The rewards of all of that rebound upon society as a whole.
I don't want to diminish the immaterial rewards of doing something well, but it seems odd to make sure that better work leads to them but can never lead to material gain. Look at any other field: I do a better job of cleaning and my house is cleaner, meet more women and I get more dates, find a better way to build muscle and I can stay fit easier. I really don't know why economics should be made an exception to the rule that if you put more into something so that it becomes more productive, you'll get more of the same out of it.
In recent years, that has become so incredibly untrue that perhaps we need such a rebound overboard in the other direction.
I really don't see it that way. Doctors still make more than office workers, who make more than blue collar people. People with hourly wages get overtime, and seniority still counts in a lot of places. The unusual people who are over- or under-rewarded by our economy are a big issue and get a lot of attention, but 80% of people still earn in rough proportion to what they produce.
Oh, and BTW, I don't believe in rare abilities. Genetics does not impact education- environment is the predictor of education.
First off, as an extreme example, not many men can donate eggs to fertility clinics. Plus, education isn't the only thing that affects how much value a person can produce.
You're missing the point. The other poster wrote a clear explanation for his point of view, contributing to a thoughtful, open debate. It doesn't matter whether you agree or not, or even if he's right or not, his post was objectively insightful, period.
On the other hand, you chose to reply by accusing his entire side of being unwilling to listen to the arguments of yours, while stating that you are open to dissenting opinions. Then is an act of blatant hypocrisy that showed that you were lying about your openness, asked others to (in a way) hide his contribution, showing that you aren't willing to show to others the respect that you're demanding from others. And to make it even more ironic, your posts are tirades against the narcissism that you yourself are demonstrating.
Your entire post contained no rational arguments, no attempt at an adult discussion, and an unwillingness to allow people with opposing views to share them. In summary, he was participating in a respectful conversation, while you were being a dumbass. End of story.
His post gave a fairly good explanation as to why some professions are needed - managers keep people on-task and organize things, brokers make complex transactions possible for ordinary people, and speculators force prices to reflect things as they really are.
Your post accused him of merely making excuses for greed, preemptively accused him of not listening to dissenting opinions, and then attempted to get him shut out of the conversation.
If you can't see why he was modded up, and you got ignored, you need help.
It provides much more hope than evolution, which says I live for a little bit, and then I die.
It's very easy for a fictional story to provide more hope than a non-fiction one. The fact that your story says that a perfectly happy world exist, and that it's very easy to get there, is evidence that it was made up to fulfill the emotional needs of human beings.
Ok, think about this. Without God, nothing matters.
That doesn't make any sense to me. How would the existence of God make things matter?
For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that [men] are without excuse (Romans 1:20).
If it was clear, then we wouldn't be having this conversation.
Do you know why the earth sucks? It is because we are under a curse.... I am sick of living in the crap-tacular cursed world. I want to live in the restored world that God has promised is coming. Don't you?
I want to live in a better world, too. But aren't we more likely to get there by buidling it ourselves rather than hoping that some ancient fable comes true?
And as a side note, a couple of links to web pages full of rationalizations isn't going to convert anyone that really understands the issues.
As to your last sentence, I think you tripped on your own double negative.
There is no double negative in the sentence your quoted. Each negative is attached to a different verb.
And since the concept of random mutation cannot be falsified, I guess it doesn't belong in a science class according to you?
You could show that mutations don't really exist. You could show that mutations follow a strict pattern or are planned by some entity. You could show that mutations don't affect the future development of living things. You could...
After all, it's just the same belief as a belief in God, it's just the belief that the universe doesn't have a purpose.
Exactly. The world revealed by careful critical thinking and demonstrated through successful practical application is the same as the world described by a myth. And the fact that the myth provides a little more comfort to some people means that it's worthy of equal attention.
Besides, the "purpose" thing doesn't really work in a religious context either - what is Gods' purpose, and why is that purpose important?
...something of real value- Ithaca Hours, where one hour of a Janitor's time is worth one hour of a farmer's time is worth one hour of a CEO's time.
Right, because we should only pay people for their time, not for their productivity. Effort, education, talent, strength, accuracy, speed, intelligence, trustworthiness, experience, dedication and efficiency should count for nothing.
Usually people get paid more because they do things that are more valuable in some way - more difficult, requiring rarer abilities, or because you have to trust them more. Sometimes things don't work that way, but "an hour is an hour" is way overboard in the other direction.
They can't be any worse than the Republicans. If there haven't been any attacks lately, then Bush's plan is working, and Democrats need to accept that and stay out of the way. Then when there is a major attack (or an attempt at one), then we obviously can't back down now that the threat is so clear, and Democrats need to support the president (otherwise they're supporting the terrorists).
It doesn't matter which side you're talking about - the hard-core will find a rationalization for their beliefs no matter what.
You seem to be dancing around the point I made: You can drive perfectly, breaking no other law, and still be convicted of drunk driving. Your original post seemed to suggest that you had to commit some other offense first, and only then would the police look for evidence that you are drunk - which is incorrect. That's all I was trying to say.
For the last time, Dawkins, Gould, Morris, and essentially all the most respected biologists writing for the popular press have said this.
Yes, under the right conditions, but you're extrapolating far beyond the realm in which this concept fits. Even after some reviewing, I'm going to have to stick with the idea that, in many cases, higher mutation rates don't lead to slower evolution. Hell, as another random counterexample, some bacteria deliberately increase their own mutation rate in order to adapt to stressful conditions.
I could tell you, and if a third party posts to this thread asking, I WILL GLADLY TELL THEM WHAT IT IS AND PROVE MY CLAIM. I won't tell you - you're a crackpot who disagrees with the established experts and because of that resorts to personal attacks - you can stay stupid as far as I'm concerned.
And I'm the crackpot? Sheesh! Good luck to anyone else who replied to you.
Since someone else already responded to the first part of you post, I'll continue that tangent on that set of posts.
You contradict yourself later when you say that before asking for a breathalyser test to be take that there must be probable cause.
I'm not contradicting myself, but I'm probably not being clear. You originally said:
The breathalyzer test is just to determine if that guilt is due to alcohol consumption...
This is false. You can be pulled over for any number of reasons that don't actually involve you breaking the law. Probable cause just means the officer thinks there might be a law being broken, and the real answer could be as simple as "someone else spilled a beer on me".
In any case, legally speaking, if being drunk was just an aggravating factor in other crimes, then drunk driving itself would not be against the law. And it should be quite clear that you can be convicted of drunk driving without being convicted of anything else.
It shouldn't matter unless you can prove that the officer administering the test was aware of the code...
As a defendant, you are allowed to resent almost any defense - and more importantly, you have to be found guilty "beyond a reasonable doubt". Merely showing that it's possible to fake breathalyser results might not be enough, on its own, to show reasonable doubt, but it is a start.
I'm really not trying to defend the whole idea on moral grounds. I'm just pointing out that laws against driving "faster than is safe and proper" get thrown out of court for being too vague, while ones against driving "over 65 miles per hour" don't. And when you're making laws, you don't want to risk thousands of overturned DUI convictions because your law was too vague - that's not good for getting re-elected.
I wish you'd make up your mind. Is water already found or "will be" be found.
There is now water there, that will be found - he didn't confuse the tenses. You seem so obsessed with finding flaws in his post that you see them when they aren't even there.
...given the sufficient technology. Umm... Breathable air? Atmospheric pressure? Low radiation? Sorry. You're wrong.
making oxygen and nitrogen from other compounds is trivial, and every material in existence blocks radiation to some extent. I'm not saying it would be easy, but your assertion that it's impossible is idiotic. (sorry, but it is)
We don't because there people will only go there if there's an economic reason to go.
Exactly right. The thing is that changes in technology change the economics of things. I mean, why build giant generators and string miles of wire just to replace your kerosene lamp with a light bulb?
...[asteroids] are made of base metals, like iron...
Less than 10% of asteroids are metallic, and if by "base metal" you mean titanium and platinum as well, then yes.
There's nothing of value on Mars on anywhere else off "this rock."
Since this seems to be the theme of your post, I thought a second response was needed (in addition to the one about titanium). Next to noble gases and elements with only radioactive isotopes, iridium is the rarest element on earth - but it's quite common in meteors and asteroids - in fact the first real evidence of an asteroid impact wiping out the dinosaurs was a layer of iridium. And at about $425 and ounce, it might be worth going after some day. And don't even start me on rhodium - even if it took $80,000 a pound to get it would be a very lucrative investment.
Your logic is sound, but your knowledge of our legal system seems lacking:
At some point you take previous case law as enough proof, and move on with the case.
But every potential flaw has to be considered separately - just because a defense based on poor sampling has been tested and is now pointless doesn't mean that one based on bad programming should be dismissed. In any case, all defendants should be able to get their hands on the source code (and design documents, studies testing the equipment), just because it's part of the case against them.
You are guilty the moment a trained professional (police officer) has determined
No, you aren't, but that's been covered in another post already.
that you are to impaired to be operating a motor vehicle. The breathalyzer test is just to determine if that guilt is due to alcohol consumption
You don't have to do anything else wrong in order to be convicted of drunk driving, you don't need to show any impairment in order to be asked to take a breathalyser test. If you have a broken taillight, they can pull you over, and if they smell alcohol, that's enough for probable cause. Heck, you don't even have to be driving - just being in the driver's seat of a parked car has been enough in some cases.
I was going to take my time to answer your essay in detail, but the more I reread it, the more that seemed unnecessary. You entire post is so saturated with antipathy toward anything remotely related to capitalism that I don't think you could hold back your feelings in order to really understand an openly pro-capitalism post. Here's why I believe that:
you are so hateful against the worker, calling them "greedy assholes"
The "greedy asshole" I was talking about are the "owners" - mirroring the attitudes in the original post. Your assumptions about who hates who run so deep in your thinking that you can't even interpret the opposing side's statements correctly. My question was (more verbosely): "If they control the vote already, why would putting the economy under more direct control of the vote help? At least under the current system they have to create something of value to other people in order to make money."
And some more flippant replies:
Just because one was born rich or became rich by treating others as subhuman beings doesn't mean he's superior to anyone else.
Right, cause every right person was born into it, or "treated others as subhuman" in order to become rich. *Rolls eyes*
razing it to the ground, out of some short-sighted profit considerations or, most often, just to spite customer, worker or government
So when it fits your mindset, they'll do anything for a buck, but when doing things out of spite works better, that's their motivation. Sure.
If you control the means of production, you get more money than you can ever use. If you are worker, you will starve.
And "the middle class" appeared in which countries? Oh, that's right relatively the free-market ones!
some fat capitalist just milking the factory instead of being productive is not wanted
So someone did research to find a profitable market, built a factory, found customers, hired workers, and so on (either himself or by paying someone else to do so), but because you don't like him, your feel justified in taking the result of his work away from him? If the "workers" could do it on their own they would, but often they need help to create a business. Why shouldn't the helper be compensated? More to the point, why can't people be free to do as they like?
And that's where we differ - you see democracy, as democracy, as being good while I see it as a tool to protect people's freedom. Capitalism, from my perspective, is economic freedom. You would object if people voted to make slavery legal again, why shouldn't I object to the (less horrific) violation of people's rights that socialism appears to be?
And finally:
neither capitalism nor socialism will survive this century, because there simply will be no work anymore
That I'll agree with (even if the time line is optimistic) - but the disagreement still remains. Will the nano-replicators/robots/whatever be only run by the government, or by anyone who wants to have one and can create one?
Lower mutation probability actually increase the evolution rate... lower mutation rate = increased selection rate
You're confusing 'evolution rate' with 'selection rate' - they aren't the same thing.
Plus, each step back means sloppier copying and a slower overall evolution rate, so each step is more 'miraculous' than the next.
That has to be backwards. Look at viruses based on RNA (like HIV) - they reproduce so fast and have such a high mutation rate that they constantly develop new varieties within the same host.
the researchers assumed that they would see Proteins within a few weeks or months, and that part just didn't happen.
Many of our assumptions have been shown to be wrong - not that long ago organic compounds were thought to only come from living things, proving that life can't come from non-life. Then it was shown that that's the easy part, the hard part is forming the more complex stuff.
In the end, you're just saying that because some proponents of abiogenesis made one assumption that turned out to be wrong, your ad-hoc, gut instinct guesses have to be more correct - which is silly.
He's advocating execution for a routine act, and then uses character assassination to justify it. He might not be deliberately trolling, but the mods are understandable.
If someone is brain dead and nothing, then it doesn't matter, they are zippo, but ultimately, a person by marriage is at most 25% as important as genetic parents. Is it possible to form a corporation between your self and parents to give them more rights than your partner?
If you don't have a living will, the courts have to make a guess as to what you would want, and precedent says that spouses at treated as next-of-kin. This is how inheritance works, and any other legal situation where someone else must make decisions in your stead. For most of us, the person we married is someone we've chosen to have a great deal of influence over our lives (as opposed to parents, whom we don't choose), and they have spent more time with us recently. The best part is that if you don't like it, you can set things up any way you like! Give uncle Bill your power of attorney, and have all your assets given to the salvation army. But one situation that you didn't like the outcome of isn't enough to overrule hundreds of years of precedent.
The three laws are moronic... the book clearly shows that.
I actually thought that was the point - you can't answer moral questions by mindlessly referring to a simple set of rules. Whether it's three laws or ten commandments, list of rules can only be a guides or reminders, they can't be comprehensive.
Socialism is not "taking other people's stuff."... Socialism is about taking the factory
This is the clearest example of self contradiction that I've ever seen.
There is private property in the sense of the individual: your jacket. There is also private property in the sense of a legal entity like a corporation: the factory that produced your jacket.
Three thoughts:
1. What if I personally own the factory, not a corporation?
2. A jacket is OK, but not a needle to be used to create one?
And if a needle is OK, what about a sewing machine?
What if I pay someone to sew it for me?
What if I have several people do it?
What if a group of us have several people do it?
Well, where's the dividing line, and what is the real moral difference between selling stuff I made by hand and a group of us selling stuff made by people willing to do the work for us?
3. Why do you think that a bunch of greedy assholes voting themselves more stuff is better than the greedy assholes having to do something useful to get more stuff?
In a nutshell, socialists simply want economic as well as political democracy.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't want to diminish the immaterial rewards of doing something well, but it seems odd to make sure that better work leads to them but can never lead to material gain. Look at any other field: I do a better job of cleaning and my house is cleaner, meet more women and I get more dates, find a better way to build muscle and I can stay fit easier. I really don't know why economics should be made an exception to the rule that if you put more into something so that it becomes more productive, you'll get more of the same out of it.
In recent years, that has become so incredibly untrue that perhaps we need such a rebound overboard in the other direction.
I really don't see it that way. Doctors still make more than office workers, who make more than blue collar people. People with hourly wages get overtime, and seniority still counts in a lot of places. The unusual people who are over- or under-rewarded by our economy are a big issue and get a lot of attention, but 80% of people still earn in rough proportion to what they produce.
Oh, and BTW, I don't believe in rare abilities. Genetics does not impact education- environment is the predictor of education.
First off, as an extreme example, not many men can donate eggs to fertility clinics. Plus, education isn't the only thing that affects how much value a person can produce.
On the other hand, you chose to reply by accusing his entire side of being unwilling to listen to the arguments of yours, while stating that you are open to dissenting opinions. Then is an act of blatant hypocrisy that showed that you were lying about your openness, asked others to (in a way) hide his contribution, showing that you aren't willing to show to others the respect that you're demanding from others. And to make it even more ironic, your posts are tirades against the narcissism that you yourself are demonstrating.
Your entire post contained no rational arguments, no attempt at an adult discussion, and an unwillingness to allow people with opposing views to share them. In summary, he was participating in a respectful conversation, while you were being a dumbass. End of story.
Your post accused him of merely making excuses for greed, preemptively accused him of not listening to dissenting opinions, and then attempted to get him shut out of the conversation.
If you can't see why he was modded up, and you got ignored, you need help.
It's very easy for a fictional story to provide more hope than a non-fiction one. The fact that your story says that a perfectly happy world exist, and that it's very easy to get there, is evidence that it was made up to fulfill the emotional needs of human beings.
Ok, think about this. Without God, nothing matters.
That doesn't make any sense to me. How would the existence of God make things matter?
For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that [men] are without excuse (Romans 1:20).
If it was clear, then we wouldn't be having this conversation.
Do you know why the earth sucks? It is because we are under a curse. ... I am sick of living in the crap-tacular cursed world. I want to live in the restored world that God has promised is coming. Don't you?
I want to live in a better world, too. But aren't we more likely to get there by buidling it ourselves rather than hoping that some ancient fable comes true?
And as a side note, a couple of links to web pages full of rationalizations isn't going to convert anyone that really understands the issues.
There is no double negative in the sentence your quoted. Each negative is attached to a different verb.
And since the concept of random mutation cannot be falsified, I guess it doesn't belong in a science class according to you?
You could show that mutations don't really exist. You could show that mutations follow a strict pattern or are planned by some entity. You could show that mutations don't affect the future development of living things. You could ...
After all, it's just the same belief as a belief in God, it's just the belief that the universe doesn't have a purpose.
Exactly. The world revealed by careful critical thinking and demonstrated through successful practical application is the same as the world described by a myth. And the fact that the myth provides a little more comfort to some people means that it's worthy of equal attention.
Besides, the "purpose" thing doesn't really work in a religious context either - what is Gods' purpose, and why is that purpose important?
Right, because we should only pay people for their time, not for their productivity. Effort, education, talent, strength, accuracy, speed, intelligence, trustworthiness, experience, dedication and efficiency should count for nothing.
Usually people get paid more because they do things that are more valuable in some way - more difficult, requiring rarer abilities, or because you have to trust them more. Sometimes things don't work that way, but "an hour is an hour" is way overboard in the other direction.
It doesn't matter which side you're talking about - the hard-core will find a rationalization for their beliefs no matter what.
And that seems to include you as well.
You seem to be dancing around the point I made: You can drive perfectly, breaking no other law, and still be convicted of drunk driving. Your original post seemed to suggest that you had to commit some other offense first, and only then would the police look for evidence that you are drunk - which is incorrect. That's all I was trying to say.
Yes, under the right conditions, but you're extrapolating far beyond the realm in which this concept fits. Even after some reviewing, I'm going to have to stick with the idea that, in many cases, higher mutation rates don't lead to slower evolution. Hell, as another random counterexample, some bacteria deliberately increase their own mutation rate in order to adapt to stressful conditions.
I could tell you, and if a third party posts to this thread asking, I WILL GLADLY TELL THEM WHAT IT IS AND PROVE MY CLAIM. I won't tell you - you're a crackpot who disagrees with the established experts and because of that resorts to personal attacks - you can stay stupid as far as I'm concerned.
And I'm the crackpot? Sheesh! Good luck to anyone else who replied to you.
You contradict yourself later when you say that before asking for a breathalyser test to be take that there must be probable cause.
I'm not contradicting myself, but I'm probably not being clear. You originally said:
The breathalyzer test is just to determine if that guilt is due to alcohol consumption...
This is false. You can be pulled over for any number of reasons that don't actually involve you breaking the law. Probable cause just means the officer thinks there might be a law being broken, and the real answer could be as simple as "someone else spilled a beer on me".
In any case, legally speaking, if being drunk was just an aggravating factor in other crimes, then drunk driving itself would not be against the law. And it should be quite clear that you can be convicted of drunk driving without being convicted of anything else.
As a defendant, you are allowed to resent almost any defense - and more importantly, you have to be found guilty "beyond a reasonable doubt". Merely showing that it's possible to fake breathalyser results might not be enough, on its own, to show reasonable doubt, but it is a start.
I'm really not trying to defend the whole idea on moral grounds. I'm just pointing out that laws against driving "faster than is safe and proper" get thrown out of court for being too vague, while ones against driving "over 65 miles per hour" don't. And when you're making laws, you don't want to risk thousands of overturned DUI convictions because your law was too vague - that's not good for getting re-elected.
There is now water there, that will be found - he didn't confuse the tenses. You seem so obsessed with finding flaws in his post that you see them when they aren't even there.
Umm... Breathable air? Atmospheric pressure? Low radiation? Sorry. You're wrong.
making oxygen and nitrogen from other compounds is trivial, and every material in existence blocks radiation to some extent. I'm not saying it would be easy, but your assertion that it's impossible is idiotic. (sorry, but it is)
We don't because there people will only go there if there's an economic reason to go.
Exactly right. The thing is that changes in technology change the economics of things. I mean, why build giant generators and string miles of wire just to replace your kerosene lamp with a light bulb?
Less than 10% of asteroids are metallic, and if by "base metal" you mean titanium and platinum as well, then yes.
There's nothing of value on Mars on anywhere else off "this rock."
Since this seems to be the theme of your post, I thought a second response was needed (in addition to the one about titanium). Next to noble gases and elements with only radioactive isotopes, iridium is the rarest element on earth - but it's quite common in meteors and asteroids - in fact the first real evidence of an asteroid impact wiping out the dinosaurs was a layer of iridium. And at about $425 and ounce, it might be worth going after some day. And don't even start me on rhodium - even if it took $80,000 a pound to get it would be a very lucrative investment.
At some point you take previous case law as enough proof, and move on with the case.
But every potential flaw has to be considered separately - just because a defense based on poor sampling has been tested and is now pointless doesn't mean that one based on bad programming should be dismissed. In any case, all defendants should be able to get their hands on the source code (and design documents, studies testing the equipment), just because it's part of the case against them.
You are guilty the moment a trained professional (police officer) has determined
No, you aren't, but that's been covered in another post already.
that you are to impaired to be operating a motor vehicle. The breathalyzer test is just to determine if that guilt is due to alcohol consumption
You don't have to do anything else wrong in order to be convicted of drunk driving, you don't need to show any impairment in order to be asked to take a breathalyser test. If you have a broken taillight, they can pull you over, and if they smell alcohol, that's enough for probable cause. Heck, you don't even have to be driving - just being in the driver's seat of a parked car has been enough in some cases.
Besides, the point of DUI law is to catch impaired drivers before they do the damage.
Laser + Shiny Targets = Bad
you are so hateful against the worker, calling them "greedy assholes"
The "greedy asshole" I was talking about are the "owners" - mirroring the attitudes in the original post. Your assumptions about who hates who run so deep in your thinking that you can't even interpret the opposing side's statements correctly. My question was (more verbosely): "If they control the vote already, why would putting the economy under more direct control of the vote help? At least under the current system they have to create something of value to other people in order to make money."
And some more flippant replies:
Just because one was born rich or became rich by treating others as subhuman beings doesn't mean he's superior to anyone else.
Right, cause every right person was born into it, or "treated others as subhuman" in order to become rich. *Rolls eyes*
razing it to the ground, out of some short-sighted profit considerations or, most often, just to spite customer, worker or government
So when it fits your mindset, they'll do anything for a buck, but when doing things out of spite works better, that's their motivation. Sure.
If you control the means of production, you get more money than you can ever use. If you are worker, you will starve.
And "the middle class" appeared in which countries? Oh, that's right relatively the free-market ones!
some fat capitalist just milking the factory instead of being productive is not wanted
So someone did research to find a profitable market, built a factory, found customers, hired workers, and so on (either himself or by paying someone else to do so), but because you don't like him, your feel justified in taking the result of his work away from him? If the "workers" could do it on their own they would, but often they need help to create a business. Why shouldn't the helper be compensated? More to the point, why can't people be free to do as they like?
And that's where we differ - you see democracy, as democracy, as being good while I see it as a tool to protect people's freedom. Capitalism, from my perspective, is economic freedom. You would object if people voted to make slavery legal again, why shouldn't I object to the (less horrific) violation of people's rights that socialism appears to be?
And finally:
neither capitalism nor socialism will survive this century, because there simply will be no work anymore
That I'll agree with (even if the time line is optimistic) - but the disagreement still remains. Will the nano-replicators/robots/whatever be only run by the government, or by anyone who wants to have one and can create one?
You're confusing 'evolution rate' with 'selection rate' - they aren't the same thing.
Plus, each step back means sloppier copying and a slower overall evolution rate, so each step is more 'miraculous' than the next.
That has to be backwards. Look at viruses based on RNA (like HIV) - they reproduce so fast and have such a high mutation rate that they constantly develop new varieties within the same host.
the researchers assumed that they would see Proteins within a few weeks or months, and that part just didn't happen.
Many of our assumptions have been shown to be wrong - not that long ago organic compounds were thought to only come from living things, proving that life can't come from non-life. Then it was shown that that's the easy part, the hard part is forming the more complex stuff.
In the end, you're just saying that because some proponents of abiogenesis made one assumption that turned out to be wrong, your ad-hoc, gut instinct guesses have to be more correct - which is silly.
He's advocating execution for a routine act, and then uses character assassination to justify it. He might not be deliberately trolling, but the mods are understandable.
If someone is brain dead and nothing, then it doesn't matter, they are zippo, but ultimately, a person by marriage is at most 25% as important as genetic parents. Is it possible to form a corporation between your self and parents to give them more rights than your partner?
If you don't have a living will, the courts have to make a guess as to what you would want, and precedent says that spouses at treated as next-of-kin. This is how inheritance works, and any other legal situation where someone else must make decisions in your stead. For most of us, the person we married is someone we've chosen to have a great deal of influence over our lives (as opposed to parents, whom we don't choose), and they have spent more time with us recently. The best part is that if you don't like it, you can set things up any way you like! Give uncle Bill your power of attorney, and have all your assets given to the salvation army. But one situation that you didn't like the outcome of isn't enough to overrule hundreds of years of precedent.
WTF? What's moving?
too dangerous to put a power plant
Right, cause all of Yellowstone is as dangerous as Mt. St. Helens.
any suggestion of digging great big holes is nonsense as well
Since the big holes are already working quite well, I think you're full of it.
I actually thought that was the point - you can't answer moral questions by mindlessly referring to a simple set of rules. Whether it's three laws or ten commandments, list of rules can only be a guides or reminders, they can't be comprehensive.
I was answering your second question, not your first. Do you read? Or do you read selectively?
This is the clearest example of self contradiction that I've ever seen.
There is private property in the sense of the individual: your jacket. There is also private property in the sense of a legal entity like a corporation: the factory that produced your jacket.
Three thoughts:
1. What if I personally own the factory, not a corporation?
2. A jacket is OK, but not a needle to be used to create one?
And if a needle is OK, what about a sewing machine?
What if I pay someone to sew it for me?
What if I have several people do it?
What if a group of us have several people do it?
Well, where's the dividing line, and what is the real moral difference between selling stuff I made by hand and a group of us selling stuff made by people willing to do the work for us?
3. Why do you think that a bunch of greedy assholes voting themselves more stuff is better than the greedy assholes having to do something useful to get more stuff?
In a nutshell, socialists simply want economic as well as political democracy.
When all you have is a hammer, ...
Which is an insult. Better change into your dress, girly-man. :)
He did it by being insightful (and amusing at the same time).