Welfare is a fantastic tool for keeping disease, crime, and crowding down to it's barest minimum. This allows the entire society to benefit from helping a few of it's members. So no, it's not necessarily morality - it's an optimal solution for society as a whole. Pandering to our compassion is just a way to get everyone in on the plan.
Remember, Bush and his supporters are ideological conservatives, and as such they are ideologically opposed to "wasteful" social programs, because they believe that giving things that aren't earned to people is immoral (fostering dependency).
While I don't claim that everyone in favor of Bush's plan uses this argument, I'd like to treat you to a little historical tidbit about it:
Thomas Carlyle used the same argument in support of slavery in the 1800s. His argument: blacks should be forced to work for nothing, since doing otherwise would merely feed their inherent laziness and in turn corrupt their souls. Although the source of Carlyle's proposed "dependency" was different - he believed that the slaves would simply eat wild melons instead of working.
In case you couldn't tell, I find these arguments to be very silly at best.
I bounce around a lot of news organizations -- CNN, Fox, AP, Reuters, NYT, LA Times, OC Register, NPR, and a bunch of others. [...] Most of the stories are pretty much the same from organization to organization, no matter who originally wrote them, because journalism is, at its core, a pretty basic thing. Who, what, when, where, why, how?
You do also realize that most of the papers' news comes through a wire service (AP, Reuters). Even if they don't reprint the story straight from the wire, papers often use it as a source and rework the story to fit where they need it to go (or even just to make it look like they didn't copy). It's not surprising that many of the sources treat stories the same way.
Has anyone considered that the general opinion expressed in these posts - to wit, "stop being politically correct and call the differences like you see 'em" - might, in fact, be the socially accepted take on the subject?
Um, you realize, don't you, that 1/3 to 3/5 is still a minority of women?
You do realize that 1/3 and 3/5 average out to around 1/2, don't you? (46.6%) You're talking about a deviation of 3.4% from the expected average. Not exactly an overwhelming male majority.
Not that these are authoritative numbers anyway. But even if they were, you'd still be wrong.
Actually, I recall some interesting linguistics studies indicating that, when trying to decipher a child's need by asking questions such as, "are you hungry? are you angry? are you sad?" parents and other elders used a wider range of emotionally descriptive words when interacting with young females than with young males. It is a common theory among linguists that this contributes to a general trend of women being better at expressing emotions than men - they simply have a better vocabulary.
As to your ridiculous claim that a mom with "great math skills" is inferior to one who "knows how to make you feel better" - had you ever considered it possible to have both?
There's a good chance that this effect is illusionary. I guess the real question is, do we take this as the indicator of an innate (as in, unchangeable) secondary trait, or a result of gender-specific training? IF half of the population is being weeded out and pushed away from the maths and sciences, that means we're being vastly inefficient in our training of young scientists. We would (for example) be training the top smartest and most dedicated 30% of the male population, rather than the top 15% of both genders.
Parents don't want their kids to fail in college. This means that they are more willing to be supportive if their child chooses a major that they approve of. Don't ask me how I know this - maybe I looked around at the people I know and made a general observation.
If the child is male, they are more likely to approve of a science major (particularly computer science) and less likely to support a male child pursuing a carreer in the liberal or fine arts (particularly NOT theater). What can I say...all my guy friends have parents who want them to be computer programmers - even the ones who aren't good at it all. On the other hand, parents are much more likely to support a female child who goes after a liberal arts degree, and much less likely to support one with a science major because, like you, they believe she will inevitably fail at it. (These observations don't even touch the large percentage of women I know who were discouraged or even forbidden from going to college at all.)
But imagine the vast changes that would have to happen for both genders to be equally encouraged to do everything. Schools would have to court both genders equally, service both genders equally, and parents would have to be willing to support any decision that their child makes. In short, nothing would produce an uninfluenced sample that could accurately depict innate gender difference, short of sweeping and pervasive cultural change. So we're experimenting with that. I'll let you know how it turns out.
Re:Here's a classic: about marriages and divorce
on
Newsy Numbers
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· Score: 1
I'd also like to see a source for this. Anybody found one?
Block puzzles seem to do it more readily than others. I used to play Klotski all the time, and after a long session I would always imagine rearranging my furniture to release my bed...
Years later, I came across a puzzle in The Eleventh Hour where you had to rearrange furniture and get the bed out of the room. I can only assume that they had the same impulses as I.
It's both. Having experienced this phenomenon hundreds of times with many different games, I can say that the most remarkable trait of this state is how truly harmless it is. I cannot possibly explain why. But even driving down the road and thinking how great it would be to roll up the university tower with my katamari is not actually a blurring of reality - it is a sort of counterpoint. It seems that we are capable of maintaining two separate sets of expectations, one layered over the other, without going crazy or getting them confused. This goes against all reasonable expectations, nevertheless I expect that this describes many of the testimonials here.
I would like to point out that all the comments in this story (at least the ones that I've read) involve gamers thinking differently after playing video games. However, beyond the occasional moment of absentmindedness, no one in these comments has recounted an incident in which they acted directly on the real world as though it were the game world. The article offers a few incidents, but they are all nonviolent, and even the most extreme story resulted in nothing more than a moment of fright.
We can only guess at the probability that video games could induce violence. But here, on Slashdot, we have a large sampling of people who claim to have experienced altered perception as the direct effect of gaming, and have done nothing violent. This seems to imply the opposite of the usual conclusion.
I'll vouch for that. Link, Cloud and Sephiroth are the most universally-lusted after male characters. Honestly, I can't think of another genuinely sexy video game man. Sly Cooper comes to mind, but he's a freakin raccoon.
Do you see any short bald dudes with a big pot belly on any of these boxes either? No, it's all he-man looking dudes busting at the seams with muscles".
What about Mario? I wasn't aware he was the pinnacle of machismo and sex appeal.
Also, ugly people show up in TV and movies all the time. You just don't notice, because they're on TV.
Thomas Carlyle is an awesome writer. Wonderful. He has a clear insight into human understanding and a wonderful way with the language. If you need evidence of this, read Sartor Resartus or Past and Present.
Carlyle also wrote a vehemently racist tract called The Nigger Question. In it he exhibits none of the graceful arguments, the eloquent expressions, the overall clarity of his other works. He rambles. He says the same things over and over. He attacks the reader. He comes to no conclusions in the entire torturous, drawn-out speech. Suddenly, Carlyle seems like a very poor author.
I've noticed this in other places too: people seem to lose their ability to express themselves when they feel strongly about something, especially when their argument forces them to judge or dictate the actions of other people. So while the quality of Card's writing overall might not be hurt by it, I'm willing to bet that this particular essay represents something less than the height of his abilities.
I would remind you that even hard proof that a characteristic can change does not inform, one way or another, any question as to whether it should change.
I would also point out that Greek and Roman marriages were an institution for reproduction and powerplay only. They did not incorporate ideas of romantic love, which is the guiding factor in partner choice today. As has been pointed out, marriage has always been heterosexual, but it has only been love-based in the west for about 500 years, although you can find some overlap of love and marriage in the Arabian Nights, which are possibly older. This is, possibly, the reason that gay couples are demanding marriage rights now - they can, in theory, marry for love.
Another thing I would point out about Greeks is that their gay practice was extremely institutionalized, and that a man's social position was largely analogous to his position in the gay relationship. It was not shameful for a young man to play the "female" role in homosexual intercourse, but it was shameful for an older man to play that role. Likewise, it was not shameful for a young man to accept the affections of an older man, but it was anathema for the young man to seek it out actively. All of these detailed social rules can be found in Plato, where you can also read groundbreaking discussions about the vulnerability of love in the context of nonmarital gay relationships.
Also, a single historical instance of gay marriage: Nero was married to a man, who was also transvestite during the marriage.
Accusing your readers of vehement flaming does not incline them to read further.
Re:I want to start some more discussion...
on
The Law as a Parent
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· Score: 1
I agree with the sister post. The idea that seeing your parents (or any other adults) in the act of sex induces sociopathy is an urban myth, mostly self-enforced by widespread fear of the psychosis that might result. If it really was so dangerous, we would have a very different society than the one we have today. For one, children and postpubescent adults would have to be forcibly separated for the good of society. Ridiculous.
I personally don't see a problem with the parents of a child allowing them to view a legal self-mutilation. The child is not harmed by this. You can subscribe to a theory that viewing self-mutilation is a psychologically dangerous experience, but that's just your theory.
The rest of the descriptions cover situations which are already illegal, or, in the case of the parent who allows the child to mutilate himself, would at least lead to a Child Protective Services investigation, so the question of parental consent is moot. The law applies equally to the parent and the child.
The problem here is, you seem to be assuming that these situations (the legal ones, I mean) are inherently morally abhorrent. Perhaps you have accurately represented whether we, as parents personally, would act that way. But there may be parents out there who could raise healthy children with these allowances, or even put them to positive use. It seems unethical to deny those parents the right to try.
I think that one thing the older generation doesn't get is that everyone plays video games. It might be windows solitaire, or Bejeweled, or it might be Vice City, or it might be DDR. Everybody plays something these days, just like everyone listened to the radio in the days of the rock n' roll drug scares. Of course, in any crime you're going to find that the perpetrator played video games. But that's about as significant as the shocking revelation that a violent criminal was into "grocery shopping", or he had a history of getting his "hair cut."
are you seriously suggesting that there is no difference between religious faith and sexual practice?
There are hundreds, perhaps thousands of people in the United States who believe that gay marriages are sacred. Obviously, you don't share their belief. If you have issues, concerns, misgivings about what they believe, you are exercising a right which every man has in this nation, at least in theory. But under these rules, under this constitution, that does not give you the right to deny them practice of these things which they hold sacred, no matter how few the believers may be.
This has nothing to do with sexual practice. The act in question, and the act which was banned in many of the states this past election, is a public, voluntary statement of support for a relationship. I fail to see how that does not qualify these two groups: Mormons who publically declare their relationship to the church and God, and homosexuals who publically declare their relationship to one another, as people who could be easily picked out and attacked in exactly the same ways. I also fail to see how so many opponents of gay marriages can claim that this is an issue of sexual ethics or anything else other than a battle of belief systems.
I'd like to point out that, although I haven't played the second one, it is highly likely that many people have not reached certain levels in the game because they have not been implemented yet. The first game was a sort of "develop as you go" affair.
I'd also like to point out that the school of worship involves worshipping the Egyptian gods, not being worshipped yourself.
Slashdot Mirror
Welfare is a fantastic tool for keeping disease, crime, and crowding down to it's barest minimum. This allows the entire society to benefit from helping a few of it's members. So no, it's not necessarily morality - it's an optimal solution for society as a whole. Pandering to our compassion is just a way to get everyone in on the plan.
Remember, Bush and his supporters are ideological conservatives, and as such they are ideologically opposed to "wasteful" social programs, because they believe that giving things that aren't earned to people is immoral (fostering dependency).
While I don't claim that everyone in favor of Bush's plan uses this argument, I'd like to treat you to a little historical tidbit about it:
Thomas Carlyle used the same argument in support of slavery in the 1800s. His argument: blacks should be forced to work for nothing, since doing otherwise would merely feed their inherent laziness and in turn corrupt their souls. Although the source of Carlyle's proposed "dependency" was different - he believed that the slaves would simply eat wild melons instead of working.
In case you couldn't tell, I find these arguments to be very silly at best.
I bounce around a lot of news organizations -- CNN, Fox, AP, Reuters, NYT, LA Times, OC Register, NPR, and a bunch of others. [...] Most of the stories are pretty much the same from organization to organization, no matter who originally wrote them, because journalism is, at its core, a pretty basic thing. Who, what, when, where, why, how?
You do also realize that most of the papers' news comes through a wire service (AP, Reuters). Even if they don't reprint the story straight from the wire, papers often use it as a source and rework the story to fit where they need it to go (or even just to make it look like they didn't copy). It's not surprising that many of the sources treat stories the same way.
Has anyone considered that the general opinion expressed in these posts - to wit, "stop being politically correct and call the differences like you see 'em" - might, in fact, be the socially accepted take on the subject?
Um, you realize, don't you, that 1/3 to 3/5 is still a minority of women?
You do realize that 1/3 and 3/5 average out to around 1/2, don't you? (46.6%) You're talking about a deviation of 3.4% from the expected average. Not exactly an overwhelming male majority.
Not that these are authoritative numbers anyway. But even if they were, you'd still be wrong.
Actually, I recall some interesting linguistics studies indicating that, when trying to decipher a child's need by asking questions such as, "are you hungry? are you angry? are you sad?" parents and other elders used a wider range of emotionally descriptive words when interacting with young females than with young males. It is a common theory among linguists that this contributes to a general trend of women being better at expressing emotions than men - they simply have a better vocabulary.
As to your ridiculous claim that a mom with "great math skills" is inferior to one who "knows how to make you feel better" - had you ever considered it possible to have both?
It's there, why do you ignore it?
There's a good chance that this effect is illusionary. I guess the real question is, do we take this as the indicator of an innate (as in, unchangeable) secondary trait, or a result of gender-specific training? IF half of the population is being weeded out and pushed away from the maths and sciences, that means we're being vastly inefficient in our training of young scientists. We would (for example) be training the top smartest and most dedicated 30% of the male population, rather than the top 15% of both genders.
Parents don't want their kids to fail in college. This means that they are more willing to be supportive if their child chooses a major that they approve of. Don't ask me how I know this - maybe I looked around at the people I know and made a general observation.
If the child is male, they are more likely to approve of a science major (particularly computer science) and less likely to support a male child pursuing a carreer in the liberal or fine arts (particularly NOT theater). What can I say...all my guy friends have parents who want them to be computer programmers - even the ones who aren't good at it all. On the other hand, parents are much more likely to support a female child who goes after a liberal arts degree, and much less likely to support one with a science major because, like you, they believe she will inevitably fail at it. (These observations don't even touch the large percentage of women I know who were discouraged or even forbidden from going to college at all.)
But imagine the vast changes that would have to happen for both genders to be equally encouraged to do everything. Schools would have to court both genders equally, service both genders equally, and parents would have to be willing to support any decision that their child makes. In short, nothing would produce an uninfluenced sample that could accurately depict innate gender difference, short of sweeping and pervasive cultural change. So we're experimenting with that. I'll let you know how it turns out.
I'd also like to see a source for this. Anybody found one?
Vicious cycle: Step 1
"I can't get a Game Cube! There aren't any good games for it!"
Vicious cycle: Step 2
"I need to buy this game, but it's for the Cube!"
!recurse
have you ever had a marathon reading session and had trouble stepping away from the book?
All I have to say is, never go to sleep in the middle of The Lathe of Heaven.
Block puzzles seem to do it more readily than others. I used to play Klotski all the time, and after a long session I would always imagine rearranging my furniture to release my bed...
Years later, I came across a puzzle in The Eleventh Hour where you had to rearrange furniture and get the bed out of the room. I can only assume that they had the same impulses as I.
Which is it?
It's both. Having experienced this phenomenon hundreds of times with many different games, I can say that the most remarkable trait of this state is how truly harmless it is. I cannot possibly explain why. But even driving down the road and thinking how great it would be to roll up the university tower with my katamari is not actually a blurring of reality - it is a sort of counterpoint. It seems that we are capable of maintaining two separate sets of expectations, one layered over the other, without going crazy or getting them confused. This goes against all reasonable expectations, nevertheless I expect that this describes many of the testimonials here.
I would like to point out that all the comments in this story (at least the ones that I've read) involve gamers thinking differently after playing video games. However, beyond the occasional moment of absentmindedness, no one in these comments has recounted an incident in which they acted directly on the real world as though it were the game world. The article offers a few incidents, but they are all nonviolent, and even the most extreme story resulted in nothing more than a moment of fright.
We can only guess at the probability that video games could induce violence. But here, on Slashdot, we have a large sampling of people who claim to have experienced altered perception as the direct effect of gaming, and have done nothing violent. This seems to imply the opposite of the usual conclusion.
I'll make this quick.
There are big-titted women on game covers because men think they're sexy.
There are big-muscled men on game covers because men are encouraged by them.
No wonder the guys aren't getting their panties in a bunch!
I'll vouch for that. Link, Cloud and Sephiroth are the most universally-lusted after male characters. Honestly, I can't think of another genuinely sexy video game man. Sly Cooper comes to mind, but he's a freakin raccoon.
Do you see any short bald dudes with a big pot belly on any of these boxes either? No, it's all he-man looking dudes busting at the seams with muscles".
What about Mario? I wasn't aware he was the pinnacle of machismo and sex appeal.
Also, ugly people show up in TV and movies all the time. You just don't notice, because they're on TV.
I'll believe that argument when I can make backup copies of my house.
This is an example.
Thomas Carlyle is an awesome writer. Wonderful. He has a clear insight into human understanding and a wonderful way with the language. If you need evidence of this, read Sartor Resartus or Past and Present.
Carlyle also wrote a vehemently racist tract called The Nigger Question. In it he exhibits none of the graceful arguments, the eloquent expressions, the overall clarity of his other works. He rambles. He says the same things over and over. He attacks the reader. He comes to no conclusions in the entire torturous, drawn-out speech. Suddenly, Carlyle seems like a very poor author.
I've noticed this in other places too: people seem to lose their ability to express themselves when they feel strongly about something, especially when their argument forces them to judge or dictate the actions of other people. So while the quality of Card's writing overall might not be hurt by it, I'm willing to bet that this particular essay represents something less than the height of his abilities.
I would remind you that even hard proof that a characteristic can change does not inform, one way or another, any question as to whether it should change.
I would also point out that Greek and Roman marriages were an institution for reproduction and powerplay only. They did not incorporate ideas of romantic love, which is the guiding factor in partner choice today. As has been pointed out, marriage has always been heterosexual, but it has only been love-based in the west for about 500 years, although you can find some overlap of love and marriage in the Arabian Nights, which are possibly older. This is, possibly, the reason that gay couples are demanding marriage rights now - they can, in theory, marry for love.
Another thing I would point out about Greeks is that their gay practice was extremely institutionalized, and that a man's social position was largely analogous to his position in the gay relationship. It was not shameful for a young man to play the "female" role in homosexual intercourse, but it was shameful for an older man to play that role. Likewise, it was not shameful for a young man to accept the affections of an older man, but it was anathema for the young man to seek it out actively. All of these detailed social rules can be found in Plato, where you can also read groundbreaking discussions about the vulnerability of love in the context of nonmarital gay relationships.
Also, a single historical instance of gay marriage: Nero was married to a man, who was also transvestite during the marriage.
Accusing your readers of vehement flaming does not incline them to read further.
I agree with the sister post. The idea that seeing your parents (or any other adults) in the act of sex induces sociopathy is an urban myth, mostly self-enforced by widespread fear of the psychosis that might result. If it really was so dangerous, we would have a very different society than the one we have today. For one, children and postpubescent adults would have to be forcibly separated for the good of society. Ridiculous.
I personally don't see a problem with the parents of a child allowing them to view a legal self-mutilation. The child is not harmed by this. You can subscribe to a theory that viewing self-mutilation is a psychologically dangerous experience, but that's just your theory.
The rest of the descriptions cover situations which are already illegal, or, in the case of the parent who allows the child to mutilate himself, would at least lead to a Child Protective Services investigation, so the question of parental consent is moot. The law applies equally to the parent and the child.
The problem here is, you seem to be assuming that these situations (the legal ones, I mean) are inherently morally abhorrent. Perhaps you have accurately represented whether we, as parents personally, would act that way. But there may be parents out there who could raise healthy children with these allowances, or even put them to positive use. It seems unethical to deny those parents the right to try.
I think that one thing the older generation doesn't get is that everyone plays video games. It might be windows solitaire, or Bejeweled, or it might be Vice City, or it might be DDR. Everybody plays something these days, just like everyone listened to the radio in the days of the rock n' roll drug scares. Of course, in any crime you're going to find that the perpetrator played video games. But that's about as significant as the shocking revelation that a violent criminal was into "grocery shopping", or he had a history of getting his "hair cut."
are you seriously suggesting that there is no difference between religious faith and sexual practice?
There are hundreds, perhaps thousands of people in the United States who believe that gay marriages are sacred. Obviously, you don't share their belief. If you have issues, concerns, misgivings about what they believe, you are exercising a right which every man has in this nation, at least in theory. But under these rules, under this constitution, that does not give you the right to deny them practice of these things which they hold sacred, no matter how few the believers may be.
This has nothing to do with sexual practice. The act in question, and the act which was banned in many of the states this past election, is a public, voluntary statement of support for a relationship. I fail to see how that does not qualify these two groups: Mormons who publically declare their relationship to the church and God, and homosexuals who publically declare their relationship to one another, as people who could be easily picked out and attacked in exactly the same ways. I also fail to see how so many opponents of gay marriages can claim that this is an issue of sexual ethics or anything else other than a battle of belief systems.
Apparently, eGenesis has no qualms incorporating slavery for the sake of historical accuracy, even if it offends some of their players.
I'd like to point out that, although I haven't played the second one, it is highly likely that many people have not reached certain levels in the game because they have not been implemented yet. The first game was a sort of "develop as you go" affair.
I'd also like to point out that the school of worship involves worshipping the Egyptian gods, not being worshipped yourself.