I worry about the kind of people who can actually deceive themselves into thinking that they're only strangling these mice for the benefit of science - rather than for their own sadistic impulses.
I worry about the fact that you think you can read the minds of people you don't even know.
Strangling unconscious mice is unethical compared to what? Do you know how many mice are discarded unused from labs every year having served no purpose whatsoever?
Just observing the body will give you more info in 5 min than the $1000 microarray will give you in two days.
Unless the only part of the body that you have is a tooth with a little pulp left. Plus, there's a chance that you'll get more information from both methods together than either one on its own.
This seems to imply that most of the people that get AIDS are idiots. Then:
Not all the people who get aids are at fault. There are some that from no action of thier own could get it. I'm referncing a small amount of people in these catagories.
So now we seem to be agreeing. Stupid people are more likely to get AIDS than other people, but they certainly aren't the only ones that end up with it.
No i don't have issues, i'm just calling a spade a spade.
No, you're making a value judgement. You could have described their clothing as sexy, erotic, revealing, scanty, alluring, hot, enticing, showy, or used a phrase like "clothes made catch a guy's eye" or "clothes for clubbing", all of which are neutral terms that accuratly describe what you're talking about. You chose to use the word "slut", which has very negative connotations for most people and is rather inaccurate, because most non-sluts wear sexy clothes on occation.
The first reason I can think of to use a rude and slightly inaccurate term rather than a neutral and more accurate one is to disparage someone. I guess it could be a linguistic or cultural thing, but if you want to be friendly with the women I know, you don't call their partying outfits "slut clothes".
I didn't mean for this to become a rich vs poor issue. I just didn't like the part where you suggested that people should judge him based on what how he's affected them personally, not on what he's done overall.
So don't think Bill Gates is an angel who wants to help the poor. When the poor violate his own self-interest he will go after them as fiercely as anyone else. I find think a little disheartening in view of this big-time charitable reputation he's getting.
That's my point exactly. He's not all bad or all good, but some of both. I just don't think we should forget that fact because we end up seeing mostly the bad (computer people) or mostly the good (charity recipiants).
Waering a revealing swimsuite to a bar full of drunks is stupid and might increase your chances of getting raped.
But only slightly. You might as well say that going to the bar is stupid, too.
The majority of people that cheat have other problems at home.
The majority of people that don't cheat have problems at home. You might as well say that anyone who has a fight with their spouse and has sex with them later without requiring an STD test is stupid, too.
She removed the safeguards and placed it in the old fasioned way.
That was stupid, and maybe the majority of people that get stuck are being stupid, but that doesn't change the fact that many of them aren't.
The main problem I have with your perspective is that you label behavior that has any AIDS risk, even a small one, as stupid. At the level you're talking about, anyone who rides in a car, eats grilled food or insults someone is stupid, because they can all get you killed. Your safety standards for HIV are ridiculously high, and the only reason I can think of for that is that you want people with AIDS to have done something to deserve it.
Also, no offense, but using the term "slut cloathing", among others, suggests that you have some issues.
I should have put reversed the order of my arguments. I should have responded to this first:
If you look at the Slashdot audience - and not the broader effects in the rest of the world
You seem to be completely focused on the bad he's done in your corner of the world and ignoring the good he does elsewhere.
So I think it's OK for us to have a pretty jaundiced view of him, no matter what he does to try and make up for it. He'll get enough plaudits from Time and the third-world citizens who really need his help. I wish them all the best, and hope he does something great for them, but that's not going to make me personally approve of his company or its miserable products.
Except for the first sentence, I agree with it completely. I just think it's best to go with a balanced view.
There are plenty of poor computer users in the third world, incidentally. Don't insult them by saying that they all are illiterate and live in mud huts and shacks.
I have to take offence to this. Where on earth did I say, or even imply, such a thing? I think it's safe to say that people who own computers are, on average, better off than the people that die of malaria. Not every single one, of course, but most of them.
Not always but in some cases the rape victom is chosen because of the slutty atire turning the rape perp on.
Are you really saying that wearing a swimsuit is stupid because it might, very slightly, increase the chance that you get raped?
Cheating spouses have abnormal relationships with thier spouses. It is generaly obvious or the suspicion is there that they are cheating.
I really have to disagree with that statement. Even if it was, suggesting that people must have "normal" relationships, be celibate, or be idiots is rather insane.
Medical profesionals who get stuck by needles usualy bypass the safety devices attached to them.
Again, I doubt that. Taking a needle out of someone thrashing around in pain, an uncooperative mentally ill or brain damaged person, or a struggling child is hard, I don't think it's fair to call the ones unlucky enough to get stuck "idiots".
Besides, given your spelling ability, you shouldn't be calling anyone an idiot.
from unprotected heterosexual contact... people who should be using protection from the idiots in Category 1
So smart people always use protection and never reproduce, and stupid people take a gamble and usually slip through. How is this "natures way of weeding out the idiots"?
If you look at the Slashdot audience - and not the broader effects in the rest of the world - not even curing AIDS is going to affect as many people positively as the crashes, glitches and everyday lousiness of Microsoft software has affected them negatively.
You're telling me that the combined effect of tens of millions dead, added healthcare expences, increased tension over antiviral drug patents, social effects (AIDS is God's cure for fags, etc), and the use of latex gloves in healthcare and condoms during sex is less than the effect of buggy code? Even if that was true, it's rather odd to ignore the fact that Microsoft's errors usually don't kill anyone, while AIDS does.
I understand that in the rest of the world, it's a different story thanks to the AIDS epidemics in the third world. But most of us are not in the third world and few of us know anyone who's likely to be impacted by his efforts.
Ah, so he did bad things to the (relatively) rich and good things for the poor. Since you don't know them, how their lives are affected is irrelevant.
To Bill, $20M to see your name written over a prestigeous library entrance is cheap.
So what should he give? A billion? The library probably wouldn't know where to start spending that much money, and some other charity would end up losing out.
Yes, well, I've just taken everything you had, so now I have more than you, but I gave some small fraction of it to charity, so that's alright then. You are scum because you aren't giving anything of what you don't have anymore to charity. To the almshouse with you where they might deign to bestow the charity of what was once yours upon you, derived from my own generosity.
You aren't being stupid or ethical. You've just presented an over-the-top exageration of a situation in order to make someone you don't like look bad.
One example, Gates plans to give away the majority of his fortune, not just a "small fraction".
Another, noone is saying "that's alright then".
From the GP: He just can't catch a break around here, can he?
The following is brought to you by SARCASM(tm), the fun way to make an argument!
Are you people unaware that people go hungry in the USA, which prides itself as being the richest, freest, fairest nation in the world?
Are you unaware that people get hit by cars, even is places that pride themselves on safety?
Do you really think an unconstrained market would improve their lot?
Do you really think lettin people drive over 55 on the highway will prevent injuries?
Do you think they deserve to be crushed under the weight of the machine?
Do you think they deserve to be crushed under the weight of the machine?
The point is that free markets may not provide a utopia, but most people are better off when they have more economic freedom. The fact that a few don't benefit is tragic, but do you know of any system that's better?
But I'm not talking about "blue collar life" - I'm talking about poor Americans. Happiness is a relative social and cultural thing.
Then you're changing the subject! The original post that I was defending was about free markets making most people economically better off - not necessicarily happier, just richer. And I was specifically talking about people at the poverty line, not the really, really poor. If you wanted to talk about materialism or rich vs happy, you should have made it clear that you were going on a side tangent.
It's not like all Africans are suffering more than all Americans. This idea seems to be yet another myth perpetuated for propaganda to instill the idea that America is a lot better than it really is. To hear some people talk, you'd think that American streets were paved with gold and chocolate, and that living in any other country is like being in a bad part of mexico or something.
I've never heard anyone go to such extreams, even in the most insane patriotic rant. But it is true that the US, and other economically free countries, have wealthier, healthier populations than countries that aren't so free. And that was the original point, just about everybody is better off when they can participate in the free market.
Tell me how Google are illegally utilizing their dominance in search to extend into other areas?
Ther aren't, but that wasn't the question - legality and morality are different things. They are legally "utilizing their dominance in search to extend into other areas" which could be just as evil.
Which countries are you talking about? I don't think America's poor, freezing in the streets, living in trailers, etc. would be considered "solidly middle class" anywhere in the world.
Half of the people on earth live on less then $2 a day The HHS says that in the U.S., $19,350 is the poverty line for a family of four - over $13 per day per person
$9,570 is the poverty line for one person - $26 a day
Keep in mind that this doesn't count the welfare, medicare/medicade, emergency police/ambulance/fire service, other free services, child support, charity, etc that you might get in the U.S. but not in Sub-saharan Africa
Blue collar life may seem bad in the U.S., but it beats the heck out of subsistance agriculture during a decade-long civil war, like in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Even at Wal-Mart, most people don't make minimum wage.
Almost every person that make minimum wage now will make more in the future (teenagers) or has made more in the past (retirees).
The poverty level is relative. The poverty level in the US would be solidly middle class in other places.
The minimum wage puts people out of work, as supply and demand would suggest (labor costs go up, so businesses use less labor). Is it better to be poor or unemployed?
Don't you think you think it'd be easier to figure out how to not fuck up this planet (or at least how to deal with its changes) than how to survive on another planet?
Well, no. If you're already inside sealed habitats (and have no native biosphere) you have the luxury of trashing the other planet/asteroid/etc as much as you want. Out there, there's no groundwater/rivers/oceans to pollute, cosmic rays are already bombarding you, so dump you radioctive waste in a (well-marked) pit, and CO2 in the atmosphere just makes Mars more habitable. On the other hand, living on Earth (for most people) means living unprotected and with some nature around, so small climate changes can be devastating, trace poisons are too much to handle, and every bit of fallout from a reactor leak means hysteria.
I guess what I'm saying is that here, we choose to live as part of the ecology that's already here, and we have to understand it to avoid messing it up. Off of Earth we're going to have to isolate ourselves from the environment anyway, so we don't really have to understand it. In the long run, the first option really does sound harder.
According to every scientist, every species of animal/plant/protozoa can only reproduce/pollinate/split within it's own species.
Yes, parents and children are very similar.
Evolution requires reproduction outside of it's own species, so it must have happened this way.
Where would you got an idea like that? Evolution requires only reproduction that isn't exact to produce variations (mutations), and some kind of selection that makes some variations more common (death, more/fewer children, etc). The two parts working together alter the gentic makup of a species, or some subgroup of a species. When one subgroup changes and another does not (or changes in a different way) eventually the differences are so large that they can't interbreed, and they are considered separate species.
You can't run an experiment for hundreds of millions of years to prove or disprove it.
We can't build a star either, but that doesn't mean that we can't indirectly test the "fusion causes stars to glow" theory. And as a side note, it doesn't make the "stars glow because God wants them to" theory any more viable.
You've got an intelligent scientist directing the experiment!!!
When you throw a rock off a cliff to test the theory of gravity, that doesn't make gravity a product of intelligence. That particualar rock might be part of an intelligent design, but not all falling rocks are.
So, we've got biological scientists saying you can't interbreed different species'. We've got evolutionary scientists (some of which are biological scientists) saying species' change to another over time, but it takes millions of years. Now we've got more scientists saying that GM corn and ragweed are having outdoor orgies in our fields and interbreeding to produce new plants within just a few years. Is it any wonder kids are growing up confused about the world, nowadays? Nobody has a fscking clue what's going on.
All of the things you cited are true. Species don't interbreed, they do change over time, and crops can cross polinate with their wild cousins. In other words, dogs and cats don't interbreed, poodles and great danes were bred from the same dogs, and Europeans can still have kids with Native Americans. If it's explained well, it shouldn't be that confusing.
We've got scientists (supposedly experts in their field) who go around claiming things as fact, that completely contradict other scientists who claim something else as fact.
Scientists do disagree, but almost never about the things you're discussing.
They're just as screwed in the head as the rest of the world
We're all messed up, that's part of the human condition.
I'm going to get modded [-4 - Right-wing-fundamentalist-Christian-wacko] for this.
I hope not, you were confused by some of the tings you've been told and asked some difficult questions. There's nothing wrong with you, it's just someone did a horrible job of explaing evolution to you. (You don't have to agree with it, but it's a good idea to know what you're disagreeing with!)
If you believe that this "soul" business is a bunch of crap, and the world is fundamentally mechanical in nature, it takes extraordinary evidence to convince you. If, on the other hand, you're open to the possibility of higher planes of existence, the evidence is sufficient.
Of course, you could put the opposite spin on it and say that people who want magic in their world will find it, even if they have to fudge the evidence, while others are willing to take things as they are.
child proteges - You seem to be suggesting that prodigies are born with memories/experiences of a past life, but that leaves a lot of questions. Why so few, why aren't we all like this? Why do almost all of them focus on math or music? And most importantly, there are perfectly natural explanations for prodigies, so why go with "past lives" when you can go with "learns numbers fast"?
ubiquity of NDEs - The "light at the end of the tunnel" part can be produced at will by depriving the brain of oxygen, and the "out of body" part can be produced when a certain part of the brain can't keep track of the body's position (though this is tougher to do on purpose). And on top of that, shouldn't we expect a few weird, but fully natural, things to happen near death?
children who remember past lives - Sorry, but I don't think that they are that common. Plus, interviewing children without influencing the result is tricky, so a little skepticism is in order (see the "Questioning Children" part).
They know because the experience is undeniable.
I won't deny that their experiences had profound effects, but I will question whether they are real experiences. Keep in mind that dreams and even works of fiction can change people's lives, but that doesn't make them real. And not being real doesn't make them become unimportant or make them disappear.
hard to explain any other way
True, but sometimes the hard-to-find, complicated, disappointing explanation is the correct one. It's a bit depressing, but that's the way the world works sometimes.
People die because dying is a part of living. Less primitive cultures accept this as a fact, and deal with it appropriately.
Even people that accept that fact that they are going to die eventually usually try to keep going a little longer. Accepting that something is a fact is quite different than being nutral towards it.
If a majority of the population knew that death of the physical body is not the end (just as we exist prior to birth in our present physical bodies), they wouldn't be so easy to manipulate.
If we knew that, you might be right, but we don't really know that. Some might believe that, others don't, but there's no proof of a soul (and no real evidence, for that matter).
But hey, this is slashdot, and we (er, most of us) believe that "matter is the most fundamental unit of existence".
If you're refering to materialism or naturalism, you're probably right.
2. Seeing something is the same as doing something.
I'm not sure what you meant, so I can't refute it. Please elaborate.
I don't get that one, either.
The copyright owner still owns the copyright to the CD; you own a license to it.
Licenses and copyrights are often used together, but they are a completely different subjects. Copyright is simply that, the right to copy, all other rights are held by the owner - other rights have to be given up as part of a separate contract, such as a license.
6. Creativity cannot exist without cartels and monopolies.
I don't know of anyone who is saying this. It's just as easy for you to copyright your own work as it is for a large company. But given the context here, I'm not sure what's so "creative" about copyright infringement.
I think he was refering to the argument that without a copyright (which is a monopoly, by definition) there would be little incentive to invest in a large 'creative' project.
Slashdot Mirror
I worry about the fact that you think you can read the minds of people you don't even know.
Strangling unconscious mice is unethical compared to what? Do you know how many mice are discarded unused from labs every year having served no purpose whatsoever?
Just observing the body will give you more info in 5 min than the $1000 microarray will give you in two days.
Unless the only part of the body that you have is a tooth with a little pulp left. Plus, there's a chance that you'll get more information from both methods together than either one on its own.
[AIDS is] natures way of weeding out the idiots
This seems to imply that most of the people that get AIDS are idiots. Then:
Not all the people who get aids are at fault. There are some that from no action of thier own could get it. I'm referncing a small amount of people in these catagories.
So now we seem to be agreeing. Stupid people are more likely to get AIDS than other people, but they certainly aren't the only ones that end up with it.
No i don't have issues, i'm just calling a spade a spade.
No, you're making a value judgement. You could have described their clothing as sexy, erotic, revealing, scanty, alluring, hot, enticing, showy, or used a phrase like "clothes made catch a guy's eye" or "clothes for clubbing", all of which are neutral terms that accuratly describe what you're talking about. You chose to use the word "slut", which has very negative connotations for most people and is rather inaccurate, because most non-sluts wear sexy clothes on occation.
The first reason I can think of to use a rude and slightly inaccurate term rather than a neutral and more accurate one is to disparage someone. I guess it could be a linguistic or cultural thing, but if you want to be friendly with the women I know, you don't call their partying outfits "slut clothes".
So don't think Bill Gates is an angel who wants to help the poor. When the poor violate his own self-interest he will go after them as fiercely as anyone else. I find think a little disheartening in view of this big-time charitable reputation he's getting.
That's my point exactly. He's not all bad or all good, but some of both. I just don't think we should forget that fact because we end up seeing mostly the bad (computer people) or mostly the good (charity recipiants).
But only slightly. You might as well say that going to the bar is stupid, too.
The majority of people that cheat have other problems at home.
The majority of people that don't cheat have problems at home. You might as well say that anyone who has a fight with their spouse and has sex with them later without requiring an STD test is stupid, too.
She removed the safeguards and placed it in the old fasioned way.
That was stupid, and maybe the majority of people that get stuck are being stupid, but that doesn't change the fact that many of them aren't.
The main problem I have with your perspective is that you label behavior that has any AIDS risk, even a small one, as stupid. At the level you're talking about, anyone who rides in a car, eats grilled food or insults someone is stupid, because they can all get you killed. Your safety standards for HIV are ridiculously high, and the only reason I can think of for that is that you want people with AIDS to have done something to deserve it.
Also, no offense, but using the term "slut cloathing", among others, suggests that you have some issues.
Neutrinos can exceed the speed of light (in a vacuum)? Call the Nobel Prize committee!
If you look at the Slashdot audience - and not the broader effects in the rest of the world
You seem to be completely focused on the bad he's done in your corner of the world and ignoring the good he does elsewhere.
So I think it's OK for us to have a pretty jaundiced view of him, no matter what he does to try and make up for it. He'll get enough plaudits from Time and the third-world citizens who really need his help. I wish them all the best, and hope he does something great for them, but that's not going to make me personally approve of his company or its miserable products.
Except for the first sentence, I agree with it completely. I just think it's best to go with a balanced view.
There are plenty of poor computer users in the third world, incidentally. Don't insult them by saying that they all are illiterate and live in mud huts and shacks.
I have to take offence to this. Where on earth did I say, or even imply, such a thing? I think it's safe to say that people who own computers are, on average, better off than the people that die of malaria. Not every single one, of course, but most of them.
Are you really saying that wearing a swimsuit is stupid because it might, very slightly, increase the chance that you get raped?
Cheating spouses have abnormal relationships with thier spouses. It is generaly obvious or the suspicion is there that they are cheating.
I really have to disagree with that statement. Even if it was, suggesting that people must have "normal" relationships, be celibate, or be idiots is rather insane.
Medical profesionals who get stuck by needles usualy bypass the safety devices attached to them.
Again, I doubt that. Taking a needle out of someone thrashing around in pain, an uncooperative mentally ill or brain damaged person, or a struggling child is hard, I don't think it's fair to call the ones unlucky enough to get stuck "idiots".
Besides, given your spelling ability, you shouldn't be calling anyone an idiot.
So smart people always use protection and never reproduce, and stupid people take a gamble and usually slip through. How is this "natures way of weeding out the idiots"?
You're telling me that the combined effect of tens of millions dead, added healthcare expences, increased tension over antiviral drug patents, social effects (AIDS is God's cure for fags, etc), and the use of latex gloves in healthcare and condoms during sex is less than the effect of buggy code? Even if that was true, it's rather odd to ignore the fact that Microsoft's errors usually don't kill anyone, while AIDS does.
I understand that in the rest of the world, it's a different story thanks to the AIDS epidemics in the third world. But most of us are not in the third world and few of us know anyone who's likely to be impacted by his efforts.
Ah, so he did bad things to the (relatively) rich and good things for the poor. Since you don't know them, how their lives are affected is irrelevant.
So what should he give? A billion? The library probably wouldn't know where to start spending that much money, and some other charity would end up losing out.
You aren't being stupid or ethical. You've just presented an over-the-top exageration of a situation in order to make someone you don't like look bad.
One example, Gates plans to give away the majority of his fortune, not just a "small fraction".
Another, noone is saying "that's alright then".
From the GP: He just can't catch a break around here, can he?
Not from KFG.
I don't mean to be rude, but where would you get that idea? Obligated?
Are you people unaware that people go hungry in the USA, which prides itself as being the richest, freest, fairest nation in the world?
Are you unaware that people get hit by cars, even is places that pride themselves on safety?
Do you really think an unconstrained market would improve their lot?
Do you really think lettin people drive over 55 on the highway will prevent injuries?
Do you think they deserve to be crushed under the weight of the machine?
Do you think they deserve to be crushed under the weight of the machine?
The point is that free markets may not provide a utopia, but most people are better off when they have more economic freedom. The fact that a few don't benefit is tragic, but do you know of any system that's better?
Then you're changing the subject! The original post that I was defending was about free markets making most people economically better off - not necessicarily happier, just richer. And I was specifically talking about people at the poverty line, not the really, really poor. If you wanted to talk about materialism or rich vs happy, you should have made it clear that you were going on a side tangent.
It's not like all Africans are suffering more than all Americans. This idea seems to be yet another myth perpetuated for propaganda to instill the idea that America is a lot better than it really is. To hear some people talk, you'd think that American streets were paved with gold and chocolate, and that living in any other country is like being in a bad part of mexico or something.
I've never heard anyone go to such extreams, even in the most insane patriotic rant. But it is true that the US, and other economically free countries, have wealthier, healthier populations than countries that aren't so free. And that was the original point, just about everybody is better off when they can participate in the free market.
Ther aren't, but that wasn't the question - legality and morality are different things. They are legally "utilizing their dominance in search to extend into other areas" which could be just as evil.
Half of the people on earth live on less then $2 a day
The HHS says that in the U.S., $19,350 is the poverty line for a family of four - over $13 per day per person
$9,570 is the poverty line for one person - $26 a day
Keep in mind that this doesn't count the welfare, medicare/medicade, emergency police/ambulance/fire service, other free services, child support, charity, etc that you might get in the U.S. but not in Sub-saharan Africa
Blue collar life may seem bad in the U.S., but it beats the heck out of subsistance agriculture during a decade-long civil war, like in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Almost every person that make minimum wage now will make more in the future (teenagers) or has made more in the past (retirees).
The poverty level is relative. The poverty level in the US would be solidly middle class in other places.
The minimum wage puts people out of work, as supply and demand would suggest (labor costs go up, so businesses use less labor). Is it better to be poor or unemployed?
Couldn't agree with you more.
You apparently disagree with the other post, which is fine, but what makes his viewpoint "simplistic"?
Well, no. If you're already inside sealed habitats (and have no native biosphere) you have the luxury of trashing the other planet/asteroid/etc as much as you want. Out there, there's no groundwater/rivers/oceans to pollute, cosmic rays are already bombarding you, so dump you radioctive waste in a (well-marked) pit, and CO2 in the atmosphere just makes Mars more habitable. On the other hand, living on Earth (for most people) means living unprotected and with some nature around, so small climate changes can be devastating, trace poisons are too much to handle, and every bit of fallout from a reactor leak means hysteria.
I guess what I'm saying is that here, we choose to live as part of the ecology that's already here, and we have to understand it to avoid messing it up. Off of Earth we're going to have to isolate ourselves from the environment anyway, so we don't really have to understand it. In the long run, the first option really does sound harder.
Yes, parents and children are very similar.
Evolution requires reproduction outside of it's own species, so it must have happened this way.
Where would you got an idea like that? Evolution requires only reproduction that isn't exact to produce variations (mutations), and some kind of selection that makes some variations more common (death, more/fewer children, etc). The two parts working together alter the gentic makup of a species, or some subgroup of a species. When one subgroup changes and another does not (or changes in a different way) eventually the differences are so large that they can't interbreed, and they are considered separate species.
You can't run an experiment for hundreds of millions of years to prove or disprove it.
We can't build a star either, but that doesn't mean that we can't indirectly test the "fusion causes stars to glow" theory. And as a side note, it doesn't make the "stars glow because God wants them to" theory any more viable.
You've got an intelligent scientist directing the experiment!!!
When you throw a rock off a cliff to test the theory of gravity, that doesn't make gravity a product of intelligence. That particualar rock might be part of an intelligent design, but not all falling rocks are.
So, we've got biological scientists saying you can't interbreed different species'. We've got evolutionary scientists (some of which are biological scientists) saying species' change to another over time, but it takes millions of years. Now we've got more scientists saying that GM corn and ragweed are having outdoor orgies in our fields and interbreeding to produce new plants within just a few years. Is it any wonder kids are growing up confused about the world, nowadays? Nobody has a fscking clue what's going on.
All of the things you cited are true. Species don't interbreed, they do change over time, and crops can cross polinate with their wild cousins. In other words, dogs and cats don't interbreed, poodles and great danes were bred from the same dogs, and Europeans can still have kids with Native Americans. If it's explained well, it shouldn't be that confusing.
We've got scientists (supposedly experts in their field) who go around claiming things as fact, that completely contradict other scientists who claim something else as fact.
Scientists do disagree, but almost never about the things you're discussing.
They're just as screwed in the head as the rest of the world
We're all messed up, that's part of the human condition.
I'm going to get modded [-4 - Right-wing-fundamentalist-Christian-wacko] for this.
I hope not, you were confused by some of the tings you've been told and asked some difficult questions. There's nothing wrong with you, it's just someone did a horrible job of explaing evolution to you. (You don't have to agree with it, but it's a good idea to know what you're disagreeing with!)
Of course, you could put the opposite spin on it and say that people who want magic in their world will find it, even if they have to fudge the evidence, while others are willing to take things as they are.
child proteges - You seem to be suggesting that prodigies are born with memories/experiences of a past life, but that leaves a lot of questions. Why so few, why aren't we all like this? Why do almost all of them focus on math or music? And most importantly, there are perfectly natural explanations for prodigies, so why go with "past lives" when you can go with "learns numbers fast"?
ubiquity of NDEs - The "light at the end of the tunnel" part can be produced at will by depriving the brain of oxygen, and the "out of body" part can be produced when a certain part of the brain can't keep track of the body's position (though this is tougher to do on purpose). And on top of that, shouldn't we expect a few weird, but fully natural, things to happen near death?
children who remember past lives - Sorry, but I don't think that they are that common. Plus, interviewing children without influencing the result is tricky, so a little skepticism is in order (see the "Questioning Children" part).
They know because the experience is undeniable.
I won't deny that their experiences had profound effects, but I will question whether they are real experiences. Keep in mind that dreams and even works of fiction can change people's lives, but that doesn't make them real. And not being real doesn't make them become unimportant or make them disappear.
hard to explain any other way
True, but sometimes the hard-to-find, complicated, disappointing explanation is the correct one. It's a bit depressing, but that's the way the world works sometimes.
Even people that accept that fact that they are going to die eventually usually try to keep going a little longer. Accepting that something is a fact is quite different than being nutral towards it.
If a majority of the population knew that death of the physical body is not the end (just as we exist prior to birth in our present physical bodies), they wouldn't be so easy to manipulate.
If we knew that, you might be right, but we don't really know that. Some might believe that, others don't, but there's no proof of a soul (and no real evidence, for that matter).
But hey, this is slashdot, and we (er, most of us) believe that "matter is the most fundamental unit of existence".
If you're refering to materialism or naturalism, you're probably right.
I'm not sure what you meant, so I can't refute it. Please elaborate.
I don't get that one, either.
The copyright owner still owns the copyright to the CD; you own a license to it.
Licenses and copyrights are often used together, but they are a completely different subjects. Copyright is simply that, the right to copy, all other rights are held by the owner - other rights have to be given up as part of a separate contract, such as a license.
6. Creativity cannot exist without cartels and monopolies.
I don't know of anyone who is saying this. It's just as easy for you to copyright your own work as it is for a large company. But given the context here, I'm not sure what's so "creative" about copyright infringement.
I think he was refering to the argument that without a copyright (which is a monopoly, by definition) there would be little incentive to invest in a large 'creative' project.