Please point to any "homosexual marriage" that was accepted (had legal benefits) in any society anywhere in the world, prior to 1960.
Why the artificial limitation to before 1960? More importantly, what does whether or not a preceding society has adopted a practice have to do with whether the practice itself would be beneficial to adopt? Can you point to any examples where the polio vaccine was beneficial before 1950 --- and if you can't, does that mean the polio vaccine was a bad thing?
So, ignoring the sophistry of the silly 1960 limitation, I'll tell you what I've personally see in same-sex committed unions, that indicate these are a good thing to further uplift and uphold with the benefits of law afforded their opposite-sex counterparts: I've seen people who might have faced an angry and isolating world alone instead find the joy of human love and companionship. I've seen children who might have grown up in an orphanage (and later a prison) instead receive parents and a loving family. I've seen the the young flourishing with the passion of new love to serve their community, and the elderly supported in their infirmity with the strength of a lifetime relationship.
If it is about granting those government granted benefits, then you have to explain to me why it is beneficial to society to re-define marriage to give benefits to people who otherwise don't need them (if it is only about love).
See the above. Aiding to strengthen those institutions that form the "infrastructure" of a flourishing society --- marriage, family, friendship, education, community --- is a noble goal for directing government benefits. Your extreme libertarianism might see no reason for any government functions; but I don't buy that --- I see both bad and good done by governmental structures, and seek to uplift the good while undermining the bad.
If you've going to posit a "system aboard the ship that increases the energy density of the higgs field in your local vicinity," you might as well posit that you have a magic box that locally increases the value of c. Within our current scientific understanding, the properties of fundamental fields, like the value of c and the gravitational/inertial mass equivalence, are simply facts of the universe that can't be manipulated with some snazzy device. By starting your though experiment with a device that already lies outside scientific understanding, it's no wonder that you can reach conclusions (faster-than-c travel) also outside the same framework. Perhaps this is possible in some future new scientific framework (or perhaps not), but it's idle sci-fi speculation until such a system is rigorously developed.
Check the comment right above yours --- this particular "ignorant fool" turns out to be humble, polite, and happy to learn (the ultimate anti-troll). You need to re-consider what you "safely assume." I'll admit to initially making the same assumption, but this is a fine reminder of the fallibility of knee-jerk cynicism.
We can lower the mass of a spaceship already by using lighter construction materials and jettisoning any bits we don't need --- however, that helps nothing to boost the speed past c. Within the framework of our present best scientific understanding (the "Standard Model" that predicted the Higgs Boson), you still can't go faster than light no matter what chicanery you attempt. Perhaps some future discovery (requiring a serious re-write of physics fundamentals) will change this, or perhaps not (the more likely case in my opinion); this present confirmation of old physics theories doesn't present any new physics that would allow wacky radical new things like faster-than-light travel.
Yes, I wasn't arguing against that. Consensus forms a critical filter that separates "sound conclusions" from iffier (but just as good "on paper" based on reported error bars) propositions that require further scrutinizing efforts.
"generally accepted scientific fact" = consensus --- otherwise, what's the "generally accepted" part? There is no stronger scientific definition of "fact" that transcends a general consensus based on a multitude of apparently properly done confirming experiments.
Consensus is very much part of the scientific method as it is actually practiced, even if not in an over-simplified theory of it. In practice, the people forming the consensus are smart, rational folks who rely on the "mathematical property of repeated observations" as much as possible. However, even with a few experiments reporting the same number --- how well do folks trust that there were not common systematic errors impacting all of them (it has certainly happened before)? That the results are not misinterpreted due to mistakes in the calculations, or missed effects? Forming a consensus within the scientific community that the reported numbers are *trustworthy* is a critical part of the actual existing scientific process: it's called peer review, and catches a lot of honest mistakes that a "just trust the numbers; don't bring your human experience/intuition/skepticism into it" approach would not.
However, due to the higher density, diesel offers a higher volumetric energy density at 35.86 MJ/L (128 700 BTU/US gal) vs. 32.18 MJ/L (115 500 BTU/US gal) for gasoline, some 11% higher, which should be considered when comparing the fuel efficiency by volume.
Do you have a better source refuting the energy density (per volume) difference?
If your mother actually has a more original text in a language other than the Koine Greek, then she'll be extremely famous for the historical/archaeological find of the millennium. There are theories that several of the gospels may have shared a common precursor text with collected sayings of Jesus --- possibly written in Aramaic --- but no such document is known to have survived from antiquity. The Greek version, in which the Peter/Rock pun (Petros/Petra) is obvious, is the most authoritative available (aside from some minor variations in fragmentary early copies of the texts).
Good for you for working to raise attention on this issue --- I don't want to stop that. With many different activists raising attention on many different problems in society, changes can be made on many fronts at once. Only, you seemed to be more interested here in indicating that the Catholic church wasn't so bad compared to this --- so their abuse deserves *less* attention --- more than pushing for other systematic abuses to get *more* attention.
Is there some reason you think people can't handle criticizing/dismantling both? In fact, the Catholic church might be the "easier" place to start, because they have a central authority vulnerable to outrage over obvious moral failings who might, with enough concerted public pressure, actually make sweeping changes to dangerous institutional practices. Abuse in schools is a much more diffuse/localized issue (harder to fix "everywhere" when it's many separate regional groups turning a blind eye); there is no "Edu-Pope" who can enforce systematic changes by decree.
Having a next generation is useful. Starting popping out babies when you are freshly married to your high school sweetheart at age 19, before either of you has a job that pays enough for quality food, housing, and healthcare, is not. Nor is having 17 children to feed and raise. Contraception for good family planning is critical for assuring that the next generation is raised healthy, happy, and smart (not in squalid desperation with ill-prepared, over-burdened parents), thus most capable to take up the responsibility of being humankind.
Phew! Another dysfunctional authoritarian institution was doing worse, so everything's O.K.! No need to hate on the Catholic hierarchy for enabling pedophiles, because they weren't America's #1 Child Abuser (#2 or #3 is perfectly alright).
I guess it's also OK for me to start a rape/murder spree, because There's Always Someone Doing Even Worse Shit (TM).
I'd love to know if you have a more original text, but in the Greek it's also (crappy transliteration because of no unicode support) "...lego oti su ei PETROS kai epi taute te PETRA oikodomeso...": the Peter/Rock pun works just as well.
"Our views" (depending a lot on who "us" is; assuming the general European populace from which the uppermost Catholic hierarchy is mainly drawn) on contraception modernized in the 1960s, when the pope was (barely) a 20-something. Since that time, there have only been very small ultra-conservative enclaves (the Papacy among them) in which birth control --- even for married couples waiting for a better time to start their family --- is considered an abomination. The Catholic hierarchy lags much farther behind on these issues than your simple chronological estimates (though not the general Catholic population, which statistically employs birth control as frequently as everyone else).
Yes, you are condemning others. Yes, I am condemning you for that. I operate from a moral framework with more than a single axis of "condemnation=bad, anticondemnation=good," rather considering the whole network of impacts from who and/or what is being condemned (btw, I am a Christian).
I would not support you in repealing all government granted benefits of marriage, because that would be "throwing the baby out with the bathwater" --- I think there are great societal benefits to government-recognized marriage, but none that specifically require a male+female couple. Likewise, I do not think it would have been a good idea to fix Jim Crow era discriminatory voting laws by revoking everyone's right to vote.
And “humility” is, to a great extent, a measure of how generously that line is drawn to respect others. Perhaps “don't mind me; I have no right to call you wrong for murdering” is humility in excess; taking a stand as the world's leading condemner of others' gender/sexual behaviors moves in the direction away from the extreme of humility --- certainly not in the top ranks of human humility, if not downright below-average.
You seem to be under the impression that government intelligence agencies are entirely staffed by stupid, bureaucratic incompetents (who would never manage all the clever ideas that Mr. Fatguy invents). Hint: the CIA, NSA, and foreign equivalents are actually *very good* at cloak-and-dagger stuff, and have plenty of very smart people (operating with little public oversight). Whatever Mr. Fatguy can do, so can the CIA/etc.: anonymous home computer botnets around the globe? No problem. Heck, the CIA might even hire a Mr. Fatguy (through a few layers of plausible deniability) to be a pawn in their operations. Consider the Stuxnet attacks: nimble, distributed, undetected for a long time --- not some stereotypical "dumb government bureaucrat" effort.
You're missing the main point --- yes, a single person can find ways to compromise/infiltrate target computers, and cause a bit of random havoc. However, a single person probably doesn't have the time/expertise to cause really serious damage. Suppose your lone warrior breaks into some industrial control computers --- sure, he can set all the electronic valves to random positions and hope to break something; he'll probably set off a bunch of alarms and emergency failsafes, and shut the plant down for a week while they sort things out. Now, however, couple his hacking talent with a team of engineers, a stolen copy of the complete plant design, and a few inside agents at the plant to disable key alarm systems (and personnel): this group can devise a much more devious scheme of controller settings that will completely blow up the plant (and everyone inside) without tripping all the alarms and failsafes first; maybe even make it look like an accident.
I have nothing against pseudonymity --- just against hypocrisy, like talking about "manning up," "facing accusers," and "honor," while spitting on the deceased (who almost certainly did far more honorable service to humanity in his short life than "Archangel Michael" ever will) over the internet.
If you're using built-out infrastructure (as Skype is), then you should be regulated the same as all other users, whether you originally built it out or not. Otherwise, should every other telco be allowed to create an "independent" shell company to build out the infrastructure, then use it themselves regulation free? Whether/how to regulate other services like Slingbox is a separate issue --- maybe they should be, too (I don't know much about their particular service).
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Please point to any "homosexual marriage" that was accepted (had legal benefits) in any society anywhere in the world, prior to 1960.
Why the artificial limitation to before 1960? More importantly, what does whether or not a preceding society has adopted a practice have to do with whether the practice itself would be beneficial to adopt? Can you point to any examples where the polio vaccine was beneficial before 1950 --- and if you can't, does that mean the polio vaccine was a bad thing?
So, ignoring the sophistry of the silly 1960 limitation, I'll tell you what I've personally see in same-sex committed unions, that indicate these are a good thing to further uplift and uphold with the benefits of law afforded their opposite-sex counterparts:
I've seen people who might have faced an angry and isolating world alone instead find the joy of human love and companionship. I've seen children who might have grown up in an orphanage (and later a prison) instead receive parents and a loving family. I've seen the the young flourishing with the passion of new love to serve their community, and the elderly supported in their infirmity with the strength of a lifetime relationship.
If it is about granting those government granted benefits, then you have to explain to me why it is beneficial to society to re-define marriage to give benefits to people who otherwise don't need them (if it is only about love).
See the above. Aiding to strengthen those institutions that form the "infrastructure" of a flourishing society --- marriage, family, friendship, education, community --- is a noble goal for directing government benefits. Your extreme libertarianism might see no reason for any government functions; but I don't buy that --- I see both bad and good done by governmental structures, and seek to uplift the good while undermining the bad.
Ah, I can see that you are indeed highly educated in the art of trolling, and no doubt earned high marks in your troll classes.
If you've going to posit a "system aboard the ship that increases the energy density of the higgs field in your local vicinity," you might as well posit that you have a magic box that locally increases the value of c. Within our current scientific understanding, the properties of fundamental fields, like the value of c and the gravitational/inertial mass equivalence, are simply facts of the universe that can't be manipulated with some snazzy device. By starting your though experiment with a device that already lies outside scientific understanding, it's no wonder that you can reach conclusions (faster-than-c travel) also outside the same framework. Perhaps this is possible in some future new scientific framework (or perhaps not), but it's idle sci-fi speculation until such a system is rigorously developed.
Check the comment right above yours --- this particular "ignorant fool" turns out to be humble, polite, and happy to learn (the ultimate anti-troll). You need to re-consider what you "safely assume." I'll admit to initially making the same assumption, but this is a fine reminder of the fallibility of knee-jerk cynicism.
For testing compiler optimization and computer speeds, and validating numerical libraries, a few billion digits.
We can lower the mass of a spaceship already by using lighter construction materials and jettisoning any bits we don't need --- however, that helps nothing to boost the speed past c. Within the framework of our present best scientific understanding (the "Standard Model" that predicted the Higgs Boson), you still can't go faster than light no matter what chicanery you attempt. Perhaps some future discovery (requiring a serious re-write of physics fundamentals) will change this, or perhaps not (the more likely case in my opinion); this present confirmation of old physics theories doesn't present any new physics that would allow wacky radical new things like faster-than-light travel.
Yes, I wasn't arguing against that. Consensus forms a critical filter that separates "sound conclusions" from iffier (but just as good "on paper" based on reported error bars) propositions that require further scrutinizing efforts.
"generally accepted scientific fact" = consensus --- otherwise, what's the "generally accepted" part? There is no stronger scientific definition of "fact" that transcends a general consensus based on a multitude of apparently properly done confirming experiments.
Consensus is very much part of the scientific method as it is actually practiced, even if not in an over-simplified theory of it. In practice, the people forming the consensus are smart, rational folks who rely on the "mathematical property of repeated observations" as much as possible. However, even with a few experiments reporting the same number --- how well do folks trust that there were not common systematic errors impacting all of them (it has certainly happened before)? That the results are not misinterpreted due to mistakes in the calculations, or missed effects? Forming a consensus within the scientific community that the reported numbers are *trustworthy* is a critical part of the actual existing scientific process: it's called peer review, and catches a lot of honest mistakes that a "just trust the numbers; don't bring your human experience/intuition/skepticism into it" approach would not.
A testable hypothesis, ?
From the Wikipedia page on diesel:
However, due to the higher density, diesel offers a higher volumetric energy density at 35.86 MJ/L (128 700 BTU/US gal) vs. 32.18 MJ/L (115 500 BTU/US gal) for gasoline, some 11% higher, which should be considered when comparing the fuel efficiency by volume.
Do you have a better source refuting the energy density (per volume) difference?
If your mother actually has a more original text in a language other than the Koine Greek, then she'll be extremely famous for the historical/archaeological find of the millennium. There are theories that several of the gospels may have shared a common precursor text with collected sayings of Jesus --- possibly written in Aramaic --- but no such document is known to have survived from antiquity. The Greek version, in which the Peter/Rock pun (Petros/Petra) is obvious, is the most authoritative available (aside from some minor variations in fragmentary early copies of the texts).
Good for you for working to raise attention on this issue --- I don't want to stop that. With many different activists raising attention on many different problems in society, changes can be made on many fronts at once. Only, you seemed to be more interested here in indicating that the Catholic church wasn't so bad compared to this --- so their abuse deserves *less* attention --- more than pushing for other systematic abuses to get *more* attention.
Is there some reason you think people can't handle criticizing/dismantling both? In fact, the Catholic church might be the "easier" place to start, because they have a central authority vulnerable to outrage over obvious moral failings who might, with enough concerted public pressure, actually make sweeping changes to dangerous institutional practices. Abuse in schools is a much more diffuse/localized issue (harder to fix "everywhere" when it's many separate regional groups turning a blind eye); there is no "Edu-Pope" who can enforce systematic changes by decree.
Having a next generation is useful. Starting popping out babies when you are freshly married to your high school sweetheart at age 19, before either of you has a job that pays enough for quality food, housing, and healthcare, is not. Nor is having 17 children to feed and raise. Contraception for good family planning is critical for assuring that the next generation is raised healthy, happy, and smart (not in squalid desperation with ill-prepared, over-burdened parents), thus most capable to take up the responsibility of being humankind.
Phew! Another dysfunctional authoritarian institution was doing worse, so everything's O.K.! No need to hate on the Catholic hierarchy for enabling pedophiles, because they weren't America's #1 Child Abuser (#2 or #3 is perfectly alright).
I guess it's also OK for me to start a rape/murder spree, because There's Always Someone Doing Even Worse Shit (TM).
I'd love to know if you have a more original text, but in the Greek it's also (crappy transliteration because of no unicode support) "...lego oti su ei PETROS kai epi taute te PETRA oikodomeso...": the Peter/Rock pun works just as well.
"Our views" (depending a lot on who "us" is; assuming the general European populace from which the uppermost Catholic hierarchy is mainly drawn) on contraception modernized in the 1960s, when the pope was (barely) a 20-something. Since that time, there have only been very small ultra-conservative enclaves (the Papacy among them) in which birth control --- even for married couples waiting for a better time to start their family --- is considered an abomination. The Catholic hierarchy lags much farther behind on these issues than your simple chronological estimates (though not the general Catholic population, which statistically employs birth control as frequently as everyone else).
Yes, you are condemning others. Yes, I am condemning you for that. I operate from a moral framework with more than a single axis of "condemnation=bad, anticondemnation=good," rather considering the whole network of impacts from who and/or what is being condemned (btw, I am a Christian).
I would not support you in repealing all government granted benefits of marriage, because that would be "throwing the baby out with the bathwater" --- I think there are great societal benefits to government-recognized marriage, but none that specifically require a male+female couple. Likewise, I do not think it would have been a good idea to fix Jim Crow era discriminatory voting laws by revoking everyone's right to vote.
And “humility” is, to a great extent, a measure of how generously that line is drawn to respect others. Perhaps “don't mind me; I have no right to call you wrong for murdering” is humility in excess; taking a stand as the world's leading condemner of others' gender/sexual behaviors moves in the direction away from the extreme of humility --- certainly not in the top ranks of human humility, if not downright below-average.
You seem to be under the impression that government intelligence agencies are entirely staffed by stupid, bureaucratic incompetents (who would never manage all the clever ideas that Mr. Fatguy invents). Hint: the CIA, NSA, and foreign equivalents are actually *very good* at cloak-and-dagger stuff, and have plenty of very smart people (operating with little public oversight). Whatever Mr. Fatguy can do, so can the CIA/etc.: anonymous home computer botnets around the globe? No problem. Heck, the CIA might even hire a Mr. Fatguy (through a few layers of plausible deniability) to be a pawn in their operations. Consider the Stuxnet attacks: nimble, distributed, undetected for a long time --- not some stereotypical "dumb government bureaucrat" effort.
You're missing the main point --- yes, a single person can find ways to compromise/infiltrate target computers, and cause a bit of random havoc. However, a single person probably doesn't have the time/expertise to cause really serious damage. Suppose your lone warrior breaks into some industrial control computers --- sure, he can set all the electronic valves to random positions and hope to break something; he'll probably set off a bunch of alarms and emergency failsafes, and shut the plant down for a week while they sort things out. Now, however, couple his hacking talent with a team of engineers, a stolen copy of the complete plant design, and a few inside agents at the plant to disable key alarm systems (and personnel): this group can devise a much more devious scheme of controller settings that will completely blow up the plant (and everyone inside) without tripping all the alarms and failsafes first; maybe even make it look like an accident.
I have nothing against pseudonymity --- just against hypocrisy, like talking about "manning up," "facing accusers," and "honor," while spitting on the deceased (who almost certainly did far more honorable service to humanity in his short life than "Archangel Michael" ever will) over the internet.
Oh look, a pseudonymous pro-corporate internet bully telling a dead person to "man up" and "face his accusers with honor." What valiance!
If you're using built-out infrastructure (as Skype is), then you should be regulated the same as all other users, whether you originally built it out or not. Otherwise, should every other telco be allowed to create an "independent" shell company to build out the infrastructure, then use it themselves regulation free? Whether/how to regulate other services like Slingbox is a separate issue --- maybe they should be, too (I don't know much about their particular service).