It's weird how it's OK for muslims to be hateful, racist, antisemitist, and perform horrific acts of violence, but when someone calls them on it, and criticizes them for it, they're immediately labeled a bigot. And of course, all kinds of pathetic excuses come up for their behavior: "they're not used to western culture, so they couldn't help gang-raping those girls."
This dates back to the horrors of WWII. Having experienced such a destructive conflict made all the worse for the prejudice, racism, and hatred involved, European cultures developed traits meant to prevent such a thing from occurring again. Unfortunately, tolerance and acceptance of other cultures can be take to the absurd extreme just like anything else; it becomes counter-productive when you refuse to condemn even clearly evil behavior.
Maybe the other poster with the chemical castration post had the right idea, except that the Muslim men should be castrated BEFORE they have a chance to rape anyone. If they don't like it, they're free to move back where they came from.
Punishing people for crimes they have not committed (yet) goes against every principle of Western culture. "Those who fight monsters should take care to not become monsters themselves".
Financial aid and grants have always been available to offset the costs of schools. I guess to get an accurate comparison of the costs, you need to take that into consideration too.
Financial aid is available in Europe too. In fact here in Finland it is possible to go through university without any saved money, on financial aid and possibly (you'll be poor without, but can just barely survive) part-time working alone - and that's before you take into account state-backed student loans.
And catalytic converters actually INCREASE greenhouse gas production (the type of polution that we are most interested in reducing because it leads to global warming).
Actually, I'm most interested in reducing the type of pollutions which give me lung cancer. The catalyctic converter does just this, at the expense of perhaps putting out a bit more relatively harmless carbon dioxide.
I didn't mean to offend you by questioning the gloriousness of Big Brother. I am sure the government can micromanage every detail of our lives, while at the same time resulting in no loss of privacy, liberty, and it won't require any resources at all to do so (government, after all, can ignore the laws of conservation of matter and energy and reverse entrophy). I realize government to you is like Jesus to a Christian - Questioning government omnipotence is blasphemy.
While offtopic, I find this interesting; the "big government and lots of regulation" / "small government and no regulation" fight does seem rather like the religious flame wars which erupt on Slashdot every now and then. Is there perhaps a connection; do americans take their views of proper size and role of a government religiously ?
2. Genetic engineering is to eugenics as surgery is to butchery with dirty knives.
Doesn't matter. The problem is not in the method but in the goal. "IDEAL traits for everything" is simply an impossible goal since the ideal set of traits for different things are different. Furthermore, if for example a new disease breaks out, it could well turn out that whatever was the ideal set of traits in the previous set of circumstances is now the worst possible set.
The person wouldn't be wired just to the internet. Their brain itself would use a computer to do portions of it's thinking. The computer would simulate many trillions of additional neurons being attached to their brain, allowing them vastly more memory, higher level modes of thinking, and thinking speed.
What does "higher level mode of thinking" mean ? And is there any evidence that this is possible ? Finally, would you want to risk getting a computer virus into your thinking processes ?
The person would be able to perform man centuries of engineering and technological development work in a matter of weeks.
And it would still feel like centuries, thanks to your accelerated mode of thinking. Besides, if only the rich can afford to have their brains hooked up, why would they work ? You don't see them doing engineering or technological development now, do you ?
Genetic engineering : while creating outlandish things will not be possible for many years, OPTIMIZING humans so that the children that these "secular" folks have pack the IDEAL traits for everything would give them a huge advantage in quality, if not quantity.
Not this eugenics shit again. Didn't humanity learn nothing from the previous tries ?
And you can't make something that's ideal for everything, simply because different things require different traits.
There's genes that control how thick the myelin sheaths are around every neuron : adjust these, and the resulting human would have quicker reflexes and faster thinking for everything.
If thicker myelin sheats are a purely positive trait, why hasn't evolution already maximized them ?
There's more, yet unknown, that control how readily the neurons interconnect : tweak these, and their brain will have extra folds and be capable of higher level reasoning more easily.
Or maybe it will cause their neurons to connect too easily, short-circuiting their brains.
Basically, the result would be EVERY kid would have the intelligence of a prodigy and the athletic ability of a professional athlete, as well as being 6'6" for high self confidence.
Not unless they actually bothered practicing that ability, even if your scenario actually worked.
Again, Western societies would have a few of their members who could afford to have the expensive surgeries to wire themselves directly to these thinking machines. They would be able to out-compete everyone else on earth.
Hanging on the Internet hasn't increased my chances of reproducing any. Chances are being directly linked wouldn't help them either.
The birth control argument is that man is interfering with the natural course of God plan... or whatever.
The idea that a thin piece of latex any human could tear apart with his bare hands could in any way interfere with the plan of an omnipotent being is ridiculous. Is there any catholic theologians here willing to explain the matter here ?
Musta been that pesky "Bill of Rights". Or maybe the "US Constitution". Possibly the "Declaration of Independence".
I guess those were enforced selectively, then, since they didn't stop the genocide, slavery, and general villainy the newly-found US proceeded to engage in.
Or is there some other country founded on the belief that all men are created equal, prior to 1776, that I'm forgetting?
As I already stated, US was found on genocide - of the indians - and slavery - of imported africans, since indians turned out to not be as durable as slaves. If there was any believe in equality there, it certainly didn't show.
and yet, I bet you live in the US. here's a clue, tickets are cheap. Live in another country for a while and get back to us.
You lose that bet. I live in Finland which, for now, is a sovereign country in northern Europe. Altought I admit I'm wondering about that sovereignty lately, with us being part of European Union and our politicians busy implementing all the absurd regulations EU throws us way...
The difference between "good" and "evil" is good doesn't want to do evil, while evil desires to do it.
No, the difference between good and evil is that good doesn't do evil while evil does. Evil doesn't neccessarily desire to do evil, it simply has nothing against doing it either when it will (in its subjective opinion) benefit from it. Good doesn't do evil even when it would (in its subjective opinion) benefit from it. That's why most people tend towards evil: it is the path you follow naturally if you don't care about the pain you cause; your own comments about not giving RATS ASS about "muslim sensitivities" and the acts this lack of caring would lead you to being a perfect example of that.
But if you do evil things (such as torture people), don't lie to yourself; you are being evil, no matter how relucatantly you did those actions, because you still did them.
The US, at the moment, is not behaving as befits a leader in freedom and human rights.
The US has never been a leader, or even decent, as far as freedom and human rights go. It was found on genocide and slavery, expanded by conquering territory by warfare, proceeded to become the only nation to ever have used nuclear weapons against humans (not to mention civilian targets), supported one bloodthirsty dictator and guerrilla movement after another during the Cold War, and continues its track record of corpse production with Iraq War and Guantamano Bay. It has the largest prison population in the entire world, and the epidemic of rape in said prisons is a running joke to its population. It is one (only ?) of the few industrialized countries which still has death penalty. Bribery is an accepted procedure of its highest levels of politics, and the highest leaders have openly declared themselves to be above the law.
Just where did you get this utterly ridiculous idea that the US is a leader in freedom or human rights ? When has it ever stood up for those ?
However the thing people don't see to understand, even if you have Video card that has a crap driver available for it, just install the XP driver. You lose the WDDM and Aero concepts, but Vista works just like XP and will give you back the same quality and experience for Video.
If it works just like XP, why update ? What do you gain from it ?
So all the people whining about not moving to Vista because of the video driver problems are really not too bright. They can be running the same XP driver on Vista that they are using now, but have the other features of Vista.
Does Vista have any new features besides Aero and DRM ? I'm not trying to flamebait; I just seem to recall every feature Longhorn was supposed to support being dropped on the way until only Aero and DRM were left.
Teachers need to be paid based on merit. Students with poor discipline need to flunk.
You do realize, of course, that the first idea means that a teacher implementing the second is harming his own best interests ? Gee, I wonder if putting people into such a situation could lead to some corruption ?
Europe has a pretty good system. If a student doesn't show aptitude for higher learning, send them to a different type of high school... one that is geared towards learning a trade.
Do you want your house's electric wiring to be done by someone who is lazy or inattentive enough to be sent to a second-rate school ? You know, the wiring where a single wire being connected to the wrong place could give you an electric shock or burn down the house ? Or the piping; you know, the thing where any leaks will rot the whole house ? Or the superstructure; you know, the thing which keeps the roof from falling on your head ?
European trade school system works because there's no social stigma against it. Your attitude - considering trade school a place where you send those who didn't make it in "real" high school - makes it clear that such stigma exists where you live. Yet a trade school is where you teach people who could actually get someone killed if they fuck up.
Is this society prepared to destoy such colleges and their future in order to protect the ill-gotten exclusive rights of an industry that is doomed to failure?
Since the society is ruled by politicians who are paid by that very industry, I'd say that the answer is "yes".
Thus, virtual rape can easily perpetuated. A particularly graphic assault, especially against an identified and/or known avatar, would be more damaging than say, posting Goatse, as not only you are subjected to this display, but all other users in the immediate area are subject to this as well. Combined with sounds for guaranteed attention, and the value of your account identity (say, "Anshe Chung" or "Prokofy Neva" - two usernames with a lot of community knowledge), and you have yourself a legitimate reason for calling it "rape". You can't "just log off" - that's their cultural and business identity within the world, as well as their effective contact address! The damage done is permanent, albeit on a much smaller scale than the physical crime of rape.
You seem to be arguing that conducting a Denial of Service attack against a business is the equivalent of rape. Are you serious ? And do you think that defacing a web page should also be equated to rape - after all, it also tends to draw attention, disturb communications, and cause some loss of face ?
You do realize that healthcare and poverty are NOT issues that Congress is allowed to deal with, right? No where in Article 1 Section 8 of the US Constitution is Congress permitted to 'fight poverty' or 'setup healthcare'.
If you are poor, you can't buy as many things as you could if you weren't. It is also possible that some of the things you'd buy would be from another state. Therefore, your financial situation affects interstate commerce, and therefore the Congress is allowed to meddle in it.
Similarly, if you are sick, injured or dead, it affects your financial decisions, which in turn affect interstate commerce, allowing the Congress to control the healthcare system. Coming to think of it, anything could influence your financial decisions and therefore interstate commerce.
Whoever inserted the interstate commerce clause into your Constitution was either an evil genius or an idiot.
Unfortunately the story submitter and the editors don't think this distinction is important. Too bad, it really colors the whole discussion all wrong.
Teach schoolkids that they are subject to arbitrary decisions by authority figures and may be punished at whim whether they have done anything wrong or illegal or not.
Watch these kids remember this lesson as they grow up and enter adult society, avoiding crossing any authority figure, not standing up to their rights, and generally not drawing attention to themselves.
Complain bitterly that the people are apathetic and don't stand up to their rights, after teaching them that very behavior while they were growing up.
That's what I think every time I see some "Americans are apathetic" -post in YRO stories. It's what this incident also reminds me of. And your assertion that being punished by the school board is different than being punished by the police when both are government-backed authority figures also brings it to my mind.
Re:Cold Sleep / Suspended animation....?
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Treating the Dead
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How do we wake the sleeper?
Give more money to NASA so we may develop the means to rearrange celestial structures. When the stars are right the sleeper awakes.
Re:Actually, it shows the fallacy of organ donatio
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Treating the Dead
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· Score: 1
Unless your head spontaneously combusts, there's still a chance for you to get up and walk it off for about as long as your organs are viable.
Of course, if you died in a traffick accident or something, the chances are that your brains are splattered on the sidewalk. I'd say that it's a bit unlikely that you'll walk from that, even if the cells aren't dead:).
While the fish's gas bladder does control buoyancy, it also functions as the exchange of gasses to and from the blood. This is the same basic function as lungs.
The purpose of this gas exchange is to control the amount of gases in the bladder, therefore controlling the fish's buouyancy. It does not help the fish get oxygen or get rid of carbon dioxide, because it is an enclosed space from which the gases can't be exchanged with the outside, therefore it doesn't perform the same or even similar function as lungs.
Gills do not perform the function of lungs. Gills extract the oxygen from the water and passes it to the gas bladder for exchange with the blood. The gills also pass carbon dioxide out to the surrounding water. Gills would be most similar to our mouth and nose for air exchange, not the lungs.
Gills pass oxygen into the bloodstream, from where it may or may not be passed to the gas bladder or any other organ which requires it. A fish doesn't have anything similar to our nose for air exchange, because it doesn't breath air. It does have gill holes to pass water through, thought.
Either you're doing some kind of weird parody of a particularly headstrong fundamentalist with weird views, or you simply don't know anything about the biology of fishes. Either way I'm not going to argue with you further. Go read an elementary school biology book about fishes, or review the Wikipedia page about the subject, and be relieved of your ignorance.
I'd ask why you think that fish have lungs similar to ours, when it's trivial to demonstrate that lungs don't function well (or at all) underwater where the fish live, but I'm kinda afraid you'd try to prove me wrong and drown yourself...
Not true. Vertebrates have lungs. Fish have gas bladders. They perform similar functions and evolution wise share a common ancestry.
The function of lungs is to exchange gasses (oxygen and carbon dioxide) between blood and the surrounding air. The function of a fish's gas bladder is to control the buouyancy of the fish. They have absolutely nothing to do with each other in function, purpose or structure.
Gills perform the function of lungs in fishes, but are quite dissimilar from lungs in basic structure.
Plants, mold and bacteria, while yes are life, are not the type of intelligent life I was referring to. Lets narrow it down to vertebrate animals - all similar, especially at the embryo stage.
So most life in this planet has the same basic feature set, if we narrow it down to those forms of life having this particular feature set. While that is certainly true, being an oxymoron, your claim of all or even most of life on Earth having this feature set is still false.
The common opinion about these shooters is that they are total psychos. That is despite the fact that they leave behind lengthy diaries where they explain (for the most part, cogently) their motives and reasoning.
They could, of course, be lying, trying to make people feel guilty; one last shot from beyond the grave. The pen is mightier than the sword and all that.
Of course that also is how you attack one of these. You figure out which frequencies they are using and you use hand held directional antenna and jam the signal. Just long enough to bring it down, everything most likely could be carried in a backpack. They are pretty stable flying machines, so you might want to jam only one channel if you can preferably elevator control just after a control input.
Easy to counter: just have the airship controlled by an onboard computer, and only send the desired location/height combinations from the ground. Also use digital connection with public-key encryption and authentication to prevent unauthorized orders.
This way, if the signal gets jammed, the airship stays up. The computer could even have a special program for just this case.
Slashdot Mirror
This dates back to the horrors of WWII. Having experienced such a destructive conflict made all the worse for the prejudice, racism, and hatred involved, European cultures developed traits meant to prevent such a thing from occurring again. Unfortunately, tolerance and acceptance of other cultures can be take to the absurd extreme just like anything else; it becomes counter-productive when you refuse to condemn even clearly evil behavior.
Punishing people for crimes they have not committed (yet) goes against every principle of Western culture. "Those who fight monsters should take care to not become monsters themselves".
Financial aid is available in Europe too. In fact here in Finland it is possible to go through university without any saved money, on financial aid and possibly (you'll be poor without, but can just barely survive) part-time working alone - and that's before you take into account state-backed student loans.
Actually, I'm most interested in reducing the type of pollutions which give me lung cancer. The catalyctic converter does just this, at the expense of perhaps putting out a bit more relatively harmless carbon dioxide.
While offtopic, I find this interesting; the "big government and lots of regulation" / "small government and no regulation" fight does seem rather like the religious flame wars which erupt on Slashdot every now and then. Is there perhaps a connection; do americans take their views of proper size and role of a government religiously ?
True.
Doesn't matter. The problem is not in the method but in the goal. "IDEAL traits for everything" is simply an impossible goal since the ideal set of traits for different things are different. Furthermore, if for example a new disease breaks out, it could well turn out that whatever was the ideal set of traits in the previous set of circumstances is now the worst possible set.
What does "higher level mode of thinking" mean ? And is there any evidence that this is possible ? Finally, would you want to risk getting a computer virus into your thinking processes ?
The person would be able to perform man centuries of engineering and technological development work in a matter of weeks.
And it would still feel like centuries, thanks to your accelerated mode of thinking. Besides, if only the rich can afford to have their brains hooked up, why would they work ? You don't see them doing engineering or technological development now, do you ?
Not this eugenics shit again. Didn't humanity learn nothing from the previous tries ?
And you can't make something that's ideal for everything, simply because different things require different traits.
If thicker myelin sheats are a purely positive trait, why hasn't evolution already maximized them ?
Or maybe it will cause their neurons to connect too easily, short-circuiting their brains.
Not unless they actually bothered practicing that ability, even if your scenario actually worked.
Hanging on the Internet hasn't increased my chances of reproducing any. Chances are being directly linked wouldn't help them either.
The idea that a thin piece of latex any human could tear apart with his bare hands could in any way interfere with the plan of an omnipotent being is ridiculous. Is there any catholic theologians here willing to explain the matter here ?
I guess those were enforced selectively, then, since they didn't stop the genocide, slavery, and general villainy the newly-found US proceeded to engage in.
As I already stated, US was found on genocide - of the indians - and slavery - of imported africans, since indians turned out to not be as durable as slaves. If there was any believe in equality there, it certainly didn't show.
You lose that bet. I live in Finland which, for now, is a sovereign country in northern Europe. Altought I admit I'm wondering about that sovereignty lately, with us being part of European Union and our politicians busy implementing all the absurd regulations EU throws us way...
No, the difference between good and evil is that good doesn't do evil while evil does. Evil doesn't neccessarily desire to do evil, it simply has nothing against doing it either when it will (in its subjective opinion) benefit from it. Good doesn't do evil even when it would (in its subjective opinion) benefit from it. That's why most people tend towards evil: it is the path you follow naturally if you don't care about the pain you cause; your own comments about not giving RATS ASS about "muslim sensitivities" and the acts this lack of caring would lead you to being a perfect example of that.
But if you do evil things (such as torture people), don't lie to yourself; you are being evil, no matter how relucatantly you did those actions, because you still did them.
The US has never been a leader, or even decent, as far as freedom and human rights go. It was found on genocide and slavery, expanded by conquering territory by warfare, proceeded to become the only nation to ever have used nuclear weapons against humans (not to mention civilian targets), supported one bloodthirsty dictator and guerrilla movement after another during the Cold War, and continues its track record of corpse production with Iraq War and Guantamano Bay. It has the largest prison population in the entire world, and the epidemic of rape in said prisons is a running joke to its population. It is one (only ?) of the few industrialized countries which still has death penalty. Bribery is an accepted procedure of its highest levels of politics, and the highest leaders have openly declared themselves to be above the law.
Just where did you get this utterly ridiculous idea that the US is a leader in freedom or human rights ? When has it ever stood up for those ?
If it works just like XP, why update ? What do you gain from it ?
Does Vista have any new features besides Aero and DRM ? I'm not trying to flamebait; I just seem to recall every feature Longhorn was supposed to support being dropped on the way until only Aero and DRM were left.
You do realize, of course, that the first idea means that a teacher implementing the second is harming his own best interests ? Gee, I wonder if putting people into such a situation could lead to some corruption ?
Do you want your house's electric wiring to be done by someone who is lazy or inattentive enough to be sent to a second-rate school ? You know, the wiring where a single wire being connected to the wrong place could give you an electric shock or burn down the house ? Or the piping; you know, the thing where any leaks will rot the whole house ? Or the superstructure; you know, the thing which keeps the roof from falling on your head ?
European trade school system works because there's no social stigma against it. Your attitude - considering trade school a place where you send those who didn't make it in "real" high school - makes it clear that such stigma exists where you live. Yet a trade school is where you teach people who could actually get someone killed if they fuck up.
Since the society is ruled by politicians who are paid by that very industry, I'd say that the answer is "yes".
You seem to be arguing that conducting a Denial of Service attack against a business is the equivalent of rape. Are you serious ? And do you think that defacing a web page should also be equated to rape - after all, it also tends to draw attention, disturb communications, and cause some loss of face ?
If you are poor, you can't buy as many things as you could if you weren't. It is also possible that some of the things you'd buy would be from another state. Therefore, your financial situation affects interstate commerce, and therefore the Congress is allowed to meddle in it.
Similarly, if you are sick, injured or dead, it affects your financial decisions, which in turn affect interstate commerce, allowing the Congress to control the healthcare system. Coming to think of it, anything could influence your financial decisions and therefore interstate commerce.
Whoever inserted the interstate commerce clause into your Constitution was either an evil genius or an idiot.
That's what I think every time I see some "Americans are apathetic" -post in YRO stories. It's what this incident also reminds me of. And your assertion that being punished by the school board is different than being punished by the police when both are government-backed authority figures also brings it to my mind.
Give more money to NASA so we may develop the means to rearrange celestial structures. When the stars are right the sleeper awakes.
Of course, if you died in a traffick accident or something, the chances are that your brains are splattered on the sidewalk. I'd say that it's a bit unlikely that you'll walk from that, even if the cells aren't dead :).
I guess that depends on whether Iran can get a nuclear weapon ready before the US can free up enough military might from Iraq to attack it.
The purpose of this gas exchange is to control the amount of gases in the bladder, therefore controlling the fish's buouyancy. It does not help the fish get oxygen or get rid of carbon dioxide, because it is an enclosed space from which the gases can't be exchanged with the outside, therefore it doesn't perform the same or even similar function as lungs.
Gills pass oxygen into the bloodstream, from where it may or may not be passed to the gas bladder or any other organ which requires it. A fish doesn't have anything similar to our nose for air exchange, because it doesn't breath air. It does have gill holes to pass water through, thought.
Either you're doing some kind of weird parody of a particularly headstrong fundamentalist with weird views, or you simply don't know anything about the biology of fishes. Either way I'm not going to argue with you further. Go read an elementary school biology book about fishes, or review the Wikipedia page about the subject, and be relieved of your ignorance.
I'd ask why you think that fish have lungs similar to ours, when it's trivial to demonstrate that lungs don't function well (or at all) underwater where the fish live, but I'm kinda afraid you'd try to prove me wrong and drown yourself...
The function of lungs is to exchange gasses (oxygen and carbon dioxide) between blood and the surrounding air. The function of a fish's gas bladder is to control the buouyancy of the fish. They have absolutely nothing to do with each other in function, purpose or structure.
Gills perform the function of lungs in fishes, but are quite dissimilar from lungs in basic structure.
So most life in this planet has the same basic feature set, if we narrow it down to those forms of life having this particular feature set. While that is certainly true, being an oxymoron, your claim of all or even most of life on Earth having this feature set is still false.
(Most) Fish don't have lungs. Plants, molds and bacteria don't have any of these features. Your claim is false.
Only if you fail to shoot all cowardly two-headed aliens on sight.
They could, of course, be lying, trying to make people feel guilty; one last shot from beyond the grave. The pen is mightier than the sword and all that.
Easy to counter: just have the airship controlled by an onboard computer, and only send the desired location/height combinations from the ground. Also use digital connection with public-key encryption and authentication to prevent unauthorized orders.
This way, if the signal gets jammed, the airship stays up. The computer could even have a special program for just this case.