"Right now you have thousands of climatologists all trying to say that their model for the formula is right; several of them negating the impact of the other variables and focusing on just one, carbon dioxide."
No. That is not what is happening. You are spreading FUD. Climatologists are publishing the results of their models, and also publishing caveats about what their model includes or excludes or assumes.
All things being equal, each model has the same statistical likelyhood of representing reality (that is to say.. a very small likelyhood). The problem is that no model actually captures all the possible variables in the real world. So assumptions are made. However for scientific validity all plausible ranges of values for those assumptions must also be simulated and tested and the results averaged together.
There is a huge consensus amongst models that global warming is in progress and will continue and get worse as more greenhouse gases are released. Very few models suggest otherwise. THE MODELS DO NOT NEGATE EACH OTHER. They are AVERAGED together.
Individually none of the models are perfect, and no serious climatologist would make such a falacious claim about their model.
It would be like claiming to have a flight simulator which PERFECTLY modeled actual airplane dynamics. It would be a bullshit claim.
Did you pay attention to the huricane coverage this summer when meteorologists tried to forecast the path of the huricane? They did not indicate an absolute path, they indicated an AVERAGED statistical likelyhood of a path.
This was based on the AVERAGE results of many different computer simulations.
Scientists DO NOT DISREGARD contradictory evidence. It is included in their analysis. It MUST be included for scientific validity. You have no clue how scientific analysis or simulation works.
Science is not the technique of FEELING good about your results. The results are the results. Most climatologists probably wish that global warming would go away. It must be very frustrating trying to explain how scientific simulations work to dipshits who don't want to understand, lest they become morally culpable for the harm they cause.
I'm not scheduled to retire for 30 years. I am part of this generation. And *I* am calling us a bunch of crybabies for not wanting to support our seniors.
They toiled and sacrificed for us. They built the country. And when they are no longer able to support themselves we bicker about not wanting to pay taxes to support them.
It just goes to show you how pointless everything is.
That could be if the laws of physics and chemistry were random accross time and space. However there is a vast amount of evidence which suggests that they haven't changed significantly for billions of years (if ever).
Atmospheric Scientists are not merely odds makers. They are applying the laws of physics to deduce plausible explanations for atmospheric observations.
One of the amazing things about science, which neoconservatives love to ignore, is that scientific theories and laws must make testable predictions about phenomena without making an observation of it in advance. Using the Law of Gravitation, I can predict that if you drop an object it will fall to the earth. If I had a theory that objects fall away from the earth, I would predict the object would fall upwards. That theory would be proven inadequate, and it would either need to be thrown out completely or modified to account for the fact that objects fall towards the earth and not away from it. Afterwords the theory must be able to make new predictions which can be tested. Going to more effort I can predict exactly what the velocity of the object will be when it hits the earth. That is without ever having observed the object fall before.
Atmospheric scientists are applying science to the problem of predicting climate change and running complex computer simulations. They are not simply extrapolating future temperature change from the small dataset available the way pollsters try to predict who is going to win an election by asking 500 people.
I responded to your expansion, which if written out in full is:
Neither a lack of belief that God exists nor a positive belief that God does NOT exist are religious.
If the contradiction in that is not self-evident, then we're going to have to argue about something else while the bystanders laugh themselves hoarse.
Fools and drunkards both laugh a lot. It doesn't make them right.
PS: That was not my statement.
I said: Atheism is not a RELIGION
There is a difference between a RELIGION and a "belief (or lack thereof) concerning religion".
You exploit and abuse the multiple meanings of the word "religious", which according to the Random House Dictionary means:
1) of, pertaining to, or concerned with religion. 2) imbued with or exhibiting religion.
When I say "atheism is not a religion" you reply "ahhh but obviously atheism is a belief which pertains to or is concerned with religion and therefore atheist belief is a "religious belief" and "religious" means "imbued with or exhibiting religion" therefore atheism is imbued with or exhibits religion." and you then laugh at how clever you are.
But you aren't clever. You are wrong.
Atheism makes the positive claim that the universe arose and continues without any form of God.
Atheism does not even claim that the universe ever arose at all.
Science doesn't have to prove everything. Science only has to show us a universe consistent with God and inconsistent with Atheism to settle the argument.
That would only settle the argument for people who accept the validity of the scientific method.
You're railing against government sponsorship of "corporations" via the Bayh-Dole Act, and now you're including hospitals and universities in your definition of "corporations."
My position is that the government should stop granting monopolies to private entities where it was the government which paid for the original research.
It was my position that the primary benefactors of Bayh-Dole Act are NOT people, but are corporations (and shareholders) And moreover that this is not accidental, but intentional.
I did NOT claim governments should never subsidize corporations under any circumstance (so I wont debate that here).
You have misunderstood the breadth of my claim.
I doubt many would agree that the government should stop funding academic research (solely on the basis that universities are "corporations," and therefore somehow evil.)
I doubt that many people would consider funding public academic research and giving money to corporate shareholders to conduct private research to be exactly the same thing but there you have it.
nonprofits cannot use their funds to benefit any private individual (including - no, especially - shareholders.)
They can experience capital gains, they can generate income. They generate so called "political capital" for private parties. They can pay fat salaries to corporate executives. call me naive. but those sound like benefits.
The alternative is to write personal checks (of large value!) to specific individuals to carry out research. That has a hideous taint to it, and the potentials for corruption are tremendous.
The potentials for corruption have less to do with *who gets the money*. And more to do with who is *choosing* who gets the money.
There is no reason to believe that grants to parties to do research with all inventions returning to the public is any more prone to corruption than a system which returns nothing back to the public.
Those parties need not be motivated by altruism. They can pay themselves salaries for the work they do.
Moreover, no one in their right mind would take on such personal liability.
What liabiity? Academics *want* to do research. They aren't academics because they want to be businesspeople. To be paid to do research and publish the results for the whole world to appreciate how smart they are. That is what makes them happy.
All they are responsible to do is show scientific research. They aren't responsible to sell a product.
This is probably less liability than a researcher would have working for a private firm which is always looking to cut programs that can't turn in a profit next quarter.
Look: { 1 4 12 13 19 26 32 } - I can prove that this set does not contain the number 16.
Not analagous to the operation of private entities.
Given the Set Y. The members of Y are not disclosed. Can you prove that the number 16 is not in the Set Y?
You can't. You don't have enough information to prove such a proposition.
The only way to demonstrate patent abuse, is to have access to information which private entities are, in general, under no obligation to disclose.
Seriously, it doesn't get much easier than this. There are plenty of fish in the sea of commerce - why waste time pursuing one that another fisherman has also hooked? They would have to pull against each other as much as against their prey, and if they're lucky, each of them gets half of a torn-apart fish.
That is what some people call free market capitalism working PROPERLY. It was something I learned about when I was a young lad being indoctinated into capitalist way of thinking. The teacher called it COMPETITION, and it was alleged that competition builds character and work ethic.
You seem to be advocating a theory of economics that would suggest that it is good for consumers if their is no competition and the entire market consisted of monopolies and o
It is an absolute certainty that we don't have enough data to prove anything definitively in the climate arena.
Depends on what you mean by "prove". If you are looking at the threshold required for criminal trials, i.e. beyond a reasonable doubt, then you are right.
If you are looking for proof on the balance of probabilities, then your contention is questionable.
If you are looking to prove reasonable plausibility then global warming is almost not in dispute.
Does anyone claim that it is scientifically implausible that human CO2 production is increasing the average temperature of the earth?
"proof" means different things to different people.
Most environmentalists take the position that it is not necessary to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that CO2 causes global warming in order to justify decreasing CO2 production.
Interestingly, going to war required a lot less evidence than the amount which is already available to justify the belief in the corelationship between global warming and CO2.
>"The government doesn't really encourage "people" to do this. It encourages corporations to do this."
Incorrect. The Bayh-Dole Act is aimed at nonprofit institutions - mostly universities, but also nonprofit hospitals. Corporations are only incidental beneficiaries - a means to an end.
Hospitals, universities and so called 'non profit' institutions are all still corporations. (and most of them are not factually non-profit (regardless of their legal status)) A corporation need not be "for profit" to actually serve the private interests of its shareholders.
There are other ways to exploit a monopoly without making profit. for example : exlusive license to another corporation for "commercialization".
And with that aside. Non profit doesn't really mean non-profit.
Not withstanding whatever the text of the bill says: it encourages corporations.
As for encouraging "people," the government has many programs to help "people" to create companies around new technologies. Read up on the Small Business Innovation Research program, where states sponsor technology initiatives for small businesses (and only small businesses can apply for them.
If you are taking the position that handing over patents on government funded research is not intended to actually be a form of wellfare subsidies for large corporations (rather than "people"), then why do you rationalize that subsidy by showing that the government also subsidizes small businesses?
Patentees have an obligation to use the technology they patent; if they don't, they can be forced into a compulsory licensing scheme.
thats great. And I'm sure that forcing someone into a compulsory licensing scheme is not only cost effective but it is trivial to do. How can you prove someone is not "USING" a patent?
There is no obligation to demonstrate to anyone how a technology is being used. Proving non-use would require someone to be able to prove a negative. Exceedingly difficult to do.
Of course it doesn't change the fact that what I said is true. I will repeat it for you:
"Private entities also retain ownership of vast and sundry technologies - which, as it happens, sit on shelves completely unused."
How do pharmaceutical companies choose candidates for further development? Think about it: the company must push the drug through several years of research, and then FDA approval. That costs a ton of money. Why would Merck take that chance if the moment its drug is FDA-approved, Pfizer, Eli Lilly, and Millennium can start selling the same drug?
I have no complaint about businesses owning patents to inventions for which they financed the entire cost of research.
However, the government ought not help to cover the cost of research and then give the private partnet a 100% ownership stake in the fruits of that labour.
For this reason, pharmaceutical companies solely focus on drugs that can be patented. This is an undeniable business reality.
Contrasted with mundain commercial enterprises, your example of pharmaceutical companies is a special case of a product which costs a fortune to test, is very dangerous, and is relatively inexpensive to produce. It is not the general case of commercialization of inventions or business in general. What holds true for "pharmaceutical companies" does not hold for business in general. Your argument is a straw man attack.
Moreover, your definition of "pharmaceutical company" only seems includes companies which research drugs and excludes companies that manufacture and sell drugs without research. Such as generic drug companies.
However... if a non-patentable drug existed and it was already tested/researched/proven safe and cleared by the FDA. Drug companies DO commercialize them. Examples: ASA, acetomenaphine, penicillin, morphine, codeine and any generic drug on the market today.
Yes. And "access to the invention" is exactly what patents are desig
The first page of the source you cite:http://www.evolutionfairytale.com/articles_debate s/evolutiondefinition.htm
Is very interesting. it states:
""Evolution is a generation-to-generation change in a population's frequencies of alleles or genotypes. Because such a change in a gene pool is evolution on the smallest scale, it is referred to more specifically as microevolution"1 [emphasis in original]. This type of "evolution" is widely accepted by evolutionists and creationists alike and is not in dispute."
considering my usage and my statement:
"evolution works. That is almost indesputible.[sic] The fact that creationists think that evolution is a theory of creation however suggests that they don't know what evolution even is. the theory of evolution does not attempt to explain the origins of life or the universe."
Looking at the entire paragraph it is clear I was not referring evolution as a theory which attempts to explains the origin of life. That theory is referred to as "molecules-to-man evolution" in that source. (and beyond the scope of Charles Darwin's original theory of evolution)
In any event. there you have it. As I said before.. I was debating atheism, not evolution.
I said:
Atheism is not a religion. It is a either a lack of belief that God exists or a positive belief that God does NOT exist.
Both of the statements in that latter sentence are religious statements, whether you want them to be or not. Since you yourself have just defined Atheism using two religious propositions, we can only conclude that Atheism - and in particular your Atheism - is a religion.
slow down: My position is that those propositions are NOT religious propositions and that therefore atheism is not a religious proposition.
therefore, WE can not concude anything. Because all you have done is basically respond to my claim:
Atheism is not a religion. with: "Yes it is."
I said:"This is just as much a religion as beliefing that I don't have 3 arms is a religion. I dont seem to have 3 arms, so I believe I dont have 3 arms. "
you said: Not at all. You can show me your two arms, I or a medic I trust can examine you and verify the presence or absence of a third.
I didn't say I dont have 3 arms. I said I dont seem to have 3 arms. I can't show you the third arm and you can't show me God.
Atheists don't believe in God. And just like your disbelief in the 3rd arm. I claim that neither instance of disbelieve constitutes a religion.
You cannot show me a singularity exploding to form a universe, nor hydrogen condensing from that explosion, nor abiogenesis proceeding unaided or nor proto-monkeys turning into men. Or indeed anything of the sort.
I don't have to show you a singularity exploding. I don't have to prove anything. Not believing in an unproven claim is not, in and of itself, a religion. I do not claim that accepting or rejecting scientific theory = religion.
Atheism does not claim any explanation for the universe.
As for science. Sciences inability to explain all the mysteries of the universe does not prove that God exists. It merely proves that science is not complete.
The only claim I made is that atheism is not a religion. To which you replied, if I may paraphrase:
"yes it is"
I will weaken my statement about "evolution" to only include "natural selection". I never met anyone who accepts 1 and rejects the other so I took these as interchangable. It was not my desire to debate evolution. Only atheism.
You seem to have not defined religion and are also building a straw man argument (that any belief, supported or not, constitutes a religion).
No. My position was the opposite of that. My position is that mere belief does NOT itself CONSTITUTE RELIGION.
You are the one who, as you say, is full of shit. I am not commiting a straw man argument, you are generalizing the scope of my CLAIM way beyond the scope of the actual language (in fact to include its own opposite), and then accusing me of commiting a straw man argument because my claim doesn't encompass the scope that YOU have extended it to.
I didn't claim that a belief is a religion. I said Atheism is NOT a religion.
I also didn't try to ARGUE that atheism is not a religion I simply CLAIMED it was not a religion, and put forward a claim that believing or not believing that one has 3 arms is as much a religion as atheism.
Since you seem to be taking the position that atheism is in fact a mere belief. Then I take it that you agree that atheism is NOT a religion.
Religion is basically a bunch of beliefs relating to stuff like god(s), the afterlife, and where we came from. Please note that some religions don't believe in any gods (I think Hinduism or Buddism was one, they believe in reincarnation but not a god).
Thanks for the background. At least we can both agree that atheism is not a religion.
So be careful not to define religion as belief in a god(s), if you ever do define it.
First you complain that I didn't define religion. And then you accuse me of defining religion as a belief in god. I said.
"Atheism is not a religion. It is a either a lack of belief that God exists or a positive belief that God does NOT exist."
I did NOT say "Atheism is not a religion because religions all include the belief of God and atheists don't."
You've never heard of natural selection, have you? Few and stupid are those that dispute natural selection.
I have heard of natural selection. It is the Creationists who dispute natural selection. And if it is your position that Creationists are all stupid, I would not dispute that. Natural Selection forms a fundamental basis of the theory of evolution which creationists dispute.
Since you are relying on natural selection to support your position, I take it that you concede that the theory of natural selection is in fact correct?
Less obviously, mutations can cause inability to breed with one's former species, but I have yet to see anything useful evolve.
Man.
(although I concede that man's usefulness is debateable.)
I don't believe that something the government encourages people do with government property can be construed as "theft."
The government doesn't really encourage "people" to do this. It encourages corporations to do this.
How about construing it as a reverse kickback or fraud against the taxpayer?
It looks like you're relying on the general concept of patenting government-funded inventions. You must be unaware that the government has a hideous track record of commercializing its own technologies. Before the Bayh-Dole Act, the government retained ownership of vast and sundry technologies - which, as it happened, sat on a shelf completely unused. They had no commercial proponent, and so they were never used.
Your principle ignores the realities of business. Software is primarily a business - even the open-source kind. This is understandable; most Slashdotters know computers much better than business. Just be aware that virtually all of the software on your computer was written in a business context, and that the realities of commerce might play an important role.
Private entities also retain ownership of vast and sundry technologies - which, as it happens, sit on shelves completely unused. They have no commercial proponent, and so they are never used. that is until someone else uses them and then out come the lame patent infringement lawsuits.
Your principle ignores the realities of business. It is not essential to have a monopoly on an invention in order to commercialize it.
Your principle also ignores the realities of democracy. The important factor is that the people have access to the invention which the people funded. It is not a matter of public interest that it should try to insure that some private entity is exploiting a monopoly position to overcharge for that invention.
Commercialization is not the purpose of government research.
Atheism is not a religion. It is a either a lack of belief that God exists or a positive belief that God does NOT exist. This is just as much a religion as beliefing that I don't have 3 arms is a religion. I dont seem to have 3 arms, so I believe I dont have 3 arms.
Your claims that any evidence to the contrary is discarded or reinterpretted is simply not true. In fact if evolution didn't work, we would not be able to breed specific breeds of dogs, cats, flowers, etc etc.
Do creationists believe that the Dodo bird is still alive in the wild? Either God never created a Dodo bird, or perhaps the Dodo bird was unfit.
evolution works. That is almost indesputible. The fact that creationists think that evolution is a theory of creation however suggests that they don't know what evolution even is. the theory of evolution does not attempt to explain the origins of life or the universe.
One could extrapolate backwards and attempt to use evolution to explain the origins of life, however even if God created life in some predetermined form. The evidence is overwelming that evolution has been working since then.
Evolution does not rule out the possibility of a Creator.
the wealth of more affluent people generally is inheritable. Thus, inheritance becomes a "disequalizing" force, leading to greater inequality of wealth in America.
This is absolutely correct, and moreover since vast majority of the value of estates over 1 million dollars is in the form of capital gains for which no taxes were ever paid, estate taxes go a long way to leveling the playing field.
The answer is not to penalize the wealthy through inheritance taxes and such,
damn I thought you were on to something. Why would you think that?
but to allow poor workers to accumulate inheritable wealth the same way their wealthier counterparts can. Allowing them to invest their Social Security taxes would go a long way toward accomplishing that goal.
1) only if they die at age 65 before they SPEND their meagre savings.
2) only if they stop being poor before they die so that by the time they retire they aren't so overwhelmed with DEBT that they have any money left over from their pathetic savings to leave money in their estate.
3) only if the stock market doesn't crash between now and the time these poor people retire and cause them to lose all of their vast savings. (people constantly on the verge of bankruptcy panic under market downturns and dump their stock at a loss)
Since none of those options is likely to happen, perhaps people should just stop the whining and agree to help pay for the maintenance of senior citizens who built the damn country instead of acting like a bunch of spoiled cry babies.
Unless the asians and europeans start treating their elderly as shitty as North American's do, I don't think problems here are going to be WORSE than anywhere else.
Or you could start your own business. Of course, you'd go out of business rather quickly, since your competitors would have an extra day up on you every week.
You mean you aren't working a 7 day work week yet?
Even if you had an employment contract, you could still leave at any time -- you are right, the employer cannot force you to work, that would be slavery -- but you WILL have consequences for the breach of contract.
To the extent that any employment contract agrees than an employee surrenders any inalienable right (such as his right to walk off the job), the contract is illegal and can not be enforced.
If the state interprets the law correctly (I don't presume that the state always interprets the law correctly) the state will not intervene to enforce such a breech of contract. The employer could rely on certain contract law rights and stop paying the employee and is probably able to terminate the contract by resorting to those laws. But no punitive damages could ever be rewarded.
On the other hand, as a property owner you are at liberty to agree to pay money to other parties. And such a contract for services rendered *is* completely binding. You are not free to unilaterally discontinue such a contract without compensating the other party for damages. And if you breech the contract without cause, you *are* subject to punitive damages.
And the state SHOULD hold you to it.
Thus, unless the employees conduct is such that the employee is himself in breech of an implied or explicit term of his employment agreement, or you agreed in advance that you may terminate the contract at any time without warning, then you don't have any escape clause from your contract.
So, when you don't have a contract, you are free to leave, the employer is free to fire you, without legal consequences.
I've never heard of people working without a contract. That is more like panhandling or busking. Doing work spontaneously in the hope that someone will feel grateful and make a donation. Try simply showing up someplace and starting work. You are likely to be escorted off the premises by security.
every normal employment relationship has an "Agreement". An agreement may be merely verbal, but the agreement exists.
The question I have. In the 49 or so "fire-at-will" states. Is there a law on the books which actually grants employers the right to "fire-at-will" or is this simply something that employers CLAIM to have, and no one has fought?
FYI: I live in Canada and "fire-at-will" is not available here.
Of course, you can quit whenever you want to -- that's the flip side of at-will -- they can't make you keep working if you don't want to.
That is NOT really the flip side. It is a ramification of "they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" In so far as this is a right you ALREADY have, the employer has not given you anything by allowing you to terminate your own employment at will.
The employer has no inalienable rights at stake in an employment relationship, but merely property rights. And the employer presumably already agreed at least verbally with the employee "if you agree to come in each day and do X and I agree that I will pay you Y". Thus it is implicitly unfair and a violation of property rights for EITHER side to arbitrarily terminate the agreement.
note, I claim: basic property law would show that NEITHER side may terminate employment arbitrarily.
However, since the right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness is "inalienable" it can not be sold or transferred by the employee (he has no right to sell that) therefore the right always remains with the employee notwithstanding any other agreement to the contrary.
To properly justify "at-will" termination, I would argue that the employer makes it clear prior to employment that "I reserve the right to fire you at any time arbitrarily".
Watch how much loyalty his employees show him then.
It is a falacious argument when an employer uses the employees right to quit at any time to justify their imagined right to "terminate" at any time.
The employer has the right to enter into a contractual relationship obliging him to continue paying the employee for services rendered. This is a standard property law right to dispose of your property and enter into contracts.
If a contract has no specific termination date, then it is presumed to continue basically indefinitely as long as both parties continue to abide by the terms.
Every job offer I've had, implied a perpetual term of employment (after a short probationary period). To the extent that it actually bound me to work forever it was invalid. I do not have the right to transfer my liberty to the employer.
anyways.. my arguments here are directed towards how I think employment rights OUGHT to be interpretted. Unfortunately the poor SOBs getting screwed by their employers are typically too poor or uneducated to realize that they have the right to hold the employer accountable to the original agreement. i.e. I continue getting paid by you as long as I continue doing what we agreed that I would do for you.
A state is free to grant "the right to fire", as this is merely a modification of property law. Rendering the contract invalid in so far as it implied a perpetual obligation on either side. However I would argue that unless a state explicitly grants the right of "at-will termination", then common property law says neither side can abscond, (without penalty) and constitutional law (which takes precedence) says, notwithstanding common law, the employee can always walk off the job and can not tranfer his right to walk off the job.
If the age limit for driving has actually been chosen based on objective reasons, then I can only conclude from this information that either new zealanders all mature faster than Canadians, or that New Zealanders do not value their lives as much as Canadians. Because canadian wisdom has concluded that 16 is the age requirement for driving.
A 13 year old would probably not be able to cope with the stress, or the physical requirements (many wouldn't be able to see over the steering wheel).
Ok. If I agree that an average 13 year can not cope, where does that leave the 13 year old who can cope? It leaves him being deprived of human rights.
(I point out that, the basic right to "liberty" that most constitutions of free societies espouse, does not *exclude* driving. And while your local traffic regulations, may include some lame text to the effect that "driving is a privilege and not a right.", such text is indeed lame, insofar as the constitutional guarantee of liberty means that in principle people actually have a right to drive their cars, their boats, their rockets ships, or whatever else they happen to lawfully possess.)
Now, what of the 16 year old who CAN'T cope because they lack mental or physical development? We arbitrarily allow driving simply because of age, rather than merit. Such drivers panic under stress, or are inclined to simply drive to fast under peer pressure from their mornoic (presumably non-licensed) friends. We are allowing drivers onto the streets who are mentally immature to drive on the falacious presumption that merely being 16 makes you mature.
Plenty of insurance statistics show that drivers under 25 are very accident prone. Of course I don't advocate disciminating against all 25 year olds, but a more proper objective measurement of driving ability would and should be used to weed out any driver who isn't fit to drive, instead of fixating on "age" which only has a weak correlation to mental maturity or driving skill.
Perhaps such correct testing would simultaneously save lives as well as permit people who are genuinely mature enough to drive at younger ages to drive. (I expect such a measurement would actually wind up excluding many drivers who are between 16 and 20 from driving at all).
Some won't be strong enough to turn anything that doesn't have power steering.
the same can be said of adults.
(Power steering is rare in a used vehicle that'd be cheap enough for a teen to use.)
What if a teen has power steering? Then is it ok?
Plus, when you're 15, your body has a significant portion of it's physical development behind it. (The growth plates on your bones disappear during your 15th, for example.)
What is the relevance of that? Riding a bicycle or skateboard is more physically demanding than driving. Not to mention playing soccer or hockey.
In any event, if physical fitness is an indicator of driving safety, then it should be applied to adults as well.
So, there might be some wisdom in these "arbitrary" ages...
If I thought that sweeping generalizations were a basis for denying human rights, then I would contend that most people under 19 or 20 are too immature to drive safely. And yet WE ALLOW IT. So I question if there is any actual wisdom inspiring those age limitations, or if it is simply pragmatics.
In all probability the age limit of 15 or 16 is actually too low. But since we have accepted that using "Age" is actually implicitly unfair, we have put the limit arbitrarily LOW in order to minimize the unfair discrimination that such a limit involves.
>If old people are not allowed to drive, then what is the justification for allowing anyone to drive?
I don't know, how about competence?
Unless a senior has done something to demonstrate incompetence shouldn't they be afforded the dignity to be presumed competent.
I never said incompetent drivers should be allowed to drive. But if competence is the requirement, then that requirement should be applied to everyone equally.
Why not retest everyone regardless of age?
My argument is based on a recognition of human rights. And the right not to be arbitrarily discriminated against based on age. If you are driving safely and not causing problems, why should you suddenly be presumed incompetant and required to prove it on your 70th birthday?
If old people are not allowed to drive, then what is the justification for allowing anyone to drive?
Everyone, now matter how good a driver they are, pose some measure of threat once they are behind the wheel.
There is nothing which says that drivers are all absolutely safe. Some of us are worse than others. Period.
If a person commits a certain number of traffic offenses they lose their license. This system (often using demerit points) would capture someone who has become a manifestly unsafe driver.
If only police would actually enforce safe driving practices and prosecute unsafe lane changes, swerving, tailgating, skidding, parking too far from the curb, driving without headlights, driving too slowly, etc rather than fixate on merely revenue generating speeding tickets.
Statistically speaking, if police were enforcing all traffic laws, I think it would be difficult for a person to continue driving to the point of being physically incapable of the act, before being disqualified due to actual demerit points.
If there are medical tests mandated. They should be mandated to all regardless of age.
Development needs to start with the basics. They don't need computers and they don't need college. They need roads, they need medical care, they need clean drinking water, they need immunizations, they need family planning, they need assistance with sustainable farming techniques and they need primary education. I'll concede that computers can be part of the overall strategy but they'd be pretty low on my list of priorities. And it's not going to be any use at all until you've got (a) power, (b) literacy, and (c) a phone line, and many places I saw lacked some or all of those things.
They are never going to get any of those things because then we risk allowing a developing nation becoming self sufficient (again). This would set a "bad" example and threaten "stability" in in the developing world.
It is a myth that underdeveloped nations are underdeveloped because the local population doesn't know how to take care of themselves. They simply lack the military power to keep foreign governments from meddling on behalf of foreign investors who technically "own" country due to foreign "debt".
But then new competitors move in, because they can make a profit at the higher price, which forces the monolpolist to lower prices again, and keep them there, to keep out competition. If they echibit a pattern of lowering and raising prices, competitors will stay in beacuse they believe the low prices ar enot sustainable and eventually prices will rise to livable levels.
You presume that the competitors have legal authority to move it. Monopolists have a great skill at manipulating regulators to insure it is illegal for any competition to challenge their position.
Another tactic is to threaten to withold any jam or butter from any vendor which offers to sell the competetors bread. Or even to refuse to allow anyone to use butter or jam on the competetors bread (for safety reasons). Afterall the monopolist can not insure the flavour is accurate unless the butter is used on special proprietary bread.
Another reason: the monolist is free to increase "price" in the form of lower quality.
i.e. keep prices low but turn out an inferior product.
The bread is still so cheap compared to the actual cost of production. If any competitor tried to move in they could only do so by offering better bread. But since this better bread requires fancy custom made ovens to make, the cost of production is prohibitive and compared to the industry standard (monopolist) cheap bread, the better bread can not be a sustainable business model.
Had normal competition been allowed to flourish, eventually the better bread would not require custom ovens and then consumers would have access to it for a reasonable price.
And that doesn't even take into account the ability of stores to specialize to avoid competing in a commodity business where the bigger company has more power. (ever get a decent loaf of bread from a factory bakery?)
This is irrelevant. A monopolist can force you to buy their factory bread. Either by force or by threatening to withhold their service which they have a monopoly on.
They can cause the true cost of using the competitors product to increase beyond their free market value (and thus kill production). This is the power of monopoly.
Monopolies (and oligopolies) are the enemy of the free market.
Unlike the US, Canada has a Monarch, who is a symbolic maternal figure for all her subjects. But more than a symbol, ultimate responsibility for the wellbeing of the land lies with the Crown.
Anyone suggesting that the Crown should not provide any service or benefit to her subjects because some merchant contends it may cut into his profit margins would be rightfully scoffed.
Unfortunately too many politicians in Canada have forgotten that Canada is still a Monarchy, and as such, it is OK for the state to own and operate what could otherwise be profitable private businesses.
Slashdot Mirror
"Right now you have thousands of climatologists all trying to say that their model for the formula is right; several of them negating the impact of the other variables and focusing on just one, carbon dioxide."
No. That is not what is happening. You are spreading FUD. Climatologists are publishing the results of their models, and also publishing caveats about what their model includes or excludes or assumes.
All things being equal, each model has the same statistical likelyhood of representing reality (that is to say.. a very small likelyhood). The problem is that no model actually captures all the possible variables in the real world. So assumptions are made. However for scientific validity all plausible ranges of values for those assumptions must also be simulated and tested and the results averaged together.
There is a huge consensus amongst models that global warming is in progress and will continue and get worse as more greenhouse gases are released. Very few models suggest otherwise. THE MODELS DO NOT NEGATE EACH OTHER. They are AVERAGED together.
Individually none of the models are perfect, and no serious climatologist would make such a falacious claim about their model.
It would be like claiming to have a flight simulator which PERFECTLY modeled actual airplane dynamics. It would be a bullshit claim.
Did you pay attention to the huricane coverage this summer when meteorologists tried to forecast the path of the huricane? They did not indicate an absolute path, they indicated an AVERAGED statistical likelyhood of a path.
This was based on the AVERAGE results of many different computer simulations.
Scientists DO NOT DISREGARD contradictory evidence. It is included in their analysis. It MUST be included for scientific validity. You have no clue how scientific analysis or simulation works.
Science is not the technique of FEELING good about your results. The results are the results. Most climatologists probably wish that global warming would go away. It must be very frustrating trying to explain how scientific simulations work to dipshits who don't want to understand, lest they become morally culpable for the harm they cause.
I'm not scheduled to retire for 30 years. I am part of this generation. And *I* am calling us a bunch of crybabies for not wanting to support our seniors.
They toiled and sacrificed for us. They built the country. And when they are no longer able to support themselves we bicker about not wanting to pay taxes to support them.
It is flat out pathetic. I am ashamed.
It just goes to show you how pointless everything is.
That could be if the laws of physics and chemistry were random accross time and space. However there is a vast amount of evidence which suggests that they haven't changed significantly for billions of years (if ever).
Atmospheric Scientists are not merely odds makers. They are applying the laws of physics to deduce plausible explanations for atmospheric observations.
One of the amazing things about science, which neoconservatives love to ignore, is that scientific theories and laws must make testable predictions about phenomena without making an observation of it in advance. Using the Law of Gravitation, I can predict that if you drop an object it will fall to the earth. If I had a theory that objects fall away from the earth, I would predict the object would fall upwards. That theory would be proven inadequate, and it would either need to be thrown out completely or modified to account for the fact that objects fall towards the earth and not away from it. Afterwords the theory must be able to make new predictions which can be tested. Going to more effort I can predict exactly what the velocity of the object will be when it hits the earth. That is without ever having observed the object fall before.
Atmospheric scientists are applying science to the problem of predicting climate change and running complex computer simulations. They are not simply extrapolating future temperature change from the small dataset available the way pollsters try to predict who is going to win an election by asking 500 people.
I responded to your expansion, which if written out in full is:
If the contradiction in that is not self-evident, then we're going to have to argue about something else while the bystanders laugh themselves hoarse.
Fools and drunkards both laugh a lot. It doesn't make them right.
PS: That was not my statement.
I said: Atheism is not a RELIGION
There is a difference between a RELIGION and a "belief (or lack thereof) concerning religion".
You exploit and abuse the multiple meanings of the word "religious", which according to the Random House Dictionary means:
1) of, pertaining to, or concerned with religion.
2) imbued with or exhibiting religion.
When I say "atheism is not a religion" you reply "ahhh but obviously atheism is a belief which pertains to or is concerned with religion and therefore atheist belief is a "religious belief" and "religious" means "imbued with or exhibiting religion" therefore atheism is imbued with or exhibits religion." and you then laugh at how clever you are.
But you aren't clever. You are wrong.
Atheism makes the positive claim that the universe arose and continues without any form of God.
Atheism does not even claim that the universe ever arose at all.
Science doesn't have to prove everything. Science only has to show us a universe consistent with God and inconsistent with Atheism to settle the argument.
That would only settle the argument for people who accept the validity of the scientific method.
It would never settle it for people like you.
You're railing against government sponsorship of "corporations" via the Bayh-Dole Act, and now you're including hospitals and universities in your definition of "corporations."
My position is that the government should stop granting monopolies to private entities where it was the government which paid for the original research.
It was my position that the primary benefactors of Bayh-Dole Act are NOT people, but are corporations (and shareholders) And moreover that this is not accidental, but intentional.
I did NOT claim governments should never subsidize corporations under any circumstance (so I wont debate that here).
You have misunderstood the breadth of my claim.
I doubt many would agree that the government should stop funding academic research (solely on the basis that universities are "corporations," and therefore somehow evil.)
I doubt that many people would consider funding public academic research and giving money to corporate shareholders to conduct private research to be exactly the same thing but there you have it.
nonprofits cannot use their funds to benefit any private individual (including - no, especially - shareholders.)
They can experience capital gains, they can generate income. They generate so called "political capital" for private parties. They can pay fat salaries to corporate executives. call me naive. but those sound like benefits.
The alternative is to write personal checks (of large value!) to specific individuals to carry out research. That has a hideous taint to it, and the potentials for corruption are tremendous.
The potentials for corruption have less to do with *who gets the money*. And more to do with who is *choosing* who gets the money.
There is no reason to believe that grants to parties to do research with all inventions returning to the public is any more prone to corruption than a system which returns nothing back to the public.
Those parties need not be motivated by altruism. They can pay themselves salaries for the work they do.
Moreover, no one in their right mind would take on such personal liability.
What liabiity? Academics *want* to do research. They aren't academics because they want to be businesspeople. To be paid to do research and publish the results for the whole world to appreciate how smart they are. That is what makes them happy.
All they are responsible to do is show scientific research. They aren't responsible to sell a product.
This is probably less liability than a researcher would have working for a private firm which is always looking to cut programs that can't turn in a profit next quarter.
Look: { 1 4 12 13 19 26 32 } - I can prove that this set does not contain the number 16.
Not analagous to the operation of private entities.
Given the Set Y. The members of Y are not disclosed. Can you prove that the number 16 is not in the Set Y?
You can't. You don't have enough information to prove such a proposition.
The only way to demonstrate patent abuse, is to have access to information which private entities are, in general, under no obligation to disclose.
Seriously, it doesn't get much easier than this. There are plenty of fish in the sea of commerce - why waste time pursuing one that another fisherman has also hooked? They would have to pull against each other as much as against their prey, and if they're lucky, each of them gets half of a torn-apart fish.
That is what some people call free market capitalism working PROPERLY. It was something I learned about when I was a young lad being indoctinated into capitalist way of thinking. The teacher called it COMPETITION, and it was alleged that competition builds character and work ethic.
You seem to be advocating a theory of economics that would suggest that it is good for consumers if their is no competition and the entire market consisted of monopolies and o
It is an absolute certainty that we don't have enough data to prove anything definitively in the climate arena.
Depends on what you mean by "prove". If you are looking at the threshold required for criminal trials, i.e. beyond a reasonable doubt, then you are right.
If you are looking for proof on the balance of probabilities, then your contention is questionable.
If you are looking to prove reasonable plausibility then global warming is almost not in dispute.
Does anyone claim that it is scientifically implausible that human CO2 production is increasing the average temperature of the earth?
"proof" means different things to different people.
Most environmentalists take the position that it is not necessary to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that CO2 causes global warming in order to justify decreasing CO2 production.
Interestingly, going to war required a lot less evidence than the amount which is already available to justify the belief in the corelationship between global warming and CO2.
>"The government doesn't really encourage "people" to do this. It encourages corporations to do this."
Incorrect. The Bayh-Dole Act is aimed at nonprofit institutions - mostly universities, but also nonprofit hospitals. Corporations are only incidental beneficiaries - a means to an end.
Hospitals, universities and so called 'non profit' institutions are all still corporations. (and most of them are not factually non-profit (regardless of their legal status)) A corporation need not be "for profit" to actually serve the private interests of its shareholders.
There are other ways to exploit a monopoly without making profit. for example : exlusive license to another corporation for "commercialization".
And with that aside. Non profit doesn't really mean non-profit.
Not withstanding whatever the text of the bill says: it encourages corporations.
As for encouraging "people," the government has many programs to help "people" to create companies around new technologies. Read up on the Small Business Innovation Research program, where states sponsor technology initiatives for small businesses (and only small businesses can apply for them.
If you are taking the position that handing over patents on government funded research is not intended to actually be a form of wellfare subsidies for large corporations (rather than "people"), then why do you rationalize that subsidy by showing that the government also subsidizes small businesses?
Patentees have an obligation to use the technology they patent; if they don't, they can be forced into a compulsory licensing scheme.
thats great. And I'm sure that forcing someone into a compulsory licensing scheme is not only cost effective but it is trivial to do. How can you prove someone is not "USING" a patent?
There is no obligation to demonstrate to anyone how a technology is being used. Proving non-use would require someone to be able to prove a negative. Exceedingly difficult to do.
Of course it doesn't change the fact that what I said is true. I will repeat it for you:
"Private entities also retain ownership of vast and sundry technologies - which, as it happens, sit on shelves completely unused."
How do pharmaceutical companies choose candidates for further development? Think about it: the company must push the drug through several years of research, and then FDA approval. That costs a ton of money. Why would Merck take that chance if the moment its drug is FDA-approved, Pfizer, Eli Lilly, and Millennium can start selling the same drug?
I have no complaint about businesses owning patents to inventions for which they financed the entire cost of research.
However, the government ought not help to cover the cost of research and then give the private partnet a 100% ownership stake in the fruits of that labour.
For this reason, pharmaceutical companies solely focus on drugs that can be patented. This is an undeniable business reality.
Contrasted with mundain commercial enterprises, your example of pharmaceutical companies is a special case of a product which costs a fortune to test, is very dangerous, and is relatively inexpensive to produce. It is not the general case of commercialization of inventions or business in general. What holds true for "pharmaceutical companies" does not hold for business in general. Your argument is a straw man attack.
Moreover, your definition of "pharmaceutical company" only seems includes companies which research drugs and excludes companies that manufacture and sell drugs without research. Such as generic drug companies.
However... if a non-patentable drug existed and it was already tested/researched/proven safe and cleared by the FDA. Drug companies DO commercialize them. Examples: ASA, acetomenaphine, penicillin, morphine, codeine and any generic drug on the market today.
Yes. And "access to the invention" is exactly what patents are desig
How about with a careful definition of evolution?
:http://www.evolutionfairytale.com/articles_debate s/evolutiondefinition.htm
:
The first page of the source you cite
Is very interesting. it states
""Evolution is a generation-to-generation change in a population's frequencies of alleles or genotypes. Because such a change in a gene pool is evolution on the smallest scale, it is referred to more specifically as microevolution"1 [emphasis in original]. This type of "evolution" is widely accepted by evolutionists and creationists alike and is not in dispute."
considering my usage and my statement:
"evolution works. That is almost indesputible.[sic] The fact that creationists think that evolution is a theory of creation however suggests that they don't know what evolution even is. the theory of evolution does not attempt to explain the origins of life or the universe."
Looking at the entire paragraph it is clear I was not referring evolution as a theory which attempts to explains the origin of life. That theory is referred to as "molecules-to-man evolution" in that source. (and beyond the scope of Charles Darwin's original theory of evolution)
In any event. there you have it.
As I said before.. I was debating atheism, not evolution.
I said:
Atheism is not a religion. It is a either a lack of belief that God exists or a positive belief that God does NOT exist.
Both of the statements in that latter sentence are religious statements, whether you want them to be or not. Since you yourself have just defined Atheism using two religious propositions, we can only conclude that Atheism - and in particular your Atheism - is a religion.
slow down:
My position is that those propositions are NOT religious propositions and that therefore atheism is not a religious proposition.
therefore, WE can not concude anything. Because all you have done is basically respond to my claim:
Atheism is not a religion.
with:
"Yes it is."
I said:"This is just as much a religion as beliefing that I don't have 3 arms is a religion. I dont seem to have 3 arms, so I believe I dont have 3 arms. "
you said:
Not at all. You can show me your two arms, I or a medic I trust can examine you and verify the presence or absence of a third.
I didn't say I dont have 3 arms. I said I dont seem to have 3 arms. I can't show you the third arm and you can't show me God.
Atheists don't believe in God. And just like your disbelief in the 3rd arm. I claim that neither instance of disbelieve constitutes a religion.
You cannot show me a singularity exploding to form a universe, nor hydrogen condensing from that explosion, nor abiogenesis proceeding unaided or nor proto-monkeys turning into men. Or indeed anything of the sort.
I don't have to show you a singularity exploding. I don't have to prove anything. Not believing in an unproven claim is not, in and of itself, a religion. I do not claim that accepting or rejecting scientific theory = religion.
Atheism does not claim any explanation for the universe.
As for science. Sciences inability to explain all the mysteries of the universe does not prove that God exists. It merely proves that science is not complete.
The only claim I made is that atheism is not a religion. To which you replied, if I may paraphrase:
"yes it is"
I will weaken my statement about "evolution" to only include "natural selection". I never met anyone who accepts 1 and rejects the other so I took these as interchangable. It was not my desire to debate evolution. Only atheism.
You seem to be particularly full of shit today.
I must be having a good day.
You seem to have not defined religion and are also building a straw man argument (that any belief, supported or not, constitutes a religion).
No. My position was the opposite of that. My position is that mere belief does NOT itself CONSTITUTE RELIGION.
You are the one who, as you say, is full of shit. I am not commiting a straw man argument, you are generalizing the scope of my CLAIM way beyond the scope of the actual language (in fact to include its own opposite), and then accusing me of commiting a straw man argument because my claim doesn't encompass the scope that YOU have extended it to.
I didn't claim that a belief is a religion. I said Atheism is NOT a religion.
I also didn't try to ARGUE that atheism is not a religion I simply CLAIMED it was not a religion, and put forward a claim that believing or not believing that one has 3 arms is as much a religion as atheism.
Since you seem to be taking the position that atheism is in fact a mere belief. Then I take it that you agree that atheism is NOT a religion.
Religion is basically a bunch of beliefs relating to stuff like god(s), the afterlife, and where we came from. Please note that some religions don't believe in any gods (I think Hinduism or Buddism was one, they believe in reincarnation but not a god).
Thanks for the background.
At least we can both agree that atheism is not a religion.
So be careful not to define religion as belief in a god(s), if you ever do define it.
First you complain that I didn't define religion. And then you accuse me of defining religion as a belief in god. I said.
"Atheism is not a religion. It is a either a lack of belief that God exists or a positive belief that God does NOT exist."
I did NOT say "Atheism is not a religion because religions all include the belief of God and atheists don't."
You've never heard of natural selection, have you? Few and stupid are those that dispute natural selection.
I have heard of natural selection. It is the Creationists who dispute natural selection. And if it is your position that Creationists are all stupid, I would not dispute that. Natural Selection forms a fundamental basis of the theory of evolution which creationists dispute.
Since you are relying on natural selection to support your position, I take it that you concede that the theory of natural selection is in fact correct?
Less obviously, mutations can cause inability to breed with one's former species, but I have yet to see anything useful evolve.
Man.
(although I concede that man's usefulness is debateable.)
I don't believe that something the government encourages people do with government property can be construed as "theft."
The government doesn't really encourage "people" to do this. It encourages corporations to do this.
How about construing it as a reverse kickback or fraud against the taxpayer?
It looks like you're relying on the general concept of patenting government-funded inventions. You must be unaware that the government has a hideous track record of commercializing its own technologies. Before the Bayh-Dole Act, the government retained ownership of vast and sundry technologies - which, as it happened, sat on a shelf completely unused. They had no commercial proponent, and so they were never used.
Your principle ignores the realities of business. Software is primarily a business - even the open-source kind. This is understandable; most Slashdotters know computers much better than business. Just be aware that virtually all of the software on your computer was written in a business context, and that the realities of commerce might play an important role.
Private entities also retain ownership of vast and sundry technologies - which, as it happens, sit on shelves completely unused. They have no commercial proponent, and so they are never used.
that is until someone else uses them and then out come the lame patent infringement lawsuits.
Your principle ignores the realities of business. It is not essential to have a monopoly on an invention in order to commercialize it.
Your principle also ignores the realities of democracy. The important factor is that the people have access to the invention which the people funded. It is not a matter of public interest that it should try to insure that some private entity is exploiting a monopoly position to overcharge for that invention.
Commercialization is not the purpose of government research.
The religion in question is Atheism.
Atheism is not a religion. It is a either a lack of belief that God exists or a positive belief that God does NOT exist. This is just as much a religion as beliefing that I don't have 3 arms is a religion. I dont seem to have 3 arms, so I believe I dont have 3 arms.
Your claims that any evidence to the contrary is discarded or reinterpretted is simply not true. In fact if evolution didn't work, we would not be able to breed specific breeds of dogs, cats, flowers, etc etc.
Do creationists believe that the Dodo bird is still alive in the wild? Either God never created a Dodo bird, or perhaps the Dodo bird was unfit.
evolution works. That is almost indesputible. The fact that creationists think that evolution is a theory of creation however suggests that they don't know what evolution even is. the theory of evolution does not attempt to explain the origins of life or the universe.
One could extrapolate backwards and attempt to use evolution to explain the origins of life, however even if God created life in some predetermined form. The evidence is overwelming that evolution has been working since then.
Evolution does not rule out the possibility of a Creator.
the wealth of more affluent people generally is inheritable. Thus, inheritance becomes a "disequalizing" force, leading to greater inequality of wealth in America.
This is absolutely correct, and moreover since vast majority of the value of estates over 1 million dollars is in the form of capital gains for which no taxes were ever paid, estate taxes go a long way to leveling the playing field.
The answer is not to penalize the wealthy through inheritance taxes and such,
damn I thought you were on to something. Why would you think that?
but to allow poor workers to accumulate inheritable wealth the same way their wealthier counterparts can. Allowing them to invest their Social Security taxes would go a long way toward accomplishing that goal.
1) only if they die at age 65 before they SPEND their meagre savings.
2) only if they stop being poor before they die so that by the time they retire they aren't so overwhelmed with DEBT that they have any money left over from their pathetic savings to leave money in their estate.
3) only if the stock market doesn't crash between now and the time these poor people retire and cause them to lose all of their vast savings. (people constantly on the verge of bankruptcy panic under market downturns and dump their stock at a loss)
Since none of those options is likely to happen, perhaps people should just stop the whining and agree to help pay for the maintenance of senior citizens who built the damn country instead of acting like a bunch of spoiled cry babies.
Unless the asians and europeans start treating their elderly as shitty as North American's do, I don't think problems here are going to be WORSE than anywhere else.
Or you could start your own business. Of course, you'd go out of business rather quickly, since your competitors would have an extra day up on you every week.
You mean you aren't working a 7 day work week yet?
What are you? Some kind of communist?
Both projects are one of the few things occuring today that (if humanity lives that long) will be recorded and remembered 1000 years from now.
At a billion dollars, that is a bargain.
Neither the Hubble nor ISS, is a waste of money. The SPACE SHUTTLE is the waste of money.
Perhaps 1 benefit of the Space Shuttle program is that it teaches us humility. Before that, space travel was starting to look easy.
We even had delusions of going to mars and colonizing the moon.
What were we thinking?
Even if you had an employment contract, you could still leave at any time -- you are right, the employer cannot force you to work, that would be slavery -- but you WILL have consequences for the breach of contract.
To the extent that any employment contract agrees than an employee surrenders any inalienable right (such as his right to walk off the job), the contract is illegal and can not be enforced.
If the state interprets the law correctly (I don't presume that the state always interprets the law correctly) the state will not intervene to enforce such a breech of contract. The employer could rely on certain contract law rights and stop paying the employee and is probably able to terminate the contract by resorting to those laws. But no punitive damages could ever be rewarded.
On the other hand, as a property owner you are at liberty to agree to pay money to other parties. And such a contract for services rendered *is* completely binding. You are not free to unilaterally discontinue such a contract without compensating the other party for damages. And if you breech the contract without cause, you *are* subject to punitive damages.
And the state SHOULD hold you to it.
Thus, unless the employees conduct is such that the employee is himself in breech of an implied or explicit term of his employment agreement, or you agreed in advance that you may terminate the contract at any time without warning, then you don't have any escape clause from your contract.
So, when you don't have a contract, you are free to leave, the employer is free to fire you, without legal consequences.
I've never heard of people working without a contract. That is more like panhandling or busking.
Doing work spontaneously in the hope that someone will feel grateful and make a donation. Try simply showing up someplace and starting work. You are likely to be escorted off the premises by security.
every normal employment relationship has an "Agreement". An agreement may be merely verbal, but the agreement exists.
The question I have. In the 49 or so "fire-at-will" states. Is there a law on the books which actually grants employers the right to "fire-at-will" or is this simply something that employers CLAIM to have, and no one has fought?
FYI: I live in Canada and "fire-at-will" is not available here.
Of course, you can quit whenever you want to -- that's the flip side of at-will -- they can't make you keep working if you don't want to.
That is NOT really the flip side. It is a ramification of "they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness"
In so far as this is a right you ALREADY have, the employer has not given you anything by allowing you to terminate your own employment at will.
The employer has no inalienable rights at stake in an employment relationship, but merely property rights. And the employer presumably already agreed at least verbally with the employee "if you agree to come in each day and do X and I agree that I will pay you Y". Thus it is implicitly unfair and a violation of property rights for EITHER side to arbitrarily terminate the agreement.
note, I claim: basic property law would show that NEITHER side may terminate employment arbitrarily.
However, since the right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness is "inalienable" it can not be sold or transferred by the employee (he has no right to sell that) therefore the right always remains with the employee notwithstanding any other agreement to the contrary.
To properly justify "at-will" termination, I would argue that the employer makes it clear prior to employment that "I reserve the right to fire you at any time arbitrarily".
Watch how much loyalty his employees show him then.
It is a falacious argument when an employer uses the employees right to quit at any time to justify their imagined right to "terminate" at any time.
The employer has the right to enter into a contractual relationship obliging him to continue paying the employee for services rendered. This is a standard property law right to dispose of your property and enter into contracts.
If a contract has no specific termination date, then it is presumed to continue basically indefinitely as long as both parties continue to abide by the terms.
Every job offer I've had, implied a perpetual term of employment (after a short probationary period). To the extent that it actually bound me to work forever it was invalid. I do not have the right to transfer my liberty to the employer.
anyways.. my arguments here are directed towards how I think employment rights OUGHT to be interpretted. Unfortunately the poor SOBs getting screwed by their employers are typically too poor or uneducated to realize that they have the right to hold the employer accountable to the original agreement. i.e. I continue getting paid by you as long as I continue doing what we agreed that I would do for you.
A state is free to grant "the right to fire", as
this is merely a modification of property law. Rendering the contract invalid in so far as it implied a perpetual obligation on either side. However I would argue that unless a state explicitly grants the right of "at-will termination",
then common property law says neither side can abscond, (without penalty) and constitutional law (which takes precedence) says, notwithstanding common law, the employee can always walk off the job and can not tranfer his right to walk off the job.
In New Zealand, the minimum driving age is 15.
If the age limit for driving has actually been chosen based on objective reasons, then I can only conclude from this information that either new zealanders all mature faster than Canadians, or that New Zealanders do not value their lives as much as Canadians. Because canadian wisdom has concluded that 16 is the age requirement for driving.
A 13 year old would probably not be able to cope with the stress, or the physical requirements (many wouldn't be able to see over the steering wheel).
Ok. If I agree that an average 13 year can not cope, where does that leave the 13 year old who can cope? It leaves him being deprived of human rights.
(I point out that, the basic right to "liberty" that most constitutions of free societies espouse, does not *exclude* driving. And while your local traffic regulations, may include some lame text to the effect that "driving is a privilege and not a right.", such text is indeed lame, insofar as the constitutional guarantee of liberty means that in principle people actually have a right to drive their cars, their boats, their rockets ships, or whatever else they happen to lawfully possess.)
Now, what of the 16 year old who CAN'T cope because they lack mental or physical development? We arbitrarily allow driving simply because of age, rather than merit. Such drivers panic under stress, or are inclined to simply drive to fast under peer pressure from their mornoic (presumably non-licensed) friends. We are allowing drivers onto the streets who are mentally immature to drive on the falacious presumption that merely being 16 makes you mature.
Plenty of insurance statistics show that drivers under 25 are very accident prone. Of course I don't advocate disciminating against all 25 year olds, but a more proper objective measurement of driving ability would and should be used to weed out any driver who isn't fit to drive, instead of fixating on "age" which only has a weak correlation to mental maturity or driving skill.
Perhaps such correct testing would simultaneously save lives as well as permit people who are genuinely mature enough to drive at younger ages to drive. (I expect such a measurement would actually wind up excluding many drivers who are between 16 and 20 from driving at all).
Some won't be strong enough to turn anything that doesn't have power steering.
the same can be said of adults.
(Power steering is rare in a used vehicle that'd be cheap enough for a teen to use.)
What if a teen has power steering? Then is it ok?
Plus, when you're 15, your body has a significant portion of it's physical development behind it. (The growth plates on your bones disappear during your 15th, for example.)
What is the relevance of that? Riding a bicycle or skateboard is more physically demanding than driving. Not to mention playing soccer or hockey.
In any event, if physical fitness is an indicator of driving safety, then it should be applied to adults as well.
So, there might be some wisdom in these "arbitrary" ages...
If I thought that sweeping generalizations were a basis for denying human rights, then I would contend that most people under 19 or 20 are too immature to drive safely. And yet WE ALLOW IT. So I question if there is any actual wisdom inspiring those age limitations, or if it is simply pragmatics.
In all probability the age limit of 15 or 16 is actually too low. But since we have accepted that using "Age" is actually implicitly unfair, we have put the limit arbitrarily LOW in order to minimize the unfair discrimination that such a limit involves.
The cost is lives.
How about younger than 16?
good point. it seems like an arbitrary age.
kindof like a 21 minimum drinking age in most of the US.
shouldn't limits in general be based on merit or need, not on some other meaningful characteristic. Not merely age?
>If old people are not allowed to drive, then what is the justification for allowing anyone to drive?
I don't know, how about competence?
Unless a senior has done something to demonstrate incompetence shouldn't they be afforded the dignity to be presumed competent.
I never said incompetent drivers should be allowed to drive. But if competence is the requirement, then that requirement should be applied to everyone equally.
Why not retest everyone regardless of age?
My argument is based on a recognition of human rights. And the right not to be arbitrarily discriminated against based on age. If you are driving safely and not causing problems, why should you suddenly be presumed incompetant and required to prove it on your 70th birthday?
If old people are not allowed to drive, then what is the justification for allowing anyone to drive?
Everyone, now matter how good a driver they are, pose some measure of threat once they are behind the wheel.
There is nothing which says that drivers are all absolutely safe. Some of us are worse than others. Period.
If a person commits a certain number of traffic offenses they lose their license. This system (often using demerit points) would capture someone
who has become a manifestly unsafe driver.
If only police would actually enforce safe driving
practices and prosecute unsafe lane changes, swerving, tailgating, skidding, parking too far from the curb, driving without headlights, driving too slowly, etc rather than fixate on merely revenue generating speeding tickets.
Statistically speaking, if police were enforcing all traffic laws, I think it would be difficult for a person to continue driving to the point of being physically incapable of the act, before being disqualified due to actual demerit points.
If there are medical tests mandated. They should be mandated to all regardless of age.
A 30 year old can also become ill.
completely incorrect.
Go back to claravoyance school.
Development needs to start with the basics. They don't need computers and they don't need college. They need roads, they need medical care, they need clean drinking water, they need immunizations, they need family planning, they need assistance with sustainable farming techniques and they need primary education. I'll concede that computers can be part of the overall strategy but they'd be pretty low on my list of priorities. And it's not going to be any use at all until you've got (a) power, (b) literacy, and (c) a phone line, and many places I saw lacked some or all of those things.
They are never going to get any of those things because then we risk allowing a developing nation becoming self sufficient (again). This would set a "bad" example and threaten "stability" in in the developing world.
It is a myth that underdeveloped nations are underdeveloped because the local population doesn't know how to take care of themselves. They simply lack the military power to keep foreign governments from meddling on behalf of foreign investors who technically "own" country due to foreign "debt".
But then new competitors move in, because they can make a profit at the higher price, which forces the monolpolist to lower prices again, and keep them there, to keep out competition. If they echibit a pattern of lowering and raising prices, competitors will stay in beacuse they believe the low prices ar enot sustainable and eventually prices will rise to livable levels.
You presume that the competitors have legal authority to move it. Monopolists have a great skill at manipulating regulators to insure it is illegal for any competition to challenge their position.
Another tactic is to threaten to withold any jam or butter from any vendor which offers to sell the competetors bread. Or even to refuse to allow anyone to use butter or jam on the competetors bread (for safety reasons). Afterall the monopolist can not insure the flavour is accurate unless the butter is used on special proprietary bread.
Another reason: the monolist is free to increase "price" in the form of lower quality.
i.e. keep prices low but turn out an inferior product.
The bread is still so cheap compared to the actual cost of production. If any competitor tried to move in they could only do so by offering better bread. But since this better bread requires fancy custom made ovens to make, the cost of production is prohibitive and compared to the industry standard (monopolist) cheap bread, the better bread can not be a sustainable business model.
Had normal competition been allowed to flourish, eventually the better bread would not require custom ovens and then consumers would have access to it for a reasonable price.
And that doesn't even take into account the ability of stores to specialize to avoid competing in a commodity business where the bigger company has more power. (ever get a decent loaf of bread from a factory bakery?)
This is irrelevant. A monopolist can force you to buy their factory bread. Either by force or by threatening to withhold their service which they have a monopoly on.
They can cause the true cost of using the competitors product to increase beyond their free market value (and thus kill production). This is the power of monopoly.
Monopolies (and oligopolies) are the enemy of the free market.
Unlike the US, Canada has a Monarch, who is a symbolic maternal figure for all her subjects. But more than a symbol, ultimate responsibility for the wellbeing of the land lies with the Crown.
Anyone suggesting that the Crown should not provide any service or benefit to her subjects because some merchant contends it may cut into his profit margins would be rightfully scoffed.
Unfortunately too many politicians in Canada have forgotten that Canada is still a Monarchy, and as such, it is OK for the state to own and operate what could otherwise be profitable private businesses.