There seems to be some biological revulsion to homosexuality since since the visceral animosity to it cuts across so many cultures.
Actually the Greeks an Romans didn't give a rat's ass what your orientation was. Nowadays it's an issue because the major religions make you into some kind of child-molesting hell-bound monster if you're gay.
I think that, if anything, the Christian ideas of hating the sin while loving the sinner, not casting the first stone, recognizing that we're all sinners who have fallen short of the glory of God, and forgiveness can make treatment of homosexuals much better in societies based on Christian values than in other societies.
But first they need to get around their own self-righteousness and hypocrisy, and somehow resolve the fact that their 2000 year old book of mythology might actually be wrong. I'm not holding my breath on that one.
The earlier statement about most arguments against homosexual rights and freedoms coming from religion has some truth (even if sometimes they're attempts to hide simple revulsion), but it also true that most of the arguments for homosexual rights and freedoms come from Christian ideals. For example, one of the most successful arguments has been homosexual rights are similar rights for black people, and civil rights for black people - indeed even the elimination of slavery - had deep religious roots and motivation.
No, they didn't. Those were all "modern" advances in morality. Sure some used religious justification but in the bible racism and slavery were all a-okay as long as you followed some rules. Oh, and women were some for of sub-human.
"Hating the sin while loving the sinner" is just a bullshit way of justifying their actions. "Oh I don't think there is anything wrong with being gay. They're going to hell, but it's not like I hate them or anything." Whatever.
I'm actually surprised that "Satan" is as reviled as he/she is. After all, if you believe the whole Adam and Eve nonsense then it was Satan who gave us the ability to think and have free will (eating the "forbidden" apple). It was god that wanted to keep us ignorant and subservient, and apparently still wants us to remain ignorant and subservient. This is further backed up by the god of the old testament, a wrathful, jealous, downright evil bastard who used the fear of death and eternal punishment if you got out of line, going so far as to commit genocide upon those that would not bend a knee.
A life form that achieves higher intelligence is almost certain to destroy itself before it reaches any serious level of advancement.
If you want to find alien civilizations, don't bother searching for radio signals. Look for small gamma bursts like the ones you'd typically see from nuclear and other high energy explosions.
...So if we replaced coal energy generation with nuclear generation, we would have roughly 5750 tons of radioactive waste to handle instead of soot and particulate emissions from burning roughly 174000 times as much mass in coal....
Actually the amount of waste would be far less than that. If we actually had sensible legislation in regards to waste, we could have a full nuclear cycle that includes reprocessing significantly reducing the amount of waste.
**WARNING: SLIPPERY SLOPE DETECTOR ACTIVATED** "No one forced you to use the train/subway/bus so of course they should be able to search you" (Already happening) "No one forced you to drive on public roads so of course they should be able to search you" (They are working on deploying scanner tech for the roadside right now) "No one forced you to use public sidewalks so of course they should be able to search you"
Uh. I guess I'll stay in my house?
Eminent domain.
Suck it bitches! US Government in da HOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWSSSSSSEEEE!
I love how when anti-global warming types point at a big snow storm or what-have-you and say 'look, global warming can't be real!' and the pro-global warming crowd points out, rightly, 'weather isn't climate'... but then when there is a big wind storm or what-have-you the pro-global warming types start crying 'look what global warming is doing! waaaaa!'
Why are you listening to the general public? The SCIENTISTS and the SCIENCE make no such claims. They have repeatedly stated that it is very difficult to attribute any single weather event to climate change. Greenpeace or the Heartland Institute or CNN or Fox News are TERRIBLE sources for scientific information. If you want the science, go to the source. Or get a summarized version of the IPCC if slogging through pages of dense science isn't your thing.
Weather isn't climate.
Correct.
That being said, any fantasy about humanity being at risk for significant biological hardship is ludicrous considering that we can eat almost anything, live almost anywhere, are more resistant and adaptive to toxins and pathogens than most other large animals, and we have this thing called "technology" that allows us to move anything anywhere, radically adjust our environments, etc. etc.
Your the one living in a fantasy. Despite all our advanced technology, the world's population depends on a stable climate. Regional climate changes in the past have caused civilizations to die off. From a paleoclimate standpoint, every time a major rapid climate shift occurs there is a major extinction event. In fact, one almost wiped out modern humans not all that long ago.
All it takes is a little shift in climate patterns to cause massive problems for us. For example, if the midwest were subjected to a severe ongoing drought for a couple of years, things would get pretty ugly. What do think will happen to social stability when the price of basic food items go up 100-200%? We had a small preview of that when major agricultural production regions in Russia experienced a severe drought to the point where Russia stopped exports. This is why organizations like the DoD have been doing climate based analysis to determine the impacts of climate change on global stability. They take it very seriously.
That being said, it's unlikely climate change will end up wiping us out. There's just going to be a lot suffering for those who don't have the financial resources to deal with it.
We really need to get over the conceit that we developed in the one true immutable biosphere. 99% of previously extant species are extinct, and that's going to keep happening regardless of what we do because the environment has never been static. Without mass extinctions like what occurred during the Oxygen Catastrophe, animal life wouldn't even exist.
No climate scientist believes that the climate has always been this way. That isn't the issue. The issue i that our civilization has come to thrive in a certain climate. Now we are changing that climate. To think that this won't have significant impacts on us is very naive.
I understand not reading the story. This is Slashdot after all. But not reading the summary? Come on man. There's a link to paper right at the start of the summary. The youtube vid was to explain it to the average Joe, not for passing a scientific review.
But of course such attempts to re-establish strict hierarchical power structures of feudalism are going to meet with pushback; pretty much the only reason they are possible at all is that many people are arrogant enough to think they'd be along the lords rather than the serfs.
Make the serfs feel like they're kings and you can get them to vote against their best interest without hardly lifting a finger.
The use of "bugs" is also critical. You can't have an enemy that is "pretty". The enemy has to be large, evil, disgusting, ugly, and a threat. There has to be characteristics that can be exploited to show that they are "different", and therefore easy to villainize.
An enemy is a "damn ferriner". Their skin color is different. Their language is different. Their beliefs are different. The jump from different to evil is very easy to make and sadly it usually doesn't take a whole lot of convincing to get a majority of the population to make that jump. A little negative press and a couple of "atrocities" later and you suddenly have the whole population worked up into a lather. Once a government has done that, they basically have a blank check to do whatever they want.
Sure they will. You'll have a live-in TSA agent to make sure you don't bring anything harmful on the plane, even if you aren't planning to go on one.
But they don't have enough TSA agents to do that realistically, so they will institute prima-nocta to fill their ranks. Only the finest specimens you see.
Imagine the nerve of suggesting that people might not only live off the grid, they could invest their money in a means of production and then sell that product!
In other words, people with excess solar capacity are small-business owners.
To be fair, Republicans fully support small-business owners, unless they interfere with big business, or Conservative moral/social agendas, or a politician's chances of getting re-elected, or those people have anything to do with minorities, women, reproductive rights, sexual orientation... Wait, what was I talking about again?
Something about republicans being something along the lines of riding a mountain bike on bumpy terrain without a seat.
Slashdot Mirror
There seems to be some biological revulsion to homosexuality since since the visceral animosity to it cuts across so many cultures.
Actually the Greeks an Romans didn't give a rat's ass what your orientation was. Nowadays it's an issue because the major religions make you into some kind of child-molesting hell-bound monster if you're gay.
I think that, if anything, the Christian ideas of hating the sin while loving the sinner, not casting the first stone, recognizing that we're all sinners who have fallen short of the glory of God, and forgiveness can make treatment of homosexuals much better in societies based on Christian values than in other societies.
But first they need to get around their own self-righteousness and hypocrisy, and somehow resolve the fact that their 2000 year old book of mythology might actually be wrong. I'm not holding my breath on that one.
The earlier statement about most arguments against homosexual rights and freedoms coming from religion has some truth (even if sometimes they're attempts to hide simple revulsion), but it also true that most of the arguments for homosexual rights and freedoms come from Christian ideals. For example, one of the most successful arguments has been homosexual rights are similar rights for black people, and civil rights for black people - indeed even the elimination of slavery - had deep religious roots and motivation.
No, they didn't. Those were all "modern" advances in morality. Sure some used religious justification but in the bible racism and slavery were all a-okay as long as you followed some rules. Oh, and women were some for of sub-human.
"Hating the sin while loving the sinner" is just a bullshit way of justifying their actions. "Oh I don't think there is anything wrong with being gay. They're going to hell, but it's not like I hate them or anything." Whatever.
Roughly translated to modern day language:
1. I am god. You are all my bitches. Do what I fucking tell you or I will burn your asses for the rest of eternity in my lake of spiritual magma.
P.S. I'm the good guy.
I'm actually surprised that "Satan" is as reviled as he/she is. After all, if you believe the whole Adam and Eve nonsense then it was Satan who gave us the ability to think and have free will (eating the "forbidden" apple). It was god that wanted to keep us ignorant and subservient, and apparently still wants us to remain ignorant and subservient. This is further backed up by the god of the old testament, a wrathful, jealous, downright evil bastard who used the fear of death and eternal punishment if you got out of line, going so far as to commit genocide upon those that would not bend a knee.
A life form that achieves higher intelligence is almost certain to destroy itself before it reaches any serious level of advancement.
If you want to find alien civilizations, don't bother searching for radio signals. Look for small gamma bursts like the ones you'd typically see from nuclear and other high energy explosions.
...So if we replaced coal energy generation with nuclear generation, we would have roughly 5750 tons of radioactive waste to handle instead of soot and particulate emissions from burning roughly 174000 times as much mass in coal....
Actually the amount of waste would be far less than that. If we actually had sensible legislation in regards to waste, we could have a full nuclear cycle that includes reprocessing significantly reducing the amount of waste.
**WARNING: SLIPPERY SLOPE DETECTOR ACTIVATED**
"No one forced you to use the train/subway/bus so of course they should be able to search you" (Already happening)
"No one forced you to drive on public roads so of course they should be able to search you" (They are working on deploying scanner tech for the roadside right now)
"No one forced you to use public sidewalks so of course they should be able to search you"
Uh. I guess I'll stay in my house?
Eminent domain.
Suck it bitches! US Government in da HOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWSSSSSSEEEE!
Well, they just need to wait until nightfall then follow the pretty blue glow.
I love how when anti-global warming types point at a big snow storm or what-have-you and say 'look, global warming can't be real!' and the pro-global warming crowd points out, rightly, 'weather isn't climate' ... but then when there is a big wind storm or what-have-you the pro-global warming types start crying 'look what global warming is doing! waaaaa!'
Why are you listening to the general public? The SCIENTISTS and the SCIENCE make no such claims. They have repeatedly stated that it is very difficult to attribute any single weather event to climate change. Greenpeace or the Heartland Institute or CNN or Fox News are TERRIBLE sources for scientific information. If you want the science, go to the source. Or get a summarized version of the IPCC if slogging through pages of dense science isn't your thing.
Weather isn't climate.
Correct.
That being said, any fantasy about humanity being at risk for significant biological hardship is ludicrous considering that we can eat almost anything, live almost anywhere, are more resistant and adaptive to toxins and pathogens than most other large animals, and we have this thing called "technology" that allows us to move anything anywhere, radically adjust our environments, etc. etc.
Your the one living in a fantasy. Despite all our advanced technology, the world's population depends on a stable climate. Regional climate changes in the past have caused civilizations to die off. From a paleoclimate standpoint, every time a major rapid climate shift occurs there is a major extinction event. In fact, one almost wiped out modern humans not all that long ago.
All it takes is a little shift in climate patterns to cause massive problems for us. For example, if the midwest were subjected to a severe ongoing drought for a couple of years, things would get pretty ugly. What do think will happen to social stability when the price of basic food items go up 100-200%? We had a small preview of that when major agricultural production regions in Russia experienced a severe drought to the point where Russia stopped exports. This is why organizations like the DoD have been doing climate based analysis to determine the impacts of climate change on global stability. They take it very seriously.
That being said, it's unlikely climate change will end up wiping us out. There's just going to be a lot suffering for those who don't have the financial resources to deal with it.
We really need to get over the conceit that we developed in the one true immutable biosphere. 99% of previously extant species are extinct, and that's going to keep happening regardless of what we do because the environment has never been static. Without mass extinctions like what occurred during the Oxygen Catastrophe, animal life wouldn't even exist.
No climate scientist believes that the climate has always been this way. That isn't the issue. The issue i that our civilization has come to thrive in a certain climate. Now we are changing that climate. To think that this won't have significant impacts on us is very naive.
The llama isn't dead! He's resting.
Are you talking African numbers or European? :)
*FACEPALM*
I understand not reading the story. This is Slashdot after all. But not reading the summary? Come on man. There's a link to paper right at the start of the summary. The youtube vid was to explain it to the average Joe, not for passing a scientific review.
The cake is a lie.
But of course such attempts to re-establish strict hierarchical power structures of feudalism are going to meet with pushback; pretty much the only reason they are possible at all is that many people are arrogant enough to think they'd be along the lords rather than the serfs.
Make the serfs feel like they're kings and you can get them to vote against their best interest without hardly lifting a finger.
The use of "bugs" is also critical. You can't have an enemy that is "pretty". The enemy has to be large, evil, disgusting, ugly, and a threat. There has to be characteristics that can be exploited to show that they are "different", and therefore easy to villainize.
An enemy is a "damn ferriner". Their skin color is different. Their language is different. Their beliefs are different. The jump from different to evil is very easy to make and sadly it usually doesn't take a whole lot of convincing to get a majority of the population to make that jump. A little negative press and a couple of "atrocities" later and you suddenly have the whole population worked up into a lather. Once a government has done that, they basically have a blank check to do whatever they want.
They'd fly if they were made out of Superman!
This could not possibly be real --
a man removed an assault rifle from a bag at Los Angeles International Airport and opened fire.
Assault rifles are illegal in California; therefore this could never have happened!
I agree. Not only did he pull out an assault rifle, but apparently his luggage was not lost either. That's unpossible.
It could just be poor marksmanship.
Well, there were 6 others wounded...
No pamphlets. I know a guy who was killed by a pamphlet. Didn't even see it coming. You'll just have to read a book.
Sure they will. You'll have a live-in TSA agent to make sure you don't bring anything harmful on the plane, even if you aren't planning to go on one.
But they don't have enough TSA agents to do that realistically, so they will institute prima-nocta to fill their ranks. Only the finest specimens you see.
Imagine the nerve of suggesting that people might not only live off the grid, they could invest their money in a means of production and then sell that product!
In other words, people with excess solar capacity are small-business owners.
To be fair, Republicans fully support small-business owners, unless they interfere with big business, or Conservative moral/social agendas, or a politician's chances of getting re-elected, or those people have anything to do with minorities, women, reproductive rights, sexual orientation ... Wait, what was I talking about again?
Something about republicans being something along the lines of riding a mountain bike on bumpy terrain without a seat.
Lobbying used to have a legitimate purpose. Then money got involved.
Can't be any worse than clamato juice.
Unlike naming your OS after anthropomorphized animals?
When iOS7 caused trouble for iPhone users, I heard audible Snickers.
Yeah, someone is definitely missing a Payday for that one.
Welcome to the IC market, Ms. Turner.