and the differences between appropriate minor vs adult activities.
In Pennsylvania, the age of consent is 16. If one of the participants is under 16, but over 13 (as applies here), the partner must be within 4 years of age (which is true here). So, it is perfectly legal for these boys and girls to fuck, but sending nude pictures is inappropriate. Yeah....
Another one you might enjoy is the prophet Elisha - some kids make fun of him for being bald, so he calls on God to curse them. Two bears then come out of the woods and kill like 40 of the kids. For mocking a bald guy. It's in 2 Kings somewhere, I believe.
An interesting read on how cellular osmosis regulation imposed evolutionary pressures on plasma concentration in vertebrates. Explains why most vertebrates have pretty similar plasma concentrations. Which is about 1/3-1/4 the salinity of the sea, which varies from 33-37%.
when it comes to technology, most people over 40 are stupid. Couple that with the fact that most people over 40 refuse to learn something new
Damn straight! And you whippersnappers in your 20s are too damn young to know anything yet! Nope, we all know there is only one decade of life that is really even worth living.
I was going to mention kuru in response to your implied assumption that moral repugnance is the motivating impulse behind the human revulsion towards cannibalism (which I agree with you on, I was just feeling contrary) when I remembered Mad Cow, which completely invalidates that point. However, I was reminded of cultures that practice endocannibalism, which is an interesting concept when discussing the moral implications of cannibalism.
It would be hard for one who has the moral conviction that human life is not superior to animal life to live a morally consistent life. How could they justify eating meat, that would be tantamount to eating a fellow human's flesh.
How about: human life is not superior to animal life, but my life is superior to all other life? Perfectly morally consistent. Not admirable, but consistent.
Orgone == !eating pork in the past because of religion == !eating pork now because of religion == eating and drinking the symbolic flesh and blood of christ == burning big crosses.
Uhm, what? I get that you find religious beliefs that you don't share to be "stupid", but how is systematic terrorism (burning crosses) aimed at political ends even in the same category? Or do you just lump every human behavior you disagree with into one large category?
Well, I'm a scientist and not a philosopher, so I'm happy with the wealth of subjective -- I added this! evidence and lack of counter evidence I have observed over the years.
You do realize that many religious people can point to numerous experiences that they interpret as subjective evidence that their beliefs are correct, with an equal lack of counter evidence. I admit I am making the assumption that your evidence of your SO's love is subjective; I would be amazed if you had conducted actual experiments, or even seriously considered competing hypotheses that would explain your observed phenomena.
When someone is making outlandish (supernatural) claims with no evidence or proof, it's relatively easy to make a general case for skepticism -no need to argue each and every special case.
Every current hypothesis about the boundary conditions of space/time are outlandish, including the concept of a creator. Yet I'll go out on a limb and state it is self evident that space/time does exist. To get back to my personal favorite example, there really aren't (to my knowledge) ANY scientific hypotheses about human emotions, as emotion is commonly defined. In fact, there are people that don't believe love is anything more than a hormonal reaction, intrinsically tied to biological sex. Perhaps you are one of them, in which case, kudos on your consistency and rationality. You probably don't believe in conscious volition, either, since most neuroscience thus far indicates that it is merely an illusion, with absolutely no evidence that supports it.
Anyway, my point is simply that, unless you are an unusually (almost inhumanly) rational person, there are things in life in which you believe that are as scientifically unsupported as the existence of God. Yet you believe them to be true because of your personal experiences. If I were to claim my wife loved me, you'd probably accept that; if I claim there is a God, you reject me as a kook. Yet, rationally, the only difference is you have personal experiences that leads you to believe in love. A 10 year old orphan on the streets of Hong Kong might find you as ridiculously deluded about love as you find others to be about God. And you really can't support your position any better than the religious can.
but then the onus is not on the GP to disprove God but simply to prove scepticism in general has value (easy).
No, the onus is to prove that in this particular case skepticism is more valuable than credulity. Just like everything else, skepticism can be good or bad, depending on how it is applied. Just b/c skepticism results in positive outcomes in one situation doesn't at all imply it will result in positive outcomes in all situations. Can you prove (to the same level of rigor you require from religion) that your wife loves you? Probably not. Are you better off remaining skeptical of her professed love? Probably not.
The problem is, In certain areas it is impossible to follow more than a car length behind b/c that space will be filled. Safe traveling distance is enough distance for the asshole in the other lane to squeeze in between us. If I fall back to be a safe traveling distance behind him, there's always another asshole.
Go back and read what you said. Does the bank print money? No. Then they don't lend out more than they take in in deposits, PERIOD!
Of course the bank prints "money". Ever gotten a cashier's check? Bank printed it. Oh, you meant cash currency? No, they don't print that. Then again, they also don't pay out loans in cash, so I'm not sure how that imposes limits on their ability to loan out more money than they actually have.
Stop believing every non-sensical, right-wing, load of clap-trap you hear and use your intellect to THINK and you won't look like an idiot!
Fractional banking is a right-wing load of clap-trap? Well, not sure about the ideology, but you might actually have a point there...
Debilitating pain associated with a terminal condition and self-sacrifice for the benefit of loved ones strike me as perfectly rational reasons to commit suicide. Depending on circumstances, of course.
You're killing a human being, someone who might go off and cure cancer or discover cold fusion or blow up some soldiers with an IED next week. Regardless of what their intentions or futures are, it's not humane to kill people. You can legitimize war, sure, and that's what the debate is and should be about, but war is NEVER humane.
That is a more perfect summation of my opinions here than I could possibly express myself. Thank you, Mr. Coward.
You are hereby forgiven for that flame you gave me about my opinions on amateur midget ballet. I'll admit, Buttle and Lowrey are not bad.
But imagine if all wars were fought by proxy. Instead of sending people, we send machines. Let the machines battle it out.
And when the side whose machines lose doesn't accept that decision? Sooner or later, someone will decide that winning is more important than playing by the rules (I'm guessing sooner). They will then continue the war until unable to, not until told they have lost.
It's a cool idea, but I doubt it will ever be practical. Even if technology progresses to the point where it is simply suicide to send men against the victorious robot army, humans being humans, people still will.
The thing about a politician is that his entire job is convincing the other politicians to pass the legislation/budget items he wants to get passed. Connections are critical for doing this job effectively; political experience translates almost directly into connections. So, the more experienced politician is more effective at, say, bringing Federal dollars into his home town. That is what gets most people's votes, as opposed to the politician's stance on Copyright reform. Very few people are willing to forgo getting a bigger piece of pie immediately in exchange for making the pie tastier later.
There are old pilots, and there are bold pilots. But there are no old, bold pilots.
I work with an old navy flight engineer, and he has a saying (in addition to that one) that I particularly like. Whenever I screw up (or he does), he says "There are those who have, and there are those who will. Now you don't have that future mistake hanging over your head."
Wait, so wanting to sell stuff for what is (presumably) a reasonable profit is greedy? Using your definition, everyone that desires to participate in any commercial transaction is greedy; after all, the only reason to participate in such a transaction is because you expect to get something out it that you value more than what you put into it.
True enough. I don't mean to suggest there is not any objective reality, only that the subjective human perception has no way of 100% concretely identifying what that reality is. One of the adhoc rules we have developed that seems to work pretty well is the idea that if enough subjective realities agree, the areas of overlap are likely to be based on objective reality. Thus the consensus model of defining "normality" and "delusion".
The problem there is, if you disbelieve hard enough, anything will go away, from your perspective. After all, every evidence you have about reality is filtered through your mind; it's all perceived reality. There is lots of research that indicates all sorts of very strange things about how the human brain interacts with reality.
The CDC actually has a working system that they've used to field test some of their ideas, BioSense. And there are several state and lower level systems doing this sort of thing: New Mexico, North Carolina, DC area, New York, NY, others I can't recall. In fact, there is an entire professional society for people in the syndromic surveillance field (btw, buzzword update! the cool kids now say "situational awareness").
Depends. Responsible is actually a rather ambiguous term. I can be termed responsible for a traffic accident that I caused, yet not be accountable for it b/c no one else is aware I caused it. I can be termed responsible for the results of a project I manage, and held accountable (be answerable) if those results are not correct, even though I had little direct control over the final product my developers release. I am responsible for my own diet, yet I do not answer to anyone for it.
Your assuming that people will "litigate" regardless of the method or inconvenience involved.
Yep. B/c historically, they have. Turns out, when two or more people have a disagreement, they tend to settle it one way or another. Providing a legal, non-violent, ideally impartial way to settle such disagreements benefits society. Even with the court system, how often do people get out from behind their desks in their comfy chairs and go wreck some shit b/c they're pissed off? You think doing away with lawyers, which essentially means doing away with the court system, would decrease the messiness and unfairness in dispute settlements?
Slashdot Mirror
and the differences between appropriate minor vs adult activities.
In Pennsylvania, the age of consent is 16. If one of the participants is under 16, but over 13 (as applies here), the partner must be within 4 years of age (which is true here). So, it is perfectly legal for these boys and girls to fuck, but sending nude pictures is inappropriate. Yeah....
Another one you might enjoy is the prophet Elisha - some kids make fun of him for being bald, so he calls on God to curse them. Two bears then come out of the woods and kill like 40 of the kids. For mocking a bald guy. It's in 2 Kings somewhere, I believe.
An interesting read on how cellular osmosis regulation imposed evolutionary pressures on plasma concentration in vertebrates. Explains why most vertebrates have pretty similar plasma concentrations. Which is about 1/3-1/4 the salinity of the sea, which varies from 33-37%.
when it comes to technology, most people over 40 are stupid. Couple that with the fact that most people over 40 refuse to learn something new
Damn straight! And you whippersnappers in your 20s are too damn young to know anything yet! Nope, we all know there is only one decade of life that is really even worth living.
Fine print: I'm 31
I was going to mention kuru in response to your implied assumption that moral repugnance is the motivating impulse behind the human revulsion towards cannibalism (which I agree with you on, I was just feeling contrary) when I remembered Mad Cow, which completely invalidates that point. However, I was reminded of cultures that practice endocannibalism, which is an interesting concept when discussing the moral implications of cannibalism.
It would be hard for one who has the moral conviction that human life is not superior to animal life to live a morally consistent life. How could they justify eating meat, that would be tantamount to eating a fellow human's flesh.
How about: human life is not superior to animal life, but my life is superior to all other life? Perfectly morally consistent. Not admirable, but consistent.
Orgone == !eating pork in the past because of religion == !eating pork now because of religion == eating and drinking the symbolic flesh and blood of christ == burning big crosses.
Uhm, what? I get that you find religious beliefs that you don't share to be "stupid", but how is systematic terrorism (burning crosses) aimed at political ends even in the same category? Or do you just lump every human behavior you disagree with into one large category?
Well, I'm a scientist and not a philosopher, so I'm happy with the wealth of subjective -- I added this! evidence and lack of counter evidence I have observed over the years.
You do realize that many religious people can point to numerous experiences that they interpret as subjective evidence that their beliefs are correct, with an equal lack of counter evidence. I admit I am making the assumption that your evidence of your SO's love is subjective; I would be amazed if you had conducted actual experiments, or even seriously considered competing hypotheses that would explain your observed phenomena.
When someone is making outlandish (supernatural) claims with no evidence or proof, it's relatively easy to make a general case for skepticism -no need to argue each and every special case.
Every current hypothesis about the boundary conditions of space/time are outlandish, including the concept of a creator. Yet I'll go out on a limb and state it is self evident that space/time does exist. To get back to my personal favorite example, there really aren't (to my knowledge) ANY scientific hypotheses about human emotions, as emotion is commonly defined. In fact, there are people that don't believe love is anything more than a hormonal reaction, intrinsically tied to biological sex. Perhaps you are one of them, in which case, kudos on your consistency and rationality. You probably don't believe in conscious volition, either, since most neuroscience thus far indicates that it is merely an illusion, with absolutely no evidence that supports it.
Anyway, my point is simply that, unless you are an unusually (almost inhumanly) rational person, there are things in life in which you believe that are as scientifically unsupported as the existence of God. Yet you believe them to be true because of your personal experiences. If I were to claim my wife loved me, you'd probably accept that; if I claim there is a God, you reject me as a kook. Yet, rationally, the only difference is you have personal experiences that leads you to believe in love. A 10 year old orphan on the streets of Hong Kong might find you as ridiculously deluded about love as you find others to be about God. And you really can't support your position any better than the religious can.
but then the onus is not on the GP to disprove God but simply to prove scepticism in general has value (easy).
No, the onus is to prove that in this particular case skepticism is more valuable than credulity. Just like everything else, skepticism can be good or bad, depending on how it is applied. Just b/c skepticism results in positive outcomes in one situation doesn't at all imply it will result in positive outcomes in all situations. Can you prove (to the same level of rigor you require from religion) that your wife loves you? Probably not. Are you better off remaining skeptical of her professed love? Probably not.
The problem is, In certain areas it is impossible to follow more than a car length behind b/c that space will be filled. Safe traveling distance is enough distance for the asshole in the other lane to squeeze in between us. If I fall back to be a safe traveling distance behind him, there's always another asshole.
So, the trick to eating Vegemite is to eat as little as possible? Sounds like the only winning move is to not play :-)
Go back and read what you said. Does the bank print money? No. Then they don't lend out more than they take in in deposits, PERIOD!
Of course the bank prints "money". Ever gotten a cashier's check? Bank printed it. Oh, you meant cash currency? No, they don't print that. Then again, they also don't pay out loans in cash, so I'm not sure how that imposes limits on their ability to loan out more money than they actually have.
Stop believing every non-sensical, right-wing, load of clap-trap you hear and use your intellect to THINK and you won't look like an idiot!
Fractional banking is a right-wing load of clap-trap? Well, not sure about the ideology, but you might actually have a point there...
There is no rational reason for suicide
Debilitating pain associated with a terminal condition and self-sacrifice for the benefit of loved ones strike me as perfectly rational reasons to commit suicide. Depending on circumstances, of course.
What a bizarre Troll mod. Either some Mod hates Singularitarian, or some lazy procrastinator was stung by the harsh truth.
And, who is going to ask their doctor for the Wank-Master 9000 upgrade for their prosthetic? I mean, a vagina in the middle of your palm?
What, you think people have shame?! Believe me, my friend, they do not. Lack of shame is practically considered a virtue in modern Western society.
You're killing a human being, someone who might go off and cure cancer or discover cold fusion or blow up some soldiers with an IED next week. Regardless of what their intentions or futures are, it's not humane to kill people. You can legitimize war, sure, and that's what the debate is and should be about, but war is NEVER humane.
That is a more perfect summation of my opinions here than I could possibly express myself. Thank you, Mr. Coward.
You are hereby forgiven for that flame you gave me about my opinions on amateur midget ballet. I'll admit, Buttle and Lowrey are not bad.
But imagine if all wars were fought by proxy. Instead of sending people, we send machines. Let the machines battle it out.
And when the side whose machines lose doesn't accept that decision? Sooner or later, someone will decide that winning is more important than playing by the rules (I'm guessing sooner). They will then continue the war until unable to, not until told they have lost.
It's a cool idea, but I doubt it will ever be practical. Even if technology progresses to the point where it is simply suicide to send men against the victorious robot army, humans being humans, people still will.
The thing about a politician is that his entire job is convincing the other politicians to pass the legislation/budget items he wants to get passed. Connections are critical for doing this job effectively; political experience translates almost directly into connections. So, the more experienced politician is more effective at, say, bringing Federal dollars into his home town. That is what gets most people's votes, as opposed to the politician's stance on Copyright reform. Very few people are willing to forgo getting a bigger piece of pie immediately in exchange for making the pie tastier later.
There are old pilots, and there are bold pilots. But there are no old, bold pilots.
I work with an old navy flight engineer, and he has a saying (in addition to that one) that I particularly like. Whenever I screw up (or he does), he says "There are those who have, and there are those who will. Now you don't have that future mistake hanging over your head."
Wait, so wanting to sell stuff for what is (presumably) a reasonable profit is greedy? Using your definition, everyone that desires to participate in any commercial transaction is greedy; after all, the only reason to participate in such a transaction is because you expect to get something out it that you value more than what you put into it.
True enough. I don't mean to suggest there is not any objective reality, only that the subjective human perception has no way of 100% concretely identifying what that reality is. One of the adhoc rules we have developed that seems to work pretty well is the idea that if enough subjective realities agree, the areas of overlap are likely to be based on objective reality. Thus the consensus model of defining "normality" and "delusion".
The problem there is, if you disbelieve hard enough, anything will go away, from your perspective. After all, every evidence you have about reality is filtered through your mind; it's all perceived reality. There is lots of research that indicates all sorts of very strange things about how the human brain interacts with reality.
The CDC actually has a working system that they've used to field test some of their ideas, BioSense. And there are several state and lower level systems doing this sort of thing: New Mexico, North Carolina, DC area, New York, NY, others I can't recall. In fact, there is an entire professional society for people in the syndromic surveillance field (btw, buzzword update! the cool kids now say "situational awareness").
Depends. Responsible is actually a rather ambiguous term. I can be termed responsible for a traffic accident that I caused, yet not be accountable for it b/c no one else is aware I caused it. I can be termed responsible for the results of a project I manage, and held accountable (be answerable) if those results are not correct, even though I had little direct control over the final product my developers release. I am responsible for my own diet, yet I do not answer to anyone for it.
English is such a fun language.
Your assuming that people will "litigate" regardless of the method or inconvenience involved.
Yep. B/c historically, they have. Turns out, when two or more people have a disagreement, they tend to settle it one way or another. Providing a legal, non-violent, ideally impartial way to settle such disagreements benefits society. Even with the court system, how often do people get out from behind their desks in their comfy chairs and go wreck some shit b/c they're pissed off? You think doing away with lawyers, which essentially means doing away with the court system, would decrease the messiness and unfairness in dispute settlements?