Spin? When for every two or three members of a profession who consider their job a net positive, there's one who considers their job an existential threat to all humanity, you're complaining that the 52% who think it will be overall good are being called a slight majority instead of just a majority.
Not that we have any choice but to continue trying to build an AI.
I think if we are talking about heat death then the universe is not infinite. I would be interested in reading someone else's application of probability/frequency to a question like this though. It does not seem straightforward.
Infinite universe (spatial) means you have infinite chances of something happening. Infinite universe (temporal) means you have infinite chances of something happening and can also perform arbitrarily long calculations. There's a decent chance that the universe could be infinite in either sense, also that there could be an infinite number of different universes. (however, if our universe is temporally infinite it is likely to have certain difficulties making use of said infinity, due to entropy or data loss during a cycle)
Also, evolution is supposedly driven by random mutations. The selection of mutations that are passed down is not random, but the mutations are (supposedly, which is fine until proven otherwise since that is the simplest scenario).
The mutations are not random in at least a few ways: 1) Mutation rate is based on population size, so permutations of more successful individuals are more common than permutations of less successful individuals. 2) Survival is based partially on genetics, which means that useful mutations persist far more than harmful mutations. 3) Many organisms have a method to increase mutation rate when they are stressed. This is an "intentional" feature in that disabling certain genes will negate the increased mutation rate when stressed. The result is that individuals maladapted to their environment mutate at a faster rate. 4) Certain genes or parts of genes have higher mutation rates (for example, those involved in immune function).
That's just so much meaningless gibberish with misleading conclusions.
Specifically, all corporate taxes paid come from three categories of individuals: consumers, who pay higher prices for items to cover the taxes; employees, who make lower wages to cover the taxes; and shareholders, who earn lower returns (and note that the two former categories are often also shareholders, via their pension plans). Suppliers can also lose, but they're generally corporations as well, with their own employees and investors who actually eat the loss.
Corporate taxes come from one category of individual: those involved with a corporation. This means shareholders. Employees might pay a portion of it, but only if they won't be hired by non-corporations. Consumers might pay a portion of it, but only if there is no competition from non-corporations.
In the long run, though, the investors don't lose because capital flows away from lower returns and towards higher ones. So companies must find ways to keep their returns up to somewhere near the mean rate of return.
A corporate tax lowers the mean rate of return for corporations. Investors could switch to non-corporate investments, but they already have money invested in corporations.
Once you understand that no taxes are paid by corporations, ever, then you should also recognize that corporate taxes are not only ultimately paid by individuals, but the individuals almost never realize they're paying it.
Why not go a little further? No taxes are ever paid by individuals, taxes are paid by protein and DNA molecules. And the protein and DNA molecules almost never realize they're paying it.
How many people know their prices would be lower, wages higher, or pension more secure, if it weren't for corporate taxes?
Very few people, because it takes a special brand of ignorance to think that way. If a lower proportion of the taxes were paid by people involved in corporations, then the tax rate on people not involved in corporations would be higher. Most of us aren't major shareholders...
And, therefore, how many voters have any interest in opposing corporate taxation? To politicians and voters, corporate taxes look almost like free money. Ratchet up the corporate taxes and no people get hurt, just those nasty corporations.
Corporate taxes are the penalty portion of the system designed to allow profits with little or no responsibility. That low responsibility comes with a price. If some investors choose to switch to a form of investment in which they are more responsible due to higher tax burden on corporations, that is fine with me.
See, they make their career out of pushing to get more women into careers that nobody is keeping women out of but in which there are not nearly as many women as there are men, because women choose to go into things like... gender studies... instead.
But, why wouldn't women want to enter a field with heavily competitive behavior (both for grants, and for credit) and high risk (because you might not discover anything)? It's not like women don't like risky competitive behavior any more than men do. I know, because men and women are identical.
1) Like the rest of us, they'll probably come to regret it.
2) It'll wound the poor, sensitive egos of religious people.
3) Mumble mumble definition of "marriage". Note that there are some restrictions on who can get married, either by definition or some other reason. For example, close relatives aren't allowed to get married, "fake" marriages for reasons such as citizenship might be rejected, cannot marry more than one person at the same time, cannot marry self, animal, object, or various other things. Why change the law to allow same sex marriage, but not any of these? (social inertia requires a good reason for change rather than a reason for not changing)
4) Mumble mumble "family unit". In much of the developed world, native population is dropping (made up for by immigration, but there's some value in a stable native population). Statistically, marriage encourages childbearing (also, childbearing encourages marriage). Heterosexual couples are more likely to have children (and the only ones who can have children accidentally). Note that allowing couples who can't or don't want to have children to get married isn't a complete counterargument to this, because forbidding such might indirectly mess with other marriages (eg it would be awkward during dating to ask if one is fertile and willing to have children, people might change their minds, and an age limit might encourage divorce just before menopause to find a different partner and old geezers competing with everyone else for younger women)
Conversely, homosexual couples tend to only have children intentionally (and much less often), and are more likely to adopt children. Overall, this may be a more valuable service to society, but it might not be. Also, odds are homosexual couples in the future will have or adopt more children as acceptance increases, and also due to the imminent technological advances that will allow them to have their own genetic children.
5) Out of wedlock children are often a huge social problem, and tend to result from heterosexual sex. Therefore, there's extra value in encouraging heterosexuals specifically to get married.
6) For #4 and #5 above, note that marriage isn't free for the government, due to the cost of government meddling where it probably shouldn't but does. Thus, even if homosexual marriage is more valuable than not, it is still a question of relative worth compared to heterosexual marriage.
---
In case you're wondering, I took issue with your "zero" reasons. Even if the preponderance of reasons are for one side, it doesn't invalidate the reasons for the opposite side. Overall, I think that A) The government probably shouldn't be meddling with marriage in the first place, at least not to the extent it is with the various tax breaks and rights. B) Homosexuals should be not just allowed but encouraged to marry, for psychological and health reasons. (The psychological reasons being primarily that the aforementioned religious people who's egos are threatened by other people being happy, tend to wage psychological warfare on said people).
If you believe evolution your argument makes no sense. Random mutations accomplished already what you claim is unlikely to occur until the theorized heat death of the universe. How likely is that?
We were offered an argument of this form: "Person A is not credible, because they are part of an organization that is not credible."
Which isn't a tautology, because not all people who are part of a low credibility organization, are themselves of low credibility.
The OP made an assertion (that NewsCorp has low credibility), and used that assertion and fuzzy logic to substantiate his warning (that the WSJ might therefore inherit some of that low credibility). None of which is a logical tautology, since it is not logically guaranteed to be true. Nor is it a rhetorical tautology, since it has the tone of an assertion rather than a proof.
What I do not understand, why is it so important to replace the voting process with an electronic voting process.
Because they're so much easier to tamper with, and any tampering can be blamed on accidental software bugs (because everyone who doesn't use formal methods software knows that all software is inherently buggy)
Easy -- it's patentable because no one would ever think of copying the most obvious mammalian expressions of emotion, to make something appear to express emotions. This valuable insight needs to be protected to the full extent of the law, so no one steals these ideas without compensating the geniuses who came up with them.
As far as I can see, the only problem here is the premature release of information that could be politically/diplomatically sensitive via an inappropriate channel and at an awkward time for the government.
Yeah, it sounds like the bank accidentally emailed the press their secret study as to who would be committing economic suicide if they voted which way, just before the vote.
It is a tautology to say something is X because it is X though... and tautology is fallacious.
Wrong again. Tautology means "logically guaranteed to be true". That's pretty much the opposite of fallacy.
Let me give you some examples: X or not X -- tautology, logically guaranteed to be true If X, then X -- tautology, logically guaranteed to be true Suppose X. Therefore, X. -- fallacy, looks like a tautology but isn't.
You misunderstoood. The prison system is for-profit, and every businessman knows that you need repeat customers. Repeat offenders are also especially easy to suspect and convict, so the cops and district attorneys can also show how effective they are.
One of the most important questions relating to incarceration and rehabilitation is how to discourage recidivism.
The entire system is designed to encourage recidivism.
One of the most important questions is what things can be done to discourage recidivism -- and how to avoid doing those things without being too obvious about it.
Remember the days when your system could get p0wned the first time you visited a website in Internet Explorer? Well, thanks to technological advances by the Mozilla Corporation, you can now get p0wned by malware embedded in ads before you visit any website!
This guy would be -any- yearbook adviser's dream to have. Look at his photos...they're incredible. He gets in close to his subject, captures the action vividly, and makes very good use of lighting. And for a sophomore? Simply amazing.
This district is handling the situation all wrong. Regardless of whether or not they can or cannot make a claim to the ownership of the photos, they should be lifting this young man up for the talent he has and putting him on a pedestal. Enter him into national photography competitions. Get national recognition for his work, and put the trophies in your trophy case. And make him proud of his talent. He deserves it.
Suing him? Simply ridiculous.
As a result of the school's actions, the kid is in fact up on a pedestal and getting national attention.
Slashdot Mirror
Spin? When for every two or three members of a profession who consider their job a net positive, there's one who considers their job an existential threat to all humanity, you're complaining that the 52% who think it will be overall good are being called a slight majority instead of just a majority.
Not that we have any choice but to continue trying to build an AI.
I think if we are talking about heat death then the universe is not infinite. I would be interested in reading someone else's application of probability/frequency to a question like this though. It does not seem straightforward.
Infinite universe (spatial) means you have infinite chances of something happening. Infinite universe (temporal) means you have infinite chances of something happening and can also perform arbitrarily long calculations. There's a decent chance that the universe could be infinite in either sense, also that there could be an infinite number of different universes. (however, if our universe is temporally infinite it is likely to have certain difficulties making use of said infinity, due to entropy or data loss during a cycle)
Also, evolution is supposedly driven by random mutations. The selection of mutations that are passed down is not random, but the mutations are (supposedly, which is fine until proven otherwise since that is the simplest scenario).
The mutations are not random in at least a few ways:
1) Mutation rate is based on population size, so permutations of more successful individuals are more common than permutations of less successful individuals.
2) Survival is based partially on genetics, which means that useful mutations persist far more than harmful mutations.
3) Many organisms have a method to increase mutation rate when they are stressed. This is an "intentional" feature in that disabling certain genes will negate the increased mutation rate when stressed. The result is that individuals maladapted to their environment mutate at a faster rate.
4) Certain genes or parts of genes have higher mutation rates (for example, those involved in immune function).
That's just so much meaningless gibberish with misleading conclusions.
Specifically, all corporate taxes paid come from three categories of individuals: consumers, who pay higher prices for items to cover the taxes; employees, who make lower wages to cover the taxes; and shareholders, who earn lower returns (and note that the two former categories are often also shareholders, via their pension plans). Suppliers can also lose, but they're generally corporations as well, with their own employees and investors who actually eat the loss.
Corporate taxes come from one category of individual: those involved with a corporation. This means shareholders. Employees might pay a portion of it, but only if they won't be hired by non-corporations. Consumers might pay a portion of it, but only if there is no competition from non-corporations.
In the long run, though, the investors don't lose because capital flows away from lower returns and towards higher ones. So companies must find ways to keep their returns up to somewhere near the mean rate of return.
A corporate tax lowers the mean rate of return for corporations. Investors could switch to non-corporate investments, but they already have money invested in corporations.
Once you understand that no taxes are paid by corporations, ever, then you should also recognize that corporate taxes are not only ultimately paid by individuals, but the individuals almost never realize they're paying it.
Why not go a little further? No taxes are ever paid by individuals, taxes are paid by protein and DNA molecules. And the protein and DNA molecules almost never realize they're paying it.
How many people know their prices would be lower, wages higher, or pension more secure, if it weren't for corporate taxes?
Very few people, because it takes a special brand of ignorance to think that way. If a lower proportion of the taxes were paid by people involved in corporations, then the tax rate on people not involved in corporations would be higher. Most of us aren't major shareholders...
And, therefore, how many voters have any interest in opposing corporate taxation? To politicians and voters, corporate taxes look almost like free money. Ratchet up the corporate taxes and no people get hurt, just those nasty corporations.
Corporate taxes are the penalty portion of the system designed to allow profits with little or no responsibility. That low responsibility comes with a price. If some investors choose to switch to a form of investment in which they are more responsible due to higher tax burden on corporations, that is fine with me.
Don't want to see them and I will actively avoid them.
Too bad! I want you to see them, so you'll be aresed to pull your head out of the sand and do something about it.
The UK decided that Amazon will start paying tax in the UK.
See, they make their career out of pushing to get more women into careers that nobody is keeping women out of but in which there are not nearly as many women as there are men, because women choose to go into things like... gender studies... instead.
But, why wouldn't women want to enter a field with heavily competitive behavior (both for grants, and for credit) and high risk (because you might not discover anything)? It's not like women don't like risky competitive behavior any more than men do. I know, because men and women are identical.
Name any of them.
1) Like the rest of us, they'll probably come to regret it.
2) It'll wound the poor, sensitive egos of religious people.
3) Mumble mumble definition of "marriage". Note that there are some restrictions on who can get married, either by definition or some other reason. For example, close relatives aren't allowed to get married, "fake" marriages for reasons such as citizenship might be rejected, cannot marry more than one person at the same time, cannot marry self, animal, object, or various other things. Why change the law to allow same sex marriage, but not any of these? (social inertia requires a good reason for change rather than a reason for not changing)
4) Mumble mumble "family unit". In much of the developed world, native population is dropping (made up for by immigration, but there's some value in a stable native population). Statistically, marriage encourages childbearing (also, childbearing encourages marriage). Heterosexual couples are more likely to have children (and the only ones who can have children accidentally). Note that allowing couples who can't or don't want to have children to get married isn't a complete counterargument to this, because forbidding such might indirectly mess with other marriages (eg it would be awkward during dating to ask if one is fertile and willing to have children, people might change their minds, and an age limit might encourage divorce just before menopause to find a different partner and old geezers competing with everyone else for younger women)
Conversely, homosexual couples tend to only have children intentionally (and much less often), and are more likely to adopt children. Overall, this may be a more valuable service to society, but it might not be. Also, odds are homosexual couples in the future will have or adopt more children as acceptance increases, and also due to the imminent technological advances that will allow them to have their own genetic children.
5) Out of wedlock children are often a huge social problem, and tend to result from heterosexual sex. Therefore, there's extra value in encouraging heterosexuals specifically to get married.
6) For #4 and #5 above, note that marriage isn't free for the government, due to the cost of government meddling where it probably shouldn't but does. Thus, even if homosexual marriage is more valuable than not, it is still a question of relative worth compared to heterosexual marriage.
---
In case you're wondering, I took issue with your "zero" reasons. Even if the preponderance of reasons are for one side, it doesn't invalidate the reasons for the opposite side. Overall, I think that
A) The government probably shouldn't be meddling with marriage in the first place, at least not to the extent it is with the various tax breaks and rights.
B) Homosexuals should be not just allowed but encouraged to marry, for psychological and health reasons. (The psychological reasons being primarily that the aforementioned religious people who's egos are threatened by other people being happy, tend to wage psychological warfare on said people).
An automaton can be neither benevolent nor have free agency.
Sure it can, you just have to program it to have free agency.
If you believe evolution your argument makes no sense. Random mutations accomplished already what you claim is unlikely to occur until the theorized heat death of the universe. How likely is that?
Is the universe infinite?
PS: Evolution does not rely on random mutations.
There are exactly 0 valid reasons why gay couples shouldn't be allowed to get married, that's it, zero reasons, as in absolutely none.
Zero, except for the few.
We were offered an argument of this form: "Person A is not credible, because they are part of an organization that is not credible."
Which isn't a tautology, because not all people who are part of a low credibility organization, are themselves of low credibility.
The OP made an assertion (that NewsCorp has low credibility), and used that assertion and fuzzy logic to substantiate his warning (that the WSJ might therefore inherit some of that low credibility). None of which is a logical tautology, since it is not logically guaranteed to be true. Nor is it a rhetorical tautology, since it has the tone of an assertion rather than a proof.
What I do not understand, why is it so important to replace the voting process with an electronic voting process.
Because they're so much easier to tamper with, and any tampering can be blamed on accidental software bugs (because everyone who doesn't use formal methods software knows that all software is inherently buggy)
Easy -- it's patentable because no one would ever think of copying the most obvious mammalian expressions of emotion, to make something appear to express emotions. This valuable insight needs to be protected to the full extent of the law, so no one steals these ideas without compensating the geniuses who came up with them.
As far as I can see, the only problem here is the premature release of information that could be politically/diplomatically sensitive via an inappropriate channel and at an awkward time for the government.
Yeah, it sounds like the bank accidentally emailed the press their secret study as to who would be committing economic suicide if they voted which way, just before the vote.
Looks like the NSA hasn't gathered enough blackmail material while they were spying on our politicians to get that extension. Better luck next time.
Just kidding -- expect to see an extension without any reform.
Tautology
It is a tautology to say something is X because it is X though... and tautology is fallacious.
Wrong again. Tautology means "logically guaranteed to be true". That's pretty much the opposite of fallacy.
Let me give you some examples:
X or not X -- tautology, logically guaranteed to be true
If X, then X -- tautology, logically guaranteed to be true
Suppose X. Therefore, X. -- fallacy, looks like a tautology but isn't.
It is still a fallacy though.
It's not a fallacy to warn others that an unreliable source is unreliable.
You misunderstoood. The prison system is for-profit, and every businessman knows that you need repeat customers. Repeat offenders are also especially easy to suspect and convict, so the cops and district attorneys can also show how effective they are.
You got it wrong -- bankers and CEOs still get caught. But their punishment is tons of bailout money and a golden parachute.
One of the most important questions relating to incarceration and rehabilitation is how to discourage recidivism.
The entire system is designed to encourage recidivism.
One of the most important questions is what things can be done to discourage recidivism -- and how to avoid doing those things without being too obvious about it.
Remember the days when your system could get p0wned the first time you visited a website in Internet Explorer? Well, thanks to technological advances by the Mozilla Corporation, you can now get p0wned by malware embedded in ads before you visit any website!
It's just a display thing -- you could set up other people's code to display with whitespace instead of braces and semicolons.
Where do you live, that someone who murdered a whole family can rely on his family to become his accomplices?
This guy would be -any- yearbook adviser's dream to have. Look at his photos...they're incredible. He gets in close to his subject, captures the action vividly, and makes very good use of lighting. And for a sophomore? Simply amazing.
This district is handling the situation all wrong. Regardless of whether or not they can or cannot make a claim to the ownership of the photos, they should be lifting this young man up for the talent he has and putting him on a pedestal. Enter him into national photography competitions. Get national recognition for his work, and put the trophies in your trophy case. And make him proud of his talent. He deserves it.
Suing him? Simply ridiculous.
As a result of the school's actions, the kid is in fact up on a pedestal and getting national attention.