There's no logical reason why I should not be able to marry my son, brother, or father, except for people thinking it's weird.
The relationship between children and their parents is unlikely to be equal even when they're grown up. And since its the parent who's the biggest influence during said upbringing, there's additional baggage in the form of potential for wife husbandry.
Sibling incest, on the other hand, doesn't seem to have anything except the ick factor going against it.
You can also train to avoid pointless memories and useless beliefs--probably the main reason we don't teach people to think about how they think or even teach people to perform critical thinking.
The reason we don't teach people to meta-think is that it would make it harder to feed them political and economic messages. A good consumer buys what he's told, a good drone works where he's told and a good parishioner condemns what and who he's told. The less they think about what they're doing and why, the less likely they are to question their masters and their purposes.
Why would the powers that be want to risk their thralls breaking free?
I am a doctor with many years experience working in the ER.
You are a random pseudonym on an Internet forum. Taking medical advice from you would be no better than taking medical advice from the voices in one's head. Sucks if you actually are a medical professional, but that's the price of anonymity.
If you actively worked to make the neighborhood a desirable place expecting no payoff besides your own enjoyment of that place in the future, and you were renting, you should have "sucker" tatooed backwards on your forehead.
And if you thought people so suckered would simply laugh it off, curl up and die peacefully you're too dumb to live.
Oh well, time to invest in guillotines I guess. The Powers that Be are about to learn, once again, that's letting people reach the point where they have nothing to lose but their chains is a really bad idea. I wonder what exciting ideologies and geopolitical shifts we'll get this time around...
I don't understand this at all. I've never heard of Charles Stross and after skimming the Wikipedia article about him I fail to see why his opinion on Bitcoin is relevant.
It's relevant in the exact same way than whether some backwater somewhere teaches creationism as science is: it gets a flamewar going, which causes page views, which pays Slashdot's bills.
And Iraq had WMDs. And the NSA never lied to congress or the people... how stupid do they think we are?
Not stupid at all, just willing to lie to themselves. People who support the NSA for whatever reason, fore example because they're authoritarians, will treat this claim as absolute truth because it lets them rationalize that support. It's the exact same thing as happened with the "useful idiots" who held Soviet Union up as a worker's paradise and ignored all evidence to the contrary. Well, communism might be dead (for now) but the spirit of Stalinism lives on in the United States of all places.
Then again, perhaps that is not so surprising. The Soviet Union was basically one giant corporation, and the United States is getting there. The South Pole has plenty of differences from the North, but none that would make someone dropped there any less fucked...
You know what "compulsory" means? It means you get to jail/fine any software companies who don't sign up for it, so I don't think much luck will be needed.
So in other words, this is about killing off independent developers. Only companies who can afford $156,000 per bug will be able to distribute programs. Free software will, of course, die overnight.
Yes, XP needs to die, because it is made to deal with threats from 2000-2001, with added security patches strapped on as the need arose. Windows 7 and newer help address this issue.
No, not really. Windows 7's - and for that matter Linux's - security model is centered around users rather than applications. It's designed for multi-user central computers of old, not modern single-user desktops that run random code downloaded from the Internet. It protects the system from user-level code, but your personal files are screwed, should any of it be malicious. And not even the system is really safe: a program asks for administrative privileges, and you have no option to give it "fake" permissions in its own little sandbox or even any way of knowing what it has done, even after the fact.
Android comes closer, but still has the problem of not allowing you to fake permissions. I doubt that will change, it ultimately being a glorified data mining and ad delivery platform for Google.
As for a better security model, I'd really like to see a "tree" of virtual machines, with every program running in its own leaf it can mess to its digital heart's contents and any changes being merged into upper-level machine only at the approval of said upper level. That way you could do away entirely with the concept of administrator - since every program is the master of its own virtual machine - and try out new programs safely, since no matter what devastation they cause it's limited to their own playpen.
If you have $1 million worth of gold that you have not sold are you similarly not rich?
You are rich, since gold has never been worthless in the history of human civilization.
That's not true, gold only gained value when people got enough real wealth - meaning food, clothes, weapons - that they could start worrying about bling. More importantly, gold price is quite volatile - and, according to Wikipedia, is currently at quite a high level, historically speaking.
Based on the timing of the Wikipedia chart, I'd say the main price influence for gold right now is current economic troubles. They won't last forever, so the only way I can see gold keeping its current price level is the world moving back to gold standard as the petrodollar scheme collapses due to peak oil and/or rise of China - and while the premise seems almost certain, the gold standard step is unlikely. So, I'd sell.
Then again, any currency you might sell your gold for might collapse right afterwards. Euro is plagued by the will-they-or-won't-they (form a federation) game the EU is playing, dollar is going to experience massive inflation when all those petrodollars come home, Russia is working towards becoming a dictatorship once again, China is a dictatorship with the associated potential for nasty surprises, etc. One might even argue that the only real assets are favours owned, so you can always find someone to pull you up. Religious types even argue that's one asset you can take with you, which is definitely something you can' say about gold:).
Sorry, but when an shop says "Buy this movie", why exactly should people be expected to read a long T&Cs document that explains that you're not actually buying the movie, just a revokable licence to watch it?
They shouldn't. Which is precisely why being presented with one should make alarm bells go off in your head. It's kinda hard to feel much pity for people who refuse to listen to the warnings of either other people or their own common sense, at least when they suffer nothing worse than the loss of some entertainment.
Not that I should talk, getting stuff from Steam...
And you can be assured that collection of undesirables would be much less likely to be the 'right thing to do' when the soldiers doing the collecting are concerned about getting shot while doing so.
Which is why the government went out of its way to stress how utterly harmless every single one of Guantanamo Bay prisoners is. Imagine if they were painted as dangerous terrorists or something.
There's an obvious difference, tough: drugs produce ill people that *need* more of it, guns are not the same.
According to Wikipedia alcohol is one of the most addictive drugs, yet most people who use it are not addicted. And of course if the main drive in drug sales was dependence, the market would dry off soon enough. What drives drug market is people's psychological needs for fun and transcendence. And in the USA, guns are assigned cultural significance which causes similar effects - it gives the owner a feeling of being safe and in control of his own destiny, rather than at the mercy of muggers and the government.
I think that abortion, adultery, prostitution, violent pornography, and smoking pot are all morally wrong, but I don't think any of them should be illegal.
Just out of curiosity, what's morally wrong with smoking pot?
Ok, so if you believe contraception is immoral, why are you forced by the Obama administration to violate your religion?
Obama administration is forcing people to use contraception? How does that work? Do you have to submit used condoms for genetic testing? If you're ugly and poor, does the federal government grant vouchers for Nevada institutions?
You point out a huge dilemma for conservatives. Do we vote for the people who promise to save the country and then try to destroy it? Or do we vote for the people who promise to destroy the country and keep their promise?
That problem is not limited to conservatives, or the USA for that matter.
If that were true then why do all air based heat pumps include heating coils that kick on well above 15F?
Why are your cells able to produce energy anerobically, despite that being horribly inefficient and producing lactic acid? To give you an extra bit of power when you're chased by a bear. But it's still just an emergency auxiliary for your normal aerobic energy production.
That should not be for NASA to decide. Instead of having a "selection process", they should simply hold an auction. The launch pad should be rented to the highest bidder.
The launchpad is public infrastructure built for a specific purpose. It should be used in whatever way best accomplishes said purpose. Since said purpose is not "making as much profit as possible", an auction would be the wrong tool to use in deciding what that way would be.
If they're suing IBM then their action is futile and self-damaging.
If that is true then there's rather unfortunate implications for the entire investment system. After all, the issue in question is that IBM was engaged in activities that would obviously lower its likely future profits, yet failed to notify the markets of them. If suing them for that is futile, what's to stop any other company from doing the same?
IBM's money, which is owned by the stockholders
IBM's money is owned by the IBM, not stockholders. The stockholders own shares of IBM. Limited liability works both ways.
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The relationship between children and their parents is unlikely to be equal even when they're grown up. And since its the parent who's the biggest influence during said upbringing, there's additional baggage in the form of potential for wife husbandry.
Sibling incest, on the other hand, doesn't seem to have anything except the ick factor going against it.
The reason we don't teach people to meta-think is that it would make it harder to feed them political and economic messages. A good consumer buys what he's told, a good drone works where he's told and a good parishioner condemns what and who he's told. The less they think about what they're doing and why, the less likely they are to question their masters and their purposes.
Why would the powers that be want to risk their thralls breaking free?
Then what should be used instead to treat, say, depression? Because listing the side effects is meaningless without anything to compare them to.
You are a random pseudonym on an Internet forum. Taking medical advice from you would be no better than taking medical advice from the voices in one's head. Sucks if you actually are a medical professional, but that's the price of anonymity.
And if you thought people so suckered would simply laugh it off, curl up and die peacefully you're too dumb to live.
Oh well, time to invest in guillotines I guess. The Powers that Be are about to learn, once again, that's letting people reach the point where they have nothing to lose but their chains is a really bad idea. I wonder what exciting ideologies and geopolitical shifts we'll get this time around...
It's relevant in the exact same way than whether some backwater somewhere teaches creationism as science is: it gets a flamewar going, which causes page views, which pays Slashdot's bills.
Please do so, then?
Not stupid at all, just willing to lie to themselves. People who support the NSA for whatever reason, fore example because they're authoritarians, will treat this claim as absolute truth because it lets them rationalize that support. It's the exact same thing as happened with the "useful idiots" who held Soviet Union up as a worker's paradise and ignored all evidence to the contrary. Well, communism might be dead (for now) but the spirit of Stalinism lives on in the United States of all places.
Then again, perhaps that is not so surprising. The Soviet Union was basically one giant corporation, and the United States is getting there. The South Pole has plenty of differences from the North, but none that would make someone dropped there any less fucked...
So in other words, this is about killing off independent developers. Only companies who can afford $156,000 per bug will be able to distribute programs. Free software will, of course, die overnight.
So... Apple or Microsoft?
No, not really. Windows 7's - and for that matter Linux's - security model is centered around users rather than applications. It's designed for multi-user central computers of old, not modern single-user desktops that run random code downloaded from the Internet. It protects the system from user-level code, but your personal files are screwed, should any of it be malicious. And not even the system is really safe: a program asks for administrative privileges, and you have no option to give it "fake" permissions in its own little sandbox or even any way of knowing what it has done, even after the fact.
Android comes closer, but still has the problem of not allowing you to fake permissions. I doubt that will change, it ultimately being a glorified data mining and ad delivery platform for Google.
As for a better security model, I'd really like to see a "tree" of virtual machines, with every program running in its own leaf it can mess to its digital heart's contents and any changes being merged into upper-level machine only at the approval of said upper level. That way you could do away entirely with the concept of administrator - since every program is the master of its own virtual machine - and try out new programs safely, since no matter what devastation they cause it's limited to their own playpen.
That's not true, gold only gained value when people got enough real wealth - meaning food, clothes, weapons - that they could start worrying about bling. More importantly, gold price is quite volatile - and, according to Wikipedia, is currently at quite a high level, historically speaking.
Based on the timing of the Wikipedia chart, I'd say the main price influence for gold right now is current economic troubles. They won't last forever, so the only way I can see gold keeping its current price level is the world moving back to gold standard as the petrodollar scheme collapses due to peak oil and/or rise of China - and while the premise seems almost certain, the gold standard step is unlikely. So, I'd sell.
Then again, any currency you might sell your gold for might collapse right afterwards. Euro is plagued by the will-they-or-won't-they (form a federation) game the EU is playing, dollar is going to experience massive inflation when all those petrodollars come home, Russia is working towards becoming a dictatorship once again, China is a dictatorship with the associated potential for nasty surprises, etc. One might even argue that the only real assets are favours owned, so you can always find someone to pull you up. Religious types even argue that's one asset you can take with you, which is definitely something you can' say about gold :).
They shouldn't. Which is precisely why being presented with one should make alarm bells go off in your head. It's kinda hard to feel much pity for people who refuse to listen to the warnings of either other people or their own common sense, at least when they suffer nothing worse than the loss of some entertainment.
Not that I should talk, getting stuff from Steam...
Maybe not a regular cable, but who's to say you couldn't replace a regular cable with one with a microchip inside?
Which is why the government went out of its way to stress how utterly harmless every single one of Guantanamo Bay prisoners is. Imagine if they were painted as dangerous terrorists or something.
According to Wikipedia alcohol is one of the most addictive drugs, yet most people who use it are not addicted. And of course if the main drive in drug sales was dependence, the market would dry off soon enough. What drives drug market is people's psychological needs for fun and transcendence. And in the USA, guns are assigned cultural significance which causes similar effects - it gives the owner a feeling of being safe and in control of his own destiny, rather than at the mercy of muggers and the government.
But the Judge Death solution might hurt the economy.
Just out of curiosity, what's morally wrong with smoking pot?
Obama administration is forcing people to use contraception? How does that work? Do you have to submit used condoms for genetic testing? If you're ugly and poor, does the federal government grant vouchers for Nevada institutions?
That problem is not limited to conservatives, or the USA for that matter.
Why are your cells able to produce energy anerobically, despite that being horribly inefficient and producing lactic acid? To give you an extra bit of power when you're chased by a bear. But it's still just an emergency auxiliary for your normal aerobic energy production.
It's a real pity the anti-nuclear lobby ensured we have no way to produce lots of cheap, non-polluting electricity, now isn't it?
The launchpad is public infrastructure built for a specific purpose. It should be used in whatever way best accomplishes said purpose. Since said purpose is not "making as much profit as possible", an auction would be the wrong tool to use in deciding what that way would be.
That, or start a new company specializing in interplanetary transport. Asteroid Mining Incorporated?
Might be time to start thinking about how to deal with property in outer space.
If that is true then there's rather unfortunate implications for the entire investment system. After all, the issue in question is that IBM was engaged in activities that would obviously lower its likely future profits, yet failed to notify the markets of them. If suing them for that is futile, what's to stop any other company from doing the same?
IBM's money is owned by the IBM, not stockholders. The stockholders own shares of IBM. Limited liability works both ways.
Not to mention in the ocean. Desalination is easy if you have access to large amounts of cheap energy, for example from a 45 megawatt nuclear reactor.
Still need a micro-reactor for my car ;)...