Yeah, there's no real libertarian party, though. I'd consider myself to be one, but I would've never voted for the idiots they put up in elections recently. I mean, I happen to agree with a lot of the religious conservative morality, but I also don't think its the role of government to force you to abide by those just as long as you're not harming anyone else in the process (aka, I'm still against people shooting other people and believe the law can stipulate this, but I also dont think we should teach abstinence-only in schools because its unrealistic, and the law shouldn't interfere with that based on a moral interpretation).
To be fair and disclose fully, I might be a Catholic, but I also like gun rights, contraception, and evolution.
At the same time I get my Republican Party back from the New Aged GOP that has started supporting Big Government, Business, and Big Spending.
I'm wondering the same thing. Where'd all the real republicans go? The ones who don't pay subsidies to big business (and would've let some of the major airlines fold, to be replaced by more competitive ones) and don't spend needlessly on programs that aren't working or entire departments (the IRS could be mostly cut out in favor of a VAT, for example). Oh well, on the other hand, at least we're not as bad as most of the european countries in terms of the tax rate, spending, or unemployment (this isn't a swipe at europeans, many of your nations DO tax and spend more and have higher rates of unemployment).
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p.p.p.p.s. you're insane
Haha, your post was one of the more entertaining that I've read on slashdot in a while.
The biggest problem GB-PVR has is poor API documentation and an underdeveloped common widgets library. The latter is open source, as are most of the plugins (I'm currently developing one). The former would benefit from open source, since others could then document the API, but the author put in a lot of work and is giving it away for free, so he's entitled to keep his source closed if he wants. Spend some time on their forums, though, if you haven't. The developer community is small, but very good.
Conning folks isn't luck. (I'm not saying its clean and something I agree with, but thats not the scope of this conversation) Conning folks is a skill in and of itself, a combination of being highly persuasive and seeing a situation for what it is and making the most of any advantages you see. If you can do it honestly it's called genius in business. If you do it dishonestly, its called cheating to get ahead. I wouldn't call it luck, though, because luck implies that there is no conscious effort to make such things happen.
Stay in context. My example was very obviously about illegal drugs, and that is made obvious by my sarcastic citation of the war on drugs (remember the 80's? or are you about 12 and don't know much about this? I can forgive the latter).
Seriously, taking a statement literally and calling someone out on it doesn't make you look any more intelligent. Either add a substantive response or dont respond at all. Inane responses like yours are what might make wading through a slashdot thread to find decent content unbearable.
You also don't get sarcasm. Please man, do you honestly think I believe its hard to get drugs in the US? I don't even touch that shit and I know its easy to get drugs. In fact, I said so sarcastically to build the whole next paragraph in my argument.
Well, here in the US, drugs are illegal. And because they're illegal, its REALLY HARD to get drugs.
Seriously, how many law-abiding citizens with legally purchased and registered firearms are out committing crimes? There's a reason why many police officers don't even bother to temporarily confiscate a concealed weapon if they pull someone over for a traffic stop and they come up as a permit carrier. Taking the guns away from these people doesn't take them away from those who obtained them illegally in the first place.
just like a lottery winner, whom people call smart because of picking the right numbers
success is not proof of cause
Is that what you tell yourself when you come across someone more successful than yourself? Some people might get lucky once (and even that's unlikely when it comes to money, because its a world of vultures anytime a single dollar is involved), but Mark Cuban's business accomplishments simply cannot be denied. It's petty of you to think that he did it without a lot of hard work and solid decisionmaking.
Look, I'm not trying to be an asshole, I'm simply suggesting that using others' success as a model for achieveing your own is probably a better idea than resenting it and saying "they got lucky." I'm fine with saying that about someone who inherits everything they have, but not so much about someone who's made something of himself. It's a reminder of the things that are possible in our economy and society.
He's got a tremendous ego, at least the match of Steve Jobs. He's a bit of a control freak. But he knows how to get things done, and despite his ego, he does have a more human and compassionate side.
In my opinion, that's not ego at all. What's wrong with a guy being aware and proud of his own abilities? It seems today everyone tries to go out of their way to make other people feel important even when they're not contributing shit, and anyone who decides they want to admit they've done well has an "ego". Well, it seems he's earned the right to do so.
Replaceable parts. It's a fairly standard laptop keyboard. If it breaks, you slap in a new one. Plus, a wooden keyboard is going to feel different. I really wouldn't want changes to the input devices.
I took an elective back in college on economic development, taught mostly in economic framework (read: no bias from the professor or readings like you'd be more likely to encounter in a sociology or some other course taught by a "know it all"). We did see some footage from a Chinese bureaucrat telling a story about how a woman wanted to have a second child, and decided to do so, despite the fact that she'd have to repay all the free care given to the first, etc. In her 9th month of pregnancy, the bureaucrat talked about how this lady ran away from home so the birth wouldn't be discovered, but was tracked down and "persuaded" to have an abortion a couple of weeks before her due date. Now, I'm not here to argue the abortion. I happen to believe aborting a child that late is pretty much an awful thing to do, but that's not the issue. The issue to me was the absolute matter-of-factness about the bureaucrat as she told this story. The persuasion, of course, turned out to be more than words. I never could quite get a grip on the seemingly high level of acceptance, as though these sort of events are considered normal.
Anyway, thats just a story, I'm not arguing any points here.
If they do it your way, how do they cover their fixed costs? Do you know what fixed costs are?
I'm almost positive the marginal cost in adding a new channel to your lineup is minimal; the majority of the subscription cost likely covers overhead. So they might be able to give you a la carte channel subscription, but there'll still need to be a heavy base service fee to do it. I might pay $65 a month for digital cable with the base channel package, and yeah they could probably charge me $40 for service plus a few dollars per channel. At that point, though, you might as well just pay the $65. The FCC might be able to help the consumer by opening up competition in various areas of the market as they're trying here, but they simply cannot alter your cable company's cost structure.
You might argue that a cable company is a monopoly, which it isn't, but it is a pretty small oligarchy when you include the satellite providers (who, in many cases, arent any cheaper than cable). What half of slashdot seems to forget is that even in a market with few players, there are costs involved. Those costs will prevent you from paying by the channel without some sort of heavy base fee.
That's to be expected. I believe the electric motor is used at low speed/high load, and then the gas engine takes over for low load situations (like highway driving). In that situation, its a 1.3L or so gas engine, nothing special, just really small. At that point, the diesel car will probably fare at least as good. But for a true commuter car in a metro area, you'd expect a lot of stop and go traffic, which is exactly where the hybrid is great. Or you can do what I do after I move to DC, and that's use public transportation and avoid driving all together.
a P2-400 might *work* as long as you're using the 350's TV-out (so that you're using its hardware decoding as well). I've read that Myth has early support for this, but it's not fully functional just yet. The 350 uses its own frame buffer from what I understand, so anything wanting to support it has to write its OSD and other visuals directly to this.
If you want to go the Windows route, get a Hauppauge PVR-150 and a copy of GB-PVR. GB-PVR is not open source, but it is free, and even supports the Hauppauge remote right out of the box (the PVR-150 comes with a remote, the PVR-150-MCE does not, so stay away from that unless you're running Windows MCE and therefore have a remote already). I installed this, a 300 gig HD, and the GB-PVR software on Tuesday. I was going in 15 mins tops.
I have no problem with casting a skeptical eye towards research. Methodology, statistics, assumptions, etc. should all be carefully scrutinized in *any* scientific study.
However, there seems to be a large (or maybe just vocal) contingent in the population that abuses this valid doubt by saying, "those scientists are full of crap, therefore we should do absolutely nothing to limit our impact on the environment." This strikees me as an incredibly dangerous attitude.
I agree with you. It's an issue of scope, and I don't think that calling this an invalid model can call into question the validity of human impact on climate change. This model just happens to be poor evidence. There's plenty of good evidence out there, though, and I want to make it clear that I'm not disputing that. I just happen to dislike this particular piece, and with good reason, because the statistical methods can be called into question when the proper data does not exist.
I want to have kids. I want those kids to have a habitable earth to thrive on. Therefore, I am willing to make some compromises in terms of convenience, comfort and cash to assure they do have a suitable environment to live in. Those who are completely unwilling to make *any* compromises in these areas and making a dangerous gamble, IMO, and I don't my kids to pay for that gamble.
Agreed.
So I'll make you a deal: as soon as pundits and business leaders stop using these "global warming may not be caused by humans" reports for their own agendas, I'll start defneding them. Deal?
The thing about statistics, specifically, is that they'll always fit someone's agenda. Ethics play very big in the field, because those in the know happen to know that it's very easy to make the statistics support your conclusion. I'm not arguing for or against the issue, I'm simply arguing that it's a bad model and that it's not good evidence. There's better evidence out there.
...in order to cast unsubstatiated doubt on the science behind the model. Stop playing semantic games and deal with the fact that you are losing the debate. If you have a background in climate science then write your own paper, create your own model, do your own science and use it to confirm or disprove what these scientists have done.
If you don't have a background in climate science then kindly STFU.
First, I'm not a part of the debate you're speaking of. I'm not arguing for or against the human causes of global warming. If you'd really like to know, I do believe we have impact on the climate, and I'm not about to stand up and pretend like we don't. I know enough about CO2 and its geologic "sinks" to understand that we have a problem developing.
However, I argue that a model such as this does very little to substantiate that position because the necessary data does not exist. If you're going to develop and rely on a model to prove a point, be ready to defend the statistics and methods which underly it. That's just as much a part of the science as is the climatology at this point. If you disagree, don't use a statistical model.
I don't see people disputing global warming here, they're disputing the validity of the model. That's a completely different thing. Maybe you'd like to tell me (or google) how one goes about detecting seasonal effects, correcting for them, and the final effects on statistical significance? That's the real argument here, not whether or not global warming is happening and who's causing it. I might very well believe humans are the direct cause, and I'm not saying I do or dont because its irrelevant here. What I and others are suggesting is that the model falls into a statistical "grey area" as far as methods go, mostly due to lack of proper data.
I'm with you on what you're saying, but ranting just bends down to the level of the uninformed person you're trying to dispute. It's frustrating, I know, and I'm 100% with you on that. Someone ought to mod your post up.
Care to through some analysis or evidence around your assertion of irrelevance, or does evidence not factor into your "logic"?
Do you have any knowledge of statistical models? (I'm not asking to be a jerk, I'm just wondering). Basically if you have data subject to seasonal variation, you'll need multiple periods' worth of data to correct for this. As far as climate goes, its period is similar to geologic timescales, or in other words, thousands and thousands of years. We don't have thousands and thousands of years of climate data, let alone multiple periods' worth. That makes modeling changes fairly difficult, because you don't know if what you're seeing is just part of the seasonal effects or not. Please note that I'm not using the word "Seasonal" to mean spring, summer, fall and winter here. Seasonal refers to the natural periodic varation that occurs in the data. That's why the person who made this comment says the model may not be accurate.
No, just because he's brainlessly reciting US-fascist government propaganda. There's no opinion present in that post with which to disagree -- just evidence of successful zombiefication. I'm sure he'll make ideal cannon fodder, just like the Muslim suicide terrorists he might end up fighting. The sad thing is, he has a lot in common with them.
The opinion stated is that he's been brainwashed. Believe me, you're not speaking in fact when you say that. I could say that you sound exactly like every other extreme left wing nut running around the US, because they all like to use the words "brainwashed", compare the US government to fascism (which you obviously have NO clue what fascism is, if you believe the US is behaving in that way), and questioning the moral convictions of someone who genuinely wants to see a better world. You should be ashamed of yourself to even question whether or not he genuinely believes in making the world a better place, regardless of his method, because at least that attitude is the right way to start. "Wait and see" is not an appropriate way of making change.
Your way would work, too. I guarantee that. The problem is, the UN is a useless body that generally speaks but can't act. In order for a mass embargo to be successful, you have to get the biggest consumers in on it and make sure they don't cheat. Given the past behavior of some G8's, like france, germany, and russia, I don't think their word is good for it. We sure didn't find any WMD's in iraq, but we sure did find a lot of those countries' weapons.
This situation will work itself out in about 50 years, though, when oil is in short supply and the price is through the roof. Markets dictate change, and once oil becomes more expensive than alternatives, we wont be buying any. Then what are they going to do over there?
Wow. Making fun of the President's intelligence. That's really original. Did you just think of that? Seriously, because its hilarious. I've never heard anyone make those sorts of jokes before.
You ought to go over and live in the middle east for a few months, pick a dictatorship or a monarchy. Come back and tell us if their strict totalitarianism is something that the rest of the world should ignore, from a humanistic standpoint.
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Yeah, there's no real libertarian party, though. I'd consider myself to be one, but I would've never voted for the idiots they put up in elections recently. I mean, I happen to agree with a lot of the religious conservative morality, but I also don't think its the role of government to force you to abide by those just as long as you're not harming anyone else in the process (aka, I'm still against people shooting other people and believe the law can stipulate this, but I also dont think we should teach abstinence-only in schools because its unrealistic, and the law shouldn't interfere with that based on a moral interpretation).
To be fair and disclose fully, I might be a Catholic, but I also like gun rights, contraception, and evolution.
At the same time I get my Republican Party back from the New Aged GOP that has started supporting Big Government, Business, and Big Spending.
I'm wondering the same thing. Where'd all the real republicans go? The ones who don't pay subsidies to big business (and would've let some of the major airlines fold, to be replaced by more competitive ones) and don't spend needlessly on programs that aren't working or entire departments (the IRS could be mostly cut out in favor of a VAT, for example). Oh well, on the other hand, at least we're not as bad as most of the european countries in terms of the tax rate, spending, or unemployment (this isn't a swipe at europeans, many of your nations DO tax and spend more and have higher rates of unemployment).
p.p.p.p.s. you're insane
Haha, your post was one of the more entertaining that I've read on slashdot in a while.
The biggest problem GB-PVR has is poor API documentation and an underdeveloped common widgets library. The latter is open source, as are most of the plugins (I'm currently developing one). The former would benefit from open source, since others could then document the API, but the author put in a lot of work and is giving it away for free, so he's entitled to keep his source closed if he wants. Spend some time on their forums, though, if you haven't. The developer community is small, but very good.
Conning folks isn't luck. (I'm not saying its clean and something I agree with, but thats not the scope of this conversation) Conning folks is a skill in and of itself, a combination of being highly persuasive and seeing a situation for what it is and making the most of any advantages you see. If you can do it honestly it's called genius in business. If you do it dishonestly, its called cheating to get ahead. I wouldn't call it luck, though, because luck implies that there is no conscious effort to make such things happen.
Stay in context. My example was very obviously about illegal drugs, and that is made obvious by my sarcastic citation of the war on drugs (remember the 80's? or are you about 12 and don't know much about this? I can forgive the latter).
Seriously, taking a statement literally and calling someone out on it doesn't make you look any more intelligent. Either add a substantive response or dont respond at all. Inane responses like yours are what might make wading through a slashdot thread to find decent content unbearable.
You also don't get sarcasm. Please man, do you honestly think I believe its hard to get drugs in the US? I don't even touch that shit and I know its easy to get drugs. In fact, I said so sarcastically to build the whole next paragraph in my argument.
Please, reread for my sarcasm. And if you cant, I ripped off the line from an internet comic strip.
Well, here in the US, drugs are illegal. And because they're illegal, its REALLY HARD to get drugs.
Seriously, how many law-abiding citizens with legally purchased and registered firearms are out committing crimes? There's a reason why many police officers don't even bother to temporarily confiscate a concealed weapon if they pull someone over for a traffic stop and they come up as a permit carrier. Taking the guns away from these people doesn't take them away from those who obtained them illegally in the first place.
just like a lottery winner, whom people call smart because of picking the right numbers success is not proof of cause
Is that what you tell yourself when you come across someone more successful than yourself? Some people might get lucky once (and even that's unlikely when it comes to money, because its a world of vultures anytime a single dollar is involved), but Mark Cuban's business accomplishments simply cannot be denied. It's petty of you to think that he did it without a lot of hard work and solid decisionmaking.
Look, I'm not trying to be an asshole, I'm simply suggesting that using others' success as a model for achieveing your own is probably a better idea than resenting it and saying "they got lucky." I'm fine with saying that about someone who inherits everything they have, but not so much about someone who's made something of himself. It's a reminder of the things that are possible in our economy and society.
He's got a tremendous ego, at least the match of Steve Jobs. He's a bit of a control freak. But he knows how to get things done, and despite his ego, he does have a more human and compassionate side.
In my opinion, that's not ego at all. What's wrong with a guy being aware and proud of his own abilities? It seems today everyone tries to go out of their way to make other people feel important even when they're not contributing shit, and anyone who decides they want to admit they've done well has an "ego". Well, it seems he's earned the right to do so.
Replaceable parts. It's a fairly standard laptop keyboard. If it breaks, you slap in a new one. Plus, a wooden keyboard is going to feel different. I really wouldn't want changes to the input devices.
I took an elective back in college on economic development, taught mostly in economic framework (read: no bias from the professor or readings like you'd be more likely to encounter in a sociology or some other course taught by a "know it all"). We did see some footage from a Chinese bureaucrat telling a story about how a woman wanted to have a second child, and decided to do so, despite the fact that she'd have to repay all the free care given to the first, etc. In her 9th month of pregnancy, the bureaucrat talked about how this lady ran away from home so the birth wouldn't be discovered, but was tracked down and "persuaded" to have an abortion a couple of weeks before her due date. Now, I'm not here to argue the abortion. I happen to believe aborting a child that late is pretty much an awful thing to do, but that's not the issue. The issue to me was the absolute matter-of-factness about the bureaucrat as she told this story. The persuasion, of course, turned out to be more than words. I never could quite get a grip on the seemingly high level of acceptance, as though these sort of events are considered normal.
Anyway, thats just a story, I'm not arguing any points here.
If they do it your way, how do they cover their fixed costs? Do you know what fixed costs are?
I'm almost positive the marginal cost in adding a new channel to your lineup is minimal; the majority of the subscription cost likely covers overhead. So they might be able to give you a la carte channel subscription, but there'll still need to be a heavy base service fee to do it. I might pay $65 a month for digital cable with the base channel package, and yeah they could probably charge me $40 for service plus a few dollars per channel. At that point, though, you might as well just pay the $65. The FCC might be able to help the consumer by opening up competition in various areas of the market as they're trying here, but they simply cannot alter your cable company's cost structure.
You might argue that a cable company is a monopoly, which it isn't, but it is a pretty small oligarchy when you include the satellite providers (who, in many cases, arent any cheaper than cable). What half of slashdot seems to forget is that even in a market with few players, there are costs involved. Those costs will prevent you from paying by the channel without some sort of heavy base fee.
That's to be expected. I believe the electric motor is used at low speed/high load, and then the gas engine takes over for low load situations (like highway driving). In that situation, its a 1.3L or so gas engine, nothing special, just really small. At that point, the diesel car will probably fare at least as good. But for a true commuter car in a metro area, you'd expect a lot of stop and go traffic, which is exactly where the hybrid is great. Or you can do what I do after I move to DC, and that's use public transportation and avoid driving all together.
a P2-400 might *work* as long as you're using the 350's TV-out (so that you're using its hardware decoding as well). I've read that Myth has early support for this, but it's not fully functional just yet. The 350 uses its own frame buffer from what I understand, so anything wanting to support it has to write its OSD and other visuals directly to this.
If you want to go the Windows route, get a Hauppauge PVR-150 and a copy of GB-PVR. GB-PVR is not open source, but it is free, and even supports the Hauppauge remote right out of the box (the PVR-150 comes with a remote, the PVR-150-MCE does not, so stay away from that unless you're running Windows MCE and therefore have a remote already). I installed this, a 300 gig HD, and the GB-PVR software on Tuesday. I was going in 15 mins tops.
I have no problem with casting a skeptical eye towards research. Methodology, statistics, assumptions, etc. should all be carefully scrutinized in *any* scientific study.
However, there seems to be a large (or maybe just vocal) contingent in the population that abuses this valid doubt by saying, "those scientists are full of crap, therefore we should do absolutely nothing to limit our impact on the environment." This strikees me as an incredibly dangerous attitude.
I agree with you. It's an issue of scope, and I don't think that calling this an invalid model can call into question the validity of human impact on climate change. This model just happens to be poor evidence. There's plenty of good evidence out there, though, and I want to make it clear that I'm not disputing that. I just happen to dislike this particular piece, and with good reason, because the statistical methods can be called into question when the proper data does not exist.
I want to have kids. I want those kids to have a habitable earth to thrive on. Therefore, I am willing to make some compromises in terms of convenience, comfort and cash to assure they do have a suitable environment to live in. Those who are completely unwilling to make *any* compromises in these areas and making a dangerous gamble, IMO, and I don't my kids to pay for that gamble.
Agreed. So I'll make you a deal: as soon as pundits and business leaders stop using these "global warming may not be caused by humans" reports for their own agendas, I'll start defneding them. Deal?
The thing about statistics, specifically, is that they'll always fit someone's agenda. Ethics play very big in the field, because those in the know happen to know that it's very easy to make the statistics support your conclusion. I'm not arguing for or against the issue, I'm simply arguing that it's a bad model and that it's not good evidence. There's better evidence out there.
...in order to cast unsubstatiated doubt on the science behind the model. Stop playing semantic games and deal with the fact that you are losing the debate. If you have a background in climate science then write your own paper, create your own model, do your own science and use it to confirm or disprove what these scientists have done. If you don't have a background in climate science then kindly STFU.
First, I'm not a part of the debate you're speaking of. I'm not arguing for or against the human causes of global warming. If you'd really like to know, I do believe we have impact on the climate, and I'm not about to stand up and pretend like we don't. I know enough about CO2 and its geologic "sinks" to understand that we have a problem developing.
However, I argue that a model such as this does very little to substantiate that position because the necessary data does not exist. If you're going to develop and rely on a model to prove a point, be ready to defend the statistics and methods which underly it. That's just as much a part of the science as is the climatology at this point. If you disagree, don't use a statistical model.
I don't see people disputing global warming here, they're disputing the validity of the model. That's a completely different thing. Maybe you'd like to tell me (or google) how one goes about detecting seasonal effects, correcting for them, and the final effects on statistical significance? That's the real argument here, not whether or not global warming is happening and who's causing it. I might very well believe humans are the direct cause, and I'm not saying I do or dont because its irrelevant here. What I and others are suggesting is that the model falls into a statistical "grey area" as far as methods go, mostly due to lack of proper data.
I'm with you on what you're saying, but ranting just bends down to the level of the uninformed person you're trying to dispute. It's frustrating, I know, and I'm 100% with you on that. Someone ought to mod your post up.
Care to through some analysis or evidence around your assertion of irrelevance, or does evidence not factor into your "logic"?
Do you have any knowledge of statistical models? (I'm not asking to be a jerk, I'm just wondering). Basically if you have data subject to seasonal variation, you'll need multiple periods' worth of data to correct for this. As far as climate goes, its period is similar to geologic timescales, or in other words, thousands and thousands of years. We don't have thousands and thousands of years of climate data, let alone multiple periods' worth. That makes modeling changes fairly difficult, because you don't know if what you're seeing is just part of the seasonal effects or not. Please note that I'm not using the word "Seasonal" to mean spring, summer, fall and winter here. Seasonal refers to the natural periodic varation that occurs in the data. That's why the person who made this comment says the model may not be accurate.
No, just because he's brainlessly reciting US-fascist government propaganda. There's no opinion present in that post with which to disagree -- just evidence of successful zombiefication. I'm sure he'll make ideal cannon fodder, just like the Muslim suicide terrorists he might end up fighting. The sad thing is, he has a lot in common with them.
The opinion stated is that he's been brainwashed. Believe me, you're not speaking in fact when you say that. I could say that you sound exactly like every other extreme left wing nut running around the US, because they all like to use the words "brainwashed", compare the US government to fascism (which you obviously have NO clue what fascism is, if you believe the US is behaving in that way), and questioning the moral convictions of someone who genuinely wants to see a better world. You should be ashamed of yourself to even question whether or not he genuinely believes in making the world a better place, regardless of his method, because at least that attitude is the right way to start. "Wait and see" is not an appropriate way of making change.
Your way would work, too. I guarantee that. The problem is, the UN is a useless body that generally speaks but can't act. In order for a mass embargo to be successful, you have to get the biggest consumers in on it and make sure they don't cheat. Given the past behavior of some G8's, like france, germany, and russia, I don't think their word is good for it. We sure didn't find any WMD's in iraq, but we sure did find a lot of those countries' weapons.
This situation will work itself out in about 50 years, though, when oil is in short supply and the price is through the roof. Markets dictate change, and once oil becomes more expensive than alternatives, we wont be buying any. Then what are they going to do over there?
Wow. Making fun of the President's intelligence. That's really original. Did you just think of that? Seriously, because its hilarious. I've never heard anyone make those sorts of jokes before.
You ought to go over and live in the middle east for a few months, pick a dictatorship or a monarchy. Come back and tell us if their strict totalitarianism is something that the rest of the world should ignore, from a humanistic standpoint.