I would say that your argument is based on old school male vs female issues, the thinking of '70s and '80s era therapist/self-help book authors. It effectively became a way of justifying pigeon-holing males and females into specific gender roles and occupations by saying that men, real men, should pursue more financially rewarding jobs like lawyer, stock broker, etc, instead of becoming say, artists. Likewise, women should not want to become corporate executives. They can do it sure, but women are not predisposed to it, and so naturally face a severe uphill climb. Thus, it would be more worthwhile for women to pursue more caregiver-oriented roles like educator, nurse, therapist, etc. I believe it is from this same block of thought that we get the notion that all women have natural mothering instincts and that men cannot be fit single parents.
Has there ever been any real science proving that women act more on emotions than guys? Or that men are more logical?
I would say that if there is a shortage of women in their 30s in computer science, it's because when I was a kid, my sister and her friends were given easy bake ovens, fashion-based board games, dolls with hair you can style, and other "girly" toys, whereas I was given Atari, Merlin, Zork, and other electronic toys that inspired an interest in electronics and making things go beep. I can't explain any shortage of 20-something females in the field.
I think a fair argument can be made here that DRM can actually hurt businesses, not just ordinary private consumers. When businesses are hurt, that means a loss in revenues. In short, DRM can risk a company's revenue stream. I have another example:
Among other things, I'm a musician. Recently I needed some vintage synthesizers, but because I was for want of space, I decided to get a French made MIDI and software synth package - a very good product in fact. The problem is its reliance on Syncrosoft license control software as a kind of virtual dongle for allowing me to run the software. The key is use-once-and-destroy. It becomes invalid after installation. That means, I cannot reinstall or migrate the software to another computer. If I bought a USB dongle, I could do these things, but consumers are not told this before purchase. When I had to reinstall, I needed to contact tech support to have a new disposable key issued to me. It was a trivial task, but I imagine the cost of maintaining this system is an unnecessary one. Because the company is based in France, American customers can run into difficulty getting support during times when the French go on vacation. Tech support requests can go unanswered for more than a month. And from what I've seen in the company's forums, a bulk of the question have to do with that Syncrosoft DRM. Had the company decided to distribute their software without DRM or even using a key-verification system like that used by Microsoft or Adobe, there would be fewer support requests, fewer frustrated customers, and likely reduced costs.
You make a good point, no one wants to be the school official or cop the day after a murder who admits that they read the death threat and didn't take it seriously. Whomever saw the post is put in a difficult place. I still believe that, outside contracts, words should never have a legal consequence absent some action. Whatever the cost, sometimes death, freedom of speech is absolute where there was no actual harm; the only exception being coercive threats with political motives. I should be punished if I threaten to kill any blacks who come out to vote, or if I threaten to kill an elected official, the editor of a newspaper, or a religious figure. But I ought to retain the right to non-specifically threaten to run down Tea Baggers with my car. There is already a system in place for punishing knee jerk statements that are inappropriate: public humiliation and shame. Granted, I'm talking about legal consequences here, and not private consequences. However, this is a public government funded school. Haven't public colleges been successfully sued for state government due process violations before?
But just being a Devil's advocate, maybe we ought not punish speech like that. If anything, expectations of punishment would take purposeful threats underground. If we let that speech stay in the open where we can see it, granted we only encourage it, but we also identify it. I'll take the open and notorious rantings of a hate filled psychopath any day because I know to avoid that person and the police know to watch them.
You're talking about coercion laws which cover death threats. I don't know how prevalent those are in America, but in every jurisdiction there would at least be a few prima facie elements such that it's not enough to merely threaten to kill x. With the exception of political figures, I bet you could threaten a hundred private citizens without legal consequences. You probably couldn't make a threat to kill a hundred people though. You'd have to run around and individually threaten people. I bet after a while, as the number of individuals you threaten increases, the likelihood of you being stopped and at least spoken to decreases.
Online, I am pretty sure there a reasonable person should not expect a threat to be actual, generally speaking. Otherwise, how can YouTube function with so many over-stimulated assholes threatening to kill each other or kick each other's asses?
This is true. This concerns a very boring, highly technical subject, and no one wants to take the lead to explain what the ramifications are to ordinary people. But could we spin this into something that will easily inflame Americans by adding a little paranoia to it? For example:
The White House has a secret plan to permanently ban entire households from the Internet if anyone in a household criticizes the government. The copyright infringement reason given is in reality just a ruse to allow the necessary infrastructure to be put into place for complete and total censorship of the American people. Cite the ACTA document. Identify especially notorious participants in the agreement. Then explain that government seeks to take away ownership of music and movies and instead impose a leasing system in which consumers merely license a temporary right to play the albums and movies they buy in stores.
The downside is, you will attract a lot of the fanatic tin-foil hat extremists, and their personal agendas will color real debate. But, as we see with the healthcare debate, fear of violent reactionary crowds with pitchforks can be an effective deterrent against change.
The stats show that Obama has kept more promises than he has broken, compromised, or otherwise stalled on; however, he is only ahead by a nominal amount. The "in the works" promises can still become "broken" promises as can the "not yet rated". Of course, they just as easily can become "kept" promises in time.
Looking at the details though, Obama's record on promises looks more discomforting. He's broken or stalled on several major promises: 1) Tougher rules against revolving door for lobbyists and former officials, 2) Recognize the Armenian genocide, 3) Allow five days of public comment before signing bills, 4) Develop an alternative to President Bush's Military Commissions Act on handling detainees, 5) Restore habeas corpus rights for "enemy combatants", 6) Call for repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, 7) Give the White House's Privacy and Civil Liberties Board subpoena power, etc.
Some of his promises kept seem a little silly or just premature. For example "Direct military leaders to end war in Iraq". Technically, yes, the President did tell military leaders to end the war in Iraq. That doesn't exactly mean anything as a practical matter. The "Release presidential records" promise probably shouldn't be a "kept" promise. The Obama administration has resisted attempts to get certain presidential records released, namely White House visitors. At the very least, this is one we really can't judge for a while until there are more attempts to get records released without White House interference. I think this should be a "not yet rated".
The arabs loved Hitler, but that was only because Hitler hated the Jews. Hitler also hated the arabs. Yes, he made alliances with some Arab countries, but to Hitler, alliances and treaties were temporary.
I agree totally, but I have to nitpick, Turing was always a hero. He was awarded the OBE (Most Excellent Order of the British Empire). They persecuted a war hero. That maybe doesn't make it worse, After all, persecution is always wrong; but it just feels so much worse that the government recognized that without him, there would be British Empire.
The formal apology actually does extend to the many other homosexuals who suffered liked Turing. From the actual statement:
I am pleased to have the chance to say how deeply sorry I and we all are for what happened to him. Alan and the many thousands of other gay men who were convicted as he was convicted under homophobic laws were treated terribly. Over the years millions more lived in fear of conviction.
I am proud that those days are gone and that in the last 12 years this government has done so much to make life fairer and more equal for our LGBT community. This recognition of Alanâ(TM)s status as one of Britainâ(TM)s most famous victims of homophobia is another step towards equality and long overdue.,
But yes, we do tend to only apologize for the most famous examples of society's cruelty to its own members. I think we have a basic need as humans to create symbolic icons. In Britain, Turing was just that. It was in no way a suggestion that his suffering was worst, or that his story alone was regrettable. Oscar Wilde is another example, though I don't think he was castrated. In America, Americans use Rosa Parks as an icon of the civil rights struggle, though she obviously did not endure the worst simply for the fact that she survived.
I'll venture to guess that the point is, Apple and Microsoft have their websites designed to meet specific goals and satisfy specific search patterns. Perhaps people who go to Microsoft's website for support, whether info or downloads, are generally of the sort who like to have a barrage of options placed before them at once -- a bit like the menu in a typical Windows program. I'm not sure how best to defined the search patterns of those going to the Apple site for support; they want information presented to them in a more streamlined way with fewer options?
Apple's site is superficially mostly a marketing site. Anyone study marketing or information technology in a business school environment??? If not, there are different types of websites. Some are purely marketing promotional sites, others seek to be more. I don't know anyone who would go to the Microsoft site to get info on a new product. Generally, people I've known have relied on third-party tech sites for Windows product info (CNET, etc.). Apple's site is a great way to get real information about products, such as product specs.
I used to have problems navigating MSDN. I sometimes have problems navigating ADC. Microsoft's site is fairly easy for me, but maybe only because I don't have trouble spotting the link I want from a choice of many different branching links. MY POINT is that Microsoft's way is appealing to a different group than Apple's way, and that UI is ultimately subjective based on a lot of things such as culture.
Page is horribly incompatible with couple of browsers, like Opera 10 too.
What's horribly incompatible about it? I use Safari 4 and Opera 9.64 on Mac OS X, and in both cases, things worked as expected. I immediately saw the "free download" button link. When I clicked on it, I was presented with that antiquated email prompt, but I clicked past that and began downloading in Opera. The webpage served its purpose. What's wrong with the podcast link? It lists to information on how to create podcasts using QuickTime Pro. That's fairly useful I would think. I suppose the RSS would be useful too if one were interested in following news on QuickTime development, new movie trailers available on Apple's movie trailer site, or maybe info on interesting podcasts.
Aside from the email prompt, which I agree is so 1990s, everything else seems fine. As for languages. I don't know how Apple does it. I can access the German version of the page here:http://www.apple.com/de/quicktime/download/ . I normally access Apple's pages through the main English language version.
I am using it for NetFlix streaming on Mac OS X Leopard. I think I might be using it for use with terrestrial viewing component of Bing, both being done using Safari 4.
I didn't say German or French don't have loan words. I speak both - German natively. France outlawed loan word because the French fear their culture is shrinking. They didn't want invasion from foreign culture, especially English.
I didn't say Romaji is Japanese. I said romaji is used in order to include western alphabet based words. You guys get really pedantic, but then you flame me for going into specific details.
The lack of gender and the simplified declension of nouns, and ability to use a limited character set to express foreign words easily are strengths the English language has. I never said exclusively. But it is an advantage all the same. My very first sentence was a statement acknowledging that there are multiple reasons why English is succeeding on the Internet.
Of course. After all, we're talking about specific lexicons that vary from group to group. It took me years before I learned that a "spider" is a frying pan.
Among my peers, my example would have been understood. I don't expect it to have been universally understood by all English speakers. My girlfriend is an Brit ex-pat Aussie. I understand what a "sheila" is, but I don't expect southern Californians to.
My example only points out that in English, I can easily take words and phrases from other languages and use them within the language structure of English. Whether or not the listener/reader can understand the sentence is another matter.
And to add to that, foreign concepts can be expressed using English characters without accent marks and without the necessarily inclusion of foreign characters. I said before, languages like Chinese and Japanese struggle with the reliance on multiple character sets.
English isn't without its problems however. The singular and plural "You" is less literal that French's "tu" and "vous". German is hard for a lot of people to learn because my language has multiple genders, multiple definite and indefinite article forms.
You're just ethnocentric about your language, and ignorant about other cultures since you don't know...
Actually, I am a native German speaker. English was my second language. I think you showed more ignorance there than I did. You can attack me for favoring English all you want, but you didn't actually counter anything I wrote did you? No, you didn't. The fact remains, English has a competitive advantage over other languages that will guarantee that English will continue to thrive on the Internet. If you want hedge your bet on the computing world adopting written Cantonese, go for it.
And no, that's not how all language works. If you studied language, you'd learn this. There are a number of languages that are fairly stagnant. I never said *exclusive*. I said it is a major feature. And I gave an example how said feature works well. Perhaps you required more comparative examples in the other languages I know? I'm sorry, I just didn't have time to meet your exacting demands.
Much of that was said with a wink and a whisper. Don't steal from fellow believers. Don't kill fellow believers. Try to live the good life (within the societal norms as established in this religion). You could kill a non-believer. You could kill a thousand non-believers. I don't think it's unfair to say that religion was created primarily as a mechanism for social control. When you have ten thousand people, and you want them to do your bidding in that day and age, mysticism is pretty much the only instrument you have if you can't put together an army. Look at Europe when it was under heavy influence by the Pope? How does one man and a few thousand very rich nobles theologians get all the governments to do their bidding? Through religion of course. That's not to say that no one has ever benefitted in a truly non-selfish, non-harmful way from faith. But overall, religion is at its most powerful when it can be used to shepherd entire populations and enforce some type of group uniformity.
Yes, but then look at all those seafaring shellfish eating peoples who have survived for thousands of years. And then there's the central European and Nordic people who ate a lot of animals with cloven hooves without problem. If there was a sensible reason behind these dietary laws, that reason would have to have been based on a completely misunderstanding about properly handling and cooking food. It wasn't that the religion was correct in saying that these kinds of foods are bad; rather, the people of that period didn't know what they were doing.
Of course, that's not the only possibility. Maybe God hates shellfish. Or more realistic, people then were as stupid and reactionary as people now. Remember "freedom fries"? There's something to think about. Grown men and women whose reaction to political discourse is to boycott French wine and rename anything featuring the word, "French" in it. Perhaps long ago, shellfish was primarily the food or commercial product of the Jews' contemporary rivals. Eating shellfish was somehow a sanction of the community's enemies, and so religious leaders outlawed those types of foods in order to differentiate their believers or just commercially hurt their enemies.
Keep in mind that a cult need not be theological. You can have cults based on multi-level marketing strategies. Amway is the most popular example of one. The Amway organization is very cult-like, and the FBI has noted cult-like treatment of Amway's membership, including strongly encourage Amway members to not just only buy from, but only associate with other Amway members. Cults are about social control, as you point out, and religious faith is just an instrument of social control. Thus, a cult needn't use religion for social control if it can find some other instrument. It could be something as symbol as tradition.
Technically, the only difference between a religion and a cult is the legitimization of the cult by a majority of non-believers or recognition by government. All religions began as cults, Christianity especially. But the FBI defines a cult differently in terms of the groups activities, particularly the role of a cult leader. As you mentioned, cults tend to cut their members off from mainstream society. That is one of the litmus tests the FBI has for deciding whether a group is a cult. Also, not all cults are theological; they just need be ideological. For example, the FBI has in the past considered Amway a cult because of cult-like behavior despite the group being commercial rather than religious.
There were also the medieval sets which included swords among other things. But as with the pirate sets, the box art still looked like the Lego men were having fun. The Space Police sets today look more serious.
Slashdot Mirror
I would say that your argument is based on old school male vs female issues, the thinking of '70s and '80s era therapist/self-help book authors. It effectively became a way of justifying pigeon-holing males and females into specific gender roles and occupations by saying that men, real men, should pursue more financially rewarding jobs like lawyer, stock broker, etc, instead of becoming say, artists. Likewise, women should not want to become corporate executives. They can do it sure, but women are not predisposed to it, and so naturally face a severe uphill climb. Thus, it would be more worthwhile for women to pursue more caregiver-oriented roles like educator, nurse, therapist, etc. I believe it is from this same block of thought that we get the notion that all women have natural mothering instincts and that men cannot be fit single parents.
Has there ever been any real science proving that women act more on emotions than guys? Or that men are more logical?
I would say that if there is a shortage of women in their 30s in computer science, it's because when I was a kid, my sister and her friends were given easy bake ovens, fashion-based board games, dolls with hair you can style, and other "girly" toys, whereas I was given Atari, Merlin, Zork, and other electronic toys that inspired an interest in electronics and making things go beep. I can't explain any shortage of 20-something females in the field.
Pfffft, women drivers.
I think a fair argument can be made here that DRM can actually hurt businesses, not just ordinary private consumers. When businesses are hurt, that means a loss in revenues. In short, DRM can risk a company's revenue stream. I have another example:
Among other things, I'm a musician. Recently I needed some vintage synthesizers, but because I was for want of space, I decided to get a French made MIDI and software synth package - a very good product in fact. The problem is its reliance on Syncrosoft license control software as a kind of virtual dongle for allowing me to run the software. The key is use-once-and-destroy. It becomes invalid after installation. That means, I cannot reinstall or migrate the software to another computer. If I bought a USB dongle, I could do these things, but consumers are not told this before purchase. When I had to reinstall, I needed to contact tech support to have a new disposable key issued to me. It was a trivial task, but I imagine the cost of maintaining this system is an unnecessary one. Because the company is based in France, American customers can run into difficulty getting support during times when the French go on vacation. Tech support requests can go unanswered for more than a month. And from what I've seen in the company's forums, a bulk of the question have to do with that Syncrosoft DRM. Had the company decided to distribute their software without DRM or even using a key-verification system like that used by Microsoft or Adobe, there would be fewer support requests, fewer frustrated customers, and likely reduced costs.
You make a good point, no one wants to be the school official or cop the day after a murder who admits that they read the death threat and didn't take it seriously. Whomever saw the post is put in a difficult place. I still believe that, outside contracts, words should never have a legal consequence absent some action. Whatever the cost, sometimes death, freedom of speech is absolute where there was no actual harm; the only exception being coercive threats with political motives. I should be punished if I threaten to kill any blacks who come out to vote, or if I threaten to kill an elected official, the editor of a newspaper, or a religious figure. But I ought to retain the right to non-specifically threaten to run down Tea Baggers with my car. There is already a system in place for punishing knee jerk statements that are inappropriate: public humiliation and shame. Granted, I'm talking about legal consequences here, and not private consequences. However, this is a public government funded school. Haven't public colleges been successfully sued for state government due process violations before?
But just being a Devil's advocate, maybe we ought not punish speech like that. If anything, expectations of punishment would take purposeful threats underground. If we let that speech stay in the open where we can see it, granted we only encourage it, but we also identify it. I'll take the open and notorious rantings of a hate filled psychopath any day because I know to avoid that person and the police know to watch them.
You're talking about coercion laws which cover death threats. I don't know how prevalent those are in America, but in every jurisdiction there would at least be a few prima facie elements such that it's not enough to merely threaten to kill x. With the exception of political figures, I bet you could threaten a hundred private citizens without legal consequences. You probably couldn't make a threat to kill a hundred people though. You'd have to run around and individually threaten people. I bet after a while, as the number of individuals you threaten increases, the likelihood of you being stopped and at least spoken to decreases.
Online, I am pretty sure there a reasonable person should not expect a threat to be actual, generally speaking. Otherwise, how can YouTube function with so many over-stimulated assholes threatening to kill each other or kick each other's asses?
I believe the maps component of Bing uses it as well.
If there's a new way, I'll be the first in line. But it better work this time.
Sorry, thought we were pulling inspiration from Megadeth.
This is true. This concerns a very boring, highly technical subject, and no one wants to take the lead to explain what the ramifications are to ordinary people. But could we spin this into something that will easily inflame Americans by adding a little paranoia to it? For example:
The White House has a secret plan to permanently ban entire households from the Internet if anyone in a household criticizes the government. The copyright infringement reason given is in reality just a ruse to allow the necessary infrastructure to be put into place for complete and total censorship of the American people. Cite the ACTA document. Identify especially notorious participants in the agreement. Then explain that government seeks to take away ownership of music and movies and instead impose a leasing system in which consumers merely license a temporary right to play the albums and movies they buy in stores.
The downside is, you will attract a lot of the fanatic tin-foil hat extremists, and their personal agendas will color real debate. But, as we see with the healthcare debate, fear of violent reactionary crowds with pitchforks can be an effective deterrent against change.
The stats show that Obama has kept more promises than he has broken, compromised, or otherwise stalled on; however, he is only ahead by a nominal amount. The "in the works" promises can still become "broken" promises as can the "not yet rated". Of course, they just as easily can become "kept" promises in time.
Looking at the details though, Obama's record on promises looks more discomforting. He's broken or stalled on several major promises: 1) Tougher rules against revolving door for lobbyists and former officials, 2) Recognize the Armenian genocide, 3) Allow five days of public comment before signing bills, 4) Develop an alternative to President Bush's Military Commissions Act on handling detainees, 5) Restore habeas corpus rights for "enemy combatants", 6) Call for repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, 7) Give the White House's Privacy and Civil Liberties Board subpoena power, etc.
Some of his promises kept seem a little silly or just premature. For example "Direct military leaders to end war in Iraq". Technically, yes, the President did tell military leaders to end the war in Iraq. That doesn't exactly mean anything as a practical matter. The "Release presidential records" promise probably shouldn't be a "kept" promise. The Obama administration has resisted attempts to get certain presidential records released, namely White House visitors. At the very least, this is one we really can't judge for a while until there are more attempts to get records released without White House interference. I think this should be a "not yet rated".
The arabs loved Hitler, but that was only because Hitler hated the Jews. Hitler also hated the arabs. Yes, he made alliances with some Arab countries, but to Hitler, alliances and treaties were temporary.
That process is generally called "chemical castration" I suppose, the effect is the same as a physical castration.
I agree totally, but I have to nitpick, Turing was always a hero. He was awarded the OBE (Most Excellent Order of the British Empire). They persecuted a war hero. That maybe doesn't make it worse, After all, persecution is always wrong; but it just feels so much worse that the government recognized that without him, there would be British Empire.
The formal apology actually does extend to the many other homosexuals who suffered liked Turing. From the actual statement:
I am pleased to have the chance to say how deeply sorry I and we all are for what happened to him. Alan and the many thousands of other gay men who were convicted as he was convicted under homophobic laws were treated terribly. Over the years millions more lived in fear of conviction.
I am proud that those days are gone and that in the last 12 years this government has done so much to make life fairer and more equal for our LGBT community. This recognition of Alanâ(TM)s status as one of Britainâ(TM)s most famous victims of homophobia is another step towards equality and long overdue.,
But yes, we do tend to only apologize for the most famous examples of society's cruelty to its own members. I think we have a basic need as humans to create symbolic icons. In Britain, Turing was just that. It was in no way a suggestion that his suffering was worst, or that his story alone was regrettable. Oscar Wilde is another example, though I don't think he was castrated. In America, Americans use Rosa Parks as an icon of the civil rights struggle, though she obviously did not endure the worst simply for the fact that she survived.
Then you are a fool who doesn't understand Hitler. Hitler was not a case where the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
I'll venture to guess that the point is, Apple and Microsoft have their websites designed to meet specific goals and satisfy specific search patterns. Perhaps people who go to Microsoft's website for support, whether info or downloads, are generally of the sort who like to have a barrage of options placed before them at once -- a bit like the menu in a typical Windows program. I'm not sure how best to defined the search patterns of those going to the Apple site for support; they want information presented to them in a more streamlined way with fewer options?
Apple's site is superficially mostly a marketing site. Anyone study marketing or information technology in a business school environment??? If not, there are different types of websites. Some are purely marketing promotional sites, others seek to be more. I don't know anyone who would go to the Microsoft site to get info on a new product. Generally, people I've known have relied on third-party tech sites for Windows product info (CNET, etc.). Apple's site is a great way to get real information about products, such as product specs.
I used to have problems navigating MSDN. I sometimes have problems navigating ADC. Microsoft's site is fairly easy for me, but maybe only because I don't have trouble spotting the link I want from a choice of many different branching links. MY POINT is that Microsoft's way is appealing to a different group than Apple's way, and that UI is ultimately subjective based on a lot of things such as culture.
Page is horribly incompatible with couple of browsers, like Opera 10 too.
What's horribly incompatible about it? I use Safari 4 and Opera 9.64 on Mac OS X, and in both cases, things worked as expected. I immediately saw the "free download" button link. When I clicked on it, I was presented with that antiquated email prompt, but I clicked past that and began downloading in Opera. The webpage served its purpose. What's wrong with the podcast link? It lists to information on how to create podcasts using QuickTime Pro. That's fairly useful I would think. I suppose the RSS would be useful too if one were interested in following news on QuickTime development, new movie trailers available on Apple's movie trailer site, or maybe info on interesting podcasts.
Aside from the email prompt, which I agree is so 1990s, everything else seems fine. As for languages. I don't know how Apple does it. I can access the German version of the page here: http://www.apple.com/de/quicktime/download/ . I normally access Apple's pages through the main English language version.
I am using it for NetFlix streaming on Mac OS X Leopard. I think I might be using it for use with terrestrial viewing component of Bing, both being done using Safari 4.
I didn't say German or French don't have loan words. I speak both - German natively. France outlawed loan word because the French fear their culture is shrinking. They didn't want invasion from foreign culture, especially English.
I didn't say Romaji is Japanese. I said romaji is used in order to include western alphabet based words. You guys get really pedantic, but then you flame me for going into specific details.
The lack of gender and the simplified declension of nouns, and ability to use a limited character set to express foreign words easily are strengths the English language has. I never said exclusively. But it is an advantage all the same. My very first sentence was a statement acknowledging that there are multiple reasons why English is succeeding on the Internet.
Of course. After all, we're talking about specific lexicons that vary from group to group. It took me years before I learned that a "spider" is a frying pan.
Among my peers, my example would have been understood. I don't expect it to have been universally understood by all English speakers. My girlfriend is an Brit ex-pat Aussie. I understand what a "sheila" is, but I don't expect southern Californians to.
My example only points out that in English, I can easily take words and phrases from other languages and use them within the language structure of English. Whether or not the listener/reader can understand the sentence is another matter.
And to add to that, foreign concepts can be expressed using English characters without accent marks and without the necessarily inclusion of foreign characters. I said before, languages like Chinese and Japanese struggle with the reliance on multiple character sets.
English isn't without its problems however. The singular and plural "You" is less literal that French's "tu" and "vous". German is hard for a lot of people to learn because my language has multiple genders, multiple definite and indefinite article forms.
You're just ethnocentric about your language, and ignorant about other cultures since you don't know...
Actually, I am a native German speaker. English was my second language. I think you showed more ignorance there than I did. You can attack me for favoring English all you want, but you didn't actually counter anything I wrote did you? No, you didn't. The fact remains, English has a competitive advantage over other languages that will guarantee that English will continue to thrive on the Internet. If you want hedge your bet on the computing world adopting written Cantonese, go for it.
And no, that's not how all language works. If you studied language, you'd learn this. There are a number of languages that are fairly stagnant. I never said *exclusive*. I said it is a major feature. And I gave an example how said feature works well. Perhaps you required more comparative examples in the other languages I know? I'm sorry, I just didn't have time to meet your exacting demands.
Modded for informative? Hardly.
Much of that was said with a wink and a whisper. Don't steal from fellow believers. Don't kill fellow believers. Try to live the good life (within the societal norms as established in this religion). You could kill a non-believer. You could kill a thousand non-believers. I don't think it's unfair to say that religion was created primarily as a mechanism for social control. When you have ten thousand people, and you want them to do your bidding in that day and age, mysticism is pretty much the only instrument you have if you can't put together an army. Look at Europe when it was under heavy influence by the Pope? How does one man and a few thousand very rich nobles theologians get all the governments to do their bidding? Through religion of course. That's not to say that no one has ever benefitted in a truly non-selfish, non-harmful way from faith. But overall, religion is at its most powerful when it can be used to shepherd entire populations and enforce some type of group uniformity.
Yes, but then look at all those seafaring shellfish eating peoples who have survived for thousands of years. And then there's the central European and Nordic people who ate a lot of animals with cloven hooves without problem. If there was a sensible reason behind these dietary laws, that reason would have to have been based on a completely misunderstanding about properly handling and cooking food. It wasn't that the religion was correct in saying that these kinds of foods are bad; rather, the people of that period didn't know what they were doing.
Of course, that's not the only possibility. Maybe God hates shellfish. Or more realistic, people then were as stupid and reactionary as people now. Remember "freedom fries"? There's something to think about. Grown men and women whose reaction to political discourse is to boycott French wine and rename anything featuring the word, "French" in it. Perhaps long ago, shellfish was primarily the food or commercial product of the Jews' contemporary rivals. Eating shellfish was somehow a sanction of the community's enemies, and so religious leaders outlawed those types of foods in order to differentiate their believers or just commercially hurt their enemies.
Keep in mind that a cult need not be theological. You can have cults based on multi-level marketing strategies. Amway is the most popular example of one. The Amway organization is very cult-like, and the FBI has noted cult-like treatment of Amway's membership, including strongly encourage Amway members to not just only buy from, but only associate with other Amway members. Cults are about social control, as you point out, and religious faith is just an instrument of social control. Thus, a cult needn't use religion for social control if it can find some other instrument. It could be something as symbol as tradition.
Technically, the only difference between a religion and a cult is the legitimization of the cult by a majority of non-believers or recognition by government. All religions began as cults, Christianity especially. But the FBI defines a cult differently in terms of the groups activities, particularly the role of a cult leader. As you mentioned, cults tend to cut their members off from mainstream society. That is one of the litmus tests the FBI has for deciding whether a group is a cult. Also, not all cults are theological; they just need be ideological. For example, the FBI has in the past considered Amway a cult because of cult-like behavior despite the group being commercial rather than religious.
There were also the medieval sets which included swords among other things. But as with the pirate sets, the box art still looked like the Lego men were having fun. The Space Police sets today look more serious.