Why would my coworker use her mace first? Even out on the street, wandering around, she is not going to randomly turn around and mace the air behind her. She doesn't pull it out and point it at every single person she sees.
and I've met very few people that have martial arts training that also have the proper attitude (that aren't ex-military or ex-cons; I'm both).
I'm the opposite case. No martial arts training until recently, tiny guy, and fighting me has always been a losing battle. I've never actually believed anyone could beat me in a fight and whenever I got jumped in school (immature kids...), even if they're like twice my size or bigger, they lost. I mean I've been beaten... but I just didn't care; they hit me, they threw me into walls, and it never occurred to me that "oh shit, some huge fucking guy is kicking my ass!" The only thing that came to me is fighting back.
When I started taking martial arts it seemed so awesome though. I learned things I never noticed, got reflexes I never had, but I really don't want to fight some of these people. I would avoid it. I would still win I'm sure; maybe with brain injury and a broken arm. I am still the wrong person to get in a fight with; but I'm well aware there are a lot of people I can't win against. They will still get hurt in the process.
But you're right, I suppose. I know people who do not understand. They study a martial art, but they don't consider fighting. It's not that you have to train some different way; the truth of the matter is that you have to, at some time or another, stop and think, "Yeah, this could actually happen, and I have to do this." You have to know that what you're doing isn't for some "imaginary" fight that might happen; it's a weapon you carry. If it's just a dance for you so you can say, "Hey, I know Judo," that's all you're going to learn: a cute dance. When you look at the training as a weapon for your self defense, not just intellectually but seriously, you are suddenly armed.
Another thought on your story though, most people aren't prepared to fight friends. A lot of people aren't quite set with the idea of actually fighting someone they're on good terms with. When you can't accept that you just might hurt them, or get hurt in the process, it's harder. If one of my friends wants to spar, he might get hurt... not bad, but he's going to get hit. Might bleed. I won't break any bones. Still, if that's what's coming then sure, I can do that. Most people can't.
You do raise some good points though. At my dojo we follow great proverb: short fights are better fights. If you win in 3 seconds, you win; if you don't win in 3 seconds, your opponent has more than 3 seconds to win. This also goes with the corollary: get cut once. If someone comes at you with a knife, you will probably get cut. You can deflect it, control it, maybe you get a gash on the OUTSIDE of your arm; but you can also trap their arm in the process and break it, and then they have a broken arm and you have their knife. That's called "winning" by most measures, because when you have a broken arm and your opponent has taken your knife you are a fool to continue this fight. Thus your first response to being attacked should be "win," which is why nothing in Aikido is in the form "Block, step back, clear, face your opponent down and wait for the next attack." EVERYTHING in Silat is meant to break something, but even before that it's meant to get your opponent close to you where they can't attack (as in Go: play away to attack; play close to defend), and before that to get out of the way of the attack (at least if you screw something up, you pass them by, and can run while they try to reorient).
I do tend to avoid getting in the first shot, though. If someone looks like he's going to attack me... I wait. I wait for the attack, but I wait. I would be pleased to have a weapon handed to me, either a knife or a club or just a fist.
You are fantastically lucky. But the point still stands; I don't imagine this turning out well if you just froze and flailed uselessly. And yes, your mistake was not being aware of wtf was happening around you; sparring distance is a better place to start if you can get there. I don't like being ambushed, it sucks and I'm immediately at a horrible disadvantage.
NOTHING is a complete solution; but there is such a thing as "better" and "worse." Making everyone defenseless on the braindead theory that making the attacker and victim both decent fighters or well-armed or whatever was always a failed move. It's HARD to fight someone you can beat if you're both good fighters; it's also expensive (in terms of pain, effort, and even risk). The animal theory that the strong rule the weak prevails... but when the weak are all strong, you have a problem because then you can only take one of them, and only at great pains; and if you're dealing with two or three of them, you suddenly aren't so strong.
That our society would put someone in jail for defending themselves is a fault of society. It is not wrong to physically protect yourself. It is also not sane to sit around trying to analyze the relative threat and appropriate responses; if you attack someone, you are at fault for what happens to you. I live in a state with such insane laws, where if someone comes at your throat with a knife and they leave with a black eye the cops arrest you for attacking them. I'm sorry but you're lucky the guy is still ALIVE.
But does every woman have the reflex to break a hold on her throat? Can every woman struggle to shift their attacker's relative body position to make that shot clear? Can every woman execute an arm lock when opportune? Is every woman able to keep her head straight when the fighting starts?
Martial arts work the same way as guns, except if you lose your body you have bigger issues than if you lose a gun. Basically you have a LOT more weapons.
Yes it's a matter of relative cost and relative risk. Risk of getting caught makes cost less significant: the police MIGHT catch me, but I MIGHT get away with it... the price is high, but not extremely likely. That girl WILL lose a fight with me, but I WILL get hurt... okay, that's a guaranteed cost, it's somewhat unknown, it's hard to mitigate (sure, I can fight, but I can also make mistakes... a small mistake might be a kick to the nuts followed by a broken nose), the police are STILL going to come get me, they probably WILL find me this time, and okay I don't like this.
Besides, it's like a super power (I live in the USA). You're at a party, you're on the way to the bathroom and you hear something... you walk on by. I'm at a party, I'm on the way to the bathroom and I hear something, I recognize the muffled protests of some girl, I go investigate, some guy is beating on her and tearing her shirt open... and there I am to kick his ass. Everyone gets to be a hero. There's only one bad guy and three of you, and all of you are pretty sure you know how to kick someone's ass. Or maybe it's just you, but hell, can't just walk away can you? I can't.
Prohibitively time consuming like learning to bounce a ball off a wall, playing "baseball" or "soccer" with minimal rules, and otherwise just taking "Physical Education" classes that don't actually teach a sportsman game or anything but instead just keep the kids busy for a while as a form of recreation? Oh, wait, that's school.
In my school, we spent an entire year where "phys ed" == "wrestling." I keep forgetting I have those moves in reserve if I need them; it just so happens that if I need to restrain someone I'll lock their arm behind their back or throw them in a headlock or whatever if it becomes obvious and convenient, a reflex I learned in high school. There is no slapping each other around like angry retards. As soon as you pass me, your arm's in reach, you don't have 5 other friends helping kick my ass, and I need you stopped, my hands go right where they belong and your arm is now in a position that's very painful for you if you don't cooperate. That's how a martial art works. (headlocks are kind of fancy; arm locks are an opportunity every three seconds).
In Japan, Judo is compulsory public school education. Wrestling was here; I'm not the greatest wrestler, but if you don't guard your nuts you're getting kneed in the groin. Fights are about stamina, in many ways; and as we know from Go, when you are on the winning end you can go easy, but when you are behind you must take bigger risks and make more aggressive plays. Do you really want to fight a Judoka or Wrestler who you can beat, but is now very desperate and does have fighting capability?
What's "time consuming" first off can be somewhat merged into general education, or your fitness program (wait, what? Your whole life is sitting on your ass? Fail.); and second off can save your life.
Firearms are nigh on useless in closed quarter situations. Firearms are almost entirely useless if you are not trained to use a firearm (there's a thing called "firearms self defense," a thing you should go participate in if you ever buy a firearm for self defense, lest you find that you're a helpless idiot with a gun). If the tip of the firearm ends up pointed at you, you are in danger of dying (if you lose control of a knife, you can still get cut up a lot in the struggle and just be annoyed that you have a lot of little cuts skin deep; bullets never stop skin deep. This goes both ways, but relying on being the winner in a fight over a firearm is in the class of "secret ninja techniques"... absolutely useless).
My coworker carries around mace. I've put her through the "that won't help you" talk a lot. It's pretty well demonstrated that I can grab and restrain her 100% of the time without her being able to mace me. If she isn't carrying it with her finger on the trigger, she can't even get a shot off. This is the same attitude: "I have a weapon so I'm safe." I have a brickbat, but the guy I attacked with it knows Arnis... that didn't work too well huh? And now HE has a brick bat, shit.
The fact that you WILL get hurt going in? Are YOU personally more likely to attack a human or a rabbit? Most people won't grab a wild rabbit or a squirrel because it will bite them; I'm pretty sure the squirrel would lose that fight.
Note that this particular argument was in the isolated case: it's you and them, and nobody else around. At a party if one person gets violent, everybody backs off; but if everybody is some sort of freaking ninja, and one person gets violent, everybody goes ninja on their ass. Are you going to start bitchslapping some girl and trying to force her to suck your cock if there's 3 boxers standing around? How about 3 nerds that are just going to grab your arm, protest, get shoved in the face, and then go cry in the corner? The greater benefit to society argument is easier; the small one-on-one argument is hard, but the "bigger and stronger" gap gets a lot narrower when you can still "win" but at a high cost.
The advantage is the cost is higher. And, as I said, the victim is not lost in her own helplessness if/when she does actually lose the fight. Unhappy, yes; but less emotionally overwhelmed.
This is why I am a proponent of everybody studying martial arts. He raped her 'cause he's bigger and stronger. If you are going to go after someone who knows Judo or, god forbid, Silat, you're going to get hurt. You might WIN (if they don't study Pentjak Silat-- sorry but those people kill first, ask questions later), and rape them, but you are going to get hurt. If you intend to take this out too far, expect to have a lot of angry friends show up at your house to talk about the cast (or body); and that falls under "premeditated" when the cops show up.
One way or another, these people will get off the street.
Also important, a lot of emotional damage from rape comes from the girl feeling hopeless and defenseless. If she kicks the shit out of you and still gets raped, the only thing she is going to feel is "When is round two you motherfucker?!" We like to arrest people for assault; but the truth is people inherently know that other people shouldn't have to suffer because you're a dick, and so they punch you in the face. When they don't feel so defenseless, they're less inclined to blame themselves for shit other people do to them.
An arms race is not inherently wrong, or unavoidable. The question is, however, what does it mean to be well armed? I can carry 75 knives and a few clubs, but I can't hand-to-hand with a ninja trained in 18 different forms of Japanese martial arts unless I'm pretty well trained to use the weapons I have. I can carry a machine gun and a rocket launcher, sure; but this will cause collateral damage that to me is unacceptable for use in my home, and to others is unacceptable anywhere else (which means then everyone is mad at me and shit doesn't end well either).
I routinely play 9 stone handicap games with 1dan players. You can't win: black starts with a 120 point lead, and has so much influence you cannot get entrenched anywhere. Every move white plays is by definition a bad move, dropping a weak stone in around strong stones. White can invade my corners in Gote, giving me a strong wall and an extra move to protect one edge or the other or (even better) another corner, in the end losing by a lot. I still lose, because the 1dan player is better at infighting than I am, and I completely fail to use my initial advantage to stop them from dominating the board and destroying my groups.
By the same token, a 6dan will play a 1dan even and win. No handicap, a decent enough opening, yet this person who soundly beat me when I was overarmed with control of the entire board manages to lose in a fair game. Even if we give the 1dan 4 stones, the game is uneven and he will likely lose by around 20 points--even though he is well trained and better armed.
I don't think building more and bigger bombs is the answer. I think we do need self-defense; I think we need a war machine, but I think it's all in the implementation. Self-defense is not competitive, not even on the international level; Japan has an army because some misguidedly ballsy fellow might decide to invade Japan (or Switzerland, or Russia), but Japan's constitution explicitly forbids them to declare war. The core of self-defense is not to put up the shields, either; if that's all I have to deal with, I'll just keep hitting you with bigger shit until something gives. The way to end a fight is to hit the other guy back until he stops wanting to be hit; level of force and end goal (knock-out, kill) depends on the attack you're receiving and its severity (idiot bar fight, person trying to kill you... are they strong or weak? Why bother laying all out on the weak?).
I think you may enjoy reading this essay: http://kiseido.com/three.htm . It is more abstract than the sources you quote; but you can think of games as a reflection of society, and the games we play reflect our mentality as a people. I can validate that about Go and Chess, too: I always feel like I'm playing a chess player when I play chess, trying to beat them; but when I play Go, I forget the other guy is there and spend most of my time trying to identify the best moves. Poker (in video games) I find somewhat strategic, but I'm always hoping/praying; craps and especially slot machines I hate because I have no control over them and feel like I'm not playing anything.
I think it is the same in said societies. Western societies see themselves as kings, as heroes, with hierarchical societies that you can't escape. A pawn attempting to promote usually dies in chess; often when a chess player sees he cannot prevent a pawn from promoting... he resigns. That's how big a deal escaping your fixed class is. We just don't see how a poor person can become middle class or rich, either; not that it can't happen, or that it can happen in all cases, but it does happen and it's possible. There are other societies that see this only as fortune (luck), karma, or divine right; they have the added sickness that they believe all things are rightly theirs if they come to them, and they are not responsible for any atrocities they commit-- ESPECIALLY if someone else is standing between them and what is rightly t
If you want something better, maybe you might want to think more deeply about your beliefs about security and how it is achieved, like perhaps through intrinsic security and mutual security as opposed to unilateral security and extrinsic security. Nothing wrong with wanting "security".
But then you could ask how we can really effectively achieve that in a healthy society to a high probability of long term success?
Has Go taught you how to do that?
In Go, the competition is with oneself. Attack and defense are natural flows on the board; hostilities are an unavoidable part of life. Still, in Go, most threats are made with the goal of garnering strength: you can rush head-long into a fight and lose something, but you can cause a lot of damage and in the end what you lose is minimal. When faced with such a threat, you must respond by strengthening your own position; thus, when making such a threat, you gain another turn to further strengthen your attacking position. This means that you lose the chance to attack some weaknesses; but you also protect yourself by not running headlong into a losing battle.
Attempting to attack too hard, too fast, too heavily creates a weak and fragmented position on the board; you lose quickly. Your primary concern should be your own defense and the security of your own position. Once you have ensured that, you can begin invasions and reductions.
Look at the world we live in today. We've tried to attack all "terrorist" states. We've tried to slip our military in to occupy anything that could turn into a threat. We've got the TSA and DoD reacting to every little "might be in a magical fantasy world" threat, afraid that there's something that they might not be prepared for. They want to be everywhere and they're not building a secure position; they're jumping at every shadow and viciously attacking. This costs us money; it damages our economy; it fragments our position and leaves us completely ineffective at defending ourselves. It's like we've built this huge dragon with no eyes, and we're slowly being squeezed to death; as soon as the economy completely fails or a real world war 3 starts, we'll suddenly find we have no resources to defend ourselves because we've spread all over the place without creating any real security.
Go is, in some way, similar to diplomacy. We both agree to play by the same rules, and also the same theory: you play your opening moves in the corners, with extensions, shimari, and the like, and I do the same. You make kakari after the first ten or so moves and I respond defensively; I take sente and do the same. Trading small blows, building framework. The kakari against the far corner prevents you from expanding and suddenly taking 80% of the board; it's a physical check move.
As long as neither side escalates into excessive, greedy hostilities, the score comes out within a few small points; the winner wins by 2 or 4, often with very few captures. If you become greedy and start attacking too hard, the responses from a skilled player will quickly compromise your position, and you will lose much. Similarly, though, if you defend too much, play too heavy, you get invaded and your opponent gains more control of more territory than you.
If you face an extremely skilled opponent, you often lose. By a lot. To help with this, you get a handicap: a few stones placed on the board before play begins. These are like allies, as your position is much stronger with them. It is intended that weaker players are thus evenly matched to stronger players by handicap, a primary goal of allies that the UN purports to attempt.
It makes no sense for any military to compete entirely on brute strength, on the funding and sheer size of their infrastructure. A military needs both a goal and a realistic understanding of how to achieve that goal; we know historically and logically (making the whole world your enemy...) that expansionist military policies cause world wars and then
History is tricky, because one can always pull out a situation where people have let things get really bad because they would not consider other alternatives and then say, see, violence was the only answer.
The trick is that without consequences, people will realize they can do whatever they want. That is the rule. This is why communism doesn't work: we expect people to play nice and they don't. If they find a loop hole, they'll rape it. Eventually those in power realize that they have all the power, and that their position allows the government to benefit them at the expense of the people. It would work if everyone played nice.
Similarly, you can argue that "we shouldn't have let things get that bad" for any of these situations; but eventually someone is going to keep saying "nice doggy," and the other side is going to start saying, "You know what? Fuck you and fuck your sanctions. We're going to march our army in there and take your god damn oil." And then you're going to start talking about how we shouldn't resort to violence, and we should continue to discuss peacefully. Then you're going to get shot in the face.
Everyone is not out to get you. Don't be paranoid. Unfortunately, someone really is out to get you. Be prepared.
The Kindle is an amazing device, though. It does present a pleasant reading experience; Kindle e-Books are generally (not by inherent property, but by luck) really well formatted... or not formatted, more like. They're blocks of HTML paragraphs with as little formatting as possible-- I'm fine with this, the device gets to word wrap and render them at the text size I want.
More importantly, the application. Amazon.com lets you take 70% of the purchase price if you list for between $2.99 and $9.99; 35% otherwise. This makes the price point between $10.00 and $20.00 a loss, plain and simple. More people will buy for $9.99 than $12.99; and you have to price at $19.99 to get as much money to your pocket as a $9.99 price. This means that if you want to price at $16, price at $8 and make the same money; better, price at $9.99 and make more money. Even better, priced at $8 will give more volume sale than $16, so you'll still make way more than if you priced it at $16.
Amazon wants all books to sell for under $10. Plain and simple. The barrier to entry for a $25 eBook is HUGE, people will just buy a used hardback (if you're selling the physical for $100). There's some market volatility between $10 and $20; they attacked that directly, making the entire curve a loss. You want to maximize profits, publish for $9.99 or below.
That their out-of-print books from the 60s, 70s, and 80s, that are currently making them ZERO money, could be sold for $2-$5 as pdfs
This is unlikely to happen.
Having dealt with academic publishers I've found them to be the most ignorant bunch of incompetent rent-seekers imaginable, whose entire business model is fortunately doomed.
I also bought this as follow-up. The idea of wasting time to follow up and solidify math teaching, btw, is completely abominable in America. Waste of time. For the interested, there is a newer edition.
This is what they assigned for teaching in my college algebra class. I retook algebra because I need a serious refresher; I stopped taking math in 2003, and by 2008 I couldn't handle calculus 2. Turns out I can't handle algebra either... actually, I can; but this book is really shitty at teaching it.
In English class, you read classic English literature. Lord of the Flies [soon to be banned], Catcher in the Rye [banned], To Kill a Mockingbird [banned], Huckleberry Fin [almost banned that one time, but it's now safe], A Tale of Two Cities [never in danger of banning]. All books I hated. Not the point. The point is that, while there's an abundance of amazing new literature coming out, we still read classics.
I have found the same appreciation for subject matter text: the books I cited above are absolutely the most amazing math texts I've ever seen, far better than anything else I've read on the subject, because it seems the author actually wanted to teach math. The algebra book covers graphing calculators and programs and such, but only as an aside; it takes the teaching of algebra as a core subject, with call-forwards to Geometry and real-world applications. The Geometry book is a huge crawl through Algebra to introduce Geometry, but only as an aid to strengthen the understanding of Algebra.
Modern textbooks seem to be gutter trash pushed only to make money. The truth is math doesn't fucking change. Basic physics doesn't fucking change. Algebra, trigonometry, calculus, linear algebra, discrete mathematics, statistics, these are parts of fields that have a solid base. There is nothing new in Calculus 1 and 2, ever. There is nothing new in introductory and intermediate Statistics and Probability Theory, ever. There is nothing new in fundamental physics, ever. The fields of advanced mathematics, statistics, high level newtonian physics, quantum physics, nuclear physics, and high level chemistry are always changing. The base material is simple and fully explored; if it ever changes, it will be a huge change.
We don't need a new text on this shit every six months, a new updated edition... there are no updates to the field of intermediate college algebra. There are no updates to the field of basic chemistry. There are no updates to College Physics 1 and 2. There are no updates to introductory statistics and probability theory. There are no updates to Calculus 1 and 2. The ever-changing text is at the end of these subjects, several courses or several dozen courses ahead. All you have at 90% of the BA/BS level is errata because 6 x 7 doesn't equal 49, oops.
The textbook mills produce shit-quality shovelware that needs to die.
Hmm I thought Alpha-Centauri was 65-ish away, and the closest. Seems Wikipedia says it's 4.73 lightyears away. As Wikipedia is the most reliable source on the Internet (with Web sites editable by any single person who can afford an $8 domain name and a downloaded copy of Apache fighting with corporate-sponsored encyclopedia sites for second), I'll go with that.
Yes, and we could design the bridge stations to slide around so that they'd be easier to manage when engaging spin. The ship's core would have to stay on-true, though, otherwise maneuvering--even in zero-g--would cause lots of internal stress. I suppose if the ship's core goes off-true, we could always shut down internal spin to reset heading; it's not like we're going to be trying to fight space battles without the luxury of gravity--a daunting task, very difficult to man your stations when belted in, much less jump up and run to elsewhere in the ship.
We'd have to design the core to be easy to fix on-ship, though; although resetting it on-true without an external spaceport would be nigh on impossible, given the scale of engineering we're talking about here. So we'd need to design it to stay 100% operational with proper maintenance forever, and to be cycled on and off so we can disable artificial gravity during maintenance (not to mention before entering tach and after resuming tard).
This mission includes standing orders for doggy style, missionary, and mild-to-wild Wednesdays. For the next one thousand years. Also, once you are far enough from Earth, a draft constitution kicks in that releases you from Earth law and establishes you as a sovereign state.
It is up to you to decide whether to follow Medieval customs with a marriage and age of consent around 13 years, or to attempt a selective breeding program banning all reproduction below the age of 35 or so. We suggest the younger mothering age if high casualties and low birth rates seem to be a problem; the older age if human reproduction produces a stable population and resources remain in abundance.
Among the biosphere supplies, we have included the bacteriological samples and laboratory equipment to manufacture birth control, but also penicillin and beer; STDs should not be a problem, but we imagine that social factors will not magically go away with a thousand years of society in space.
Again, volunteers must be sexually open, but also have good sense and parenting skills, while at the same time must be willing to sign up for a mission that places you and your children in space forever. Any takers?
No, they were saying, "The world is big and round and that ocean is so huge you won't reach India that way." 400 years later, school teachers are telling us, "Yeah, they thought the world was flat and they'd sail right off the end of it!"
An emotional wench is likely to vent the entire ship's atmosphere when she catches you screwing the engine woman behind her back. May as well kill everyone.
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Why would my coworker use her mace first? Even out on the street, wandering around, she is not going to randomly turn around and mace the air behind her. She doesn't pull it out and point it at every single person she sees.
and I've met very few people that have martial arts training that also have the proper attitude (that aren't ex-military or ex-cons; I'm both).
I'm the opposite case. No martial arts training until recently, tiny guy, and fighting me has always been a losing battle. I've never actually believed anyone could beat me in a fight and whenever I got jumped in school (immature kids...), even if they're like twice my size or bigger, they lost. I mean I've been beaten... but I just didn't care; they hit me, they threw me into walls, and it never occurred to me that "oh shit, some huge fucking guy is kicking my ass!" The only thing that came to me is fighting back.
When I started taking martial arts it seemed so awesome though. I learned things I never noticed, got reflexes I never had, but I really don't want to fight some of these people. I would avoid it. I would still win I'm sure; maybe with brain injury and a broken arm. I am still the wrong person to get in a fight with; but I'm well aware there are a lot of people I can't win against. They will still get hurt in the process.
But you're right, I suppose. I know people who do not understand. They study a martial art, but they don't consider fighting. It's not that you have to train some different way; the truth of the matter is that you have to, at some time or another, stop and think, "Yeah, this could actually happen, and I have to do this." You have to know that what you're doing isn't for some "imaginary" fight that might happen; it's a weapon you carry. If it's just a dance for you so you can say, "Hey, I know Judo," that's all you're going to learn: a cute dance. When you look at the training as a weapon for your self defense, not just intellectually but seriously, you are suddenly armed.
Another thought on your story though, most people aren't prepared to fight friends. A lot of people aren't quite set with the idea of actually fighting someone they're on good terms with. When you can't accept that you just might hurt them, or get hurt in the process, it's harder. If one of my friends wants to spar, he might get hurt ... not bad, but he's going to get hit. Might bleed. I won't break any bones. Still, if that's what's coming then sure, I can do that. Most people can't.
You do raise some good points though. At my dojo we follow great proverb: short fights are better fights. If you win in 3 seconds, you win; if you don't win in 3 seconds, your opponent has more than 3 seconds to win. This also goes with the corollary: get cut once. If someone comes at you with a knife, you will probably get cut. You can deflect it, control it, maybe you get a gash on the OUTSIDE of your arm; but you can also trap their arm in the process and break it, and then they have a broken arm and you have their knife. That's called "winning" by most measures, because when you have a broken arm and your opponent has taken your knife you are a fool to continue this fight. Thus your first response to being attacked should be "win," which is why nothing in Aikido is in the form "Block, step back, clear, face your opponent down and wait for the next attack." EVERYTHING in Silat is meant to break something, but even before that it's meant to get your opponent close to you where they can't attack (as in Go: play away to attack; play close to defend), and before that to get out of the way of the attack (at least if you screw something up, you pass them by, and can run while they try to reorient).
I do tend to avoid getting in the first shot, though. If someone looks like he's going to attack me... I wait. I wait for the attack, but I wait. I would be pleased to have a weapon handed to me, either a knife or a club or just a fist.
You are fantastically lucky. But the point still stands; I don't imagine this turning out well if you just froze and flailed uselessly. And yes, your mistake was not being aware of wtf was happening around you; sparring distance is a better place to start if you can get there. I don't like being ambushed, it sucks and I'm immediately at a horrible disadvantage.
NOTHING is a complete solution; but there is such a thing as "better" and "worse." Making everyone defenseless on the braindead theory that making the attacker and victim both decent fighters or well-armed or whatever was always a failed move. It's HARD to fight someone you can beat if you're both good fighters; it's also expensive (in terms of pain, effort, and even risk). The animal theory that the strong rule the weak prevails... but when the weak are all strong, you have a problem because then you can only take one of them, and only at great pains; and if you're dealing with two or three of them, you suddenly aren't so strong.
That our society would put someone in jail for defending themselves is a fault of society. It is not wrong to physically protect yourself. It is also not sane to sit around trying to analyze the relative threat and appropriate responses; if you attack someone, you are at fault for what happens to you. I live in a state with such insane laws, where if someone comes at your throat with a knife and they leave with a black eye the cops arrest you for attacking them. I'm sorry but you're lucky the guy is still ALIVE.
But does every woman have the reflex to break a hold on her throat? Can every woman struggle to shift their attacker's relative body position to make that shot clear? Can every woman execute an arm lock when opportune? Is every woman able to keep her head straight when the fighting starts?
Martial arts work the same way as guns, except if you lose your body you have bigger issues than if you lose a gun. Basically you have a LOT more weapons.
Yes it's a matter of relative cost and relative risk. Risk of getting caught makes cost less significant: the police MIGHT catch me, but I MIGHT get away with it... the price is high, but not extremely likely. That girl WILL lose a fight with me, but I WILL get hurt... okay, that's a guaranteed cost, it's somewhat unknown, it's hard to mitigate (sure, I can fight, but I can also make mistakes... a small mistake might be a kick to the nuts followed by a broken nose), the police are STILL going to come get me, they probably WILL find me this time, and okay I don't like this.
Besides, it's like a super power (I live in the USA). You're at a party, you're on the way to the bathroom and you hear something... you walk on by. I'm at a party, I'm on the way to the bathroom and I hear something, I recognize the muffled protests of some girl, I go investigate, some guy is beating on her and tearing her shirt open ... and there I am to kick his ass. Everyone gets to be a hero. There's only one bad guy and three of you, and all of you are pretty sure you know how to kick someone's ass. Or maybe it's just you, but hell, can't just walk away can you? I can't.
Not COMPLETELY lost. See elsewhere. The power difference is significantly equalized.
Prohibitively time consuming like learning to bounce a ball off a wall, playing "baseball" or "soccer" with minimal rules, and otherwise just taking "Physical Education" classes that don't actually teach a sportsman game or anything but instead just keep the kids busy for a while as a form of recreation? Oh, wait, that's school.
In my school, we spent an entire year where "phys ed" == "wrestling." I keep forgetting I have those moves in reserve if I need them; it just so happens that if I need to restrain someone I'll lock their arm behind their back or throw them in a headlock or whatever if it becomes obvious and convenient, a reflex I learned in high school. There is no slapping each other around like angry retards. As soon as you pass me, your arm's in reach, you don't have 5 other friends helping kick my ass, and I need you stopped, my hands go right where they belong and your arm is now in a position that's very painful for you if you don't cooperate. That's how a martial art works. (headlocks are kind of fancy; arm locks are an opportunity every three seconds).
In Japan, Judo is compulsory public school education. Wrestling was here; I'm not the greatest wrestler, but if you don't guard your nuts you're getting kneed in the groin. Fights are about stamina, in many ways; and as we know from Go, when you are on the winning end you can go easy, but when you are behind you must take bigger risks and make more aggressive plays. Do you really want to fight a Judoka or Wrestler who you can beat, but is now very desperate and does have fighting capability?
What's "time consuming" first off can be somewhat merged into general education, or your fitness program (wait, what? Your whole life is sitting on your ass? Fail.); and second off can save your life.
Firearms are nigh on useless in closed quarter situations. Firearms are almost entirely useless if you are not trained to use a firearm (there's a thing called "firearms self defense," a thing you should go participate in if you ever buy a firearm for self defense, lest you find that you're a helpless idiot with a gun). If the tip of the firearm ends up pointed at you, you are in danger of dying (if you lose control of a knife, you can still get cut up a lot in the struggle and just be annoyed that you have a lot of little cuts skin deep; bullets never stop skin deep. This goes both ways, but relying on being the winner in a fight over a firearm is in the class of "secret ninja techniques" ... absolutely useless).
My coworker carries around mace. I've put her through the "that won't help you" talk a lot. It's pretty well demonstrated that I can grab and restrain her 100% of the time without her being able to mace me. If she isn't carrying it with her finger on the trigger, she can't even get a shot off. This is the same attitude: "I have a weapon so I'm safe." I have a brickbat, but the guy I attacked with it knows Arnis... that didn't work too well huh? And now HE has a brick bat, shit.
The fact that you WILL get hurt going in? Are YOU personally more likely to attack a human or a rabbit? Most people won't grab a wild rabbit or a squirrel because it will bite them; I'm pretty sure the squirrel would lose that fight.
Note that this particular argument was in the isolated case: it's you and them, and nobody else around. At a party if one person gets violent, everybody backs off; but if everybody is some sort of freaking ninja, and one person gets violent, everybody goes ninja on their ass. Are you going to start bitchslapping some girl and trying to force her to suck your cock if there's 3 boxers standing around? How about 3 nerds that are just going to grab your arm, protest, get shoved in the face, and then go cry in the corner? The greater benefit to society argument is easier; the small one-on-one argument is hard, but the "bigger and stronger" gap gets a lot narrower when you can still "win" but at a high cost.
The advantage is the cost is higher. And, as I said, the victim is not lost in her own helplessness if/when she does actually lose the fight. Unhappy, yes; but less emotionally overwhelmed.
This is why I am a proponent of everybody studying martial arts. He raped her 'cause he's bigger and stronger. If you are going to go after someone who knows Judo or, god forbid, Silat, you're going to get hurt. You might WIN (if they don't study Pentjak Silat-- sorry but those people kill first, ask questions later), and rape them, but you are going to get hurt. If you intend to take this out too far, expect to have a lot of angry friends show up at your house to talk about the cast (or body); and that falls under "premeditated" when the cops show up.
One way or another, these people will get off the street.
Also important, a lot of emotional damage from rape comes from the girl feeling hopeless and defenseless. If she kicks the shit out of you and still gets raped, the only thing she is going to feel is "When is round two you motherfucker?!" We like to arrest people for assault; but the truth is people inherently know that other people shouldn't have to suffer because you're a dick, and so they punch you in the face. When they don't feel so defenseless, they're less inclined to blame themselves for shit other people do to them.
An arms race is not inherently wrong, or unavoidable. The question is, however, what does it mean to be well armed? I can carry 75 knives and a few clubs, but I can't hand-to-hand with a ninja trained in 18 different forms of Japanese martial arts unless I'm pretty well trained to use the weapons I have. I can carry a machine gun and a rocket launcher, sure; but this will cause collateral damage that to me is unacceptable for use in my home, and to others is unacceptable anywhere else (which means then everyone is mad at me and shit doesn't end well either).
I routinely play 9 stone handicap games with 1dan players. You can't win: black starts with a 120 point lead, and has so much influence you cannot get entrenched anywhere. Every move white plays is by definition a bad move, dropping a weak stone in around strong stones. White can invade my corners in Gote, giving me a strong wall and an extra move to protect one edge or the other or (even better) another corner, in the end losing by a lot. I still lose, because the 1dan player is better at infighting than I am, and I completely fail to use my initial advantage to stop them from dominating the board and destroying my groups.
By the same token, a 6dan will play a 1dan even and win. No handicap, a decent enough opening, yet this person who soundly beat me when I was overarmed with control of the entire board manages to lose in a fair game. Even if we give the 1dan 4 stones, the game is uneven and he will likely lose by around 20 points--even though he is well trained and better armed.
I don't think building more and bigger bombs is the answer. I think we do need self-defense; I think we need a war machine, but I think it's all in the implementation. Self-defense is not competitive, not even on the international level; Japan has an army because some misguidedly ballsy fellow might decide to invade Japan (or Switzerland, or Russia), but Japan's constitution explicitly forbids them to declare war. The core of self-defense is not to put up the shields, either; if that's all I have to deal with, I'll just keep hitting you with bigger shit until something gives. The way to end a fight is to hit the other guy back until he stops wanting to be hit; level of force and end goal (knock-out, kill) depends on the attack you're receiving and its severity (idiot bar fight, person trying to kill you ... are they strong or weak? Why bother laying all out on the weak?).
I think you may enjoy reading this essay: http://kiseido.com/three.htm . It is more abstract than the sources you quote; but you can think of games as a reflection of society, and the games we play reflect our mentality as a people. I can validate that about Go and Chess, too: I always feel like I'm playing a chess player when I play chess, trying to beat them; but when I play Go, I forget the other guy is there and spend most of my time trying to identify the best moves. Poker (in video games) I find somewhat strategic, but I'm always hoping/praying; craps and especially slot machines I hate because I have no control over them and feel like I'm not playing anything.
I think it is the same in said societies. Western societies see themselves as kings, as heroes, with hierarchical societies that you can't escape. A pawn attempting to promote usually dies in chess; often when a chess player sees he cannot prevent a pawn from promoting... he resigns. That's how big a deal escaping your fixed class is. We just don't see how a poor person can become middle class or rich, either; not that it can't happen, or that it can happen in all cases, but it does happen and it's possible. There are other societies that see this only as fortune (luck), karma, or divine right; they have the added sickness that they believe all things are rightly theirs if they come to them, and they are not responsible for any atrocities they commit-- ESPECIALLY if someone else is standing between them and what is rightly t
Advantages of English? I know some advantages of Japanese....
If you want something better, maybe you might want to think more deeply about your beliefs about security and how it is achieved, like perhaps through intrinsic security and mutual security as opposed to unilateral security and extrinsic security. Nothing wrong with wanting "security".
But then you could ask how we can really effectively achieve that in a healthy society to a high probability of long term success?
Has Go taught you how to do that?
In Go, the competition is with oneself. Attack and defense are natural flows on the board; hostilities are an unavoidable part of life. Still, in Go, most threats are made with the goal of garnering strength: you can rush head-long into a fight and lose something, but you can cause a lot of damage and in the end what you lose is minimal. When faced with such a threat, you must respond by strengthening your own position; thus, when making such a threat, you gain another turn to further strengthen your attacking position. This means that you lose the chance to attack some weaknesses; but you also protect yourself by not running headlong into a losing battle.
Attempting to attack too hard, too fast, too heavily creates a weak and fragmented position on the board; you lose quickly. Your primary concern should be your own defense and the security of your own position. Once you have ensured that, you can begin invasions and reductions.
Look at the world we live in today. We've tried to attack all "terrorist" states. We've tried to slip our military in to occupy anything that could turn into a threat. We've got the TSA and DoD reacting to every little "might be in a magical fantasy world" threat, afraid that there's something that they might not be prepared for. They want to be everywhere and they're not building a secure position; they're jumping at every shadow and viciously attacking. This costs us money; it damages our economy; it fragments our position and leaves us completely ineffective at defending ourselves. It's like we've built this huge dragon with no eyes, and we're slowly being squeezed to death; as soon as the economy completely fails or a real world war 3 starts, we'll suddenly find we have no resources to defend ourselves because we've spread all over the place without creating any real security.
Go is, in some way, similar to diplomacy. We both agree to play by the same rules, and also the same theory: you play your opening moves in the corners, with extensions, shimari, and the like, and I do the same. You make kakari after the first ten or so moves and I respond defensively; I take sente and do the same. Trading small blows, building framework. The kakari against the far corner prevents you from expanding and suddenly taking 80% of the board; it's a physical check move.
As long as neither side escalates into excessive, greedy hostilities, the score comes out within a few small points; the winner wins by 2 or 4, often with very few captures. If you become greedy and start attacking too hard, the responses from a skilled player will quickly compromise your position, and you will lose much. Similarly, though, if you defend too much, play too heavy, you get invaded and your opponent gains more control of more territory than you.
If you face an extremely skilled opponent, you often lose. By a lot. To help with this, you get a handicap: a few stones placed on the board before play begins. These are like allies, as your position is much stronger with them. It is intended that weaker players are thus evenly matched to stronger players by handicap, a primary goal of allies that the UN purports to attempt.
It makes no sense for any military to compete entirely on brute strength, on the funding and sheer size of their infrastructure. A military needs both a goal and a realistic understanding of how to achieve that goal; we know historically and logically (making the whole world your enemy...) that expansionist military policies cause world wars and then
Japan has a military and their constitution says they're not allowed to declare war. Why do you think they have a military?
History is tricky, because one can always pull out a situation where people have let things get really bad because they would not consider other alternatives and then say, see, violence was the only answer.
The trick is that without consequences, people will realize they can do whatever they want. That is the rule. This is why communism doesn't work: we expect people to play nice and they don't. If they find a loop hole, they'll rape it. Eventually those in power realize that they have all the power, and that their position allows the government to benefit them at the expense of the people. It would work if everyone played nice.
Similarly, you can argue that "we shouldn't have let things get that bad" for any of these situations; but eventually someone is going to keep saying "nice doggy," and the other side is going to start saying, "You know what? Fuck you and fuck your sanctions. We're going to march our army in there and take your god damn oil." And then you're going to start talking about how we shouldn't resort to violence, and we should continue to discuss peacefully. Then you're going to get shot in the face.
Everyone is not out to get you. Don't be paranoid. Unfortunately, someone really is out to get you. Be prepared.
A novel with random battle encounters would contain the phrase "GOD Dammit!" a lot.
The Kindle is an amazing device, though. It does present a pleasant reading experience; Kindle e-Books are generally (not by inherent property, but by luck) really well formatted... or not formatted, more like. They're blocks of HTML paragraphs with as little formatting as possible-- I'm fine with this, the device gets to word wrap and render them at the text size I want.
More importantly, the application. Amazon.com lets you take 70% of the purchase price if you list for between $2.99 and $9.99; 35% otherwise. This makes the price point between $10.00 and $20.00 a loss, plain and simple. More people will buy for $9.99 than $12.99; and you have to price at $19.99 to get as much money to your pocket as a $9.99 price. This means that if you want to price at $16, price at $8 and make the same money; better, price at $9.99 and make more money. Even better, priced at $8 will give more volume sale than $16, so you'll still make way more than if you priced it at $16.
Amazon wants all books to sell for under $10. Plain and simple. The barrier to entry for a $25 eBook is HUGE, people will just buy a used hardback (if you're selling the physical for $100). There's some market volatility between $10 and $20; they attacked that directly, making the entire curve a loss. You want to maximize profits, publish for $9.99 or below.
That their out-of-print books from the 60s, 70s, and 80s, that are currently making them ZERO money, could be sold for $2-$5 as pdfs
This is unlikely to happen.
Having dealt with academic publishers I've found them to be the most ignorant bunch of incompetent rent-seekers imaginable, whose entire business model is fortunately doomed.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0030291070/
This is easily the best text I've ever seen on the topic of elementary algebra.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0534353169/
I also bought this as follow-up. The idea of wasting time to follow up and solidify math teaching, btw, is completely abominable in America. Waste of time. For the interested, there is a newer edition.
http://www.amazon.com/College-Algebra-Enhanced-Graphing-Utilities/dp/0136004911/
This is what they assigned for teaching in my college algebra class. I retook algebra because I need a serious refresher; I stopped taking math in 2003, and by 2008 I couldn't handle calculus 2. Turns out I can't handle algebra either... actually, I can; but this book is really shitty at teaching it.
In English class, you read classic English literature. Lord of the Flies [soon to be banned], Catcher in the Rye [banned], To Kill a Mockingbird [banned], Huckleberry Fin [almost banned that one time, but it's now safe], A Tale of Two Cities [never in danger of banning]. All books I hated. Not the point. The point is that, while there's an abundance of amazing new literature coming out, we still read classics.
I have found the same appreciation for subject matter text: the books I cited above are absolutely the most amazing math texts I've ever seen, far better than anything else I've read on the subject, because it seems the author actually wanted to teach math. The algebra book covers graphing calculators and programs and such, but only as an aside; it takes the teaching of algebra as a core subject, with call-forwards to Geometry and real-world applications. The Geometry book is a huge crawl through Algebra to introduce Geometry, but only as an aid to strengthen the understanding of Algebra.
Modern textbooks seem to be gutter trash pushed only to make money. The truth is math doesn't fucking change. Basic physics doesn't fucking change. Algebra, trigonometry, calculus, linear algebra, discrete mathematics, statistics, these are parts of fields that have a solid base. There is nothing new in Calculus 1 and 2, ever. There is nothing new in introductory and intermediate Statistics and Probability Theory, ever. There is nothing new in fundamental physics, ever. The fields of advanced mathematics, statistics, high level newtonian physics, quantum physics, nuclear physics, and high level chemistry are always changing. The base material is simple and fully explored; if it ever changes, it will be a huge change.
We don't need a new text on this shit every six months, a new updated edition... there are no updates to the field of intermediate college algebra. There are no updates to the field of basic chemistry. There are no updates to College Physics 1 and 2. There are no updates to introductory statistics and probability theory. There are no updates to Calculus 1 and 2. The ever-changing text is at the end of these subjects, several courses or several dozen courses ahead. All you have at 90% of the BA/BS level is errata because 6 x 7 doesn't equal 49, oops.
The textbook mills produce shit-quality shovelware that needs to die.
I don't understand. There's a book for Final Fantasy 7? A novelization would be awesome.
Hmm I thought Alpha-Centauri was 65-ish away, and the closest. Seems Wikipedia says it's 4.73 lightyears away. As Wikipedia is the most reliable source on the Internet (with Web sites editable by any single person who can afford an $8 domain name and a downloaded copy of Apache fighting with corporate-sponsored encyclopedia sites for second), I'll go with that.
Yes, and we could design the bridge stations to slide around so that they'd be easier to manage when engaging spin. The ship's core would have to stay on-true, though, otherwise maneuvering--even in zero-g--would cause lots of internal stress. I suppose if the ship's core goes off-true, we could always shut down internal spin to reset heading; it's not like we're going to be trying to fight space battles without the luxury of gravity--a daunting task, very difficult to man your stations when belted in, much less jump up and run to elsewhere in the ship.
We'd have to design the core to be easy to fix on-ship, though; although resetting it on-true without an external spaceport would be nigh on impossible, given the scale of engineering we're talking about here. So we'd need to design it to stay 100% operational with proper maintenance forever, and to be cycled on and off so we can disable artificial gravity during maintenance (not to mention before entering tach and after resuming tard).
This mission includes standing orders for doggy style, missionary, and mild-to-wild Wednesdays. For the next one thousand years. Also, once you are far enough from Earth, a draft constitution kicks in that releases you from Earth law and establishes you as a sovereign state.
It is up to you to decide whether to follow Medieval customs with a marriage and age of consent around 13 years, or to attempt a selective breeding program banning all reproduction below the age of 35 or so. We suggest the younger mothering age if high casualties and low birth rates seem to be a problem; the older age if human reproduction produces a stable population and resources remain in abundance.
Among the biosphere supplies, we have included the bacteriological samples and laboratory equipment to manufacture birth control, but also penicillin and beer; STDs should not be a problem, but we imagine that social factors will not magically go away with a thousand years of society in space.
Again, volunteers must be sexually open, but also have good sense and parenting skills, while at the same time must be willing to sign up for a mission that places you and your children in space forever. Any takers?
No, they were saying, "The world is big and round and that ocean is so huge you won't reach India that way." 400 years later, school teachers are telling us, "Yeah, they thought the world was flat and they'd sail right off the end of it!"
An emotional wench is likely to vent the entire ship's atmosphere when she catches you screwing the engine woman behind her back. May as well kill everyone.