comparison, the median household income in the US is 49k$/year. Meaning that the 2nd job needs to be in the top 25% bracket to break even.
And that'd assume an average combined income. Add in the probable marriage penalty, and the fact that if you increase your income you will need to pay a higher tax on both incomes. For a family, it's not a viable option, though many choose it anyway--perhaps not realising that they're probably making the situation worse.
. . . once everybody (middle and lower classes) will move in countries where there are jobs (oversea), the companies won't even have to pay transport as most of the customers will be in the countries overseas . . . .
why don't we outsource congress, what do we pay those assholes? . . . . Shit we would'nt even have to pay for all those building in DC. They could just email us our laws in PDF format and we could turn the capital into a 200 screen movie theater.
This is, by far, the best idea I've ever seen posted on/.
Harvard performed the original study, on men only, back in the 20's. They found a strong LINEAR relation between height and income. They have repeated this study many times [last time was in the late 80s] and found that the correlation has never changed.
The Harvard study did check for similar backgrounds: they compared people who had the same degrees [or lack thereof] in the same fields, working in the same jobs, and even broke it down by GPA. By far, the most important determinate for you pay scale is your height--if you are a man.
Why? It was explained as instinct--tall people are more likely to be given authority, and are more likely to have their authority obeyed. Of course, this tendency for humans to defer to the taller also creates a personality more suited to these responsibilities. Thus, they are more likely to move up whatever corporate ladder their near.
If you are at a large corporation, just start taking note of the height of the management-types. I've worked for only two major corporations, but the correlation was undeniable. I was astounded that I hadn't noticed it until I came across the Harvard study and went to the following company meeting.
PS I ran the 789$/inch through my own height: 99.75% accuracy--holy smokes.
Plagiarism ? Yes and no, and mostly YES. The consensus among dramaturges and literary folks is generally 'yes, he plagiarised a lot'.
However, culturally, the artists of his time did not really have a concept of plagiarism -- id est, it was an accepted practice to take someone else's work. Something of an honour actually, to have someone do your work.
There are parallels to this 'culture of creativity'--a clique of artists or artisans working together on the cutting edge of something. Rock and Roll discovering itself as an art form in the "sixties" for example--no one accused Hendrix of ripping off Dylan when he did "All Along the Watchtower" or robbing The Who when he smashed his guitar on stage at Monterey. Software hacking of the "seventies" was similar--everyone stole each others code and improved it [or just used it to do something else that was cool]. The bleeding-edge hobbyists pave the road for those who come after with a labour of love. Though, perhaps, with the exception of Mr. Gates.
Ironic that his company created a poorly implemented Macintosh emulator and wound up being sued for it.
Of course, the hobbyists give way to employees and the bleeding-edge becomes standard business practices. Rock-stars sue each other over sound clips [I'm awaiting this to begin in Rap now], and technology decisions are made by MBAs who trust someone with an MCSE on their resume to make an objective and informed decision.
Perhaps a better analogy would be the obvious difference between the founders of the Internet, the folks that got it to work and implemented the modern "web", and the.com cronies who got CS degrees only because they thought they'd be able to retire by 30.
The proposed solution, then, is NOT to get rid of WHOIS. It's simply to add an anonymity layer to it. The _actual_ contact info would be available to the registrar, and contacts/complaints would be handled through them.
If you want to complain to the CEO of AT&T, you call him at work--not at home.
If the target registrant is using false information, the registrar itself [AS IS REQUIRED] would still find out--really, it's actually a non-change for them.
There are plenty of allegories to this in existing systems--this shouldn't be a big deal.
Coming across my personal info in the WHOIS database [2 entries] is what clued me into the fact that I was a victim of identity theft [via stolen mail].
However, I agree--it's not cool to post personal information [at least for non companies]. What if someone wants to run a controversial site? They should be able to do so without fear of physical repercussions, right? Or, God forbid, kids who register a domain . . . if I had a family website with pictures of my kids on it, I sure as Hell wouldn't want my home address available to the public.
Remember, some small percentage of humanity is fully deranged. The internet exposes you to all of them.
Slashdot Mirror
The real cause, as you pointed to, is in regions with high death rates. In fact, the only strong corollary that has been statistically linked to a birth rate is the death rate of the area.
This can be seen by the fact that Europe has the lowest death rates and has the lowest birth rates--the native populations are declining in many European nations. The also holds true for the United States, Japan, et alii. --it is pan-culture, pan-race, pan-religion.
The trick then would be finding a way to use this to extend the life-expectancy of the developing peoples--and the requisite "quality of life".
Of course, if you can do that you'd be able to solve most of the global problems anyway.
--
It's the same with men as with horses and dogs:
nothing wants to die
Thom Waits, "The Fall of Troy"
Please forgive the next paragraph--it has been heavily filtered to be ND-safe.
"We" have been recently dealing with some VC firms. Before one meeting was scheduled, the suits were having a strategy briefing where they kept reiterating the mantra "Nothing we are doing requires innovation or creation of new technology"--with specific instructions to NOT cast the light of innovation upon the widget.
In fact, a CEO stated to me that [to paraphrase] "VCs want nothing to do with new technologies".
Luckily, the widget was all about doing brilliant things with existing and proven technologies to evolutionize the market...ahem....
WRT the tablua rasa, "expanded the argument" thing . . . Given that thought experiments have the requisite of being possible, I was merely pointing out that your counterexample, by being impossible, was invalid.
Your second example is even worse. Context appears to be to overwhelmed you here. First, bathrooms are not philosophy [well, maybe they are for some]. Second, what you claim as an absurdity is absolutely correct--the, shall we say, "bathroom experience" would be shared.
You seem to have missed the point in this regard--that is, no one can actually subtract h[im/er]self from their culture and history. Thus, human existence is a fundamentally shared experience.
Of course, there is also the quantum-physics problem of the observer/conciousness affecting the outcome of experiment. Obviously this carries the implication that observation/conciousness has a direct affect on the manifestation of "reality". If this is the case, then physical existence itself may be a shared experience.
I made some jokes . . . .
It's too late to back peddle now.
a claim is completely childish . . .
You piss on the floor, and then attempt to claim the high road? Please. If it bothers you to be held accountable for your behaviour and what you say, you should refrain from public posting.
I hope you're referring either to radioactive mutation . . .
Nope.
. . . or mitochondrial population fluctuations
Nope [is that what a 30 second Google search turned up for you?]
- because if not, then you're professing something that hands-on experimentation by Nazi scientists has directly disproved.
Three options to cover the entire field of genetics? If not [a] or [b] then it must be [c]? Now you are being silly.
this "race" is only distinguished from others by its religion
I don't think most folks would agree. One of the characteristics of Jewish people is that they are both a race and a religion. The rhetoric employed during the holocaust focused almost entirely on what we could now think of as genetic traits. Plus, I think the focus would be upon the why were killers killing, rather than why the victims were dying.
WRT the mediaeval times/cruelty etc . . . yes, horrible things have, in fact, happened in the name and even because of religion. I can't deny that at all. A good example would be the witch hunts which erupted across Europe in the Early Modern period (late 1500s)--almost entirely a Christian persecuting Christian situation [protestants killing catholics and different sects of each other].
My point with that is: this doesn't mean that an absence of religion would result in a decrease in these events. There is still not enough data to conclude, but it seems that as religious belief is curtailed that these kinds of oppressions and atrocities are on the rise.
It'll probably be another hundred years before we can tell.
These can also be derived without any religion by simple logic.
Has anyone succeeded in doing this? The problem is: why is anything right or wrong? Many species on this planet prey upon their own, almost all will brutally compete with their own for space, resources, mates, etc . . . why are humans to live by a separate set of rules? [thought continues after your next comment]
We live in a society and the only way to avoid chaos is a peaceful living, which can only be achieved by ensuring the equality of all.
Yes. But we are culturally biased towards this belief [that, I'm also arguing is the inertia/derivation of our once religious culture]. Why should we avoid chaos? Why not follow a highly chaotic, dynamic, and brutal "survival of the fittest" modus operandi?
Another even simplier way is "don't do to others what you don't want others do to you".
Again, why? What's wrong with "I'll take what I can, good luck stopping me"--one can logically justify this via the "Law of the Jungle/Darwinism/Survival of the Fittest" The peoples of Europe now are the ones who successfully out competed [id est, destroyed] the other--same with Mongolia, China, Rome, Greece, the ancient Israelites, the modern Americans . . .
In the past you had to meet your enemy face to face. Without this need the inhibition to hurt people drops quite a bit I would guess.
True. I heard a statistic once that the #1 cause of non-natural death was being killed in the 20th century is for a person to be killed by their own government. I would like to find out if this is true.
I'm making up the start of the Modern Age at the beginning of civil rights, which is probably different from what others think.
OK. Technically, the Modern Age actually ended at the beginning of the 20th century and are now in the Post Modern Age--I assumed your were referring to the historical label. In retrospect, that was a silly assumption of mine to make--sorry.
WRT Civil rights--who are the greatest civil rights activists? Martin Luther King Jr [a priest], Mahatma Gandhi [a holy man], [Bishop] Desmond Tutu . . . .
You are German? You use the English language more effectively than most Americans! Is it true that your government will finance a student through a PhD if they can complete it?
P.S. I did not vote for Bush . . . they just put him in office anyway.
Another aspect that is overlooked is the proportion of petroleum-based products that are not gasoline.
Take a look around the room your in: --from here I have a desk, vinyl sided windows, two computers w/monitors, picture frames, book covers, folios, CDROMs, waste paper basket [and bag]. It seems that almost everything is made of petrol--people focus on the gas, but if it disappeared, lack of gas would not be the top problem on this list.
I'm curious to know how much petroleum goes to fuels vs products . . . anyone know?
Some related notes:
I believe that Chevron-Texaco posted its most profitable quarter EVER last month.
The process of petroleum use is so refined/efficient that it would be more efficient to simply burn the alternatives [e.g. corn-plastic] to heat the factories that petroleum-based products are fabricated in. [Or, this was the case a few years ago]. There's a long road of process engineering to hoe before we really even have the ability to replace petroleum in a serious manner [better start now!].
Rhetorical question: if the price of oil is not as high now as it was in 1981, why was the price of gas in 1981 about 1/3 of what is is now [adjusted, and from a US perspective]?
You seem to be missing the point that "organise" and "organize" are the same word. The usage of an 's' is somewhat antiquated, but it is not incorrect. You can refer to the OED for its etymology and see it quite plainly. Conjugating a verb shouldn't be confusing. One would also wonder how on Earth it got into Mozilla's spell-checker.
Done. Discussion over, I win.
Could you sound more juvenile?
you might have a point. But it doesn't, so you don't.
Yup, I guess you can.
Worst of all is the fact that you attempted to dismiss an argument based upon a triviality, rather than on its merits. The worst kind of deed in philosophy. Pathetic and shameful.
can you imagine somebody coming to a belief on his own, neither hearing it from someone else, nor relating it to another? If so, this is not "shared", and not (by your own definition) "organised".
A tabula rasa would require that they had never interacted with a single other living being [parents or society], have existed outside of any context of the thoughts of others [civilisation and its works (cities, art, writing, etc)]. This would require a single human living in a magic box and is, thus, in a non-trivial manner, impossible. One would wonder how he or she got there.
Additionally, it has been shown that humans can alter their own genetic code through their experiences in life and that this can be be passed along. The state of tabula rasa may not actually even be attainable in this circumstance.
Looks like we are mostly in agreement.
.
I agree that there is a fundamental difference between individual belief and religion.
An interesting aspect of having "come to their own beliefs#148; is that, really , it doesn't seem possible. Everyone exists in the context of their society, family, history and even their language. All of these together make an inescapable paradigm that the individual exists within . . . an interesting thing to examine later.
I'd say that all teaching is somewhat dogmatic. Take the wave equation from quantum mechanics for example: it has no basis and is taken as truth because it explains a lot [which, IMO, is a fine thing to so scientifically]. The derivation of this to beyond most non-math/physicists types--but that is no reason to forbid the sharing of this knowledge [more likely, knowledge derived from it] with the plebeians.
Warning: next paragraph is an attempt to compress a few pages of thought into a few sentences . . .
More to the point would be that if something is true then to make a system of common belief around it is not inherently wrong. Take laws like manslaughter or negligent homicide: both are based off of the tort law which is a derivation of the core ancient Jewish law [largely unchanged from what you'll see in Leviticus et alia]. The basis of which is "thou shall not kill", to which they replied "what if its on accident?" So, now you have interpretation and unless everyone is to become a theologian and lawyer the conclusions of the cognesceti will need to be handed out dogmatically. Ideally, one would be able to present their belief of truth in first principals and then debate it so some sort of conclusion--but this is nigh impossible in actuality.
It only proves that cruelty is not bound to religion.
Yes, that is EXACTLY what I am saying as a rebuttal to your statement [to paraphrase] "organised religion is proven to be dangerous".
are you really going to tell me that Hitler's hate for the Jews had nothing to do with religion?
Yes. His statements were almost entirely derisive of the Jewish race. There was no mention of killing the non-believers, that I recall [not that I'm definitive on this]. Anyway, Hitler also spent a lot of time lying and manipulating people with extraordinary efficiency--so, though I cannot speak for him, it seems to me that his motivations had nothing to do with religion.
He also killed almost all of the gypsies in occupied territories, which would not be religiously based.
My comment on pragmatism is in re the "danger of religion". Certainly, the individual is always choosing [whether in religion or not]--my point was that people, regardless, seem to choose what is convenient to their own situation. Thus, a solely pragmatic ethos could easily be a "survival of the fittest" construct.
Just think about the Middle Ages, they are not called the Dark Ages for naught. We had the holy crusades, the inquisition, the burning of witches and heretics (please note that I do not generalize this to all religions).
I've studied them . . . and you have an all-to-common misconception. They were called the "Dark Ages" because this title was retroactively applied by the intellectuals of the Renaissance [for the loss of knowledge that occurred after the fall of Rome]. As my mediaeval literature advisor stated "There was nothing 'Dark' or terrible about he mediaeval period."
As for The Inquisition [and the ~1500 people killed in it], most of it was political. One should also note that the scope of The Inquisition and Witch Trials was distorted poor translation where "tried by inquisition" was interpreted to be THE inquisition and not the common public court.
Additionally, most of the persecution of witches took place in the mid 16th to mid 17th centuries--definitively NOT part of the mediaeval age. The punishment during the mediaeval period was to b
Hmmm...you must be some kind of genius:
organise
To help you out, in English, the "-ed" suffix means that the subject is in a state of being in which the suffixed verb has already been applied.
So, in this case it becomes "brought order and organisation to".
Or, was it the "Z" to "S" transposition that confused you?
You see, a long long time ago in a land far away there was this place called "Angland"--it was inhabited by the Angles [the first half of the Anglo-Saxons] . . . what the heck am I wasting my time on this for?
On a more serious note: the connection between sharing of truth as fundamentally being a form of organiSation should be obvious. Proof of which, in this median, is too large to contain.
Sorry, but "organized belief" is a non-sense phrase [akin to "organized religion"]--with its implication that there is a contrary state.
;-)
If anything [ANYTHING] is true then to share that simple fact--whether scientific or faith based--is to have a doctrine [l. "teaching"].
Poof! You are now organised.
The only way around this is to state that not one thing in all of existence is universally true. This goes against science [regardless of frames of reference, because the rule of frames would be universally true] as much as it goes against religions.
And, of course, to state "no thing is universally true" is an oxymoron
Perhaps, you could refine the definition to "highly institutionalised"--but then the definition is entirely arbitrary.
The Vatikan sais whats true and not and if you were a true Roman Catholic you would take these "facts" for granted. That's what religion is about.
Nope, that's not how it works--for Catholics or even the more organised Buddhists. Certainly, it is for some individuals and religions, but it is absolutely not a requisite of religion itself.
As to the danger of religion . . . I think you are scapegoating religion. Stalin, Hitler, Tse-Tung: the three greatest killers of all history and all three running fundamentally anti-religious regimes.
The problem there is simple: no one has ever come up with a basis for morality that is not arbitrarily based upon a religious belief. In its absence, there is only a pragmatic paradigm to found an ethos upon.
Whether or not it is pragmatic to "not kill" or to enslave, exploit, and slaughter for one's own benefit is left up to the individual. All of history seems to indicate what humans will do to each other if given a free hand.
The best fit for the data, scientifically speaking, appears to be that these things still happen in spite of religious beliefs and that religion plays a dampening affect upon erstwhile psychopathic behaviour of people and nations et alii.
Faith, and only faith gets the job done . . . . You'd have to actually read it to know that, though.
;-)
Let's read some, then [note that these passages are from both protestant and catholic translations]:
James 2:24 --
You see that a man is justified by works, and not by faith alone.
Reevlation 20:11:15 --
And I saw a great white throne and Him who sat upon it, from whose presence earth and heaven fled away, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books, according to their deeds. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead which were in them; and they were judged, every one of them according to their deeds.
Matthew 16:26:27 --
For what will a man be profited, if he gains the whole world, and forfeits his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? For the Son of Man is going to come in the glory of His Father with His angels; and will then recompense every man according to his deeds.
Revelation 2:23 --
And I will kill her children with pestilence; and all the churches will know that I am He who searches the minds and hearts; and I will give to each one of you according to your deeds.
Romans 2:5:11 --
But because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who will render to every man according to his deeds: to those who by perseverance in doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality, eternal life; but to those who are selfishly ambitious and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, wrath and indignation. There will be tribulation and distress for every soul of man who does evil, of the Jew first and also of the Greek, but glory and honor and peace to every man who does good, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For there is no partiality with God.
John 5:28:29 --
Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, And shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation.
There seems to be a theme there
Dead on!
I was in our staff meeting room the other week and another engineer came in stating something like "think there'd be a way to automagically do 3d in Flash?". [I know -0 about Flash].
15 minutes and later we had a method of assembling 3-d polygons as layers in 2-d and the ability to rotate in 3 axes.
Fortunately, an artist was there who demonstrated the physical method of doing perspective drawing and we turned that into a trig algorythm and you could now move through pseudo-3d space.
We just wanted to see if it was possible, so we didn't cross the colision, camera not actually at infinity, don't draw things behind you bridges . . . .
I've never taken a graphics course nor programmed in it, so I have no idea if this is how "for real" systems do it . . . . the point is, having the math backgroud we didn't need to have taken the CS course as we were able to derive it ourselves.
And, I guess that technically it's all trig [d*cos(artan(dx/dy) ) kind of stuff], fairly simple actually . . . but there's no way it would have been doable w/o having had the practice of Vector Calc back in the day.
True . . . especially that 10%
I had to give one of our interns a 20 minute explanation of Set Theory et alia the other day to explain why doing a query to display a certain cross-section of data can take (literally) longer than the current age of the universe (if by join) or about 6 seconds (in-line sub queries).
One could probably figure that out from a Data Structures class [or wherever you happen to learn your "Big O()" notation] to derive the result of x*n as opposed to x^n! in computation . . . .
However, unless you are truly limiting yourself to that niche, I'd consider Vector Calc to be very important [necessitating Diff Calc, Integ Calc, Series Calc]. Not sure Linear Algebra is really that useful any more--all the libraries are written [unless you're doing compiler work]. Outside of academia [writing simulators/solvers for upper-tier physics projects].
To be honest, though. I don't thing one should be able to receive a college degree without having completed a full year of calculus anyway.
But if you want to be able to work in more than a few niche markets, you'd better have V-Calc, DE, LA, Stat down pat.
There also seems to be little encouragement for keeping students who have proven their worth. Additionally, the system is entirely focused on quickly getting a high-school student into college, totally ignoring those who wish to return to college [for further education] or can only go part-time.
While being a software developer, I've been going to school part-time [Physics/CS] at local-state-U. I already have an undergrad degree from one of the best US schools. I have a 4.0GPA and a 3.96GPA at the schools I attend, and a 4.0GPA in my previous programme.
Over the last five years of schooling [part-time degrees are agonisingly slow to get], I have received ONE offer for financial assistance [and I didn't qualify, since I can only go part-time].
I don't work this hard for a direct reward per se--it's more a manifestation of my OCD that I will, in fact, redo a report/experiment/project that I received a 99% on if given the opportunity to redo it.
However, I'm amazed at how utterly unimportant being the best student in almost every* class actually is.
Meanwhile, other countries [e.g., Germany] recognise the huge future benefit of having PhDs and will actually fund their schooling. Not surprisingly, most of the graduate students in my department [and most of the professors] are not Americans, which, though refreshing, is an indicator that higher education is not actually of perceived value to the American system--a system that will use it's own financial aid to fund foreign students [I don't actually know if we receive quid por quo funding in return--we had better].
If Americans want to have Americans working in science and technology, they should strongly consider funding the students who are interested and capable of it.
* There have been two exceptions.
I saw some research into this a while back [like 5-7 years]. It turns out that, for a family, a 2nd income needs to be more than ~35k$ to offset the increased costs of not having a home-maker [in re the United States].
It is important to note that this was not a calculated "equivalent income" when hired out [which would be about twice that value]. This is in terms of the additional costs incurred by not having someone taking care of the house/kids, the higher taxes on both incomes that result, etc. It also did not account for the increased medical and crime problems that also correlate.
Most incomes are less than 25k$, so most dual-income families are probably doing themselves a disservice.
Our family went to single income and we do OK [my wife decided she hated her research job anyway, "Most scientists aren't"]. We gave up the 2nd car [garaged my 60's muscle car], which saves 200$+/month in gas/maintenance/insurance [that's 3.3k$ pre-tax per year]. That, and cancelling niceties like broadband/cable, and we can afford to keep out little house in a God-awful bullet-ridden neighbourhood.
The irony: [and this is germane to many comments, above]. If I we didn't make these financially conservative moves and went towards foreclosure we would have qualified to get one of the newer, larger, and much better assisted-income "Habitat for Humanity" houses one block up the street.
But I'm sure every generation for the past 200 years has said that, "Kids today aren't willing to work as hard". It can't have been true every time, or otherwise we would have died out by now.
Yes. I once saw a translation of an Ægyptian scroll which detailed the declination of their society and the problems of their disrespectful and recalcitrant youth.
Some things never change.
But, then again, where is Ægypt now?
All too true, I'm afraid.
/roadblock to the middle class/, disparity of incomes and such.
In another thread in here, we got to talking about US incomes. The
The US population would be more useful to the corporations if they were largely working poor--perhaps that is the intent. As we have recently seen with the pharmaceutical. companies influence with the prescription drug package where the US government DID NOT negotiate a group-rate for the plan . . . the government is now willing to bankrupt itself, and therefore the American people, at the whim of its corporate masters.
Kurt Vonnegut's Player Piano did a good job in predicting the future of American culture, looks like what he missed is that they will be slaves to corporations and not of the government [that is, apparently, already is enslaved].
In the wealthiest nation of the world, 1-in-7 are now living in poverty. WTF?
I saw an interesting statistic that [~1996], a 2nd income needed to make 35k$/year [pre-tax] to break even with the additional costs involved [2nd car, insurance on it, more take-out dinners, childcare, increased likelihood of health problems, etc].
For comparison, the median household income in the US is 49k$/year. Meaning that the 2nd job needs to be in the top 25% bracket to break even.
And that'd assume an average combined income. Add in the probable marriage penalty, and the fact that if you increase your income you will need to pay a higher tax on both incomes. For a family, it's not a viable option, though many choose it anyway--perhaps not realising that they're probably making the situation worse.
. . . once everybody (middle and lower classes) will move in countries where there are jobs (oversea), the companies won't even have to pay transport as most of the customers will be in the countries overseas . . . .
Yeah, but will you be able to get a work visa?
why don't we outsource congress, what do we pay those assholes? . . . . Shit we would'nt even have to pay for all those building in DC. They could just email us our laws in PDF format and we could turn the capital into a 200 screen movie theater.
/.
This is, by far, the best idea I've ever seen posted on
Harvard performed the original study, on men only, back in the 20's. They found a strong LINEAR relation between height and income. They have repeated this study many times [last time was in the late 80s] and found that the correlation has never changed.
The Harvard study did check for similar backgrounds: they compared people who had the same degrees [or lack thereof] in the same fields, working in the same jobs, and even broke it down by GPA. By far, the most important determinate for you pay scale is your height--if you are a man.
Why? It was explained as instinct--tall people are more likely to be given authority, and are more likely to have their authority obeyed. Of course, this tendency for humans to defer to the taller also creates a personality more suited to these responsibilities. Thus, they are more likely to move up whatever corporate ladder their near.
If you are at a large corporation, just start taking note of the height of the management-types. I've worked for only two major corporations, but the correlation was undeniable. I was astounded that I hadn't noticed it until I came across the Harvard study and went to the following company meeting.
PS I ran the 789$/inch through my own height: 99.75% accuracy--holy smokes.
Plagiarism ? Yes and no, and mostly YES. The consensus among dramaturges and literary folks is generally 'yes, he plagiarised a lot'.
However, culturally, the artists of his time did not really have a concept of plagiarism -- id est, it was an accepted practice to take someone else's work. Something of an honour actually, to have someone do your work.
There are parallels to this 'culture of creativity'--a clique of artists or artisans working together on the cutting edge of something. Rock and Roll discovering itself as an art form in the "sixties" for example--no one accused Hendrix of ripping off Dylan when he did "All Along the Watchtower" or robbing The Who when he smashed his guitar on stage at Monterey. Software hacking of the "seventies" was similar--everyone stole each others code and improved it [or just used it to do something else that was cool]. The bleeding-edge hobbyists pave the road for those who come after with a labour of love. Though, perhaps, with the exception of Mr. Gates.
Ironic that his company created a poorly implemented Macintosh emulator and wound up being sued for it.
Of course, the hobbyists give way to employees and the bleeding-edge becomes standard business practices. Rock-stars sue each other over sound clips [I'm awaiting this to begin in Rap now], and technology decisions are made by MBAs who trust someone with an MCSE on their resume to make an objective and informed decision.
Perhaps a better analogy would be the obvious difference between the founders of the Internet, the folks that got it to work and implemented the modern "web", and the .com cronies who got CS degrees only because they thought they'd be able to retire by 30.
Good artists copy, great artists steal.--me
The proposed solution, then, is NOT to get rid of WHOIS. It's simply to add an anonymity layer to it. The _actual_ contact info would be available to the registrar, and contacts/complaints would be handled through them.
If you want to complain to the CEO of AT&T, you call him at work--not at home.
If the target registrant is using false information, the registrar itself [AS IS REQUIRED] would still find out--really, it's actually a non-change for them.
There are plenty of allegories to this in existing systems--this shouldn't be a big deal.
Coming across my personal info in the WHOIS database [2 entries] is what clued me into the fact that I was a victim of identity theft [via stolen mail].
However, I agree--it's not cool to post personal information [at least for non companies]. What if someone wants to run a controversial site? They should be able to do so without fear of physical repercussions, right? Or, God forbid, kids who register a domain . . . if I had a family website with pictures of my kids on it, I sure as Hell wouldn't want my home address available to the public.
Remember, some small percentage of humanity is fully deranged. The internet exposes you to all of them.