As a result of your poor math, your comment actual had the opposite affect from its intention. When you do the CORRECT math, and you compare the output with the size of Antarctica, you find that it won't take all that much melting (relatively speaking) to cause a drastic increase in ocean levels.
I love this, you criticize me for being anecdotal, then proceed to provide anecdote after anecdote. Are you honestly claiming that people born from affluent families do not have a higher chance of success in life? Are you completely unaware of an almost endless amount of statistical data backing up the fact that who you are strongly affects who you will be? Even the very fact that one works hard while another is lazy has so much to do with both nature and nurture. I most be misunderstanding you, because you cannot possibly believe that. You cannot possibly be ignorant of the facts.
I love how you summarily dismiss every example I gave as anecdotal, outlier, or irrelevant. Then you go on to give a whole list of anecdotes of your own. A better resource for you would have been to quote some studies rather than just some dude you know. I can clearly do the exact same thing in the opposite direction. Your simple anecdotal evidence is worth zero, zilch, nada.
They work in the manner they do because they don't have a choice
Thank you for corroborating my point. Their circumstances are such that they have no choice but to work hard, ridiculously hard.
People like Paris Hilton are outliers - and not in great abundance. They wouldn't be affected whether you taxed them more or not.
Are you serious? Socialites that ride their lives on their parents coat-tails are the outliers. I can give you a list of people who have succeeded by little action of their own simply because their parents are filthy rich. I'm sure you could if you stopped for a moment and thought about it. Hell, we have one as our president right now.
but thinking life is all luck just stuck out at me from the rest.
I apologize if that is the impression I gave. I can see how my previous post could be construed as to mean just that. No, I am not a Calvinist, I do not believe in predestination. But I do believe that our current situation is strongly affected by the circumstances into which we are born.
Basically it all comes to down to a confused syllogism. A implies B does not mean B implies A. So, I will accept that the harder you work the more successful you are. Therefore, work => prosperity. Unfortunately, many people make the logical fallacy of flipping the syllogism. They take the previous syllogism to mean that prosperity => work, but you just can't do that. In other words, dog => animal is true but animal => dog is not. I hope you see the logical fallacy. And I wish I could remember the name for this type of logical fallacy.
Let me tell you why I referred to this lie as "pernicious." I have seen so many examples of people taking the assumption that prosperity => work and resolving that it's people's own damn fault that they have problems. We shouldn't help them because they F'd up their own lives. I just can't in good conscience live with that world view.
I think many of the people you disagree with would also disagree with the word "luck" in this statement. You know, they might think they actually earned the money by working hard when maybe they didn't have to (in school, work, etc) and now have gotten their just rewards over those who didn't do those things. For most people, money didn't come magically down from the sky and just happened to fall on them. They worked hard for it.
Ahh, one of the pernicious lies of American capitalism: work = prosperity. There is a relationship. Everything else being equal, yes, a person who works harder is going to generally do better, but everything else is not equal. We are all born into different situations. I was born into a household that had sufficient means to which I was able to attend school. I learned to program a computer when I was 10 because my parents had the means to purchase a computer for the family (but not the means for it to be a good computer). My family had the means for me to attend high school rather than go out and work to support the family. I never studied in school, I was simply born with a high IQ. I don't know how a high IQ is attributable to my working hard. There is element after element outside of my control which has enabled me to be a successful person. Granted, there was a base level of work that was necessary. I couldn't just sit around watching TV all day, but there was a lot more necessary. And actually, what have people like Paris Hilton done to deserve their riches? Nothing, that's the answer. The hardest workers I've ever met have almost invariably been the poorest. I have known quite a few illegal immigrants. I will never work as hard as they do on a daily basis, and yet they will never have as much as I have. No, the simple truth is that output does not imply input in the United States.
I don't see any overall benefits to socialized medicine that cannot be achieved in other, better, ways.
Ok, what other ways? If there's another way great. I don't care about the system, I care about the results. Socialized medicine seems to give good results for the costs it requires, far better than our current system. If you can tell me of another system that provides great results for the same cost or less (cost meaning not just money of course), then great.
OK, fine. MOST people are not so willing.
That is because they are selfish. I hope that will change one day. Call me an idealist if you must.
Do you have kids? I doubt it, judging from that statement.
You are right, I do not have children yet. Hopefully, when I do, I will not lose my humanity, nor think my children are more deserving than those of a poor family. Granted, maybe I will. But if the cost of progeny is my humanity and empathy, then I'd rather remain celibate.
This is a commonly expressed fallacy. Christ never said the agent of charity should be the government, and indeed, strongly implied the opposite, for of what benefit to your own soul is "sacrifice" if it is involuntary, taken you by force from the government? Yes, we should sacrifice of ourselves, which is why Christians (and other religious people) generally give more to private charities than other groups do.
I am very inept at explaining logical fallacies, but I trust that if you look at this previous statement within the argument I presented, the fallacy should be quite self evident. If it is, I will make an attempt at explaining the probelm.
Well, you've changed the subject here. I'm not saying that Christ would necessarily be in favor of socialized medicine. What I am saying is that Christ taught self-sacrifice, and your original argument was that people aren't willing to accept worse care just so others can receive better care. Also, if I vote for a single payer system, that's pretty damn voluntary if you ask me.
Christians want everyone to sacrifice for those in need, but as a Christian, I want people to do it of their own free will.
Hell, you could fertilize an entire farm with all the crap you're shoveling with that last sentence. The Christian Right is all about taking away people's free will as long as those people aren't themselves. Christians don't want to be forced to give their money to help the poor, but they have no qualms forcing others to follow their beliefs by force. If Christians really believe that you should do what is right of your own free will, then why pass laws preventing abortions? Why pass laws preventing gay marriage?
The truth is, the Christian Right is more than thrilled to repress people's free will as long as it doesn't involve touching their own wallet. If that's Christ-like, then you and I have been reading from different Bibles apparently.
"Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's..."
Well, it depends on what you mean. If you mean Canada has the same or better results for everybody, no, it does not. Indeed, for many people, it has significantly worse results, especially those in the upper and upper middle class, and that's the point: no one is willing to have their freedom taken away, and their taxes increased, in order to be significantly worse off, even if it benefits others. There's better solutions out there that don't harm a lot of people for the sake of improving the care of a lot of other people.
Not true. I am one of those people who would receive worse care in Canada and I am totally for it. The fact is that the worse care is not bad care. The worse care is still quite good. In other words, true, I won't be able to move myself to the front of the kidney transplant list, or cut to the front of the line for a bipass surgery. No, I'll get it just as soon as everyone else. That certainly sounds fair to me, that just because I have been lucky enough to have money does not entitle me to live while others not as fortunate die. Seriously, our health care system is sick.
Your comment also fails to bring attention to the social benefits of socialized medicine. In the same way that public schools not only improve the life of one receiving an education, they also benefit society at large, public health-car provides benefits to society at large as well. One that was mentioned previously was crime (though I'm not necessarily convinced, it does have a ring of truth). There's also the benefit of fewer sick days because sickness is dealt with better. The list is quite large.
One other thing. I find it odd that the republicans (read: Christian Right) are the ones who are generally opposed to socialized medicine. Wasn't it Christ who taught the perfect example of self-less sacrifice for the betterment of society. All the while, us godless democrats are the ones calling for just that type of sacrifice. What's the deal with that?
People love talking about the good-ole-days when the constitution meant something or some such nonsense. Every time I hear someone banging this drum, I have to believe that they have never studied American history in the least. The constitution has been under siege since before the ink was dry. Other posts have given ample examples of numerous difficulties through which our country has passed, so I will not enumerate them here. But, clearly, our situation is not new.
In fact, I personally think that the country continues to get better. To all of the people who complain about the government and how the great experiment has failed, how are you doing on a daily basis? Do you have your freedoms? Do you enjoy the ability to "pursue happiness"? Do you have to bribe government officials to simply go about your daily life? Is your life so bad that you would exchange it with the life of someone living in the 1700s, especially one of the majority of people who did not have all of their rights?
I can't imagine there are many people who could honestly answer yes to any of these questions (if you can, then I pity you greatly). The truth of the matter is that for the most part, life is pretty darn good. I know that my life is going well. Although there is corruption in the government, it isn't nearly as rampant as many (read: most) places in the world. The corruption is definitely less than back in the early 1900s during the time of the political machine.
Now, please don't take from this that I think everything is perfect in America. No, we have plenty of problems. I am especially alarmed at the actions of our crazy president. Nevertheless, I think that things are far from hopeless. The simple fact that stuff like this article makes it to the free press shows just how great we have it compared to many places in the world. Let's work to continue to fix the problems inherent in the system, but let's also stop and enjoy what we already have.
Sure, he has the choice to do so, but how many actually take that choice. I've seen this argument before and it remains just as ridiculous as the first time I read it. It sounds good on paper, but in reality, it fails to be true.
There's a big problem with tests like this in their perceived outcome. The results were 8/10 picking the right song. That looks like a majority. But is it? If all of them were simply guessing, the expected result would be 5/10. I don't feel like pulling out my old stats book, but the I have to believe that the confidence interval on this allows a wide variance. In fact, I wonder if a ten person sample is even capable of achieving anything better than an 80% certainty.
You could do what my friend did. He owns a dial-up ISP. He got the phone number for the company then had a bank of modems constantly call them non-stop.
Both genres have merrit and a strong future, single-player, non-linear RPGs, however, do not. Elder Scrolls, I'm looking at YOU! I couldn't disagree more. The success of Oblivion is just one proof of this fact. There are so many things that games like Elder Scrolls can offer that MMOs cannot. One of the biggest is the dynamic world. Single-player games can provide a world that is affected by ones actions. If you destroy a dragon, it stays dead. As of yet, no one has figured out how to create a user-affected MMO (how many times have you killed Van Cleef?). And even if they do, you won't be the hero of the world. That honor will belong to some kid who plays for 16 hours a day. So, with a single-player game, I can be the hero, rather than compete with other players stealing my glory.
I also think that story is not the issue either. One of my favorite things about World of Warcraft is the story. There is more story in WOW than any other RPG I have ever played. Although it is affected by the above static issue, you can still enjoy the story unfold as you learn more about the Scarlet Crusade or the Defias Brotherhood. Although there are many things that single-player RPGs can offer that MMOs cannot, story is not one of them.
In fact, the idea that linear games are the only games with good stories is just not true. For example, consider the Ultima series or GTA (I would consider these to be RPGs in a sense). They have great stories that rival any Final Fantasy game. And you can discover the story rather than having it shoved down your throat live FF does. No, storytelling is not a linear or jRPG only characteristic.
I agree. One of the things that Palm got right was Graffiti. Although it takes a little time to get used to, Graffiti allows you to input text so much faster than text recognition, and with much better accuracy. That was one of the main things that pushed me towards getting a Palm rather than a WinCE device.
I have found that many people do not share my point-of-view with regards to Palm OS, but I must personally say that I hated it. The interface was easy enough to deal with as a user, but as a developer, it was a nightmare. I am so glad to see Palm OS go and be replaced with Linux.
There were so many problems with the OS design. I could not understand why you would build an OS that lacked any sort of filesystem. Instead, they had a very crappy database-esque system from which you could retrieve data. You couldn't simply load a file onto the system, it had to be loaded into the database and accessed using their bass-akwards method of database access. Be aware, we're not talking SQL here.
Another thing that was horrible was their lack of long-jumps. I had previously never had to specifically arrange the order of my object files in a link statement to avoid jumps further than 64k. There were times where I actually had to create functions that did nothing but call a later function so that I could make code jumps to functions further than 64k away. That made using the STL basically impossible (some would not consider this a loss, I do).
Then you add in the ridiculousness of having to define UUIDs for programs. So, anytime you wanted to write any sort of small application, you had to register a 32-bit number (less actually) with Palm. There are better ways to do this. We don't live in the 70s anymore.
Ugh! There are so many other problems. I just had to get this off my chest. Once they do this, maybe I'll go get a new Palm. I was never able to bring myself to buy a Windows CE device, but I have longed to have another PDA. Hopefully, these new Linux systems will be what I am looking for.
Of course, it has been years since I programmed anything on Palm OS (version 5, I believe). So, for all I know, they fixed all of these problems and I will be the recipient of a massive amount of flame.
Just a quick note, I didn't say that the abortion issue was the only cause; I gave it as one example of the many interesting conclusions. Secondly, my comment was not in reference to the sky drones. If you examine the parent to my comment, you will notice that my post was quite relevant, as the current discussion was about the drop in crime-rate, not sky drones.
Freakonomics actually addresses the drop in crime in a fairly rigorous fashion. It's a very interesting read and ends with some very interesting conclusions, such as a correlation between the legalization of abortion and the decrease in crime.
I guess it's pretty clear from all of the comments about this story that Taco's opinion pretty well matches the opinion of the community. I have read a bunch of comments and not a single one I have read shows any support for this whole endeavor. I'm sure there's one or two, but I haven't seen any.
I was just looking at the screenshots. Did anyone else think they look like sprite-based graphics rather than polygon? If those are actually polygon based graphics, then they have done some amazing work. If they are sprite-based, then I say, "Great!" It'll be nice to not be looking at something other than the same 'ole polygon graphics.
I hate it how when a new technology comes out that everyone abandons the old. 3D graphics are great, but they aren't perfect for everything. It's kind of like how I would love to see a non-CG animated movie again.
But I digress, could someone tell me what the graphic system is going to be?
That's what I meant by zero-day exploits. Recently there was a buffer-overflow exploit in jpeg rendering. These sort of things are always popping up, but they are fixed very quickly because they are very dangerous. But, as I said above, these are a danger regardless of what sites you visit.
Slashdot Mirror
As a result of your poor math, your comment actual had the opposite affect from its intention. When you do the CORRECT math, and you compare the output with the size of Antarctica, you find that it won't take all that much melting (relatively speaking) to cause a drastic increase in ocean levels.
I guess we agree, for the most part, in that case.
Wow! It must be awesome living in a world completely unfettered by the bounds of logic and evidence.
Well, you've changed the subject here. I'm not saying that Christ would necessarily be in favor of socialized medicine. What I am saying is that Christ taught self-sacrifice, and your original argument was that people aren't willing to accept worse care just so others can receive better care. Also, if I vote for a single payer system, that's pretty damn voluntary if you ask me.Hell, you could fertilize an entire farm with all the crap you're shoveling with that last sentence. The Christian Right is all about taking away people's free will as long as those people aren't themselves. Christians don't want to be forced to give their money to help the poor, but they have no qualms forcing others to follow their beliefs by force. If Christians really believe that you should do what is right of your own free will, then why pass laws preventing abortions? Why pass laws preventing gay marriage?
The truth is, the Christian Right is more than thrilled to repress people's free will as long as it doesn't involve touching their own wallet. If that's Christ-like, then you and I have been reading from different Bibles apparently.
"Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's..."
Well, it depends on what you mean. If you mean Canada has the same or better results for everybody, no, it does not. Indeed, for many people, it has significantly worse results, especially those in the upper and upper middle class, and that's the point: no one is willing to have their freedom taken away, and their taxes increased, in order to be significantly worse off, even if it benefits others. There's better solutions out there that don't harm a lot of people for the sake of improving the care of a lot of other people.
Not true. I am one of those people who would receive worse care in Canada and I am totally for it. The fact is that the worse care is not bad care. The worse care is still quite good. In other words, true, I won't be able to move myself to the front of the kidney transplant list, or cut to the front of the line for a bipass surgery. No, I'll get it just as soon as everyone else. That certainly sounds fair to me, that just because I have been lucky enough to have money does not entitle me to live while others not as fortunate die. Seriously, our health care system is sick.
Your comment also fails to bring attention to the social benefits of socialized medicine. In the same way that public schools not only improve the life of one receiving an education, they also benefit society at large, public health-car provides benefits to society at large as well. One that was mentioned previously was crime (though I'm not necessarily convinced, it does have a ring of truth). There's also the benefit of fewer sick days because sickness is dealt with better. The list is quite large.
One other thing. I find it odd that the republicans (read: Christian Right) are the ones who are generally opposed to socialized medicine. Wasn't it Christ who taught the perfect example of self-less sacrifice for the betterment of society. All the while, us godless democrats are the ones calling for just that type of sacrifice. What's the deal with that?
People love talking about the good-ole-days when the constitution meant something or some such nonsense. Every time I hear someone banging this drum, I have to believe that they have never studied American history in the least. The constitution has been under siege since before the ink was dry. Other posts have given ample examples of numerous difficulties through which our country has passed, so I will not enumerate them here. But, clearly, our situation is not new.
In fact, I personally think that the country continues to get better. To all of the people who complain about the government and how the great experiment has failed, how are you doing on a daily basis? Do you have your freedoms? Do you enjoy the ability to "pursue happiness"? Do you have to bribe government officials to simply go about your daily life? Is your life so bad that you would exchange it with the life of someone living in the 1700s, especially one of the majority of people who did not have all of their rights?
I can't imagine there are many people who could honestly answer yes to any of these questions (if you can, then I pity you greatly). The truth of the matter is that for the most part, life is pretty darn good. I know that my life is going well. Although there is corruption in the government, it isn't nearly as rampant as many (read: most) places in the world. The corruption is definitely less than back in the early 1900s during the time of the political machine.
Now, please don't take from this that I think everything is perfect in America. No, we have plenty of problems. I am especially alarmed at the actions of our crazy president. Nevertheless, I think that things are far from hopeless. The simple fact that stuff like this article makes it to the free press shows just how great we have it compared to many places in the world. Let's work to continue to fix the problems inherent in the system, but let's also stop and enjoy what we already have.
Sure, he has the choice to do so, but how many actually take that choice. I've seen this argument before and it remains just as ridiculous as the first time I read it. It sounds good on paper, but in reality, it fails to be true.
There's a big problem with tests like this in their perceived outcome. The results were 8/10 picking the right song. That looks like a majority. But is it? If all of them were simply guessing, the expected result would be 5/10. I don't feel like pulling out my old stats book, but the I have to believe that the confidence interval on this allows a wide variance. In fact, I wonder if a ten person sample is even capable of achieving anything better than an 80% certainty.
You could do what my friend did. He owns a dial-up ISP. He got the phone number for the company then had a bank of modems constantly call them non-stop.
I also think that story is not the issue either. One of my favorite things about World of Warcraft is the story. There is more story in WOW than any other RPG I have ever played. Although it is affected by the above static issue, you can still enjoy the story unfold as you learn more about the Scarlet Crusade or the Defias Brotherhood. Although there are many things that single-player RPGs can offer that MMOs cannot, story is not one of them.
In fact, the idea that linear games are the only games with good stories is just not true. For example, consider the Ultima series or GTA (I would consider these to be RPGs in a sense). They have great stories that rival any Final Fantasy game. And you can discover the story rather than having it shoved down your throat live FF does. No, storytelling is not a linear or jRPG only characteristic.
It's actually Will Turner's Locker now.
It really is a shame that you have to decide between having a sucky user experience or a sucky developer experience.
I agree. One of the things that Palm got right was Graffiti. Although it takes a little time to get used to, Graffiti allows you to input text so much faster than text recognition, and with much better accuracy. That was one of the main things that pushed me towards getting a Palm rather than a WinCE device.
I have found that many people do not share my point-of-view with regards to Palm OS, but I must personally say that I hated it. The interface was easy enough to deal with as a user, but as a developer, it was a nightmare. I am so glad to see Palm OS go and be replaced with Linux.
There were so many problems with the OS design. I could not understand why you would build an OS that lacked any sort of filesystem. Instead, they had a very crappy database-esque system from which you could retrieve data. You couldn't simply load a file onto the system, it had to be loaded into the database and accessed using their bass-akwards method of database access. Be aware, we're not talking SQL here.
Another thing that was horrible was their lack of long-jumps. I had previously never had to specifically arrange the order of my object files in a link statement to avoid jumps further than 64k. There were times where I actually had to create functions that did nothing but call a later function so that I could make code jumps to functions further than 64k away. That made using the STL basically impossible (some would not consider this a loss, I do).
Then you add in the ridiculousness of having to define UUIDs for programs. So, anytime you wanted to write any sort of small application, you had to register a 32-bit number (less actually) with Palm. There are better ways to do this. We don't live in the 70s anymore.
Ugh! There are so many other problems. I just had to get this off my chest. Once they do this, maybe I'll go get a new Palm. I was never able to bring myself to buy a Windows CE device, but I have longed to have another PDA. Hopefully, these new Linux systems will be what I am looking for.
Of course, it has been years since I programmed anything on Palm OS (version 5, I believe). So, for all I know, they fixed all of these problems and I will be the recipient of a massive amount of flame.
Just a quick note, I didn't say that the abortion issue was the only cause; I gave it as one example of the many interesting conclusions. Secondly, my comment was not in reference to the sky drones. If you examine the parent to my comment, you will notice that my post was quite relevant, as the current discussion was about the drop in crime-rate, not sky drones.
Freakonomics actually addresses the drop in crime in a fairly rigorous fashion. It's a very interesting read and ends with some very interesting conclusions, such as a correlation between the legalization of abortion and the decrease in crime.
I guess it's pretty clear from all of the comments about this story that Taco's opinion pretty well matches the opinion of the community. I have read a bunch of comments and not a single one I have read shows any support for this whole endeavor. I'm sure there's one or two, but I haven't seen any.
I was just looking at the screenshots. Did anyone else think they look like sprite-based graphics rather than polygon? If those are actually polygon based graphics, then they have done some amazing work. If they are sprite-based, then I say, "Great!" It'll be nice to not be looking at something other than the same 'ole polygon graphics.
I hate it how when a new technology comes out that everyone abandons the old. 3D graphics are great, but they aren't perfect for everything. It's kind of like how I would love to see a non-CG animated movie again.
But I digress, could someone tell me what the graphic system is going to be?
I would agree with you, except this is actually a pretty good article that addresses the most common talking points of global warming detractors.
That's what I meant by zero-day exploits. Recently there was a buffer-overflow exploit in jpeg rendering. These sort of things are always popping up, but they are fixed very quickly because they are very dangerous. But, as I said above, these are a danger regardless of what sites you visit.
What a perfect answer! You are so freakin' correct.