Being socially progressive in America means pissing off a large portion of the nation. It easier to push controversial economics policies then controversial social policies, because people tend to be more reasonable in economical matters than in social ones. Can you imagine a democratic president declaring he will do away with death penalty?
To be frank, I don't consider PhD theses to be professional texts. They are rarely read by other people, apart from the best ones, or --- in experimental sciences --- as reference for data.
...is that they usually seem to be about filling out a point to meet a word limit and not about getting to the point.
"Filling a word limit" has nothing to do with professional essays on literature. My grandmother is a professor in Polish literature (yes, there is such thing) and an editor in a literature journal. Her motto is: "there is no such text which quality could not improve by making it shorter".
But the point made by the pro-lifers is that you can't make one life less worthy than the other. Otherwise you could justify abortion some cases by saying "we're saving mother's life, which is more worthy than the unborn child's". So, the similar argument has to be made about killer's life. If life is sacred in itself, than also killer's life. If we make one exception (punishment), than we can't forbid other.
Don't get me wrong. I'm personally against abortion and consider it a sin. If my wife were to have a baby we weren't expecting, abortion would not be an option, except if the doctors said the pregnancy would kill her or seriously damage her health. But you can't force people to be saints. Allowing abortion for everyobyd is not good, either. There must be some compromise. There already are exceptions from the rule "every life is sacred". People who kill in self defense are not punished. Soldiers and policemen kill and yet are not considered murderers, if their actions are justified.
To clarify the thing, I'm also against death penalty.
as for abortion I consider it murder. I used to be pro choice until the 'silent scream'. As a grown man that made me want to cry. Now I find myself even debating the "in the instance of rape" option.
Funny that people watching executions don't seem to change their minds on death penalty. Funnier still, most of those "pro-life" support it. Hipocrisy?
Because "real jobs" won't put food on your table, moron. All of the "fertile" and "wet" areas have been turned into strip-malls, freeways, and soccer fields...
There are lots of countries in the world that would be very happy to sell food to you.
A lot of people seem to more-or-less weigh the possibility of being significant against the 6+ billion people on earth, and decide against being a martyr.
Most people have no chance of becoming significant in the first place.
I'm pretty sure that when it turns out he's correct, his friends and relatives will say to him: "Look Grigori, don't be a fool, take the money". If he's interested in research, it will be hard for him to ignore the comfort and security the money would give him. Or the amount of good he could do with that money, to other people. Probably the guy doesn't want to feel disappointed if his solution is wrong, that's why he doesn't care now.
It is all nice and dandy, being a scientist who doesn't give a dent about money, but when you have a wife and kids, things turn out to be more complicated. Eordos was a lonely man, this was the price he had to pay for his style of living. Other math geniuses (von Neumann, for example) had wives who were far more practical than them, and probably quite shrewd when it came to money matters.
What makes me amazed, is that a large portion of the scientific journals is being published by the scientific societies (like American Physics Society), made up from people publishing in and reading those very journals. How come nobody came up with such a proposal from inside of these societes? Inertia?
Of course, everybody knows that the US scientists never read papers published in European journals, never go to conferences sponsored by European institutions, never get funds from European countries (for example, getting paid by CERN) and, generally, never take any interest in, or profit from, European-made research. And, of course, all PhD students in the USA graduated American colleges and are pure-bred Americans.
Let me spell it out to you: science is i-n-t-e-r-n-a-t-i-o-n-a-l. You have friendly (sometimes not) competition between states, nations, cities, universities and colleagues. An open competition, where everybody can read everybody's papers (as long as they can afford the subscription rate, though) and this is the beauty of it. Go stick your nationalist head somewhere else, and don't try to spoil one of last bright aspects of our civilisation.
I was born in one of the harshest members of the Soviet bloc and lived?if you can call that living--there until I was 13. When emigration was permitted, anybody who could, fled, including our large and close extended family. We scattered all over the world and lost contact and everything we had.
Poor him. Just because he lived in communist country (I could imagine worse than that, say -- Poland under NAZI occupation), doesn't mean he has to be right in a technical question. Why does he bring this up at the beginning of the article? To make people pity him?
I mention this to point out that because I actually lived in a communist state, and studied politics, I have a better understanding of social systems in general
Utter bullshit. First of all, a 13 year old (he left his country -- why aren't we informed which country it was? he pictures his opression so strongly that one thinks it may have been Albania, or North Korea -- at that age) rarely grasps all details of the social system he lives in, unless the times are so harsh that he grows up faster. As exhibit A (cited above) shows, Fabian didn't grow up especially fast, to put it mildly. Secondly, just living in a socialist country does not make you smarter in terms of political and social systems. It may only make you more aware of the inefficiences of the socialism, but certainly does not make you more prepared to discussing social systems in general than living in a capitalist country.
the top 1% wealthiest internationalists who happen to have a home and HQ inside the US but are really internationalists and loyal only to their own personal profits at the expense of their neighbors.
And what do you think is the no. 1 priority of Joe Sixpack? Saving the world?
Well, this is negligible when the price for lunch goes to infinity. But usually, we split it evenly or everyone pays for himself. The first case was tried in the XIX century, it was called the poll tax. Flat rate tax is pure socialism compared to that. "Everyone pays for himself" is analogous to privatisation of all services. Effectively, having no state. Poll tax is pure socialism compared to that.
Now, the flat rate tax is when we compare each others' incomes and divide the check accodingly. I'm pretty sure almost nobody does that. But when it comes to fiscal system, even that is not enough. Makes one wonder on the complexities of human nature.
Oh, so goods and services are cheaper? I guess consumers, as well as CEOs and stockholders benefit.
If you have real competition. Otherwise it just translates into higher profit margins. Will Microsoft lower OS prices after outsourcing its jobs to India? Not bloody likely. That, however, is not a problem of the free marketeers being proved wrong. It's the problem of busting a monopoly or, in general terms, of having not enough competition. The EU understands the problem and investigates, whether there is enough competition in the market. Perhaps it's time for the USA to do the same?
Slashdot Mirror
Being socially progressive in America means pissing off a large portion of the nation. It easier to push controversial economics policies then controversial social policies, because people tend to be more reasonable in economical matters than in social ones. Can you imagine a democratic president declaring he will do away with death penalty?
Microsoft is the only company in the world which makes "dirty tricks"? +1, Funny
Look, if it wasn't Microsoft, Slashdot community would take the side of those ripping the playlists. I imagine the arguments:
"Music belongs to everyobody"
"Why are we forced to listen to commercials"
"Intellectual Property is dead"
Now I would like to see the resurrection of Sir Clive Sinclair...
Yes, this is stupid.
To be frank, I don't consider PhD theses to be professional texts. They are rarely read by other people, apart from the best ones, or --- in experimental sciences --- as reference for data.
...is that they usually seem to be about filling out a point to meet a word limit and not about getting to the point.
"Filling a word limit" has nothing to do with professional essays on literature. My grandmother is a professor in Polish literature (yes, there is such thing) and an editor in a literature journal. Her motto is: "there is no such text which quality could not improve by making it shorter".
But the point made by the pro-lifers is that you can't make one life less worthy than the other. Otherwise you could justify abortion some cases by saying "we're saving mother's life, which is more worthy than the unborn child's". So, the similar argument has to be made about killer's life. If life is sacred in itself, than also killer's life. If we make one exception (punishment), than we can't forbid other.
Don't get me wrong. I'm personally against abortion and consider it a sin. If my wife were to have a baby we weren't expecting, abortion would not be an option, except if the doctors said the pregnancy would kill her or seriously damage her health. But you can't force people to be saints. Allowing abortion for everyobyd is not good, either. There must be some compromise. There already are exceptions from the rule "every life is sacred". People who kill in self defense are not punished. Soldiers and policemen kill and yet are not considered murderers, if their actions are justified.
To clarify the thing, I'm also against death penalty.
as for abortion I consider it murder. I used to be pro choice until the 'silent scream'. As a grown man that made me want to cry. Now I find myself even debating the "in the instance of rape" option.
Funny that people watching executions don't seem to change their minds on death penalty. Funnier still, most of those "pro-life" support it. Hipocrisy?
Because "real jobs" won't put food on your table, moron. All of the "fertile" and "wet" areas have been turned into strip-malls, freeways, and soccer fields...
There are lots of countries in the world that would be very happy to sell food to you.
A lot of people seem to more-or-less weigh the possibility of being significant against the 6+ billion people on earth, and decide against being a martyr.
Most people have no chance of becoming significant in the first place.
I'm pretty sure that when it turns out he's correct, his friends and relatives will say to him: "Look Grigori, don't be a fool, take the money". If he's interested in research, it will be hard for him to ignore the comfort and security the money would give him. Or the amount of good he could do with that money, to other people. Probably the guy doesn't want to feel disappointed if his solution is wrong, that's why he doesn't care now.
It is all nice and dandy, being a scientist who doesn't give a dent about money, but when you have a wife and kids, things turn out to be more complicated. Eordos was a lonely man, this was the price he had to pay for his style of living. Other math geniuses (von Neumann, for example) had wives who were far more practical than them, and probably quite shrewd when it came to money matters.
Hey! Arxiv is not only for particle physicists! It's got even a Computer Science section...
What makes me amazed, is that a large portion of the scientific journals is being published by the scientific societies (like American Physics Society), made up from people publishing in and reading those very journals. How come nobody came up with such a proposal from inside of these societes? Inertia?
Of course, everybody knows that the US scientists never read papers published in European journals, never go to conferences sponsored by European institutions, never get funds from European countries (for example, getting paid by CERN) and, generally, never take any interest in, or profit from, European-made research. And, of course, all PhD students in the USA graduated American colleges and are pure-bred Americans.
Let me spell it out to you: science is i-n-t-e-r-n-a-t-i-o-n-a-l. You have friendly (sometimes not) competition between states, nations, cities, universities and colleagues. An open competition, where everybody can read everybody's papers (as long as they can afford the subscription rate, though) and this is the beauty of it. Go stick your nationalist head somewhere else, and don't try to spoil one of last bright aspects of our civilisation.
Of course it is. Have you guys never heard of http://www.arxiv.org/?
As someone who lives in China, I can tell you that most of the horror stories people hear about the 'evil commies' are wildly out of context
You mean there are no labour camps in China?
I was born in one of the harshest members of the Soviet bloc and lived?if you can call that living--there until I was 13. When emigration was permitted, anybody who could, fled, including our large and close extended family. We scattered all over the world and lost contact and everything we had.
Poor him. Just because he lived in communist country (I could imagine worse than that, say -- Poland under NAZI occupation), doesn't mean he has to be right in a technical question. Why does he bring this up at the beginning of the article? To make people pity him?
I mention this to point out that because I actually lived in a communist state, and studied politics, I have a better understanding of social systems in general
Utter bullshit. First of all, a 13 year old (he left his country -- why aren't we informed which country it was? he pictures his opression so strongly that one thinks it may have been Albania, or North Korea -- at that age) rarely grasps all details of the social system he lives in, unless the times are so harsh that he grows up faster. As exhibit A (cited above) shows, Fabian didn't grow up especially fast, to put it mildly. Secondly, just living in a socialist country does not make you smarter in terms of political and social systems. It may only make you more aware of the inefficiences of the socialism, but certainly does not make you more prepared to discussing social systems in general than living in a capitalist country.
the top 1% wealthiest internationalists who happen to have a home and HQ inside the US but are really internationalists and loyal only to their own personal profits at the expense of their neighbors.
And what do you think is the no. 1 priority of Joe Sixpack? Saving the world?
Well, now we're getting somewhere. Conspiracy theories, for one.
Well, this is negligible when the price for lunch goes to infinity. But usually, we split it evenly or everyone pays for himself. The first case was tried in the XIX century, it was called the poll tax. Flat rate tax is pure socialism compared to that. "Everyone pays for himself" is analogous to privatisation of all services. Effectively, having no state. Poll tax is pure socialism compared to that.
Now, the flat rate tax is when we compare each others' incomes and divide the check accodingly. I'm pretty sure almost nobody does that. But when it comes to fiscal system, even that is not enough. Makes one wonder on the complexities of human nature.
I say we raise the top tax rates to 70% and take the wealth of America back from the parasitic rich.
Income tax does not take wealth back. It merely slows down acquisition of further wealth. Learn it.
No, because as (almost) everyone knows, Slashdot does not use CSS :(
Oh, so goods and services are cheaper? I guess consumers, as well as CEOs and stockholders benefit.
If you have real competition. Otherwise it just translates into higher profit margins. Will Microsoft lower OS prices after outsourcing its jobs to India? Not bloody likely. That, however, is not a problem of the free marketeers being proved wrong. It's the problem of busting a monopoly or, in general terms, of having not enough competition. The EU understands the problem and investigates, whether there is enough competition in the market. Perhaps it's time for the USA to do the same?