Right, because you contribute to Firefox, right? If you did, you'd of course have been able to spot this bug with your razor-sharp eyes, right? Oh wait... no, I just remembered you're fallible too, and quite possibly an idiot. Firefox is free. The dev team doesn't have to do shit, they choose to. Stop acting like an entitled 8-year-old at Christmas, and do something useful with your time.
I know it's difficult. I was speaking of possibilities, not practicalities. I probably should have clarified that. I was responding to a poster who seemed to think the method was electrolysis of plain water.
Christ almighty, is a simple check on wikipedia too much to ask? Heavy water boils at 101.4 degrees celcius. Anyone with a flame and a flask can get it in nearly unlimited quantities without the government ever knowing.
That's 3D data. As for the ACTUAL plausibility of the concept, I should hope the GP doesn't lose all depth perception when he closes one eye. Obviously it's possible to extrapolate 3D from 2D, just difficult.
How can you blame the electorate for rejecting the process if you acknowledge that the process itself is dissembling?
It's not the process they're apathetic about. It's the results. I myself am apathetic about the process, because the outcome doesn't much matter. But I do care about what goes on in Washington, because it affects me. A lot of people don't.
I won't accept the electorate is stupid or apathetic. They may be uninformed, beguiled, and leaderless, and born of the machinations of the current political systems geared to keep them this way. But how can you better a society without the will to engage the people? If you see them as stupid I think you should redouble your efforts in making them understand. If you see them as apathetic, try to understand why this would be so. It's too easy to dismiss them en masse.
I've tried to make people understand. Lord, how I've tried. But I can think of very few people who came to understand any of the problems with the current system after a rational discussion or explanation. It is insanely frustrating to explain that gay marriage is not a real issue when iraqbodycount.org reports 40,000 Iraqi civilians dead, and is accused of sugarcoating the numbers, and to hear "but I don't want those queers marrying... family values are important, if we let gay people screw up marriage it'll hurt America!" Or to explain to a militant Democrat that both parties are the same, and that Democrats won't fix anything, only to hear "yeah, I know John Kerry said he'll repeal Bush's tax cuts and give them to the middle class, but at least then the deficit helps the middle class. How bad can a large national debt be?" Or to explain exactly why the plurality voting system and Electoral College locks out third parties and leads to a lack of real issues in public discourse, only to hear a derisive "so what should we use, a WEIGHTED VOTING SYSTEM???" from someone who'd just spent a week learning about weighted voting systems in math class.
As for myself, I'm not apathetic, but I've given up hope of convincing most people. I am hoping beyond hope that the Democrats fuck things up beyond belief between now and 2012. I'm confident Hilary will be elected in 2008, and I think if she and Congress start implementing censorship, socialistic health care, fascist environmental laws, and strict gun control laws, they'll pss off a whole lot of people. With a hell of a lot of luck, enough people might realize neither party will represent them, and start listening. Then I will redouble my efforts to convince people. But until something happens, and possibly not until the oil crisis, people just won't listen.
If you arrived at your viewpoint from rational reasoning, why couldn't others?
Oh, they could. They most definitely could. Wouldn't it be nice if people put down their beer, turned off the TV, and thought rationally for a while? But it rarely happens.
If you don't engage them when the opportunity arises are you not apathetic yourself?
No, it means I don't believe engaging them will change anything - just anger them.
If you think you're more informed and intelligent do you not have a responsibility to educate?
Of course - if they want to be educated. Very few people do.
The most likely reason is the metabolic cost - most warm-blooded animals can't sit around in the sun for three months, using all their energy to regrow a limb.
Hell no, I don't want more bureaucracy. That's precisely the reason no government works well on a large scale - a hierarchy like the US government grows with the square of its governed population.
And I'm sorry you disagree, but most of the electorate _is_ stupid and/or apathetic. If they saw the problems and cared they'd do something about it, whether voting third-party, openly inciting revolution, or planting EMP bombs near the computers of the NYSE. But some of them don't see the problems, because like people throughout history, they're mostly incapable of seeing past the non-issues politicians throw at them as vital. The rest don't care, because it's been two generations since anyone openly tried to take away human rights on a large scale, and people who listen to what their grandparents have to say about politics are just lame. Lack of lameness is much more important than free speech to most people.
Isn't it obvious all this stuff's coming from win32? Trojan-Proxy.Win32, Trojan-Downloader.Win32 - why don't they just chuck all the Windows users out?
No, it's not. It's a sad day when we have to resort to wikipedia to get very common knowledge, such as Judas's fate. But there are plenty of biblical facts people don't know, and that's fine. It means little to a non-Christian that the Israelites worshipped a bronze snake in the Book of Numbers, or that Methuselah was the oldest human who ever lived.
Someone care to suggest an improvement on democracy?
Democracy's not the root problem. It's the scale. Nothing will work well on a scale this large. There are too many competing interests among a population of millions to satisfy anyone fully, much less everyone.
Of course, that's not even close the complete problem. No major wars for two generations, service economies, mass-media conglomeration, and plain stupidity and/or apathy by the public all contribute to the current problems. But democracy (indeed, most politcal systems) does work on a small scale. Decentralized government is the way to fix the world, and because of military needs, it'll never happen.
Oops... my bad, I didn't even stop to think. Perhaps I shouldn't have been so quick with the submit button.
It doesn't much matter, though, does it? The carbon dioxide content of the oceans is increasing too; you can't very well claim the current atmospheric CO2 increase is from the oceans, if that is indeed what you're claiming.
There's higher pressure in a warm beer because the product of pressure and volume increases with temperature. Carbon dioxide doesn't magically leak into the beer as it gets warmer. You're not an atmospheric scientist, don't try to act like one on slashdot.
Why do you think the debate is misaligned? Because the pro-choice crowd doesn't see it as being about human life? Or because the pro-life crowd doesn't see it as being about bodily choice?
Two sides arguing different debates isn't misaligned?
And it's not hopeless to discuss with religious people. Everyone's born with some reasoning ability. Sufficiently many reasoned statements can bring it to the front. I've seen hardcore Christians wake up and smell the coffee before, and I'll see it again. You, instead of giving in without a fight, should help banish this means of control from the world forever.
I've acknowledged that I understand where the pro-life crowd is coming from.
I can acknowledge that I understand how to travel through time, but it doesn't mean I do. Your comment about "nobody's forcing them to get abortions" back at the beginning of this thread doesn't sound like it came from someone who understood the pro-life mindset.
To our way of thinking the status of the fetus isn't relevant.
It's not relevant because you don't even consider it. Every time you say you're defending choice and a woman's right to control her own body, you're implicitly stating that the fetus is NOT a separate person, which is where you actually disagree with pro-abortionists. If you stopped implying it and started discussing it openly, then the debates might go somewhere. You might convince an anti-abortionist or two. If everyone convinced just two anti-abortionists, we'd never have to heard them screeching at us from the street corners again! Hooray!
You are the one who doesn't understand the debate and between that and your "pro-abortionist" comments I think that you are just a pro-life troll hoping to attract some sympathy.
Like I said: I am not discussing abortion. It's not the discussion I'm currently in. If it'll shut you up, I am pro-abortion (pro-choice if you insist on your loaded terms).
Are you trolling or what? I don't generally expect it from people with 4-digit UIDs, as I suspect most of them have grown out of it by now, but I'm starting to wonder.
I'll reiterate: I don't care what you think about abortion. This discussion is not about abortion. It is about the abortion debate. You're still apparently not even trying to understand the fundamental disagreement between pro-abortionists and anti-abortionists. Read my previous posts, I'm not typing it again in this one.
answer whether you think it would be fair to be forced to support me for nine months, even if I would die without your support. ...
If that's not okay with you, why are you okay with forcing others to support a third party?
I'm not, but it doesn't matter. I'm not trying to take part in the abortion argument, I'm trying to get people to understand that it's misaligned. You seem like you might understand it, with your talk of dependent people, but you're still avoiding it. You see the debate as being over personal choice, correct? You don't think that anyone should impose their opinions on you, and that they can't tell anyone what to do with their own bodies, correct? Well, the other side isn't trying to tell you what do do with your own body. They're trying to tell you not to kill other people. To them, abortion is indistinguishable from taking a sledgehammer to someone's skull. Your arguments of personal choice and autonomy are beyond meaningless to them. If you want to make any headway, you need to start arguing over the most basic disagreement: whether the fetus is part of the mother's body, or a separate person.
It wasn't a guess, it was simple logic. It's been around for millennia; you should try it. Like I said, point out what, if anything, doesn't follow directly from what you posted.
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Right, because you contribute to Firefox, right? If you did, you'd of course have been able to spot this bug with your razor-sharp eyes, right? Oh wait... no, I just remembered you're fallible too, and quite possibly an idiot. Firefox is free. The dev team doesn't have to do shit, they choose to. Stop acting like an entitled 8-year-old at Christmas, and do something useful with your time.
I know it's difficult. I was speaking of possibilities, not practicalities. I probably should have clarified that. I was responding to a poster who seemed to think the method was electrolysis of plain water.
Christ almighty, is a simple check on wikipedia too much to ask? Heavy water boils at 101.4 degrees celcius. Anyone with a flame and a flask can get it in nearly unlimited quantities without the government ever knowing.
That's 3D data. As for the ACTUAL plausibility of the concept, I should hope the GP doesn't lose all depth perception when he closes one eye. Obviously it's possible to extrapolate 3D from 2D, just difficult.
They were able to make fun of Florida in the 2000 election on Novermber 5, 2000.
I've tried to make people understand. Lord, how I've tried. But I can think of very few people who came to understand any of the problems with the current system after a rational discussion or explanation. It is insanely frustrating to explain that gay marriage is not a real issue when iraqbodycount.org reports 40,000 Iraqi civilians dead, and is accused of sugarcoating the numbers, and to hear "but I don't want those queers marrying... family values are important, if we let gay people screw up marriage it'll hurt America!" Or to explain to a militant Democrat that both parties are the same, and that Democrats won't fix anything, only to hear "yeah, I know John Kerry said he'll repeal Bush's tax cuts and give them to the middle class, but at least then the deficit helps the middle class. How bad can a large national debt be?" Or to explain exactly why the plurality voting system and Electoral College locks out third parties and leads to a lack of real issues in public discourse, only to hear a derisive "so what should we use, a WEIGHTED VOTING SYSTEM???" from someone who'd just spent a week learning about weighted voting systems in math class.
As for myself, I'm not apathetic, but I've given up hope of convincing most people. I am hoping beyond hope that the Democrats fuck things up beyond belief between now and 2012. I'm confident Hilary will be elected in 2008, and I think if she and Congress start implementing censorship, socialistic health care, fascist environmental laws, and strict gun control laws, they'll pss off a whole lot of people. With a hell of a lot of luck, enough people might realize neither party will represent them, and start listening. Then I will redouble my efforts to convince people. But until something happens, and possibly not until the oil crisis, people just won't listen.
Oh, they could. They most definitely could. Wouldn't it be nice if people put down their beer, turned off the TV, and thought rationally for a while? But it rarely happens.
No, it means I don't believe engaging them will change anything - just anger them.
Of course - if they want to be educated. Very few people do.
The most likely reason is the metabolic cost - most warm-blooded animals can't sit around in the sun for three months, using all their energy to regrow a limb.
Flamebait? When Lee Jordan said it he was greeted with nods and scattered applause...
Hell no, I don't want more bureaucracy. That's precisely the reason no government works well on a large scale - a hierarchy like the US government grows with the square of its governed population.
And I'm sorry you disagree, but most of the electorate _is_ stupid and/or apathetic. If they saw the problems and cared they'd do something about it, whether voting third-party, openly inciting revolution, or planting EMP bombs near the computers of the NYSE. But some of them don't see the problems, because like people throughout history, they're mostly incapable of seeing past the non-issues politicians throw at them as vital. The rest don't care, because it's been two generations since anyone openly tried to take away human rights on a large scale, and people who listen to what their grandparents have to say about politics are just lame. Lack of lameness is much more important than free speech to most people.
Isn't it obvious all this stuff's coming from win32? Trojan-Proxy.Win32, Trojan-Downloader.Win32 - why don't they just chuck all the Windows users out?
No, it's not. It's a sad day when we have to resort to wikipedia to get very common knowledge, such as Judas's fate. But there are plenty of biblical facts people don't know, and that's fine. It means little to a non-Christian that the Israelites worshipped a bronze snake in the Book of Numbers, or that Methuselah was the oldest human who ever lived.
Of course, that's not even close the complete problem. No major wars for two generations, service economies, mass-media conglomeration, and plain stupidity and/or apathy by the public all contribute to the current problems. But democracy (indeed, most politcal systems) does work on a small scale. Decentralized government is the way to fix the world, and because of military needs, it'll never happen.
Oops... my bad, I didn't even stop to think. Perhaps I shouldn't have been so quick with the submit button.
It doesn't much matter, though, does it? The carbon dioxide content of the oceans is increasing too; you can't very well claim the current atmospheric CO2 increase is from the oceans, if that is indeed what you're claiming.
There's higher pressure in a warm beer because the product of pressure and volume increases with temperature. Carbon dioxide doesn't magically leak into the beer as it gets warmer. You're not an atmospheric scientist, don't try to act like one on slashdot.
And it's not hopeless to discuss with religious people. Everyone's born with some reasoning ability. Sufficiently many reasoned statements can bring it to the front. I've seen hardcore Christians wake up and smell the coffee before, and I'll see it again. You, instead of giving in without a fight, should help banish this means of control from the world forever.
It's not relevant because you don't even consider it. Every time you say you're defending choice and a woman's right to control her own body, you're implicitly stating that the fetus is NOT a separate person, which is where you actually disagree with pro-abortionists. If you stopped implying it and started discussing it openly, then the debates might go somewhere. You might convince an anti-abortionist or two. If everyone convinced just two anti-abortionists, we'd never have to heard them screeching at us from the street corners again! Hooray!
Like I said: I am not discussing abortion. It's not the discussion I'm currently in. If it'll shut you up, I am pro-abortion (pro-choice if you insist on your loaded terms).
Yeah, I've gotten a few of those comments. About time I changed it. I'm thinking an unintentionally amusing Asimov quote.
Are you trolling or what? I don't generally expect it from people with 4-digit UIDs, as I suspect most of them have grown out of it by now, but I'm starting to wonder.
I'll reiterate: I don't care what you think about abortion. This discussion is not about abortion. It is about the abortion debate. You're still apparently not even trying to understand the fundamental disagreement between pro-abortionists and anti-abortionists. Read my previous posts, I'm not typing it again in this one.
You're still not trying to see the debate from outside. You're still seeing it from your perspective.
Radio astronomy discovered dark matter and the cosmic background radiation.
Correct procedure:
1. Learn about astronomy, history of science, physics, cosmology, what fiction is, etc.
2. Post about them on slashdot.
Can you spot which two steps you got reversed?
OK, I give up. You're either too stupid or unwilling to understand.
It wasn't a guess, it was simple logic. It's been around for millennia; you should try it. Like I said, point out what, if anything, doesn't follow directly from what you posted.