Ah, have now found a mention of Kepler estimating the age of the Universe, and coming out with a similar figure to Ussher. My main point still stands though, regardless of who was making the estimates.
The wiki entry for Kepler makes no mention of any Christian beliefs, and while Answersingenesis cite him as a prolific Christian scientist, they make no mention of any assertions of his surrounding the age of the universe. As for Newton, I see that he was born in 1643, so was around at the time that the 6,000 year theory was first properly published by James Ussher in 1650. As such, I'm not convinced Newton came up with that one independently.
The idea of the age of the universe etc. as claimed by Ussher is fairly sound, but based on large leaps of logic once you get beyond a certain point in the chronology. There's really very little Biblical basis for it, and frankly you'd do as well to hold up the Bible Code as an argument that the Bible is somehow scientifically errant as you would Ussher's chronology.
not some hydrocarbons bought in some country I really don't give a damn about
While not strictly hydrocarbons, I'd hazard that a lot of your food is made of hydrogen and carbon in a country you really don't give a damn about. That's certainly true of a lot of the food we eat this side of the pond anyway...
Why is this insightful? Once Mercedes have produced a biofuel capable car, they've done their bit. The rest lies with the customer.
By way of comparison, every time we have a gun debate here, gun companies are defended on the basis that they don't design guns for the purposes of crime but for "protection". Why do people defend a gun companies apparently noble motives in the face of poor consumer use, but not Mercedes?
Also, the idea that we need a "cure" for religion is ridiculously offensive and backwards. What we need is a cure for intolerance and hatred, and the crimes that stem from there, which would include both religious unpleasantness and your dislike of religion.
The "end times" is very different to the "millenium", which is the real problem. The "end times" are any times after Christ's first coming and before his second coming and the end of the world.
Revelation 20 speaks of a Millenium in which Christ will reign on the earth. However, it is not abundantly clear whether this millenium will be before (pre-Millenialism) or after (post-Millenialism) the final judgement, and the destruction and re-creation of the world. The jury is also out on whether the whole thing is just figurative, which wouldn't be too much of a leap in the book of Revelation.
Pre-Millenialism brings in all sorts of ideas about things that will happen before Christ returns for this thousand years. Notable examples would be the re-emergence of the Roman Empire and the creation of the State of Israel. There's quite a few Americans are big on pre-Millenialism, and they have this idea that if they can bring about some of these forerunning events, then they can hasten the return of Christ. So, they decry Europe as the new Roman Empire, and are all for crushing Islam to allow the establishment of Israel. The whole thing flies in the face of Jesus saying that "no-one knows the day or the hour" when the end of the world will come, but they seem happy to ignore that.
Anyway. The point is, the end times and the rush to the Millenium are two different things; the former is fairly innocuous to the non-Christian, the latter much more apparent and unpleasant.
We don't have to establish that; the market will do it.
How?
Without copyright, artists will still be able to sell their time and talent to anyone who's willing to pay. Maybe that means one big sponsor paying a million dollars, or a million fans each paying one dollar -- the cost of those transactions is coming down too -- but the best way to find out is to set up the right conditions and let a solution arise. The demand for the creation of new art isn't going anywhere, and neither is the supply of talent.
I see what you're getting at, but I'm not sure how many artists will be happy to move to that sort of system.
As long as the bands were paid a fair price for writing and recording the albums in the first place, it wouldn't matter how many people downloaded or bought copies later.
Yes, we're agreed on that, but I'm still not sure who's going to pay them in the first place.
It's not a paradox - of course A can be both more and less valuable than B, it just depends on who you ask to value the items. Which you said yourself.
This does not apply to Bittorrent, etc, where nothing is given away. You give, but your stock of bits is not depleted, as it is copied.
You only need capital letters at the start of sentences and proper nouns.
I absolutely agree with you - creation and distribution are different tasks, and if distribution costs drop to nil then surely the cost to the consumer for that distribution should also drop to nil. However, this does not solve the problem of paying for the creation. Until we establish who will pay the creators for their work, and how much they will be paid and so forth, the issue of falling distribution costs is fairly moot. I was impressed by Radiohead releasing their album and allowing people to pay whatever they thought worthwhile, but I'm not sure that is viable for everyone. I suspect that if that were tried on a wider scale, by bands with fans in different demographics to Radiohead fans, then many more people would just take the music than pay for it. That's not to say the content is worthless, but it's pretty fair to say that if people can get something for free then they will.
I assume this is a nod to the spam messages and e-mails that go round from time to time saying "Oh no! Bill Gates will charge us to use MSN! Send this to everyone you know and then he'll change his mind for some inexplicable reason!"
Slashdot Mirror
Should be "one, two, many"
KDawson, you got a link to your own website wrong, on your own website. You n00b.
Better yet, just thaw one of those neanderthals out.
Ah, have now found a mention of Kepler estimating the age of the Universe, and coming out with a similar figure to Ussher. My main point still stands though, regardless of who was making the estimates.
The wiki entry for Kepler makes no mention of any Christian beliefs, and while Answersingenesis cite him as a prolific Christian scientist, they make no mention of any assertions of his surrounding the age of the universe. As for Newton, I see that he was born in 1643, so was around at the time that the 6,000 year theory was first properly published by James Ussher in 1650. As such, I'm not convinced Newton came up with that one independently.
The idea of the age of the universe etc. as claimed by Ussher is fairly sound, but based on large leaps of logic once you get beyond a certain point in the chronology. There's really very little Biblical basis for it, and frankly you'd do as well to hold up the Bible Code as an argument that the Bible is somehow scientifically errant as you would Ussher's chronology.
More often than the tabloids then, right?
not some hydrocarbons bought in some country I really don't give a damn about
While not strictly hydrocarbons, I'd hazard that a lot of your food is made of hydrogen and carbon in a country you really don't give a damn about. That's certainly true of a lot of the food we eat this side of the pond anyway...
Why is this insightful? Once Mercedes have produced a biofuel capable car, they've done their bit. The rest lies with the customer.
By way of comparison, every time we have a gun debate here, gun companies are defended on the basis that they don't design guns for the purposes of crime but for "protection". Why do people defend a gun companies apparently noble motives in the face of poor consumer use, but not Mercedes?
Good work there, citing yourself as a source. Brilliant.
Fuckwads claim all kinds of things, religious or otherwise.
And no, religion can't be cured, because it's not a disease.
Does that mean you are going to come in my mouth?
Also, the idea that we need a "cure" for religion is ridiculously offensive and backwards. What we need is a cure for intolerance and hatred, and the crimes that stem from there, which would include both religious unpleasantness and your dislike of religion.
The "end times" is very different to the "millenium", which is the real problem. The "end times" are any times after Christ's first coming and before his second coming and the end of the world.
Revelation 20 speaks of a Millenium in which Christ will reign on the earth. However, it is not abundantly clear whether this millenium will be before (pre-Millenialism) or after (post-Millenialism) the final judgement, and the destruction and re-creation of the world. The jury is also out on whether the whole thing is just figurative, which wouldn't be too much of a leap in the book of Revelation.
Pre-Millenialism brings in all sorts of ideas about things that will happen before Christ returns for this thousand years. Notable examples would be the re-emergence of the Roman Empire and the creation of the State of Israel. There's quite a few Americans are big on pre-Millenialism, and they have this idea that if they can bring about some of these forerunning events, then they can hasten the return of Christ. So, they decry Europe as the new Roman Empire, and are all for crushing Islam to allow the establishment of Israel. The whole thing flies in the face of Jesus saying that "no-one knows the day or the hour" when the end of the world will come, but they seem happy to ignore that.
Anyway. The point is, the end times and the rush to the Millenium are two different things; the former is fairly innocuous to the non-Christian, the latter much more apparent and unpleasant.
Mind the sarchasm.
Do you often post when you're this cranky and humourless?
We don't have to establish that; the market will do it.
How?
Without copyright, artists will still be able to sell their time and talent to anyone who's willing to pay. Maybe that means one big sponsor paying a million dollars, or a million fans each paying one dollar -- the cost of those transactions is coming down too -- but the best way to find out is to set up the right conditions and let a solution arise. The demand for the creation of new art isn't going anywhere, and neither is the supply of talent.
I see what you're getting at, but I'm not sure how many artists will be happy to move to that sort of system.
As long as the bands were paid a fair price for writing and recording the albums in the first place, it wouldn't matter how many people downloaded or bought copies later.
Yes, we're agreed on that, but I'm still not sure who's going to pay them in the first place.
Get back to your potato fields, Paddy!
NB: I'm mostly Finnish, so you may require the services of a Swede, Norwegian or Russian to stereotype me.
Why would sellers move to somewhere with no buyers? Why would buyers move to somewhere with no sellers?
You'd have to persuade an enormous amount of ebay's user base to move, which I imagine would be quite a challenge.
Dude, I'm eating rice pudding over here!
The joke, it seems.
Whew, close call, I wasn't sure whether I'd wake up to "troll" or "funny".
I absolutely agree with you - creation and distribution are different tasks, and if distribution costs drop to nil then surely the cost to the consumer for that distribution should also drop to nil. However, this does not solve the problem of paying for the creation. Until we establish who will pay the creators for their work, and how much they will be paid and so forth, the issue of falling distribution costs is fairly moot. I was impressed by Radiohead releasing their album and allowing people to pay whatever they thought worthwhile, but I'm not sure that is viable for everyone. I suspect that if that were tried on a wider scale, by bands with fans in different demographics to Radiohead fans, then many more people would just take the music than pay for it. That's not to say the content is worthless, but it's pretty fair to say that if people can get something for free then they will.
I assume this is a nod to the spam messages and e-mails that go round from time to time saying "Oh no! Bill Gates will charge us to use MSN! Send this to everyone you know and then he'll change his mind for some inexplicable reason!"
Miserable failure, surely.
No, but piracy does fund terrorism.