Also, I should say, you are looking to use the wrong tool for the wrong job.
You don't use philosophies of personal conduct or governmental structure or whatever to directly send people to the moon any more than you would use particle physics to directly determine child welfare guidelines, the appropriate limits of state influence in ones personal life, or economic policy.
Social scientists (psychologists, economists, political scientists, sociologists etc.) will often look at systems and environments in the world that happen to be various implementations, whether intentional or not, of various schools of philosophical thought. Hypotheses are developed, tested, refuted or not, etc.
For an example of philosophical thinking taken from abstract to implementation, look at the US constitution. It was created and designed as a manifestation of multiple philosophical schools.
For another, look at various implementations of socialist, communist, and capitalist societies around the world and how those are studied.
They may not be ideal implementations of any one philosopher's intent, but they are absolutely implementations that come from philosophy and can be tested for utility and validity. Experiments are run all the time on these systems, it's just most are considered "natural experiments" wherein the independent variable isn't manipulated directly, but rather through circumstance.
For example: I worked on one study where we looked at the effect of different types of public housing accommodations on adolescent development in multiple areas. We couldn't just take people and put them into different housing environments, but what did happen was after hurricane Katrina displaced so many people, we managed to find one group of several thousand people who were extremely homogeneous and who had, previously, been living in one particular housing project and who were then split up and scattered to 4 very different forms of public housing. We then looked for systemic differences in the trajectories and outcomes of the adolescents in the study, controlled as we could for various confounds, etc.
There were many, many different theories about what we would find, and those theories were nothing less than practical applications of various philosophies. The problem of perception about this stuff as real science comes about because there are so goddamn many confounds that we have to address that to someone who isn't trained in the field (and unfortunately to many who are) it's extremely easy to be sloppy as hell and to vastly overestimate how far findings extend.
How is it circular logic? We take AI out of simulations and put them into bodies all the time. What do you think is going on when software simulations of control systems are eventually out into real world use instead of just being tested in simulation?
It isn't hard to imagine a sufficiently advanced simulation - one that is effectively a strong AI - being downloaded into an artificial body and thus being taken outside f their simulation into whatever it is we are experiencing.
We do it all the time with weak AI and crappy robot bodies all the time nowadays.
I think the point at which a fetus is able to survive without being connected to the mother's body would be a reasonable cut off point.
And if "Christians" want to put their money where their mouths are, they can pay for the medical facilities to do exactly that - keep children removed from pregnant women who do not wish to be pregnant anymore when those children would require heroic measures to keep alive.
On the question about human sacrifice or whatever other example one wants to bring up:
1) are your neighbors capable of surviving outside of your body without medical intervention?
2) are you responsible for your neighbors, to the point where if your neighbors continue to live you will be held legally responsible for caring for them?
3) is it possible for you to be forced to carry your neighbors in your body for 9 months and then be required to care for them (or give them up to be cared for by other parties) if you are raped?
4) what percentage of people in the US believe human sacrifice is religiously necessary, and what percentage of the US population I believes abortion is acceptable?
For 1,2 and 3 I think my point is clear. For 4 - things change over time. Morals and ethics change as generations change. Sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. Right now, a sufficient number of people in the US think abortion should be legal for it to be legal. Putting people in power who would try to do an end run around the rights of a significant portion of the population is fucked. Further, allowing abortion takes rights away from no one who is a capable of consenting, while prohibiting abortion takes away rights.
A fetus, in my eyes, does not have rights. Once it is able to survive without the mother, it has rights.
I ignored your argument because it is based on your ignorance. Just because you have not ever encountered a secular argument for valuing human life does not mean that they do not exist. Go read about secular humanism as a starting point.
And you are lying - that would be bearing false witness. I said that when I called this an example of the Christian version of Sharia law that I was crediting the idea that they are not equivalent. You now insist that I am playing semantic games, despite my clearly explaining the difference. you just choose to ignore it because it is inconvenient for you. I will give you a non-religious example of why you are wrong:
OSX is Apple's version of an operating system. Windows is Microsoft's version of an operating system. They are not equivalent, they are simply two things that serve the same general purpose, but they are not the same and are in fact very different. Christian law and Sharia law are two things that attempt to perform roughly the same purpose (have religious beliefs shape secular law) but they go about them in different ways and enact different laws. Both seek to force others who do not share those beliefs live by them.
You are not worth arguing with. You do not seem to possess an education sufficient for this to be an argument, as demonstrated by your insistence that only religion can yield a foundation for valuing human life. You do not seem to possess critical thinking skills or the ability to understand nuance, as demonstrated by your inability to understand the difference i pointed out between Christian law and Sharia law. Arguing with you would be pointless because, lacking those things, you don't have the capacity to actually make an argument based on anything but your own ignorance and logical missteps.
I know and respect many people who are deeply religious. Most of the professors I liked best in university were men of the cloth - 2 were Jesuits, one was an episcopalian cleric, 2 were rabbis (one reformed, one orthodox) and several more were deacons or the equivalent in their respective churches. They were educated, they were intelligent, and they had principles and conviction. In fact, it was actually one of the Jesuits who first introduced me to many of the non-theistic philosophical arguments for ethical behavior that you insist do not exist.
You are nothing like any of those people. I do not want you, for a minute, thinking that the reason I am no longer responding to you at this point is because you have somehow persuaded me or caused me to run out of arguments for my point of view. I am leaving this because you, and people like you, are exactly why many people who prize rationalism look at religion as a refuge for the ignorant and stupid, and I simply will not bother arguing with someone like you when there are a great number of people who don't do the disservice you do to religious thought to argue with instead.
You should be ashamed of yourself, and you should want to be more educated, because your "argument" just makes it so much easier for people to dismiss you and all religious people as uneducated morons.
Except that in 1994 where ran against Kennedy for Senate he said he was pro-choice. Again when he ran for Governor he said he was pro-choice. And now he is walking that back.
So no, I am perfectly aware of the evidence of what Romney has said. The problem, as I pointed out, was that he has been talking out of both sides of his mouth and contradicting himself so much that I have no choice but to assume the absolute worst things he has said are the things he believes and will try to do.
The real reason there's no point in debating me is because you will not be able to get me to unsee all the things I have seen And heard Romney say, and if you honestly believe at this point, despite copious fact checking that has been done, that Romney doesn't lie at will to pander, I won't persuade you to re-examine your views either.
There is nothing Romney could do other than apologize for his mendacity and then drop out of the Presidential race that would make me think he is a remotely honest or principled human being. He has himself to blame for that. Himself, as captured numerous times on camera and in press interviews.
Your entire argument is based on your belief about what constitutes a human. I disagree with the premise of your argument and thus the conclusions you draw from it. The thing is, it's so clear that you cannot even fathom someone would disagree wi your premise, and therefore they must be doing things that, to them, are inconsistent and wrong.
And I did not say Christian rules and Sharia are the same, I said that they want to implement the Christian version of Sharia, implying that they are not equivalent (since if they were I would not need to specify Christian version) and within the context of what I wrote it is clear I am talking about them wanting make sir religious beliefs translate into the law of the land.
You then say I am being intellectually dishonest after putting on a great example of it yourself. What does your book say about pointing out specs in someone else's eye while ignoring the plank in yours?
I'm sorry, but I don't believe a word ut of Romney's mouth.
Especially about this. When Romney ran for senate against Ted Kennedy he said he was pro choice. Now, somehow, he has become anti-abortion. Has he had a religious conversion in the meantime? Has abortion somehow become less safe than it was in 1994? Has something fundamentally changed about abortion that would cause someone to change their views as he seemingly has? Did he undergo a personal experience where he had to reforms late his stance? Did his wife have one? Did someone close to him have one that he is aware of? What, other than him needing to pander, changed to make him anti-abortion?
Further, during the debate last night, Ryan said that it would be the policy of the administration to seek to limit abortion to cases of rape, incest or protecting the health of the mother. He avoided saying whether or not they would seek to change the rules - he started talking about how his religious freedom was being impinged upon because abortion is legal.
There is no way that they will not try to put anti-abortion justices on the bench. None.
Romney has proved he is willing to say whatever his audience wants to hear and then he will angrily deny that he ever had a different position when called on it. Because of this, I am just left to assume that literally the worst things he has said in public or on camera are true and that is his agenda. If he had actually showed a shred of principle at any time in his public life, if he actually had a consistent platform or, a least showed some reason other than "so religious fundamentalists will vote for me so I can be president" for his views on so many things to change, I am going to ignore any of his more moderate versions of his platform and go with the ones that are considered the worst by me, that he has promoted.
Obama hasn't always done what he said he will, and he has changed his public opinion on things, but at least when he does he can point at a reasonable process by which a reasonable person can change their mind. And we have also had 4 years of him actually being in power to see that in fact, he isn't doing anything particularly crazy like some conspiracy theorists have suggested he would. He may be a pandering politician but at least it's not nearly as blatant and at least I have some reason based on his track record to believe he won't start doing batshit crazy stuff in term 2.
Also, if Romney/Ryan get elected, do remember that they will also likely then have a republican house and possibly a republican senate. Obama being re-elected will likely have a minori house and the senate is close to a toss-up. Romney will be in a position to vastly more damage imposing his agenda vs. Obama, who will have a more hostile legislative body than before (which was already pretty hostile!)
Romney/Ryan: Their faiths say that abortion is wrong and they want to change the rules so even if you aren't a member of their respective religions, you have to live by those rules.
Obama/Biden: Their faiths say that abortion is wrong, but they do NOT want to change the rules; if you are not an adherent of their faiths they won't try to force you to live by those rules.
What sickened me - I mean, absolutely sickened me - was when Ryan actually dared to try and say that his religious freedom was somehow threatened by the fact that abortion is legal in the US. How is my being able to have an abortion in any way, shape or form restricting his right to worship however he wants?
Yeah. By not forcing me to live by his religion's rules I'm somehow reducing his freedom of religious expression. He actually believes that. He actually said that. And people actually agree with him.
I won't say that the democrats are all about personal liberty either, but holy shit, at least 90% of their platform isn't basically the Christian version of Sharia.
Where, pray tell, would the money to pay for those profits come from? Please tell me how a poor person who has literally no assets, yet has become disabled, would be able to pay for care in such a way that it is not a net cost to the system, let alone a profit.
Government should cover those things which should not be for-profit and those things which are essential but businesses cannot figure out how to do profitably. I include health care and national defense in the category of "things that should not be for-profit" and universal access to education as one of the things businesses haven't been able to figure out how to do for a profit, at least in a way that scales to cover every child in the country.
I went to highschool in the mid-late 80's in Chicago, Illinois. I was in what was considered to be one of the best public schools in the nation and part of the IB program there, which is just shorthand for saying that the program and resources they gave us were generally top of the line. Yet we had no computers in the school until my 3rd and final year there, and they weren't used for any kind of computer science stuff.
However, many students I knew had a computer - be it an Apple ][ (usually an E), Atari 400/800, C64/128 and we had a pretty robust "warez" trading scene going on at my school.
Really, I don't think I was ever taught anything about computers until fairly late in my career; everything I knew was due to exploration and figuring it out myself or just reading manuals - the closest to being taught something came in the form of seminars or whatever on good practices with my first real employer.
A tablet is far better for "physically active people on the go" if a smart phone won't work, though you absolutely need to have a bluetooth keyboard & mouse & ability to remote into a real computer (which shouldn't be much of a problem - I mean, when I go hiking out into the wilds to camp I don't typically whip out a computer in order to write code or whatever)
I do a lot of site visits where I am always walking around and taking notes. Before tablets, I typically did this by carrying a clipboard that had forms and writing pads underneath and then I would ship the paper back to my assistant to manually enter. With my tablet I have the forms I use as one app and then use another app to write my notes out and have them automatically converted to a textfile that can then be edited - saves a LOT of time.
I tried a laptop but it's clumsy as hell to walk around with and you can't type unless you set it down. I tried a netbook which made it so I could only walk around and type one handed, which was vastly slower than my writing.
For when I absolutely need a keyboard and I am nowhere near my actual computer (hotel and need to actually type a bunch - email or documents or code or whatever) I can use local apps or remote login to my real computer, then just use a bluetooth mouse and rubber bluetooth keyboard that rolls up nicely and is standard sized when flattened out and works better than the cheap and tiny keyboards on the netbooks I've tried. The real benefit of these is that when I don't need them I don't have to deal with them - leave 'em in my backpack if I'm just doing stuff that a touch screen can handle.
With a good case (no cover, just ruggedized rubber bumper) this thing takes a beating.
When I travel I also bring along a battery that can charge my phone & tablet & peripherals - $60 bucks and it basically gives me 1-2 full charges for each device I have with me). My total load out between the tablet, keyboard & mouse, phone, and battery is less than 3 pounds and everything stores very, very nicely in a small backpack or messenger bag (along with everything else I carry) and all's good. If I'm going to be away from civilization for days and days I bring along a solar charger - basically just for if I'm camping for a week since I often like to read at night and can let things charge back up during the day.
I think netbooks were a stopgap technology, kind of like minidiscs or zip disk drives - they were a kind of "good enough but not really good" solution that was completely eclipsed when tablets came out.
My prediction is going to be that you'll see tablets come in two flavors - one is what they are like now, and the other would be a thicker version that is beefier - think a touchscreen MacBook Air with no lid, running OSX instead of iOS or something along those lines. Then it would be tablet lite, tablet cum ultrabook or laptop.
Apple service is insane. I had a first generation Intel MacBook that died about 3 years after I bought it. Brought it in to get fixed and they said that something had cooked on the motherboard and that the resulting surge had cooked everything.
"You have Apple Care on this, so we'll just swap your hard drive and give you a new one. Be right back."
Guy comes back in a bit and says "Well, we don't have any of your model in stock, so would it be okay if we gave you one of the newer ones? It's a refurb from the last revision if that's ok?"
Gee, I don't know, twist my arm.
Didn't pay a cent, and still make use of that MacBook.
Does getting the ID require that a person provide any documents that they must pay for? How hard is it for poor people to get those for free, and how much extra work do they need to do to prove they're poor enough to qualify for the free ID or ancillary documentation? Does it require that they go to a particular place during working hours to obtain it and if so does it compensate poor people for their time and travel expenses, as well as contact their employer to ensure that they are not penalized for taking that time? Does it require that they actually have a home address/proof of address in order to obtain one, and if so, how are homeless people handled? How are voters informed of the need for an ID in order to vote, and does it take into account language issues, homelessness issues, and any other obstacle to being informed that disproportionately affects poor people and minorities?
Those are very, very real problems for people who are already on the margins, and those issues act as a massive disincentive for those people to get an ID and the people behind those laws know it.
For you and me, getting an ID is nothing more than hopping in the car, going to the DMV, paying pocket change to get the ID and then being on our merry way. Our employers won't fire us for needing a couple of hours to run that errand. For someone who is on the margin, though, it can be a goddamn epic adventure through bureaucracy that ultimately is confusing, frustrating and ultimately may end in failure and come at a cost far higher than you are aware of.
I do research with participants who are below the poverty line, and believe me, the hoops my participants have to jump through and the extra effort they have to go through to even get to the point where they can jump through those hoops is staggering.
Further, the problem that voter IDs are intended to prevent is not, in fact, a problem: retail voter fraud of the sort IDs would theoretically address is pretty much nonexistent, and is completely dwarfed by wholesale vote manipulation that is either intentional or accidental.
Finally, many voter ID laws allow some forms of ID but not others, and the allowed types of IDs in those states overwhelmingly are owned by people who tend to vote more conservatively, while the disallowed ones tend to belong to people who would skew more towards the liberal demographic.
It's a bullshit issue, it costs way more money to implement than the "problem" it solves costs society and it is intended to limit turnout of those people who most need representation in our society. Anyone who is a fan of voter ID laws is, to be charitable, misinformed at best and actively seeking to disenfranchise others at worst, and they are encouraging costly government intervention where none is needed.
During a hyper growth phase the important thing about human resources is to bring in and keep superstars and ruthlessly cull anyone who isn't for any position that isn't basically administrative or infrastructure. You don't want someone merely good when you can try for someone who is amazing, especially when you are trying to completely dominate what you imagine to be a huge marketplace.
Once the company is firmly established then you can take people who are merely good and work on getting them to up their performance.
It isn't a particularly nice mode of operation, and it certainly doesn't place much value on people as people, but for the people who can thrive in such an environment it can lead to amazing results.
For reference, I have been a single digit employee in multiple firms that have exploded to over 1000 employees within a year of my coming on board and seen this process through multiple times - the first time I was horrified at how casually people were canned, but I couldn't dispute the huge difference in performance between the ones who stayed and the ones who were let go. I had a series of amazing experiences but I'm extremely glad I got my financial security taken care of so that I could get out of that kind of environment and into something relatively non-competitive like academia:)
Kind of like how most Android users feel when they get abandoned mere months after buying the new stuff?
I'm not defending Apple here, but putting it in perspective: Unless you're willing and able to root your android handset/tablet it's very unlikely that your carrier will bother trying to push you an OS upgrade in a timely manner or at all. And if you do root your handset/tablet you're going to void the warranty.
All other things being equal, I would take the length of time Apple supports their customers' devices over most any other maker of comparable devices.
How incredibly, droolingly stupid must this man be that he sent incriminating texts to children and left a trail that could conclusively prove he is a pedophile? Is it more likely that he is that stupid, or that this was an error?
Difficulty: He's a swim coach and not a member of the US House of Representatives (e.g. Mark Foley), so we at least know he's got a functioning brain stem.
Years ago I worked at a place called Divine Interventures in their "Buzz" group. We had a guy - he was the webmaster/developer guy, one of the first employees, etc.
Guy had ideas for graph design that were better than what the designers came up with, came up with awesome ideas pretty much whenever we had a problem, but was kind of brusque.
He got laid off in the first wave (and was smart to do it - one of the only people to get a full severance package when the companyimploded, and literally started his new job the next day) and about a month after that we got written up in a magazine as being a great place to work in Chicago. There were several specific things pointed out in the article as why it was so great, and when the CEO was holding an all hands meeting to congratulate us, she asked who came up with idea one, and it was pointed out this guy did. Then idea two and... Same guy. Then idea three and... Same guy. "Well, decisions like laying him off are probably why we're going out of business," the only honest thing I've ever heard from a CEO.
If they are really brilliant, it's worth keeping them around.
My best friend started working for a Catholic hospital and during the orientation the person giving the talk put up a series of what she felt wee inspirational slides.
One of them, she said, was God's hands parting a cloud so that the sun could shine through. It was a picture that had been made by Something Awful forum members that were putting goatse imagery into random scenes.
My friend just bout died trying to contain her laughter.
I would venture a guess that most Mormons don't give a fuck, just like the vast majority of the human race doesnt give a fuck about Linus, let alone know who he is. Does Linus' opinion have any impact on them and their lives? What possible reason could they have to care at all? "Oh no, some geek who is completely irrelevant to anyone but other geeks thinks we're crazy!"
The only people who care about this kind of shit are people who have an agenda to push and will use any pretext to do so, or the people who are, in fact, batshit crazy.
People seem to be trying really hard to be offended by this stuff and completely ignoring the fact that there are very powerful people who unfortunately can have a direct impact on our lives, who say incredibly stupid and evil shit all the time. See: pretty much all the extreme right candidates currently running for office in the US.
Most modern cars have sensors that detect a crash in progress and pull those things off before the kinetic energy is a risk to human occupants. It happens incredibly fast, and only when you get hit etc.
I would rather that, to be honest, than something that anticipated what it imagined to be an inevitable crash before contact was made just on the off chance that the crash wasn't actually inevitable.
What I do see happening though is an automated driving car (or just any car that has automatic control of braking and speed) to try and adjust speed ahead of a potential crash as a way to avoid or minimize it. For a fully automated car, I would expect it to be constantly scanning the area and detect something approaching in a dangerous fashion in plenty of time to avoid a collision entirely and not even have to swerve - it would simply adjust speed to leave a hole for the fast moving interloper much as a good human driver will give plenty of space when they see an erratic driver.
People get road hypnosis all the time when driving or are tricked into not noticing things that a computer with decent sensors absolutely would notice.
And your reflexes are absolute shit; I don't care if you are at the peak of human reaction times, what you see as an instant reaction would, to any modern computer feel like an incredibly boring multiple month wait as your meat responds.
The problem is that the self-driving car wouldn't get into that situation in the first place, and only an extremely shitty human driver would, too.
Any decent driver would anticipate that the other car might have to cut in early under conditions like that and would slow down so that if the other driver did need to cut in early they could.
If you are driving in those conditions and you are taken by surprise by someone 1) coming up fast behind you and 2) going into the left lane to pass you and 3) cutting you off because of oncoming traffic you are simply put a spectacularly shitty driver and should not have a license in the first place. Nor should the other idiot, but in the scenario you describe it's a failure on the part of both drivers if there's a collision, let alone going off a cliff.
Slashdot Mirror
Also, I should say, you are looking to use the wrong tool for the wrong job.
You don't use philosophies of personal conduct or governmental structure or whatever to directly send people to the moon any more than you would use particle physics to directly determine child welfare guidelines, the appropriate limits of state influence in ones personal life, or economic policy.
This is done all the time.
Social scientists (psychologists, economists, political scientists, sociologists etc.) will often look at systems and environments in the world that happen to be various implementations, whether intentional or not, of various schools of philosophical thought. Hypotheses are developed, tested, refuted or not, etc.
For an example of philosophical thinking taken from abstract to implementation, look at the US constitution. It was created and designed as a manifestation of multiple philosophical schools.
For another, look at various implementations of socialist, communist, and capitalist societies around the world and how those are studied.
They may not be ideal implementations of any one philosopher's intent, but they are absolutely implementations that come from philosophy and can be tested for utility and validity. Experiments are run all the time on these systems, it's just most are considered "natural experiments" wherein the independent variable isn't manipulated directly, but rather through circumstance.
For example: I worked on one study where we looked at the effect of different types of public housing accommodations on adolescent development in multiple areas. We couldn't just take people and put them into different housing environments, but what did happen was after hurricane Katrina displaced so many people, we managed to find one group of several thousand people who were extremely homogeneous and who had, previously, been living in one particular housing project and who were then split up and scattered to 4 very different forms of public housing. We then looked for systemic differences in the trajectories and outcomes of the adolescents in the study, controlled as we could for various confounds, etc.
There were many, many different theories about what we would find, and those theories were nothing less than practical applications of various philosophies. The problem of perception about this stuff as real science comes about because there are so goddamn many confounds that we have to address that to someone who isn't trained in the field (and unfortunately to many who are) it's extremely easy to be sloppy as hell and to vastly overestimate how far findings extend.
Many gay people have children of their own, many straight people have no children. Reproduction is entirely separable from sexual orientation.
How is it circular logic? We take AI out of simulations and put them into bodies all the time. What do you think is going on when software simulations of control systems are eventually out into real world use instead of just being tested in simulation?
Yet.
It isn't hard to imagine a sufficiently advanced simulation - one that is effectively a strong AI - being downloaded into an artificial body and thus being taken outside f their simulation into whatever it is we are experiencing.
We do it all the time with weak AI and crappy robot bodies all the time nowadays.
I think the point at which a fetus is able to survive without being connected to the mother's body would be a reasonable cut off point.
And if "Christians" want to put their money where their mouths are, they can pay for the medical facilities to do exactly that - keep children removed from pregnant women who do not wish to be pregnant anymore when those children would require heroic measures to keep alive.
On the question about human sacrifice or whatever other example one wants to bring up:
1) are your neighbors capable of surviving outside of your body without medical intervention?
2) are you responsible for your neighbors, to the point where if your neighbors continue to live you will be held legally responsible for caring for them?
3) is it possible for you to be forced to carry your neighbors in your body for 9 months and then be required to care for them (or give them up to be cared for by other parties) if you are raped?
4) what percentage of people in the US believe human sacrifice is religiously necessary, and what percentage of the US population I believes abortion is acceptable?
For 1,2 and 3 I think my point is clear. For 4 - things change over time. Morals and ethics change as generations change. Sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. Right now, a sufficient number of people in the US think abortion should be legal for it to be legal. Putting people in power who would try to do an end run around the rights of a significant portion of the population is fucked. Further, allowing abortion takes rights away from no one who is a capable of consenting, while prohibiting abortion takes away rights.
A fetus, in my eyes, does not have rights. Once it is able to survive without the mother, it has rights.
I ignored your argument because it is based on your ignorance. Just because you have not ever encountered a secular argument for valuing human life does not mean that they do not exist. Go read about secular humanism as a starting point.
And you are lying - that would be bearing false witness. I said that when I called this an example of the Christian version of Sharia law that I was crediting the idea that they are not equivalent. You now insist that I am playing semantic games, despite my clearly explaining the difference. you just choose to ignore it because it is inconvenient for you. I will give you a non-religious example of why you are wrong:
OSX is Apple's version of an operating system. Windows is Microsoft's version of an operating system. They are not equivalent, they are simply two things that serve the same general purpose, but they are not the same and are in fact very different. Christian law and Sharia law are two things that attempt to perform roughly the same purpose (have religious beliefs shape secular law) but they go about them in different ways and enact different laws. Both seek to force others who do not share those beliefs live by them.
You are not worth arguing with. You do not seem to possess an education sufficient for this to be an argument, as demonstrated by your insistence that only religion can yield a foundation for valuing human life. You do not seem to possess critical thinking skills or the ability to understand nuance, as demonstrated by your inability to understand the difference i pointed out between Christian law and Sharia law. Arguing with you would be pointless because, lacking those things, you don't have the capacity to actually make an argument based on anything but your own ignorance and logical missteps.
I know and respect many people who are deeply religious. Most of the professors I liked best in university were men of the cloth - 2 were Jesuits, one was an episcopalian cleric, 2 were rabbis (one reformed, one orthodox) and several more were deacons or the equivalent in their respective churches. They were educated, they were intelligent, and they had principles and conviction. In fact, it was actually one of the Jesuits who first introduced me to many of the non-theistic philosophical arguments for ethical behavior that you insist do not exist.
You are nothing like any of those people. I do not want you, for a minute, thinking that the reason I am no longer responding to you at this point is because you have somehow persuaded me or caused me to run out of arguments for my point of view. I am leaving this because you, and people like you, are exactly why many people who prize rationalism look at religion as a refuge for the ignorant and stupid, and I simply will not bother arguing with someone like you when there are a great number of people who don't do the disservice you do to religious thought to argue with instead.
You should be ashamed of yourself, and you should want to be more educated, because your "argument" just makes it so much easier for people to dismiss you and all religious people as uneducated morons.
Except that in 1994 where ran against Kennedy for Senate he said he was pro-choice. Again when he ran for Governor he said he was pro-choice. And now he is walking that back.
So no, I am perfectly aware of the evidence of what Romney has said. The problem, as I pointed out, was that he has been talking out of both sides of his mouth and contradicting himself so much that I have no choice but to assume the absolute worst things he has said are the things he believes and will try to do.
The real reason there's no point in debating me is because you will not be able to get me to unsee all the things I have seen And heard Romney say, and if you honestly believe at this point, despite copious fact checking that has been done, that Romney doesn't lie at will to pander, I won't persuade you to re-examine your views either.
There is nothing Romney could do other than apologize for his mendacity and then drop out of the Presidential race that would make me think he is a remotely honest or principled human being. He has himself to blame for that. Himself, as captured numerous times on camera and in press interviews.
Your entire argument is based on your belief about what constitutes a human. I disagree with the premise of your argument and thus the conclusions you draw from it. The thing is, it's so clear that you cannot even fathom someone would disagree wi your premise, and therefore they must be doing things that, to them, are inconsistent and wrong.
And I did not say Christian rules and Sharia are the same, I said that they want to implement the Christian version of Sharia, implying that they are not equivalent (since if they were I would not need to specify Christian version) and within the context of what I wrote it is clear I am talking about them wanting make sir religious beliefs translate into the law of the land.
You then say I am being intellectually dishonest after putting on a great example of it yourself. What does your book say about pointing out specs in someone else's eye while ignoring the plank in yours?
I'm sorry, but I don't believe a word ut of Romney's mouth.
Especially about this. When Romney ran for senate against Ted Kennedy he said he was pro choice. Now, somehow, he has become anti-abortion. Has he had a religious conversion in the meantime? Has abortion somehow become less safe than it was in 1994? Has something fundamentally changed about abortion that would cause someone to change their views as he seemingly has? Did he undergo a personal experience where he had to reforms late his stance? Did his wife have one? Did someone close to him have one that he is aware of? What, other than him needing to pander, changed to make him anti-abortion?
Further, during the debate last night, Ryan said that it would be the policy of the administration to seek to limit abortion to cases of rape, incest or protecting the health of the mother. He avoided saying whether or not they would seek to change the rules - he started talking about how his religious freedom was being impinged upon because abortion is legal.
There is no way that they will not try to put anti-abortion justices on the bench. None.
Romney has proved he is willing to say whatever his audience wants to hear and then he will angrily deny that he ever had a different position when called on it. Because of this, I am just left to assume that literally the worst things he has said in public or on camera are true and that is his agenda. If he had actually showed a shred of principle at any time in his public life, if he actually had a consistent platform or, a least showed some reason other than "so religious fundamentalists will vote for me so I can be president" for his views on so many things to change, I am going to ignore any of his more moderate versions of his platform and go with the ones that are considered the worst by me, that he has promoted.
Obama hasn't always done what he said he will, and he has changed his public opinion on things, but at least when he does he can point at a reasonable process by which a reasonable person can change their mind. And we have also had 4 years of him actually being in power to see that in fact, he isn't doing anything particularly crazy like some conspiracy theorists have suggested he would. He may be a pandering politician but at least it's not nearly as blatant and at least I have some reason based on his track record to believe he won't start doing batshit crazy stuff in term 2.
Also, if Romney/Ryan get elected, do remember that they will also likely then have a republican house and possibly a republican senate. Obama being re-elected will likely have a minori house and the senate is close to a toss-up. Romney will be in a position to vastly more damage imposing his agenda vs. Obama, who will have a more hostile legislative body than before (which was already pretty hostile!)
The big one for me is this:
Romney/Ryan: Their faiths say that abortion is wrong and they want to change the rules so even if you aren't a member of their respective religions, you have to live by those rules.
Obama/Biden: Their faiths say that abortion is wrong, but they do NOT want to change the rules; if you are not an adherent of their faiths they won't try to force you to live by those rules.
What sickened me - I mean, absolutely sickened me - was when Ryan actually dared to try and say that his religious freedom was somehow threatened by the fact that abortion is legal in the US. How is my being able to have an abortion in any way, shape or form restricting his right to worship however he wants?
Yeah. By not forcing me to live by his religion's rules I'm somehow reducing his freedom of religious expression. He actually believes that. He actually said that. And people actually agree with him.
I won't say that the democrats are all about personal liberty either, but holy shit, at least 90% of their platform isn't basically the Christian version of Sharia.
Where, pray tell, would the money to pay for those profits come from? Please tell me how a poor person who has literally no assets, yet has become disabled, would be able to pay for care in such a way that it is not a net cost to the system, let alone a profit.
Government should cover those things which should not be for-profit and those things which are essential but businesses cannot figure out how to do profitably. I include health care and national defense in the category of "things that should not be for-profit" and universal access to education as one of the things businesses haven't been able to figure out how to do for a profit, at least in a way that scales to cover every child in the country.
I went to highschool in the mid-late 80's in Chicago, Illinois. I was in what was considered to be one of the best public schools in the nation and part of the IB program there, which is just shorthand for saying that the program and resources they gave us were generally top of the line. Yet we had no computers in the school until my 3rd and final year there, and they weren't used for any kind of computer science stuff.
However, many students I knew had a computer - be it an Apple ][ (usually an E), Atari 400/800, C64/128 and we had a pretty robust "warez" trading scene going on at my school.
Really, I don't think I was ever taught anything about computers until fairly late in my career; everything I knew was due to exploration and figuring it out myself or just reading manuals - the closest to being taught something came in the form of seminars or whatever on good practices with my first real employer.
A tablet is far better for "physically active people on the go" if a smart phone won't work, though you absolutely need to have a bluetooth keyboard & mouse & ability to remote into a real computer (which shouldn't be much of a problem - I mean, when I go hiking out into the wilds to camp I don't typically whip out a computer in order to write code or whatever)
I do a lot of site visits where I am always walking around and taking notes. Before tablets, I typically did this by carrying a clipboard that had forms and writing pads underneath and then I would ship the paper back to my assistant to manually enter. With my tablet I have the forms I use as one app and then use another app to write my notes out and have them automatically converted to a textfile that can then be edited - saves a LOT of time.
I tried a laptop but it's clumsy as hell to walk around with and you can't type unless you set it down. I tried a netbook which made it so I could only walk around and type one handed, which was vastly slower than my writing.
For when I absolutely need a keyboard and I am nowhere near my actual computer (hotel and need to actually type a bunch - email or documents or code or whatever) I can use local apps or remote login to my real computer, then just use a bluetooth mouse and rubber bluetooth keyboard that rolls up nicely and is standard sized when flattened out and works better than the cheap and tiny keyboards on the netbooks I've tried. The real benefit of these is that when I don't need them I don't have to deal with them - leave 'em in my backpack if I'm just doing stuff that a touch screen can handle.
With a good case (no cover, just ruggedized rubber bumper) this thing takes a beating.
When I travel I also bring along a battery that can charge my phone & tablet & peripherals - $60 bucks and it basically gives me 1-2 full charges for each device I have with me). My total load out between the tablet, keyboard & mouse, phone, and battery is less than 3 pounds and everything stores very, very nicely in a small backpack or messenger bag (along with everything else I carry) and all's good. If I'm going to be away from civilization for days and days I bring along a solar charger - basically just for if I'm camping for a week since I often like to read at night and can let things charge back up during the day.
I think netbooks were a stopgap technology, kind of like minidiscs or zip disk drives - they were a kind of "good enough but not really good" solution that was completely eclipsed when tablets came out.
My prediction is going to be that you'll see tablets come in two flavors - one is what they are like now, and the other would be a thicker version that is beefier - think a touchscreen MacBook Air with no lid, running OSX instead of iOS or something along those lines. Then it would be tablet lite, tablet cum ultrabook or laptop.
Apple service is insane. I had a first generation Intel MacBook that died about 3 years after I bought it. Brought it in to get fixed and they said that something had cooked on the motherboard and that the resulting surge had cooked everything.
"You have Apple Care on this, so we'll just swap your hard drive and give you a new one. Be right back."
Guy comes back in a bit and says "Well, we don't have any of your model in stock, so would it be okay if we gave you one of the newer ones? It's a refurb from the last revision if that's ok?"
Gee, I don't know, twist my arm.
Didn't pay a cent, and still make use of that MacBook.
Does getting the ID require that a person provide any documents that they must pay for? How hard is it for poor people to get those for free, and how much extra work do they need to do to prove they're poor enough to qualify for the free ID or ancillary documentation? Does it require that they go to a particular place during working hours to obtain it and if so does it compensate poor people for their time and travel expenses, as well as contact their employer to ensure that they are not penalized for taking that time? Does it require that they actually have a home address/proof of address in order to obtain one, and if so, how are homeless people handled? How are voters informed of the need for an ID in order to vote, and does it take into account language issues, homelessness issues, and any other obstacle to being informed that disproportionately affects poor people and minorities?
Those are very, very real problems for people who are already on the margins, and those issues act as a massive disincentive for those people to get an ID and the people behind those laws know it.
For you and me, getting an ID is nothing more than hopping in the car, going to the DMV, paying pocket change to get the ID and then being on our merry way. Our employers won't fire us for needing a couple of hours to run that errand. For someone who is on the margin, though, it can be a goddamn epic adventure through bureaucracy that ultimately is confusing, frustrating and ultimately may end in failure and come at a cost far higher than you are aware of.
I do research with participants who are below the poverty line, and believe me, the hoops my participants have to jump through and the extra effort they have to go through to even get to the point where they can jump through those hoops is staggering.
Further, the problem that voter IDs are intended to prevent is not, in fact, a problem: retail voter fraud of the sort IDs would theoretically address is pretty much nonexistent, and is completely dwarfed by wholesale vote manipulation that is either intentional or accidental.
Finally, many voter ID laws allow some forms of ID but not others, and the allowed types of IDs in those states overwhelmingly are owned by people who tend to vote more conservatively, while the disallowed ones tend to belong to people who would skew more towards the liberal demographic.
It's a bullshit issue, it costs way more money to implement than the "problem" it solves costs society and it is intended to limit turnout of those people who most need representation in our society. Anyone who is a fan of voter ID laws is, to be charitable, misinformed at best and actively seeking to disenfranchise others at worst, and they are encouraging costly government intervention where none is needed.
During a hyper growth phase the important thing about human resources is to bring in and keep superstars and ruthlessly cull anyone who isn't for any position that isn't basically administrative or infrastructure. You don't want someone merely good when you can try for someone who is amazing, especially when you are trying to completely dominate what you imagine to be a huge marketplace.
Once the company is firmly established then you can take people who are merely good and work on getting them to up their performance.
It isn't a particularly nice mode of operation, and it certainly doesn't place much value on people as people, but for the people who can thrive in such an environment it can lead to amazing results.
For reference, I have been a single digit employee in multiple firms that have exploded to over 1000 employees within a year of my coming on board and seen this process through multiple times - the first time I was horrified at how casually people were canned, but I couldn't dispute the huge difference in performance between the ones who stayed and the ones who were let go. I had a series of amazing experiences but I'm extremely glad I got my financial security taken care of so that I could get out of that kind of environment and into something relatively non-competitive like academia :)
Kind of like how most Android users feel when they get abandoned mere months after buying the new stuff?
I'm not defending Apple here, but putting it in perspective: Unless you're willing and able to root your android handset/tablet it's very unlikely that your carrier will bother trying to push you an OS upgrade in a timely manner or at all. And if you do root your handset/tablet you're going to void the warranty.
All other things being equal, I would take the length of time Apple supports their customers' devices over most any other maker of comparable devices.
Ask yourself this:
How incredibly, droolingly stupid must this man be that he sent incriminating texts to children and left a trail that could conclusively prove he is a pedophile? Is it more likely that he is that stupid, or that this was an error?
Difficulty: He's a swim coach and not a member of the US House of Representatives (e.g. Mark Foley), so we at least know he's got a functioning brain stem.
Years ago I worked at a place called Divine Interventures in their "Buzz" group. We had a guy - he was the webmaster/developer guy, one of the first employees, etc.
Guy had ideas for graph design that were better than what the designers came up with, came up with awesome ideas pretty much whenever we had a problem, but was kind of brusque.
He got laid off in the first wave (and was smart to do it - one of the only people to get a full severance package when the companyimploded, and literally started his new job the next day) and about a month after that we got written up in a magazine as being a great place to work in Chicago. There were several specific things pointed out in the article as why it was so great, and when the CEO was holding an all hands meeting to congratulate us, she asked who came up with idea one, and it was pointed out this guy did. Then idea two and... Same guy. Then idea three and... Same guy. "Well, decisions like laying him off are probably why we're going out of business," the only honest thing I've ever heard from a CEO.
If they are really brilliant, it's worth keeping them around.
True story about bad Google image search results:
My best friend started working for a Catholic hospital and during the orientation the person giving the talk put up a series of what she felt wee inspirational slides.
One of them, she said, was God's hands parting a cloud so that the sun could shine through. It was a picture that had been made by Something Awful forum members that were putting goatse imagery into random scenes.
My friend just bout died trying to contain her laughter.
I would venture a guess that most Mormons don't give a fuck, just like the vast majority of the human race doesnt give a fuck about Linus, let alone know who he is. Does Linus' opinion have any impact on them and their lives? What possible reason could they have to care at all? "Oh no, some geek who is completely irrelevant to anyone but other geeks thinks we're crazy!"
The only people who care about this kind of shit are people who have an agenda to push and will use any pretext to do so, or the people who are, in fact, batshit crazy.
People seem to be trying really hard to be offended by this stuff and completely ignoring the fact that there are very powerful people who unfortunately can have a direct impact on our lives, who say incredibly stupid and evil shit all the time. See: pretty much all the extreme right candidates currently running for office in the US.
Most modern cars have sensors that detect a crash in progress and pull those things off before the kinetic energy is a risk to human occupants. It happens incredibly fast, and only when you get hit etc.
I would rather that, to be honest, than something that anticipated what it imagined to be an inevitable crash before contact was made just on the off chance that the crash wasn't actually inevitable.
What I do see happening though is an automated driving car (or just any car that has automatic control of braking and speed) to try and adjust speed ahead of a potential crash as a way to avoid or minimize it. For a fully automated car, I would expect it to be constantly scanning the area and detect something approaching in a dangerous fashion in plenty of time to avoid a collision entirely and not even have to swerve - it would simply adjust speed to leave a hole for the fast moving interloper much as a good human driver will give plenty of space when they see an erratic driver.
Human brains get hacked all the time in ways that allow for traffic accidents:
Medication, alcohol, fatigue, hunger, illness, self-delusion, optical illusions, distraction, emotion, etc.
People get road hypnosis all the time when driving or are tricked into not noticing things that a computer with decent sensors absolutely would notice.
And your reflexes are absolute shit; I don't care if you are at the peak of human reaction times, what you see as an instant reaction would, to any modern computer feel like an incredibly boring multiple month wait as your meat responds.
The problem is that the self-driving car wouldn't get into that situation in the first place, and only an extremely shitty human driver would, too.
Any decent driver would anticipate that the other car might have to cut in early under conditions like that and would slow down so that if the other driver did need to cut in early they could.
If you are driving in those conditions and you are taken by surprise by someone 1) coming up fast behind you and 2) going into the left lane to pass you and 3) cutting you off because of oncoming traffic you are simply put a spectacularly shitty driver and should not have a license in the first place. Nor should the other idiot, but in the scenario you describe it's a failure on the part of both drivers if there's a collision, let alone going off a cliff.