I, on the other hand, prefer to think the exact opposite.
I think most people are born intelligent. You are either enabled to form the correct neural connections or raised in a way that makes your intelligence degrade significantly.
As Wordsworth said:
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home.
It's a nice idea, but ultimately unconvincing for the simple reason that babies are tedious food processing machines and not exactly known for their sparkling wit.
It gets even more confused in the UK where most adoptions aren't of babies, but of young children who have been taken into care by social services.. The first few months and years of a child's development are absolutely crucial, generally the birth mother/parents are guilty of at least serious neglect, even when there's no actual abuse. It's a miracle most adopted children end up as normal and balanced as they do, but it gets progressively harder the older the kids are when adopted. If a child has been neglected/abused for nine or ten years, it's touch and go whether anything can then fully repair the psychological, emotional and intellectual damage done.
Call *me* paranoid, but all the DARPA challenges soudns to me only superficially humanitarian in nature.
I think the clue to the main purpose of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is in the word "defense". If they wanted to creata a HARPA I'm sure they could, except that it wouldn't get the funding.
Any nuclear power would be wise to pre-emptively destroy an opponent with an army of robots.
It will be the countries with nuclear power who will develop these robots, not the fucking Taliban, so there's no chance of pre-emptively destroying your enemy without them getting a huge hit back on you too. MAD.
Keep up that attitude and you'll quickly be one of the old folks condemning society in a decade.
Digital/Virtual reality in some ways already supplants the meatspace world, in another decade or two there will be few reasons to "go outside". Sad? No, just another step further.
What do you mean? People buying shit they don't need is exactly what keeps the economy growing. It creates jobs. If people bought stuff they needed, there wouldn't be many jobs would there? Does anyone need Halloween customers for dogs? No, but it gives people jobs.
Or, alternatively, the time and resources wasted on making Halloween customers (?costumes?) for dogs could be put to better use. Just a thought.
You should work in Higher Ed - I've met people who have doctorates who don't understand how to use a computer.
As long as their doctorate wasn't in "how to use a computer" I don't see why that's a problem.
If in your life you don't need to use a computer, it just becomes another one of those things that other people do that you have no interest in yourself. I don't know how to fly a plane or helicopter, navigate a submarine, drive a tank, fire a SAM, pilot the Space Shuttle, freefall from 24 miles up, climb Mount Everest or thousands of other things. But so what? I can read about them, and so have a little theoretical knowledge, but as I'm not going to join the Air Force (or whatever) it doesn't matter that I have no practical experience with these things.
It's not hard to see why many people would choose to believe the hardships they face are part of some grand plan that will, eventually, lead to everyone everywhere being happy.
The only thing that will eventually lead to everyone everywhere being happy is when human beings start acting rationally to make the world a better place, and abolishing the concept of supernatural religions is one of the big steps on that path, to be followed by the abolition of money and the embracing of true equality. None of which seem very likely, sad to say.
But you could be an atheist and live your life according to Jesus's teachings.
As an atheist I don't say "because something is in the Bible it is automatically wrong", I say "just because it's in the Bible and therefore stamped with the God seal of approval doesn't mean it's automatically right".
I wouldn't criticise you for following Jesus's teachings, I'd criticise you for believing as a matter of blind faith that they had a supernatural provenance and therefore were beyond criticism.
It is perfectly possible to believe that the Taliban are wrong, but that it is up to the Afghan people to sort out their own country's political, economic and military future.
The only confirmed terrorist is one that already has committed a terrorist act, as a former military who served in Afghanistan I would rather not wait till they took a shot at me or tried to blow me up thank you very much.
You remind me of the Monty Python mock ad for the Welsh martial art of LLAP-Goch:
"It is an ANCIENT Welsh ART based on a BRILLIANTLY simple l-D-E-A, which is a SECRET. The best form of DEFENCE is ATTACK (Clausewitz) and the most VlTAL element of ATTACK is SURPRISE (Oscar HAMMERstein). Therefore . . . the BEST way to protect yourself AGAINST any ASSAILANT is to ATTACK him before he attacks YOU . . . Or BETTER... BEFORE the THOUGHT of doing so has EVEN OCCURRED TO HIM!!! SO YOU MAY BE ABLE TO RENDER YOUR ASSAILANT UNCONSCIOUS BEFORE he is EVEN aware of your very existence!"
Well, if they were housing terrorists there, I would guess you could assume they were terrorist children...little terrorists in training so to speak, and you're basically getting rid of them too.
You're not looking at the bigger picture. Since any Muslim adult or child could become a Muslim terrorist, we should kill all Muslims now, just in case.
As a Brit who's proud of our fight against the Nazis, I still see the bombing policy we undertook as a massive mistake, not some kind of precedent we can trot out when we want to go around killing innocent people.
As a fellow Brit, I agree. If we couldn't bomb accurately enough to concentrate on legitimate military or economic targets we shouldn't have done it. The fact that the Germans started it is no excuse.
And something like Dresden appears to have been purely aimed at maximising civilian deaths anyway, much like Hiroshima.
How many children died in Berlin, Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Hanoi, or Baghdad? The US is not new to the killing children game, so that's kind of a straw man. The issue is whether drone children killing is less in our interest than more established methods of children killing. I think there may be a good argument that drones are pissing people off more, but I haven't seen anything that passes scientific muster.
Those were enemy civilians during wars, where it is arguable that they are responsible for their country's position (although I would exclude Hanoi and Baghdad from this). The drone strikes are in (nominally) friendly countries like Afghanistan or Pakistan.
There are more auto-slam-the-left than -right posts on slashdot. That is because this is a largely US site, and US politics runs the gamut of politics from moderate rightwing to extreme rightwing.
If you want your personal information kept safe, DON'T PUT IT ONLINE.
And if others put my information online because Facebook prompts them to enter some info about me? Or their Android phone syncs its address book with Google+?
What then?
It's probably best just to throw away the tinfoil hat and realise it was never going to defeat the powers of ZOG.
Slashdot Mirror
I, on the other hand, prefer to think the exact opposite.
I think most people are born intelligent. You are either enabled to form the correct neural connections or raised in a way that makes your intelligence degrade significantly.
As Wordsworth said:
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home.
It's a nice idea, but ultimately unconvincing for the simple reason that babies are tedious food processing machines and not exactly known for their sparkling wit.
It gets even more confused in the UK where most adoptions aren't of babies, but of young children who have been taken into care by social services.. The first few months and years of a child's development are absolutely crucial, generally the birth mother/parents are guilty of at least serious neglect, even when there's no actual abuse. It's a miracle most adopted children end up as normal and balanced as they do, but it gets progressively harder the older the kids are when adopted. If a child has been neglected/abused for nine or ten years, it's touch and go whether anything can then fully repair the psychological, emotional and intellectual damage done.
Hey, in the synopsis they used the work, retarted....*GASP*
That's truly excellent comedy work there, spelling "retarded" wrong.
"Use a power tool and break through a concrete wall. All these tasks must be accomplished under a set time limit."
Under a set time limit? Not even a real, human contractor can do the latter, it's impossible.
No, it's always possible but the guys will have to do extra work at double time.
Call *me* paranoid, but all the DARPA challenges soudns to me only superficially humanitarian in nature.
I think the clue to the main purpose of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is in the word "defense". If they wanted to creata a HARPA I'm sure they could, except that it wouldn't get the funding.
Any nuclear power would be wise to pre-emptively destroy an opponent with an army of robots.
It will be the countries with nuclear power who will develop these robots, not the fucking Taliban, so there's no chance of pre-emptively destroying your enemy without them getting a huge hit back on you too. MAD.
You're assertion is that the problem is the same as tightening the lug nuts on a car tire.
Your grammar is poor.
TV sucks no matter what resolution and size you watch it in.
I'm sure there's a pr0n joke in there somewhere.
Keep up that attitude and you'll quickly be one of the old folks condemning society in a decade.
Digital/Virtual reality in some ways already supplants the meatspace world, in another decade or two there will be few reasons to "go outside". Sad? No, just another step further.
blah blah blah singularity blah blah blah virtual reality blah blah blah matrix blah blah blah uploaded personality into silicon blah blah blah digital immortality blah blah blah
Oh, and not to mention Ultra HD porn.
No thanks, it will become even more like visiting a clinic specialising in bad skin ailments.
What do you mean? People buying shit they don't need is exactly what keeps the economy growing. It creates jobs. If people bought stuff they needed, there wouldn't be many jobs would there? Does anyone need Halloween customers for dogs? No, but it gives people jobs.
Or, alternatively, the time and resources wasted on making Halloween customers (?costumes?) for dogs could be put to better use. Just a thought.
You should work in Higher Ed - I've met people who have doctorates who don't understand how to use a computer.
As long as their doctorate wasn't in "how to use a computer" I don't see why that's a problem.
If in your life you don't need to use a computer, it just becomes another one of those things that other people do that you have no interest in yourself. I don't know how to fly a plane or helicopter, navigate a submarine, drive a tank, fire a SAM, pilot the Space Shuttle, freefall from 24 miles up, climb Mount Everest or thousands of other things. But so what? I can read about them, and so have a little theoretical knowledge, but as I'm not going to join the Air Force (or whatever) it doesn't matter that I have no practical experience with these things.
Video great - transcript better.
That's probably why they added a clicky linky thing underneath the video which reveals...a transcript.
It's not hard to see why many people would choose to believe the hardships they face are part of some grand plan that will, eventually, lead to everyone everywhere being happy.
The only thing that will eventually lead to everyone everywhere being happy is when human beings start acting rationally to make the world a better place, and abolishing the concept of supernatural religions is one of the big steps on that path, to be followed by the abolition of money and the embracing of true equality. None of which seem very likely, sad to say.
But you could be an atheist and live your life according to Jesus's teachings.
As an atheist I don't say "because something is in the Bible it is automatically wrong", I say "just because it's in the Bible and therefore stamped with the God seal of approval doesn't mean it's automatically right". I wouldn't criticise you for following Jesus's teachings, I'd criticise you for believing as a matter of blind faith that they had a supernatural provenance and therefore were beyond criticism.
It is perfectly possible to believe that the Taliban are wrong, but that it is up to the Afghan people to sort out their own country's political, economic and military future.
The only confirmed terrorist is one that already has committed a terrorist act, as a former military who served in Afghanistan I would rather not wait till they took a shot at me or tried to blow me up thank you very much.
You remind me of the Monty Python mock ad for the Welsh martial art of LLAP-Goch:
"It is an ANCIENT Welsh ART based on a BRILLIANTLY simple l-D-E-A, which is a SECRET. The best form of DEFENCE is ATTACK (Clausewitz) and the most VlTAL element of ATTACK is SURPRISE (Oscar HAMMERstein). Therefore . . . the BEST way to protect yourself AGAINST any ASSAILANT is to ATTACK him before he attacks YOU . . . Or BETTER... BEFORE the THOUGHT of doing so has EVEN OCCURRED TO HIM!!! SO YOU MAY BE ABLE TO RENDER YOUR ASSAILANT UNCONSCIOUS BEFORE he is EVEN aware of your very existence!"
Well, if they were housing terrorists there, I would guess you could assume they were terrorist children...little terrorists in training so to speak, and you're basically getting rid of them too.
You're not looking at the bigger picture. Since any Muslim adult or child could become a Muslim terrorist, we should kill all Muslims now, just in case.
As a Brit who's proud of our fight against the Nazis, I still see the bombing policy we undertook as a massive mistake, not some kind of precedent we can trot out when we want to go around killing innocent people.
As a fellow Brit, I agree. If we couldn't bomb accurately enough to concentrate on legitimate military or economic targets we shouldn't have done it. The fact that the Germans started it is no excuse.
And something like Dresden appears to have been purely aimed at maximising civilian deaths anyway, much like Hiroshima.
How many children died in Berlin, Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Hanoi, or Baghdad? The US is not new to the killing children game, so that's kind of a straw man. The issue is whether drone children killing is less in our interest than more established methods of children killing. I think there may be a good argument that drones are pissing people off more, but I haven't seen anything that passes scientific muster.
Those were enemy civilians during wars, where it is arguable that they are responsible for their country's position (although I would exclude Hanoi and Baghdad from this). The drone strikes are in (nominally) friendly countries like Afghanistan or Pakistan.
or any slashdot auto-slam-the-right post.
There are more auto-slam-the-left than -right posts on slashdot. That is because this is a largely US site, and US politics runs the gamut of politics from moderate rightwing to extreme rightwing.
Or, perhaps they feel using a drone to make an attack, rather than risking American soldiers, is the better choice?
How about you pull your American soldiers out of places they don't belong then?
If you want your personal information kept safe, DON'T PUT IT ONLINE.
And if others put my information online because Facebook prompts them to enter some info about me? Or their Android phone syncs its address book with Google+?
What then?
It's probably best just to throw away the tinfoil hat and realise it was never going to defeat the powers of ZOG.
I think the original point was that this is in the UK and therefore (so far) US laws, federal or otherwise, don't apply.
We're not the 51st State just yet.
I get an email almost every month from bank to activate my on-line account.
If you're that paranoid about using the internet, why do you use email?