I'm too late for anyone to ever read this, but I can't help chiming in...
One of the major problems with getting an accurate impression of how many times crimes are prevented with guns is that a lack of crime is typically not very newsworthy. People are interested in hearing that some crazy shot up a shopping mall, but they would be less captivated by reports from several individuals that they were approached and threatened by someone who high-tailed it when they pulled out a firearm (or possibly even shot him). Especially if no shots are fired, then it's hard to even know what and if to report.
I believe that the number of reports of self-injuries also tends to be inflated, for the following reason: if you're involved in something shady (such as trying to rob/attack someone), and get shot, when you go to the hospital, what are you going to claim happened? That you tried to commit a crime and were emphatically dissuaded, or that you were cleaning your gun and accidentally shot yourself? Sure, there are other alternative stories you might use, too, but the important point is that they all involve the perpetrator claiming either an accident or that a crime was perpetrated on him with a gun.
There have been studies done by people from both sides of the camp on accidental deaths of children and so forth, and they naturally get widely different results. However, make sure, as always, you check the methodology before subscribing to any published statistics (For instance, make sure that when a study refers to "children", it's not defining them as "under 24-year-olds"). If you look at the number of children under 10 who accidentally shoot themselves according to the data we have, the yearly number in the US would appear to normally be under 10.
Sure, you say, that's 10 more than is acceptable. I agree that it would be good to avoid, but have a little perspective here - Many more kids that age die in bicycle accidents, drowning in bathtubs, drowning in swimming pools... even drowning in 5 gallon buckets is about on part with that, as is getting struck by lightening.
There's interesting research out there, and as always both sides try to skew things in there favor, but my opinion is that there does appear to be at least an implicit, and possibly an explicit, bias against gun ownership in what the media portrays. I'm not claiming it's belligerent, but it does seem to be there. And I don't even own any guns. I don't care much about them, except that I'm in favor of being able to get one if I wanted to. I'm in favor of would-be criminals thinking that I or my neighbor or someone else just might have a gun. This comment has gone on longer than I intended.
If the only thing that makes gas prices go up is corporate "greed", then does that mean when they go down it's due to corporate benevolence?
Clearly there are other forces at work, here. If there is indeed an illegal cartel, I agree that it should be dealt with. But the cartel with the greatest effect on our gas prices is probably OPEC, not domestic producers.
You're right that technology has been consistently introduced over decades to increase fuel efficiency, but said technology has also been implemented for the most part. Trouble is, in the meantime we've also gained all sorts of safety and environmentally-friendly changes to our cars that have tended to cancel out many of the improvements in efficiency. I don't know why you think the industry would avoid doing anything to increase the mpg of their vehicles, when they know it would give them a competitive advantage. I'm sure if you spent orders of magnitude more money, you could increase the fuel efficiency some more, but that's not a reasonable suggestion. Like anything else, as our technology and manufacturing capabilities progress, the same features that start out astronomically-priced eventually become affordable additions.
Having the government decree that vehicles must have a certain efficiency won't make it so. I am greatly disturbed by your notion that the government should or can "make auto makers make better fuel efficient cars". Again, that's already something they really want and are trying to do.
I agree 100% that it is important to get away from our oil dependency. Nuclear power and some sort of portable energy storage (Hydrogen fuel cells? Better batteries? Crazy flywheels?) seem like a good route to take.
Yes, in America our cities tend to be less dense. This translates into more distance traveled to get to work, but it also translates into what we (and probably most people) consider better living conditions. You can argue that it's not worth the extra fuel burned to live in greater luxury, but clearly there are plenty who don't agree.
Driving a car instead of using mass transport results in greater fuel consumption per capita, but you get to travel according to your schedule, in a self-contained environment entirely controlled by you, with the company you select, and you can actually transport items when you want to, including a week's worth of groceries or more so you don't have to go to the store every time you want to make a meal (which, incidentally, cuts down on transportation for car users).
Driving a larger vehicle instead of a tiny car means more fuel burned per mile traveled the vehicle, but it buys you carrying capacity. I don't think it was unreasonable for my parents to have a Minivan to take the seven members of our family around in. Even if it had been the most gas-guzzling SUV ever invented, the mileage per person riding would on average have been way better than one person riding the 30 mpg Saturns people are bragging about in this discussion. Heck, if you're going to be short-sighted about it, a bus gets terrible mpg. Sure, there are people that are driving SUVs mostly by themselves, and that's kind of dumb, but...
...that leads me to my next point: SUVs and trucks may be handy scapegoats, but they don't really make that big of a difference, at least as far as "when the oil will run out" is concerned. Even if solo drivers choose to go with a 20 mpg SUV instead of a 30 mpg Saturn, that just means the fossil fuels are exhausted in 60 years instead of 90. As far as dumping fumes into the environment, there's some argument there, but 20% of Americans driving a bigger or more powerful car than "necessary" is/will be swallowed in the rapid adoption of any car (or even more prevalent mass transportation) by the rest of the world's masses, as they grow more affluent. The only long-term solution is to draw our power from other sources. Nuclear power seems like the clearest practical direction to go, with whatever method is preferred/proves to be best for storing the energy for use in vehicles.
I lived in Europe for two years without a car, and did the whole mass transportation thing. It sucked. I'm willing to pay quite a bit for the enormous convenience and luxury of having my own vehicle to transport items, to take friends out to places where it wouldn't make sense to have regular trains or buses but that are accessible via some sort of road, to shave significant time off my daily commute, to be able to live in a house instead of a tiny apartment crunched together with everyone else because it's impossible for us to travel very far for work... The list goes on. I also like having a slightly more powerful car than is "absolutely necessary". Like anything, it can be taken to one extreme or the other, but forcing everyone to crunch together and/or drive fewer, smaller, wimpier cars isn't a silver bullet that will fix everything like people seem to think, so why torture ourselves needlessly? There are plenty of other luxuries (air conditioning?) that currently require the consumption of fossil fuels in order for us to enjoy them, but they're not under the gun as much as the belaguered vehicle owners of America.
Each individual's lifestyle has its price. For some reason people talk as if nothing is gained as a result of certain less "environmentally-friendly" practices, but that's not true. It may not be something you care about, but that's not necessarily an excuse to limit everyone else's choices. I hear that argument all the time here about other things. If you decide a certain lifestyle's not worth it, don't live it. If enough people decide that allowing other people certain lifestyl
which would be... what?
...
what's the point of existance?
To keep progressing, to keep increasing and moving forward in every meaningful way, and help other people do the same, which leads to maximum satisfaction and happiness. I realize that that's a very general answer, but that's because most of the details of its present implementation tend to be rather familiar -- the usual religious/philosophical ideals of caring about other people, seeking wisdom and knowledge, and taking advantage of the sacrifice Christ made to move past the natural consequences of our weaknesses and mistakes. We need our current mortal lives as an integral step of this eternal progression, because it entails certain crucial experiences that we couldn't otherwise encounter.
I'm not saying I don't want to exist, I like existing, it's fun...
But I don't need some other being for me to justify living, or keep from diving off a cliff...
Yeah, that's sort of the point -- existing is great, and you want it to be as great as possible. We have a paternal God who has a perfect understanding of what it takes for us to develop in the best direction, and takes a very personal role in helping us move that way. My religious knowledge isn't something I use to 'justify living' or prevent suicide. It simply gives me perspective that there's a lot more to life than the small segment we're currently experiencing. We don't cease to exist when we die, any more than we came into being when we were born. The point of it all is to continue to enjoy existing through the eternity that we're going to do it in, one way or another, as immortal children of God.
Ever seen stargate? They're all just false gods anyway...:)
Yeah, that was a pretty good movie. And there certainly are a lot of false gods kicking around. Doesn't mean there isn't a real one (or that there isn't -- but presupposing his lack of existence is no more natural than the other way around). If you're serious about it, you can find out that he exists, and a lot more. He hasn't left us in the dark, but he doesn't make it entirely trivial either, because much of the point of our earthly existence is to experience various trials including some level of doubt, and to force us to make a real decision about what's important in the absence of glaring certainty from the get-go (like we had prior to coming here).
Your musical group, by the way, looks interesting, and I am of course impressed by your relatively low user id and the fact that you secured the no-doubt-highly-coveted nickname 'HelloKitty', without any numbers or obfuscations. (:
In some ways, I respect atheists who have questioned the status quo and researched what they are presented as the foundation of religion more than "Believers" of various sorts that have an unquestioned and hollow basis for their faith.
While there are far too many Christians who are completely unaware of many things found in their own canonized scripture, and also too many who seize on sections and apply them out of context to justify wicked behavior, the existence of revelations that were targetted at a specific people at a specific time, that don't presently apply to us, doesn't mean that all scripture/revelations are bogus.
And even though it's hard to understand why it would ever be acceptable to forcibly wipe out a group of people, Christianity in general presupposes that God is omniscient, and that he knows what he's up and what is, in general, good for us, more than we can fully comprehend. It's hardly a secret that the God of the Old AND New Testaments finds it expedient to end the mortal lives of some of his children sometimes, for various reasons. Using people to kill other people is really not much different than sending pestilences, a giant flood, or an angel of death to do the same.
You're free to act as condescending towards me as it pleases you, but as an educated, relatively thoughtful person, I maintain that I have reason to believe that we have a Heavenly Father who loves us and knows perfectly what we need to get the most out of life, and to ultimately be the happiest we can. There is purpose in our existence.
Anytime you need to get info off a messed-up pc that can't transmit to a useful network location, and doesn't have USB-ms drivers on it, but that has a cd-rw, this sucker would be a godsend. I've booted up on a knoppix cd more than once with the idea of writing files to a cd using knoppix. Though I suppose it would work just as well to boot into something that can load itself completely into memory, and free up the drive.
Anyhow, even if some of that is available, it might just plain be convenient. I like the idea, anyway
Artfully executed, perhaps, but way more unpleasant than a really badly done movie, because those can be funny. It's about a woman who is disowned by wealthy parents for marrying her uncle, but then when her husband dies she gets an offer of reinstatement in the family if she gets rid of the kids (tainted offspring, testament to the corrupt union) and so the movie is about how they lock the children in the attic and then begin to kill them. Horribly unpleasant.
The recent movie "The Hours," while doubtless very artful, was also pretty darn unpleasant.
A movie that is incredibly hilarious because of its badness is Lou Ferrigno in "Sinbad of the Seven Seas."
I don't argue that almost anything could be done with less pollution, including things in your daily life, but the question is, what is the opportunity cost? What exactly are we giving up by legislatively forcing all companies to comply to an arbitrarily chosen cleanliness standard?
I agree with what you said about cost incentive. If enough people will actively seek to buy more expensive products from companies that follow more environmentally-friendly practices, then that will become the cost-effective thing to do and will be the new practice.
We just have to find out clearly what we would be giving up, and if we, as a nation (not just a few concerned individuals), are willing to do so. I am very hesitant to rush headlong into forcing things out of their "natural" order by legislating willy-nilly. Don't get me wrong -- I believe there is definite need of legal control over some things, but I have seen too many examples, at my father's chemical engineering firm, for example, where the legislation has run rampant, far exceeding its usefulness in order to continue to pay for a bloated governmental institution and sound good to the uninformed.
I keep seeing these arguments saying that it will be a good thing anyway, so why not just use legislation to have the companies do the right thing and curb their wanton pollution.
We all know that corporations only pollute out of sheer evillness. That's why we need to act in the role of Captain Planet(tm) and force them to behave themselves.
It seems to me that an all-too-common left wing trait is to believe that we can fix everything by legislation. We can pass a law saying that factories will no longer pollute, and that will solve the problem. Why not pass a law saying that people will no longer be hungry anywhere, while we're at it, or that gasoline will henceforth be cheaper to produce?
A solution has to be implemented for any problem, not just a complaint or a statement that it must be fixed. Often the "fixing" needs to take place on an individual level. If someone doesn't want the rain or other forests cut down, they should stop using wooden products and/or contribute to groups that buy up the rainforests in order to preserve them. If someone really feels that C02 production is detrimental, they should not drive a car or use their air conditioner. Anyone who really cares, prove it in your own life rather than trying to use the law to force other people to make the sacrifices for causes you care about.
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One of the major problems with getting an accurate impression of how many times crimes are prevented with guns is that a lack of crime is typically not very newsworthy. People are interested in hearing that some crazy shot up a shopping mall, but they would be less captivated by reports from several individuals that they were approached and threatened by someone who high-tailed it when they pulled out a firearm (or possibly even shot him). Especially if no shots are fired, then it's hard to even know what and if to report.
I believe that the number of reports of self-injuries also tends to be inflated, for the following reason: if you're involved in something shady (such as trying to rob/attack someone), and get shot, when you go to the hospital, what are you going to claim happened? That you tried to commit a crime and were emphatically dissuaded, or that you were cleaning your gun and accidentally shot yourself? Sure, there are other alternative stories you might use, too, but the important point is that they all involve the perpetrator claiming either an accident or that a crime was perpetrated on him with a gun.
There have been studies done by people from both sides of the camp on accidental deaths of children and so forth, and they naturally get widely different results. However, make sure, as always, you check the methodology before subscribing to any published statistics (For instance, make sure that when a study refers to "children", it's not defining them as "under 24-year-olds"). If you look at the number of children under 10 who accidentally shoot themselves according to the data we have, the yearly number in the US would appear to normally be under 10.
Sure, you say, that's 10 more than is acceptable. I agree that it would be good to avoid, but have a little perspective here - Many more kids that age die in bicycle accidents, drowning in bathtubs, drowning in swimming pools... even drowning in 5 gallon buckets is about on part with that, as is getting struck by lightening.
There's interesting research out there, and as always both sides try to skew things in there favor, but my opinion is that there does appear to be at least an implicit, and possibly an explicit, bias against gun ownership in what the media portrays. I'm not claiming it's belligerent, but it does seem to be there. And I don't even own any guns. I don't care much about them, except that I'm in favor of being able to get one if I wanted to. I'm in favor of would-be criminals thinking that I or my neighbor or someone else just might have a gun. This comment has gone on longer than I intended.
If the only thing that makes gas prices go up is corporate "greed", then does that mean when they go down it's due to corporate benevolence?
Clearly there are other forces at work, here. If there is indeed an illegal cartel, I agree that it should be dealt with. But the cartel with the greatest effect on our gas prices is probably OPEC, not domestic producers.
You're right that technology has been consistently introduced over decades to increase fuel efficiency, but said technology has also been implemented for the most part. Trouble is, in the meantime we've also gained all sorts of safety and environmentally-friendly changes to our cars that have tended to cancel out many of the improvements in efficiency. I don't know why you think the industry would avoid doing anything to increase the mpg of their vehicles, when they know it would give them a competitive advantage. I'm sure if you spent orders of magnitude more money, you could increase the fuel efficiency some more, but that's not a reasonable suggestion. Like anything else, as our technology and manufacturing capabilities progress, the same features that start out astronomically-priced eventually become affordable additions.
Having the government decree that vehicles must have a certain efficiency won't make it so. I am greatly disturbed by your notion that the government should or can "make auto makers make better fuel efficient cars". Again, that's already something they really want and are trying to do.
I agree 100% that it is important to get away from our oil dependency. Nuclear power and some sort of portable energy storage (Hydrogen fuel cells? Better batteries? Crazy flywheels?) seem like a good route to take.
Yes, in America our cities tend to be less dense. This translates into more distance traveled to get to work, but it also translates into what we (and probably most people) consider better living conditions. You can argue that it's not worth the extra fuel burned to live in greater luxury, but clearly there are plenty who don't agree.
...that leads me to my next point: SUVs and trucks may be handy scapegoats, but they don't really make that big of a difference, at least as far as "when the oil will run out" is concerned. Even if solo drivers choose to go with a 20 mpg SUV instead of a 30 mpg Saturn, that just means the fossil fuels are exhausted in 60 years instead of 90. As far as dumping fumes into the environment, there's some argument there, but 20% of Americans driving a bigger or more powerful car than "necessary" is/will be swallowed in the rapid adoption of any car (or even more prevalent mass transportation) by the rest of the world's masses, as they grow more affluent. The only long-term solution is to draw our power from other sources. Nuclear power seems like the clearest practical direction to go, with whatever method is preferred/proves to be best for storing the energy for use in vehicles.
Driving a car instead of using mass transport results in greater fuel consumption per capita, but you get to travel according to your schedule, in a self-contained environment entirely controlled by you, with the company you select, and you can actually transport items when you want to, including a week's worth of groceries or more so you don't have to go to the store every time you want to make a meal (which, incidentally, cuts down on transportation for car users).
Driving a larger vehicle instead of a tiny car means more fuel burned per mile traveled the vehicle, but it buys you carrying capacity. I don't think it was unreasonable for my parents to have a Minivan to take the seven members of our family around in. Even if it had been the most gas-guzzling SUV ever invented, the mileage per person riding would on average have been way better than one person riding the 30 mpg Saturns people are bragging about in this discussion. Heck, if you're going to be short-sighted about it, a bus gets terrible mpg. Sure, there are people that are driving SUVs mostly by themselves, and that's kind of dumb, but...
I lived in Europe for two years without a car, and did the whole mass transportation thing. It sucked. I'm willing to pay quite a bit for the enormous convenience and luxury of having my own vehicle to transport items, to take friends out to places where it wouldn't make sense to have regular trains or buses but that are accessible via some sort of road, to shave significant time off my daily commute, to be able to live in a house instead of a tiny apartment crunched together with everyone else because it's impossible for us to travel very far for work... The list goes on. I also like having a slightly more powerful car than is "absolutely necessary". Like anything, it can be taken to one extreme or the other, but forcing everyone to crunch together and/or drive fewer, smaller, wimpier cars isn't a silver bullet that will fix everything like people seem to think, so why torture ourselves needlessly? There are plenty of other luxuries (air conditioning?) that currently require the consumption of fossil fuels in order for us to enjoy them, but they're not under the gun as much as the belaguered vehicle owners of America.
Each individual's lifestyle has its price. For some reason people talk as if nothing is gained as a result of certain less "environmentally-friendly" practices, but that's not true. It may not be something you care about, but that's not necessarily an excuse to limit everyone else's choices. I hear that argument all the time here about other things. If you decide a certain lifestyle's not worth it, don't live it. If enough people decide that allowing other people certain lifestyl
>> There is purpose in our existence.
:)
which would be... what?
...
what's the point of existance?
To keep progressing, to keep increasing and moving forward in every meaningful way, and help other people do the same, which leads to maximum satisfaction and happiness. I realize that that's a very general answer, but that's because most of the details of its present implementation tend to be rather familiar -- the usual religious/philosophical ideals of caring about other people, seeking wisdom and knowledge, and taking advantage of the sacrifice Christ made to move past the natural consequences of our weaknesses and mistakes. We need our current mortal lives as an integral step of this eternal progression, because it entails certain crucial experiences that we couldn't otherwise encounter.
I'm not saying I don't want to exist, I like existing, it's fun... But I don't need some other being for me to justify living, or keep from diving off a cliff...
Yeah, that's sort of the point -- existing is great, and you want it to be as great as possible. We have a paternal God who has a perfect understanding of what it takes for us to develop in the best direction, and takes a very personal role in helping us move that way. My religious knowledge isn't something I use to 'justify living' or prevent suicide. It simply gives me perspective that there's a lot more to life than the small segment we're currently experiencing. We don't cease to exist when we die, any more than we came into being when we were born. The point of it all is to continue to enjoy existing through the eternity that we're going to do it in, one way or another, as immortal children of God.
Ever seen stargate? They're all just false gods anyway...
Yeah, that was a pretty good movie. And there certainly are a lot of false gods kicking around. Doesn't mean there isn't a real one (or that there isn't -- but presupposing his lack of existence is no more natural than the other way around). If you're serious about it, you can find out that he exists, and a lot more. He hasn't left us in the dark, but he doesn't make it entirely trivial either, because much of the point of our earthly existence is to experience various trials including some level of doubt, and to force us to make a real decision about what's important in the absence of glaring certainty from the get-go (like we had prior to coming here).
Your musical group, by the way, looks interesting, and I am of course impressed by your relatively low user id and the fact that you secured the no-doubt-highly-coveted nickname 'HelloKitty', without any numbers or obfuscations. (:
In some ways, I respect atheists who have questioned the status quo and researched what they are presented as the foundation of religion more than "Believers" of various sorts that have an unquestioned and hollow basis for their faith.
While there are far too many Christians who are completely unaware of many things found in their own canonized scripture, and also too many who seize on sections and apply them out of context to justify wicked behavior, the existence of revelations that were targetted at a specific people at a specific time, that don't presently apply to us, doesn't mean that all scripture/revelations are bogus.
And even though it's hard to understand why it would ever be acceptable to forcibly wipe out a group of people, Christianity in general presupposes that God is omniscient, and that he knows what he's up and what is, in general, good for us, more than we can fully comprehend. It's hardly a secret that the God of the Old AND New Testaments finds it expedient to end the mortal lives of some of his children sometimes, for various reasons. Using people to kill other people is really not much different than sending pestilences, a giant flood, or an angel of death to do the same.
You're free to act as condescending towards me as it pleases you, but as an educated, relatively thoughtful person, I maintain that I have reason to believe that we have a Heavenly Father who loves us and knows perfectly what we need to get the most out of life, and to ultimately be the happiest we can. There is purpose in our existence.
Anyhow, even if some of that is available, it might just plain be convenient. I like the idea, anyway
Artfully executed, perhaps, but way more unpleasant than a really badly done movie, because those can be funny. It's about a woman who is disowned by wealthy parents for marrying her uncle, but then when her husband dies she gets an offer of reinstatement in the family if she gets rid of the kids (tainted offspring, testament to the corrupt union) and so the movie is about how they lock the children in the attic and then begin to kill them. Horribly unpleasant.
The recent movie "The Hours," while doubtless very artful, was also pretty darn unpleasant.
A movie that is incredibly hilarious because of its badness is Lou Ferrigno in "Sinbad of the Seven Seas."
I don't argue that almost anything could be done with less pollution, including things in your daily life, but the question is, what is the opportunity cost? What exactly are we giving up by legislatively forcing all companies to comply to an arbitrarily chosen cleanliness standard?
I agree with what you said about cost incentive. If enough people will actively seek to buy more expensive products from companies that follow more environmentally-friendly practices, then that will become the cost-effective thing to do and will be the new practice.
We just have to find out clearly what we would be giving up, and if we, as a nation (not just a few concerned individuals), are willing to do so. I am very hesitant to rush headlong into forcing things out of their "natural" order by legislating willy-nilly. Don't get me wrong -- I believe there is definite need of legal control over some things, but I have seen too many examples, at my father's chemical engineering firm, for example, where the legislation has run rampant, far exceeding its usefulness in order to continue to pay for a bloated governmental institution and sound good to the uninformed.
I keep seeing these arguments saying that it will be a good thing anyway, so why not just use legislation to have the companies do the right thing and curb their wanton pollution. We all know that corporations only pollute out of sheer evillness. That's why we need to act in the role of Captain Planet(tm) and force them to behave themselves. It seems to me that an all-too-common left wing trait is to believe that we can fix everything by legislation. We can pass a law saying that factories will no longer pollute, and that will solve the problem. Why not pass a law saying that people will no longer be hungry anywhere, while we're at it, or that gasoline will henceforth be cheaper to produce? A solution has to be implemented for any problem, not just a complaint or a statement that it must be fixed. Often the "fixing" needs to take place on an individual level. If someone doesn't want the rain or other forests cut down, they should stop using wooden products and/or contribute to groups that buy up the rainforests in order to preserve them. If someone really feels that C02 production is detrimental, they should not drive a car or use their air conditioner. Anyone who really cares, prove it in your own life rather than trying to use the law to force other people to make the sacrifices for causes you care about.