normally I would have laughed, but I just read the following article about a man who died several minutes after playing a game for 50 hours in a korean internet cafe:
It's interesting that we find censorship of boob'age or swear words to be completely socially acceptable, but we balk at the idea of censoring PK'ing in games.
Who gets punished for breaking the law - the person playing the game, or the company who let it happen?
Uhm, actually, the patent office must meet several requirements when issuing patents. Mostly: must be innovative and non-trivial. In fact, I think they even use the word non-trivial.
However, prints are being run through terrorist watch lists in the biggest deployment of biometrics yet -- the federal government's new system for tracking foreign travelers.
Now in its early stages, the program, known as US-VISIT, calls for visitors to go through biometric scans to ensure that they are who their visa or passport says they are. Passports issued by the United States and other countries are getting new chips that will have facial-recognition data, and other biometrics might be added.
Read the article: if visitors to the US are being connected to their names in this way, how long do you think it will be before visitors to the statue of liberty are connected to their names? We're dealing with a slippery slope here. There're no security measures to prevent this data from being stored or used in inappropriate ways.
What would I like? A guarentee that these prints are deleted at the end of the day, or after check out, or something like that. I doubt anybody wants or could see a reason for permanent records of this sort. (Unless of course you're 'president' dubya, in which case 1984 is looking like paradise)
and this is an entirely off topic discussion to have, but you said "I'm not a terrorist": what the heck is a terrorist, then? What does the database really have in it? Are these people that have been legally convicted of a terrorist crime (okay), or are these 'suspects'? The US definition of 'suspect' is, err, a little suspect these days
okay,/pun
Re:Why are genetically defective people breeding?
on
Three Blind Phreaks
·
· Score: 1
You claim that you are An intelligent person who understands that perpetuating genetic defects is a bad idea.
Are you kidding me? Where you do you think creativity, intelligence, and other good "abnormalities" come from? It's all the same genes. One base pair flipped and something changes...the good, the bad, and all. You know the association between certain types of mental illness and 'genius' of various types, right? e.g., bipolar That's not to claim that all negative genetic issues have a positive side to them -- but you'd be rediculously shortsighted to think that you can just add a little chlorine to the genetic pool by not having kids if there's some kind of genetic defect in your line. It's not that simple. If you want to get rid of genetic defects, and if you know anything about evolution at all, you probably know how freakin' good variation is for the general improvement (evolution) of a species is...and how freakin' bad normalcy/nonvariance is. People with blindness develop special abilities above and beyond what seeing people can do. This is an advantageous trait in itself. See how it works? I don't claim to glorify genetic disorders, but to use blindness as an example of people who shouldn't have kids is just a bad example.
I don't advocate killing anyone nor do I think superficial traits like hair and eye color are the basis for determining "superiority."
And what would you call blindness? Profound? Incapacitating? Hardly. You're walking a slippery slope with that argument...
Any basis of judging the "goodness" of one person over another cannot be justified unless it is based on such a reduced quality of life that no life would be better than any life at all (potential examples: down syndrom, twins conjoined at the heart, etc). ANd I would hardly file "blindness" under that category. If you think that people with those types of defects ought not breed, that's ultimately the same problem as thinking you can kill them.
If parents decide they don't want to have kids for that reason, that's their decision. I am pro-choice and pro-euthanasia for those reasons. But to have some ultimate idea that the general quality of our society can be improved by "sound scientific reasoning" about what is a good contribution and bad contribution to man-kind's general gene pool -- that is one of the most absurd ideas I've ever heard.
Before you people all go off on rants based on some basic misunderstanding, consider this
(1) A nicotine vaccine does NOT solve the chemical addiction at all. Your body would still have the cravings for the a cigarette, because when you smoke it...the nicotine doesn't make it to the brain. Your brain still yells out: "give me something to stop this withdrawal"
(2) A nicotine vaccine actually would help the emotional side of the addiction. The emotional addictions follows thus: your body needs a chemical, you associate that chemical with a cigarette, and therefore you smoke a cigarette to meet your body's need. If you stop associating the cigarette with meeting the body's need, then you stop having a desire for a cigarette. Now you just want some nicotine (e.g., patch, gum, etc.). Else, you can feel free to smoke that cigarette for the other purposes (social, comfort, etc.).
It's like decaf coffee. Doesn't fix your chemical craving for caffeine, but it's sure as hell nice to drink when you want to warm up.
(3) Notice too that they call this a "vaccine". Is the point of a vaccine to cure something after you've got it? Not really. It's a preventative measure. So while you can argue the merits of trying to "prevent" nicotine addiction (and also, who on earth would pick up the habit if they already know they don't want the nicotine from it)... this is not a therapy aimed as a one day fix.
It's not a nicotine de-addiction treatment: it's a nicotine vaccine
Slashdot Mirror
normally I would have laughed, but I just read the following article about a man who died several minutes after playing a game for 50 hours in a korean internet cafe:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8888579/
It's interesting that we find censorship of boob'age or swear words to be completely socially acceptable, but we balk at the idea of censoring PK'ing in games.
Who gets punished for breaking the law - the person playing the game, or the company who let it happen?
Uhm, actually, the patent office must meet several requirements when issuing patents. Mostly: must be innovative and non-trivial. In fact, I think they even use the word non-trivial.
Now in its early stages, the program, known as US-VISIT, calls for visitors to go through biometric scans to ensure that they are who their visa or passport says they are. Passports issued by the United States and other countries are getting new chips that will have facial-recognition data, and other biometrics might be added.
Read the article: if visitors to the US are being connected to their names in this way, how long do you think it will be before visitors to the statue of liberty are connected to their names? We're dealing with a slippery slope here. There're no security measures to prevent this data from being stored or used in inappropriate ways.
What would I like? A guarentee that these prints are deleted at the end of the day, or after check out, or something like that. I doubt anybody wants or could see a reason for permanent records of this sort. (Unless of course you're 'president' dubya, in which case 1984 is looking like paradise)
and this is an entirely off topic discussion to have, but you said "I'm not a terrorist": what the heck is a terrorist, then? What does the database really have in it? Are these people that have been legally convicted of a terrorist crime (okay), or are these 'suspects'? The US definition of 'suspect' is, err, a little suspect these days
okay, /pun
You claim that you are An intelligent person who understands that perpetuating genetic defects is a bad idea.
Are you kidding me? Where you do you think creativity, intelligence, and other good "abnormalities" come from? It's all the same genes. One base pair flipped and something changes...the good, the bad, and all. You know the association between certain types of mental illness and 'genius' of various types, right? e.g., bipolar That's not to claim that all negative genetic issues have a positive side to them -- but you'd be rediculously shortsighted to think that you can just add a little chlorine to the genetic pool by not having kids if there's some kind of genetic defect in your line. It's not that simple. If you want to get rid of genetic defects, and if you know anything about evolution at all, you probably know how freakin' good variation is for the general improvement (evolution) of a species is...and how freakin' bad normalcy/nonvariance is. People with blindness develop special abilities above and beyond what seeing people can do. This is an advantageous trait in itself. See how it works? I don't claim to glorify genetic disorders, but to use blindness as an example of people who shouldn't have kids is just a bad example.
I don't advocate killing anyone nor do I think superficial traits like hair and eye color are the basis for determining "superiority."
And what would you call blindness? Profound? Incapacitating? Hardly. You're walking a slippery slope with that argument...
Any basis of judging the "goodness" of one person over another cannot be justified unless it is based on such a reduced quality of life that no life would be better than any life at all (potential examples: down syndrom, twins conjoined at the heart, etc). ANd I would hardly file "blindness" under that category. If you think that people with those types of defects ought not breed, that's ultimately the same problem as thinking you can kill them.
If parents decide they don't want to have kids for that reason, that's their decision. I am pro-choice and pro-euthanasia for those reasons. But to have some ultimate idea that the general quality of our society can be improved by "sound scientific reasoning" about what is a good contribution and bad contribution to man-kind's general gene pool -- that is one of the most absurd ideas I've ever heard.
QUICK!
Everybody run west!
(1) A nicotine vaccine does NOT solve the chemical addiction at all. Your body would still have the cravings for the a cigarette, because when you smoke it...the nicotine doesn't make it to the brain. Your brain still yells out: "give me something to stop this withdrawal"
(2) A nicotine vaccine actually would help the emotional side of the addiction. The emotional addictions follows thus: your body needs a chemical, you associate that chemical with a cigarette, and therefore you smoke a cigarette to meet your body's need. If you stop associating the cigarette with meeting the body's need, then you stop having a desire for a cigarette. Now you just want some nicotine (e.g., patch, gum, etc.). Else, you can feel free to smoke that cigarette for the other purposes (social, comfort, etc.).
It's like decaf coffee. Doesn't fix your chemical craving for caffeine, but it's sure as hell nice to drink when you want to warm up.
(3) Notice too that they call this a "vaccine". Is the point of a vaccine to cure something after you've got it? Not really. It's a preventative measure. So while you can argue the merits of trying to "prevent" nicotine addiction (and also, who on earth would pick up the habit if they already know they don't want the nicotine from it)... this is not a therapy aimed as a one day fix.
It's not a nicotine de-addiction treatment: it's a nicotine vaccine