When I was in school, I was in a meaningless chemistry lab, and my partner wrote the report and threw out 5 data points. I asked him why, and he said that they were "outliers". I was shocked. We were being graded on the quality of our data, but I don't think that's a good reason to be teaching people to randomly throw out data points that don't "fit". Of course, I don't know how you would teach a class differently to discourage this kind of behavior.
But I don't think bible verses will be well received in this forum.
The problem with oaths is that the fact that you have to take one implies that you would not do the right thing otherwise. In fact, saying it almost implies that you intend to break it (kind of like the way you know not to trust someone when they say "you can trust me"). Yeah, we can pass on the whole oath thing. Lets just practice honesty and professionalism in all of our endeavors.
The authors conclusion that corporate science should be modeled on academics to prevent corruption is patently absurd. There is plenty of corruption in academics, and it is exactly the same kind of corruption. Scientists will try to misrepresent the their data in order to gain publication, notoriety, and additional funding. This is exactly the same gamble that corporate scientists take, knowing that there is a possibility that further research will support their hypotheses, they would rather move forward than give up entirely. For the record, most corporate CEOs would probably rather have accurate data too. It's much more expensive to have a failed project than a thousand lawsuits. But no one wants to wake up one day and find out they've spent the last 5 years chasing a dead end.
I agree that an oath won't help with the situation, but bizarre funding structures won't help wither, because the problem isn't the money, it's the nature of scientific investigation. Perhaps we should just be more diligent in the peer-review process.
For those of you who don't know, that use of the LDS acronym is a refrence to Star Trek IV (the source of all this transparent aluminum talk).
I know these posts are not serous, but the term metallic glass does not refer to transparent metals, but rather metals with an amorphus structure. Metallic glass lacks the fracture points associated with the crystal lattice of metals. This means that metallic glass does not fagigue over time as normal metals would. I believe that metallic glasses were first discovered by rapidally cooling laminants of titanium (I think I read somewhere that a WW2 nazi scientist fisrt discovered them).
Capitalism is not a philosophy, and does not set out a "highest human goal". I don't think I've ever even read the word "capitalist" before.
I think you are referring to objectiveism, in which case you would still be wrong, but perhaps more right? Most of the people on this forum who advocate capitalism are actually libertarians, for whom human dignity and rights (including economic freedom) are a primary goal.
Wow, this is the only post I've ever read on slashdot about fascism that isn't simply calling the opposing viewpoint fascism with little or no reason.
Fascism does have it's merits, in that it is more efficient than capitalism or communism. While it is good at building efficient economies, it doesn't have a very good human rights record at all.
I think it's reliance on strong leadership is it's main downfall. Leaders, no matter how strong, have their flaws.
"Not that I'm a fascist, I just read everything about them I could get out of my university library 'cause i didn't have tv."
The TV won't tell you much about the workings of fascism.
The combustion of hydrogen to produce water is an exothermic reaction, and it releases exactly the amount of energy that splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen requires. Anything else would violate conservation of energy.
It is possible to "liberate" the hydrogen in water, if you use a reactant that is a very strong electrophile to "steel" the oxygen atoms from the hydrogen atoms. But the ability to produce hydrogen would be limited by the available quantity of reactant.
The only way this claim could be true is if the laws of thermodynamics are wrong.
You do not have a choice with regards to paying taxes. Just ask Eddy Murphy. You have to pay them or the government will take them by force (with interest) and you will go to jail.
"No, money serves as an exchange value, and it is decidedly different from property."
No, you need to study economics. Money serves three purposes:
1 Medium of exchange 2 Unit of account 3 Store of value
The last purpose makes it a form of property.
"Gold also, obviously, is a form of money."
No, gold is a commodity. It has intrinsic value. It is extracted from the earth (produced). It is traded in commodity markets. It is more liquid than most commodities, since people will often accept it as payment, but it is still a commodity.
In all fairness, libertarianism has never been tried (anarchy has, but that's different because it lacks the rule of law).
All libertarians want is the freedom to do as they please to the extent that it does not cause direct harm to others. Is that really so much to ask? No other system achieves this, because any other system asks you to give up freedoms that do not hurt other people. So any other system is unacceptable to libertarians.
But if we as a nation were to try it, we would transition slowly, by cutting unnecessary government programs first, then by looking for alternative forms of funding for ones that can't simply be cut. If at any point it was apparent it wasn't working, we could always go back and try something different.
It's hard enough for libertarians to fight continued expansion of government powers, much less try to reduce them. I can only hope that by explaining to people that no, the government can't solve all your problems, they might oppose continued restrictions on their freedom.
I read at -1 too, and I would agree that most deserve to be there. The problem is the ones that don't. Metamoderation does not fix the score of a particular post, and metamoderatos are subject to the same bias as moderators.
I think a better system of weeding out trolls might be just filtering them out on your own, or maybe a system that looks at what your friends have marked as "troll" and filters those out for you.
The problem is people such as yourself who are unwilling to trust other people and hold a very negative opinion of them. Believing that people will mostly keep their heads down and pay a protection fee is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
What you've got to understand is that there is no system of government that will give you the protection you seek. Once you understand that, maybe you will be more willing to accept the uncertainty that follows from that reality.
Any conservative who posts on this site can vouch for the accuracy of this claim. Moderators mod down views they don't agree with, and on slash-dot that means that conservatives are moded down a lot more than up. I've had comments moded to +5 during the day, only to see that they've been moded down to -1 overnight. How could that possibly be objective? It's not. The minority opinion is lost unless you read at -1.
I was talking about the bill of rights. The only mention of property rights is that you have the right to be secure in your possessions against unlawful searches and seizures. Again, it limits the rights of government. The sections of the constitution that grant governmental authority come before the bill of rights.
"Communal redistribution is similarly approved"
This is not only wrong, but it is dead wrong. This property is almost always taken without consent of the owner. If the owner wished to give it up willingly, there would be no need for redistribution.
"but both have the intent of receiving approval by participants."
Bullshit. I have never heard a communist speak about receiving approval from owners. They always talk about taking by force.
"It is only the same thing if property equals money"
Money is representative of resources, and there is no real difference. If you were paid in gold, or oil, you'd need to pay taxes on that too. This is just pointless definitional hair-splitting.
"how do you enforce the law? How do you counter the criminal gangs?"
People need to come together to counter these threats. Criminal gangs are always dependent on the people they victimize. The power is in the hands of the people who actually do the work.
We could easily form voluntary militias that would be more powerful than any criminal organization. Especially once you consider that if the mob were to kill the people in the militia, they would be biting the hand that feeds them. It is only through fear that these criminals can operate (for example, a mugger can victimize many people today, because people willingly hand over their money to avoid being hurt, but if everyone stood up to them they would have to find another way to make money or else they certainly be killed).
"A libertarian country would have no such safeguards."
There is not reason a libertarian country couldn't have exactly the same safeguards. It all depends how these security organizations would be set up and managed.
That's where the last part of my comment comes into play.
"If we want to live in a free society, it will come through our own hard work and personal sacrifice, not some politician with easy answers."
Constant vigilance and the willingness to sacrifice our comforts and potentially our lives is the only way we can live in a free society. You have to be willing to stand up to a tyrant, even if you know it may cost you your life.
We are not gods, we can not establish a perfect system of government that will be free from corruption and oppression. When it comes down to it, we have to be willing to do what it takes to maintain our freedom. Moreover, freedom is not just some happy idea that we will live in a carefree world, it means accepting personal responsibility and taking the risk that we may lose everything and need to depend on the charity of others.
Libertarians like to take a divide and conquer approach to oppression. The government is one large, faceless system that is virtually impossible to refuse. But if you were just fighting some organized mob, you have some hope of overpowering it (after all, the mob needs you more than you need it).
In the end, if just comes down to faith. Faith that you can depend on your fellow man to help you when you are in need. Faith that the forces of reason and justice will prevail over tyranny and oppression. If it is any consonance, reason and justice are stronger because their power comes from deep values like consensus and friendship and respect, while tyranny and oppression gets its power from shallow values like fear and mistrust and greed.
In the past oppression has always sprung up as a result of people trying to get assurances. Tyrants promise security, or wealth, or free healthcare, and people gladly give up their personal responsibility to get it. Just say no to guarantees and easy answers. Say yes to hard work and personal sacrifice.
I have yet to see any proof of falsified voting results. Yes, I read the news a lot. Probably more than is healthy. What specifically are you referring to?
"Believe it or not, a medieval king was basically the head of the country's strongest organized gang."
That's a matter of opinion. No king stands for long without popular support. A gang of criminals can survive only as long as people are willing to support it. Right now, we pay them for drugs, where would they be if all they could do is steel stuff? They wouldn't be able to make enough money to survive.
"If you hire a force that is strong enough to stop a large gang, that force is itself strong enough to be a danger to you."
According you your theory, the military and the police should be knocking at my door demanding protection money. But they aren't.
"This is why I say that a libertarian state will quickly decay into feudalism or fascism."
Libertarians don't stand against social order (for that you should look into anarchists). The rule of law and the insurance of personal freedom is of paramount importance to libertarians. But I don't believe that the government needs to take peoples money by force in order to function. And I don't believe the government has to provide infrastructure or social well-fare.
"Sometimes I think libertarianism is a religion, not a coherent philosophy."
That's because it is. It's not a philosophy, it's a way of life. I believe that it is evil to take without asking and to impose my will on others by force (even democratically approved force). This is (literally) a religious conviction. I baffles me people don't understand that these things are stupid, pointless, evil.
How can the ends justify the means? Why form a state-sponsored armed mob to deny us our freedoms and our property, when there are so many willing free agents chomping at the bit to do the same. You can't fight fire with fire. If we want to live in a free society, it will come through our own hard work and personal sacrifice, not some politician with easy answers.
They are prohibited drilling in that region (to protect the ecology). They are also prohibited from doing business with Cuba (we have a trade embargo against them). So yes, they're the ones not drilling down there, but it's because the american voter made it illegal for them do so.
"I suspect that few (if any) of the infrastructure we take for granted would exist in a world where your perspective was the dominant philosophy."
Yeah, because no individual could ever see the benefit and profitability of building roads, or satiation infrastructure. Only our sage-like leaders can understand the benefit of such things and muster the resources to get them built.
"You can't, after all, use a gun to enforce free speech"
How do you enforce free speech? Wait a minute, that doesn't make any sense, because the bill of rights does not regulate activities of individuals so no enforcement power of government is implied. Rather, the bill of rights prohibits specific activities on the part of the government. For all your fancy, big words, you seem to have a poor grasp of the language in the constitution.
"you can provide equal public access to the media"
The constitution does not give this authority to the government. The first amendment does not require the government to do anything at all. It simply prevents the government from regulating free speech.
"Just as you presume an innate property right, an equally axiomatic assumption can be made about a right to health care."
You don't have an innate right to any property, just the property you come into through the free market. Likewise, libertarians believe you have a right to whatever healthcare you've acquired through free market action.
"You can't suggest that a property right is sustained in any way other than through redistribution of wealth, simply, it is a form of redistribution through which you approve (free market) rather than a redistribution that you loathe (communal funding)."
Yes, the free market is much better because each "redistribution" is approved by all parties involved. That's means that it's not an unwanted infringement on you personal freedom.
"No, you are actually saying taxation is only justified when it doesn't interfere with property rights."
Well, seeing as we believe that property should only ever be exchanged voluntarily, that's really the same thing, isn't it?
"You've taken that single right and made it superior to all others; other rights exist only to the extent that they are subservient to that single right that you worship."
No, it's just that this aspect of freedom is most often under attack.
Slashdot Mirror
When I was in school, I was in a meaningless chemistry lab, and my partner wrote the report and threw out 5 data points. I asked him why, and he said that they were "outliers". I was shocked. We were being graded on the quality of our data, but I don't think that's a good reason to be teaching people to randomly throw out data points that don't "fit". Of course, I don't know how you would teach a class differently to discourage this kind of behavior.
But I don't think bible verses will be well received in this forum.
The problem with oaths is that the fact that you have to take one implies that you would not do the right thing otherwise. In fact, saying it almost implies that you intend to break it (kind of like the way you know not to trust someone when they say "you can trust me"). Yeah, we can pass on the whole oath thing. Lets just practice honesty and professionalism in all of our endeavors.
What is this communist rant doing listed as news?
The authors conclusion that corporate science should be modeled on academics to prevent corruption is patently absurd. There is plenty of corruption in academics, and it is exactly the same kind of corruption. Scientists will try to misrepresent the their data in order to gain publication, notoriety, and additional funding. This is exactly the same gamble that corporate scientists take, knowing that there is a possibility that further research will support their hypotheses, they would rather move forward than give up entirely. For the record, most corporate CEOs would probably rather have accurate data too. It's much more expensive to have a failed project than a thousand lawsuits. But no one wants to wake up one day and find out they've spent the last 5 years chasing a dead end.
I agree that an oath won't help with the situation, but bizarre funding structures won't help wither, because the problem isn't the money, it's the nature of scientific investigation. Perhaps we should just be more diligent in the peer-review process.
For those of you who don't know, that use of the LDS acronym is a refrence to Star Trek IV (the source of all this transparent aluminum talk).
I know these posts are not serous, but the term metallic glass does not refer to transparent metals, but rather metals with an amorphus structure. Metallic glass lacks the fracture points associated with the crystal lattice of metals. This means that metallic glass does not fagigue over time as normal metals would. I believe that metallic glasses were first discovered by rapidally cooling laminants of titanium (I think I read somewhere that a WW2 nazi scientist fisrt discovered them).
Capitalism is not a philosophy, and does not set out a "highest human goal". I don't think I've ever even read the word "capitalist" before. I think you are referring to objectiveism, in which case you would still be wrong, but perhaps more right? Most of the people on this forum who advocate capitalism are actually libertarians, for whom human dignity and rights (including economic freedom) are a primary goal.
Wow, this is the only post I've ever read on slashdot about fascism that isn't simply calling the opposing viewpoint fascism with little or no reason.
Fascism does have it's merits, in that it is more efficient than capitalism or communism. While it is good at building efficient economies, it doesn't have a very good human rights record at all.
I think it's reliance on strong leadership is it's main downfall. Leaders, no matter how strong, have their flaws.
"Not that I'm a fascist, I just read everything about them I could get out of my university library 'cause i didn't have tv."
The TV won't tell you much about the workings of fascism.
The combustion of hydrogen to produce water is an exothermic reaction, and it releases exactly the amount of energy that splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen requires. Anything else would violate conservation of energy.
It is possible to "liberate" the hydrogen in water, if you use a reactant that is a very strong electrophile to "steel" the oxygen atoms from the hydrogen atoms. But the ability to produce hydrogen would be limited by the available quantity of reactant.
The only way this claim could be true is if the laws of thermodynamics are wrong.
You do not have a choice with regards to paying taxes. Just ask Eddy Murphy. You have to pay them or the government will take them by force (with interest) and you will go to jail.
"No, money serves as an exchange value, and it is decidedly different from property."
No, you need to study economics. Money serves three purposes:
1 Medium of exchange
2 Unit of account
3 Store of value
The last purpose makes it a form of property.
"Gold also, obviously, is a form of money."
No, gold is a commodity. It has intrinsic value. It is extracted from the earth (produced). It is traded in commodity markets. It is more liquid than most commodities, since people will often accept it as payment, but it is still a commodity.
In all fairness, libertarianism has never been tried (anarchy has, but that's different because it lacks the rule of law).
All libertarians want is the freedom to do as they please to the extent that it does not cause direct harm to others. Is that really so much to ask? No other system achieves this, because any other system asks you to give up freedoms that do not hurt other people. So any other system is unacceptable to libertarians.
But if we as a nation were to try it, we would transition slowly, by cutting unnecessary government programs first, then by looking for alternative forms of funding for ones that can't simply be cut. If at any point it was apparent it wasn't working, we could always go back and try something different.
It's hard enough for libertarians to fight continued expansion of government powers, much less try to reduce them. I can only hope that by explaining to people that no, the government can't solve all your problems, they might oppose continued restrictions on their freedom.
I read at -1 too, and I would agree that most deserve to be there. The problem is the ones that don't. Metamoderation does not fix the score of a particular post, and metamoderatos are subject to the same bias as moderators.
I think a better system of weeding out trolls might be just filtering them out on your own, or maybe a system that looks at what your friends have marked as "troll" and filters those out for you.
Yeah, I was appalled when I learned that Microsoft had offered to provide software for the project and was rebuked. WTF?
The problem is people such as yourself who are unwilling to trust other people and hold a very negative opinion of them. Believing that people will mostly keep their heads down and pay a protection fee is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
What you've got to understand is that there is no system of government that will give you the protection you seek. Once you understand that, maybe you will be more willing to accept the uncertainty that follows from that reality.
Any conservative who posts on this site can vouch for the accuracy of this claim. Moderators mod down views they don't agree with, and on slash-dot that means that conservatives are moded down a lot more than up. I've had comments moded to +5 during the day, only to see that they've been moded down to -1 overnight. How could that possibly be objective? It's not. The minority opinion is lost unless you read at -1.
+5 funny, best comment I've read all day. It's too bad I used all my mod points.
Wait until Obama's views are better known by the right wing. They will turn out to vote against him (and gay marriage).
I was talking about the bill of rights. The only mention of property rights is that you have the right to be secure in your possessions against unlawful searches and seizures. Again, it limits the rights of government. The sections of the constitution that grant governmental authority come before the bill of rights.
"Communal redistribution is similarly approved"
This is not only wrong, but it is dead wrong. This property is almost always taken without consent of the owner. If the owner wished to give it up willingly, there would be no need for redistribution.
"but both have the intent of receiving approval by participants."
Bullshit. I have never heard a communist speak about receiving approval from owners. They always talk about taking by force.
"It is only the same thing if property equals money"
Money is representative of resources, and there is no real difference. If you were paid in gold, or oil, you'd need to pay taxes on that too. This is just pointless definitional hair-splitting.
"how do you enforce the law? How do you counter the criminal gangs?"
People need to come together to counter these threats. Criminal gangs are always dependent on the people they victimize. The power is in the hands of the people who actually do the work.
We could easily form voluntary militias that would be more powerful than any criminal organization. Especially once you consider that if the mob were to kill the people in the militia, they would be biting the hand that feeds them. It is only through fear that these criminals can operate (for example, a mugger can victimize many people today, because people willingly hand over their money to avoid being hurt, but if everyone stood up to them they would have to find another way to make money or else they certainly be killed).
"A libertarian country would have no such safeguards."
There is not reason a libertarian country couldn't have exactly the same safeguards. It all depends how these security organizations would be set up and managed.
That's where the last part of my comment comes into play.
"If we want to live in a free society, it will come through our own hard work and personal sacrifice, not some politician with easy answers."
Constant vigilance and the willingness to sacrifice our comforts and potentially our lives is the only way we can live in a free society. You have to be willing to stand up to a tyrant, even if you know it may cost you your life.
We are not gods, we can not establish a perfect system of government that will be free from corruption and oppression. When it comes down to it, we have to be willing to do what it takes to maintain our freedom. Moreover, freedom is not just some happy idea that we will live in a carefree world, it means accepting personal responsibility and taking the risk that we may lose everything and need to depend on the charity of others.
Libertarians like to take a divide and conquer approach to oppression. The government is one large, faceless system that is virtually impossible to refuse. But if you were just fighting some organized mob, you have some hope of overpowering it (after all, the mob needs you more than you need it).
In the end, if just comes down to faith. Faith that you can depend on your fellow man to help you when you are in need. Faith that the forces of reason and justice will prevail over tyranny and oppression. If it is any consonance, reason and justice are stronger because their power comes from deep values like consensus and friendship and respect, while tyranny and oppression gets its power from shallow values like fear and mistrust and greed.
In the past oppression has always sprung up as a result of people trying to get assurances. Tyrants promise security, or wealth, or free healthcare, and people gladly give up their personal responsibility to get it. Just say no to guarantees and easy answers. Say yes to hard work and personal sacrifice.
Well, I'm not going to play it that way. Anyone else who thinks it's stupid should do the same.
I have yet to see any proof of falsified voting results. Yes, I read the news a lot. Probably more than is healthy. What specifically are you referring to?
"Believe it or not, a medieval king was basically the head of the country's strongest organized gang."
That's a matter of opinion. No king stands for long without popular support. A gang of criminals can survive only as long as people are willing to support it. Right now, we pay them for drugs, where would they be if all they could do is steel stuff? They wouldn't be able to make enough money to survive.
"If you hire a force that is strong enough to stop a large gang, that force is itself strong enough to be a danger to you."
According you your theory, the military and the police should be knocking at my door demanding protection money. But they aren't.
"This is why I say that a libertarian state will quickly decay into feudalism or fascism."
Libertarians don't stand against social order (for that you should look into anarchists). The rule of law and the insurance of personal freedom is of paramount importance to libertarians. But I don't believe that the government needs to take peoples money by force in order to function. And I don't believe the government has to provide infrastructure or social well-fare.
"Sometimes I think libertarianism is a religion, not a coherent philosophy."
That's because it is. It's not a philosophy, it's a way of life. I believe that it is evil to take without asking and to impose my will on others by force (even democratically approved force). This is (literally) a religious conviction. I baffles me people don't understand that these things are stupid, pointless, evil.
How can the ends justify the means? Why form a state-sponsored armed mob to deny us our freedoms and our property, when there are so many willing free agents chomping at the bit to do the same. You can't fight fire with fire. If we want to live in a free society, it will come through our own hard work and personal sacrifice, not some politician with easy answers.
They are prohibited drilling in that region (to protect the ecology). They are also prohibited from doing business with Cuba (we have a trade embargo against them). So yes, they're the ones not drilling down there, but it's because the american voter made it illegal for them do so.
Saudi Arabia has more than one oil formation, it's a pretty big country.
"I suspect that few (if any) of the infrastructure we take for granted would exist in a world where your perspective was the dominant philosophy."
Yeah, because no individual could ever see the benefit and profitability of building roads, or satiation infrastructure. Only our sage-like leaders can understand the benefit of such things and muster the resources to get them built.
"You can't, after all, use a gun to enforce free speech"
How do you enforce free speech? Wait a minute, that doesn't make any sense, because the bill of rights does not regulate activities of individuals so no enforcement power of government is implied. Rather, the bill of rights prohibits specific activities on the part of the government. For all your fancy, big words, you seem to have a poor grasp of the language in the constitution.
"you can provide equal public access to the media"
The constitution does not give this authority to the government. The first amendment does not require the government to do anything at all. It simply prevents the government from regulating free speech.
"Just as you presume an innate property right, an equally axiomatic assumption can be made about a right to health care."
You don't have an innate right to any property, just the property you come into through the free market. Likewise, libertarians believe you have a right to whatever healthcare you've acquired through free market action.
"You can't suggest that a property right is sustained in any way other than through redistribution of wealth, simply, it is a form of redistribution through which you approve (free market) rather than a redistribution that you loathe (communal funding)."
Yes, the free market is much better because each "redistribution" is approved by all parties involved. That's means that it's not an unwanted infringement on you personal freedom.
"No, you are actually saying taxation is only justified when it doesn't interfere with property rights."
Well, seeing as we believe that property should only ever be exchanged voluntarily, that's really the same thing, isn't it?
"You've taken that single right and made it superior to all others; other rights exist only to the extent that they are subservient to that single right that you worship."
No, it's just that this aspect of freedom is most often under attack.