Stop assuming you're right and google the damn phrase.
Microsoft has a documented history of deliberately, maliciously and completely unnecessarily breaking compatability with competitors' products. This isn't even a question any more - it's been proven repeatedly. There are even articles reverse-engineering MS code and showing you the breaking at work, FFS.
I'm all for giving companies (Microsoft included) the benefit of the doubt, but I'm also all for actually researching my position before I start arguing it in public...;-)
You're assuming here management will believe you when you say "it's not possible", or that they'll accept simple facts like documentary proof that it's their fault. This is a bad assumption.
In my experience, non-technical managers tend to have a mysteriously selective faith in developers - namely that:
1) We can simultaneously do an unlimited number of things in an ever-decreasing timespan with no loss of quality, and 2) Our own estimates of "time to complete a job" are always inaccurate to the point they can safely be dismissed out of hand, in favour of a number pulled out of the boss's arse on the spur of the moment.
Then, when we cut corners and/or perform miracles and get something out the door by the deadline, this is taken as proof that the two beliefs above are correct.
Then, when whatever we chucked out the door proves to be missing half the original features or full of bugs, it's proof that we're lazy and/or incompetent.
If there's one thing I've come to realise, it's that a depressing fraction of the world's population simply aren't rational, and that the worst examples of these tend to gravitate to middle/upper management.
They'll quite happily push you to do a job badly, then complain when it's done badly, then completely fail to accept that it's a direct consequence of their actions when you point it out, all without a hint of cognitive dissonance.
It's the original "stamp on your toes then shout at you for not standing up straight", and it does nothing but shift blame from the master to the slave, and demotivate the only people who actually produce the products that keep the company in the black.
"So... you might be a habitual liar, or you might be a habitual truth-teller... how many fingers am I holding up?"
"Three"
"Hah! It was two! You're the liar! So I take path... erm... um... uh... (guesses at random, and runs a 50% chance of dying horribly)".
The answer is to ask them "Assuming I want to find the Village of Life, which path would someone from the other village to you tell me to take?"
You then take the other path.
This works, because either you'll have a truth-teller, who will (truthfully) pass on the lie that the other-village-resident would have told you, or you have a liar, who will lie and tell you the opposite path to the one the truth-teller would have told you.
Either way, you know you've been lied to exactly once, so you choose the opposite path and live happily ever after.
You raise a few good points, but you're also not the first person to make this mistake...;-)
Theft is a zero-sum game - you take $100 from me, I've lost $100. Certainly, yes, your punishment should be more than the loss you caused to me, or you're making "crime" a 50/50 bet of enrichment (which is no deterrent at all, since people routinely play worse odds than this in casinos, for fun).
Copyright infringement isn't a zero-sum game - my taking a copy from you directly deprives you of nothing. Instead, I indirectly deprive you of a possible sale - in other words, I deprive you only of your profit margin on the item, and only if you assume I would otherwise have bought it, and from you, and brand new/at full price.
Our present system is biased in favour of the MPAA/RIAA to the maximum extent that they can get away with - they were claiming filesharing was killing the CD market for years before it even showed a dropping-off of sales, and I've seen studies comissioned by them that contain ridiculous assumptions (eg, that each single MP3ed song on someone's hard disk indicated they would definitely have otherwise bought the entire album it was on, at full price). Frankly, they're prepared to pull any dirty trick they can to inflate the numbers and excessively victimise (even small-time) infringers.
In addition, as other posters have noted, punitive damages are only granted where the injury to the complainant was "egregiously invidious" - Google handily gives us the definitions "bad, blatant, or ridiculous to an extraordinary degree" and "discriminatory: containing or implying a slight or showing prejudice".
I'd argue that copyright infringement is hardly egregious, and certainly not when compared to the over-zealous actions of the *AA in response to it. I'd also argue that it's not invidious - most filesharers are sharing "music", generally, not targeting one company or artist in particular, with the malicious intent to do them harm specifically.
Since low-level filesharing therefore isn't egregiously invidious, the *AA's damages should be limited to actual damages, not punitive + actual damages.
And their actual damages aren't anything like the amounts they typically seek in a lawsuit - say, "full price of a song" x "total number of songs copied". Their actual damages don't include losing the money put into producing and distributing the physical media (since it's a "free" digital copy), so the actual damages are more like "pure profit margin on a song" x "probability the user would otherwise have bought the song" x "number of songs".
Although this is impossible to work out in practice (who decides where on the scale from 0..1 the probability of a user buying a particular song falls?), even ignoring this (very important) term still gives us "pure profit margin" x "number of songs", and "pure profit margin" is very, very different from "market cost of song, including costs of physical media creation, duplication and distribution".
Please note, I'm not arguing that copyright infringement is good, right or justified, but the legal system presently is so weighted towards the *AA that my sympathise actually lie more with the small-time filesharers than the over-controlling, paranoid Big Media who can afford to purchase laws to prop up their obsolete business model, rather than provide cheap, unencumbered downloads of digital music (which is, really, all most people want)...
Fair point, but strictly speaking you aren't the one making copies in this instance. As I understand it, you're merely "leaving the media lying around", and other people are chosing to make copies of it themselves.
I don't know if there are any precedents for this, but it strikes me that you could make an argument that damages awarded against an individual should be limited to the number of copies they make or take, not the number of copies other people make from their source.
For example, if I left a CD lying around my house and a friend stole it, copied it, then returned the original without my knowledge, AFAIAA I wouldn't have comitted a crime - they would.
With torrents you have to make a conscious decision to seed the file for sharing which indicates prior intent, but this is a bit of a grey area. What about systems like Kazaa, where everything you download is automatically dumped into your "shared" folder (in fact, some versions could/do automatically scan your hard drive and default to sharing all the media they find)? Although you've shared a file, you didn't have to make a conscious effort to do so, so your crime becomes one of omission, not comission.
This is roughly analogous to leaving your CD around, knowing that a friend might nick it and copy it, but not actually being sure either way. Are there any legal precedents for this situation? My instincts indicate that the person who owned the CD wouldn't be prosecutable without materially and deliberately aiding and abetting the crime of copying... Does merely "not taking enough precautions" count as deliberately abetting?
I agree on all points. I merely meant that the MPAA/RIAA's claims of actual damages should be limited to the going market rate for the media, instead of the tens to thousands of dollars per movie they curently claim.
In fact, even this is unfair, since everybody knows that people will pick up for free things they'd never in a million years pay a cent for, so to be strictly fair actual damages should be capped at
market rate of media X probability defendant would have bought said media
Of course, this is unworkable in practice (who determines what the chances are of you "buying" $crappy_movie (or an episode of $crappy_tv_series), but the principle is still there...
Cheers - that was extremely interesting, but hardly conclusive.
Taking your links one-by-one:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/06/05/iraq.mai n/ "U.S. Marines and Iraqi soldiers have uncovered a 503,000-square-foot underground insurgent hideout in central Iraq containing large stores of weapons, ammunition and supplies" - no WMDs there. I don't think anyone's trying to say Saddam didn't have underground facilities, but "Eek, he may have a few holes in the ground!" isn't doing anything bad, and the reason Bush gave for invading - WMDs (and terrorism!) were. No WMDs here, so it's pretty irrelevant. Finally, even worse, "it is not yet known if the bunker was built by Saddam Hussein's regime or if the insurgents created it from the remnants of the quarry".
Direct quote form the article: "Subject: UNDERGROUND FACILITIES IN IRAQ Not Finally Evaluated Intelligence... CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY WARNING: INFORMATION REPORT, NOT FINALLY EVALUATED INTELLIGENCE".
Given the extremely dubious information typically initially reported in situations like this, and the humongous warnings plastered all over the report, isn't it just possible that this was an inaccurate initial report, that was perhaps proven wrong by later intelligence or analysis?
Wait a moment - I just noticed... This dates from January 1991 - it's from before the first gulf war. Saddam was known to have (and have used) chemical weapons (which, guess what, he got from the USA, amongst others - fourth paragraph). However, in the aftermath of the Gulf War, he was instructed to destroy all chemical and biological weapons, and cease any production or research of future ones. No-one's denying he had (and used) them fifteen years ago, but he was forced to destroy the lot, and this is simply not evidence that he still had them in the Gulf War II.
Did you not notice the date, or was this intended to be deliberately misleading? I don't mean to call your integrity into question, but so far you're 0 for two.
Hell, I'll also raise you a direct quote from the article: "However, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said the results were from a field test, which can be imperfect, and said more analysis was needed. If confirmed, it would be the first finding of a banned weapon upon which the United States based its case for war". so, if Even Rumsfeld is casting doubts on the authenticity of the results, show me the article where it's confirmed, or I'll have to disregard this as a credible piece of evidence.
Oh, and if you want to dispute Fox's known and pronounced right-wing bias, please, please, please also read this.
"Monday's early morning raid found 11 precursor agents, "some of them quite dangerous by themselves," a military spokesman, Lt. Col. Steven A. Boylan, said in Baghdad". This is very different to finding actual w
Dude. Seriously. Point us at one reputable source that shows WMDs being discovered in Iraq. Had they been, the US and UK governments would have been screaming the news from the bloody hilltops - regardless of whether the media wanted to cover it or not, they'd have been forced to by sheer repetition.
It would vindicate your entire invasion of Iraq, and would go a long way to repairing your reputation with the rest of the world.
And republican/right-wing blogs and pundits would have been screaming it 24/7 - a quick Google search would be enough to turn up documentary proof.
Like, say the Downing St. Memo, which has been authenticated as real, admitted by the UK government (from which it was inadvertantly leaked, severely embarrassing them in the process), and indicates that Bush wanted to go into Iraq regardless of whether it had WMDs or not. It even moots the idea of using WMDs or terrorism as excuses to go in.
Seriously, are you trolling, or had you honestly never thought of these points?
"We may still be failing to connect here. I would say the American perspective is very influenced by mainstream Christian moral teaching. This draws a distinction between "freedom" and "license", with the American view that Liberty is close related to if not identical to Freedom.
Freedom would allow any moral (licit) act, and license would allow an act, regardless of it's moral component."
That's interesting, because to me your definition doesn't really mean "liberty" at all - it seems to paraphrase as "do anything you like, as long as it doesn't contravene this strict and specific set of rules about how you should live your life". Now, those rules may well be "moral", but whose morals? We're talking about law here, and it seems to suggest a fundamental disconnection between our respective ideas of what that should cover.
To me "liberty" means "freedom of (any) action", and laws are a specific set of rules that establish the infringements of liberty necessary to allow us to all gather into a stable society.
I think "Law" and "Morals" are two entirely separate things: the Law should specifiy the basic rules essential for a stable society - "no murder", "no theft", "no corruption", etc, since without these a society couldn't cohere or function. "Morals" should be a guideline to good living for each individual, and are (roughly) a superset of Law. For example, adultery or promiscuity shouldn't be illegal, but it's clearly immoral. This is roughly why we have different processes for crimes and lawsuits - some things should be punished by society, or it simply couldn't exist. Some things should be punished by (and at the discretion of) the individual(s) it risks or injures, and (to preserve liberty/freedom of action), society should take no part.
I think a lot of Europeans view things this way, which is why we find the US attitude so dangerous - if you're going to make Laws and Morals the same thing, whose morals do you use? I know people who think that homosexuals should be imprisoned or killed, and I've also known (of) people who thought it was funny to spike people's drinks with illegal drugs - whose Morals do you take as the basis for Laws?
I'd argue that you can't, since no-one's morals will be acceptable to all. In fact, pretty much the only things a sufficient majority would agree on would be basic things essential for a society, like "no killing", "no theft", etc.
I think it's this perceived intrusion of Morals into Law that make a lot of Europeans uncomfortable with the US system, just as with the (perceived) intrusion of Religion into Science.
Now, this can just be written off as moral relativism, but I don't think that's entirely fair - Europeans are still "as moral" a people as Americans, it's just that we believe that some things need to be prevented or rectified by society, and some things need to be prevented/rectified by the individuals concerned.
Ironically enough, this sounds almost like the traditional US aim of minimizing unnecesary government, and certainly sounds like we're arguing for more freedom of action/less government interference. I also think it places more emphasis on the individual to make decisions for themselves - if all immoral things are illegal, law-abiding citizens don't have a choice whether they act morally or not, which reduces the virtue of their morality.
If the government or law determines what's moral for everyone, they start to lose the ability or inclination to decide for themselves - IMO this is exactly the kind of "nanny state" that many in the US disapprove of, just a less obvious, more insidious version of it.
"In the case above, killing the child (the object) is indisputably an evil. However, the individual with the gun acts in very constrained circumstances, and his intent is not the death of the child, but preserving the lives of those he can save."
The trouble is, it's always possible to slice such a scenario in different ways to reveal different
While it may not be to your personal taste, the fact that roughly every other post on the subject is referencing or directly quoting TPB indicates that you're in the minority.
Geeks love TPB - it's a cult thing.
And if you haven't seen it, do so - at least then you'll see what everyone's raving about. It's hysterical.
"There's a key, but subtle point about the American view there: Americans would almost -universally- put Liberty -before- Justice."
Apologies - I was talking from the perspective of "the individual", meaning I think everyone has the right to Life first, then the right to Justice (basically, "what they deserve" - this may include locking up if they're criminals). Finally, they deserve Liberty.
IE, Life trumps Justice (so no death penalty), and Justice trumps Liberty (so you can still punish/imprison people for wrongdoing).
If you're talking about the society level, then I'd say Justice, Liberty, then Life - Justice (basically, evryone getting what they deserve) is the most important aspect of any society, followed by Liberty. This ensures that people genuinely do get what they deserve, instead of being abused/ripped off/taken advantage of by the "Liberties" of con-men or more powerful individuals. Finally, Life is the least important, since you should be prepared to (eventually) lay down your life to defend those values.
This is a bit of an artificially-restricted way to talk about the subject (eg, despite the above I still support the individual's right to choose euthanasia, which is technically Liberty over Life). However, this just plays back into my problem with absolutes - I find myself starting to believe that perhaps there aren't any absolutes, since you can construct a scenario whereby following any hard rule leads to the "Wrong" thing happening (eg, you with the gun, and the small child packed with explosives running towards a crowd of nuns).
"I would agree that universal healthcare is essential -in the modern world- for life. I would not agree to a purely European style health-care system, nor do I agree that universal healthcare and welfare are essential to life, out of the context of modern society."
Well, we were talking about the modern world, weren't we?;-p
Apart from that, I don't know of anyone who believes that the US should institute a "European-style" healthcare system, only that they should institute one which is
i) Free ii) Good, and iii) Open to all
Beyond that, do it however you like. Again, nobody I've heard seems to care how it works, just that you have a good safety net for the most disadvantaged in your society.
As an aside, what is a "European-style healthcare system"? Every country in Europe manages its own system, and apart from the fact they're all free, open to all, (ideally) good and supported (at least in part) by the government, there are no common threads between all of them. "European-style healthcare system" means about as much as "car-coloured truck" - any set that includes the lot is so vague as to be practically meaningless...
"Well, I didn't say that the right or the left are closer to the universal good, or that I or most Americans know what it is."
But this is what the argument's all about - the US is quite happy to wade into someone's country and tell them not only how to live their lives, but also what their constitution should say, which economic policies to use and what trade deals to allow with other countries.
If the US isn't certain it's got a demonstrably better idea than the rest of the world what Right is, what gives them the right?
"Our essential disagreement with our perception of European thinking is that the Europeans we speak to seem to act as if there are -no- real absolutes. That if the majority of the world agreed to reduce population through forced birth control and abortion, removing the Liberty of procreation, as China does, or decided to adopt Sharia law, then that's just dandy."
Well, not dandy, but ultimately their decision. We'll try to persuade them otherwise, and certainly make it as easy as possible for any of their population that wants to to defect. We'll even possibly covertly aid opposition groups, and seek to change the minds of t
(Discussion mercilessly pruned in the interests of participating in the discussion within a realistic "goofing off from work" time-span;-)
"The American view is that the center represents a real, if abstract, concept that represents a desirable goal. That goal doesn't change, although our view of where it is may change. For example, "Life, Liberty, and Justice For All" is a fixed concept. What needs to be done to achieve this changes with time. At one time, giving white male landowners elected representation seemed to be the thing. Over time, this was broadened to include those who owned no land, women and blacks."
That's a fair enough position, and one which I agree with. Although I have a grave problem with absolutes, if I had to choose one to subscribe to, that would be it (in the order Life, Justice then Liberty, however, since that takes care of the problem of criminality and avoids the death penalty;-).
While I agree with you that there are universal (or near-universal) Truths/Good, I think we disagree on how to achieve these aims, and how much they apply to the real world. For example, I believe that universal healthcare and welfare is essential to Life, and that Justice can be served by removing merely Liberty, instead of Liberty and Life.
I find it hard to agree that these universal absolutes apply to things as base as political position. I wouldn't agree that either the Right or the Left has a right to claim they're closer to the universal good, since both sides have policies that go against it (eg, the Right's traditional lack of support for "big government" knocks out much hope of universal healthcare/Life, and the far-left Liberals' penchant for inhibiting free speech/Liberty for political correctness).
Give this absence of clear absolutes in terms of which political party you support, I think a centrist view is the "safest" - you can take the best from both ends of the spectrum without being tied to any one ideology.
"We're starting to see common ground here. One other possibility, cogent to the UN argument; if enemies of what is right obstruct the UN from ratifying consensus."
This is the same point we keep coming back to - you believe in absolute Right, and think the US knows best (or at least roughly) where it is.
I believe you can never be sure you're right (eg, many of the Founding Fathers were slave owners, even while writing "Life, Liberty & Justice for all"), so the best way of ensuring rightness is by debate and consensus with as many other people as you can find.
I don't think we're going to resolve this, since it's fundamental to our separate world-views. That said, I am curious as to what your answer to my point above is - how do you know the current ideology is "right"? People have been certain of their rightness before, even people regarded as "wrong" by the rest of us (psychopaths, Hitler, religious people of all types, etc). Hell, suicide bombers are convinced of their own rightness - what makes you sure that you are, above and beyond anyone else?
Again, not a trap, but honest curiosity - I'd love to have that kind of certainty, as long as it was justified...
""AMERICA'S SKEPTICISM ABOUT THE UNITED NATIONS" by John Bolton, our UN Ambassador that everyone was so against. It gives some nice details of UN vs US over the last half century."
I read the linked article. Although I don't agree with everything in it, it was very enlightening. If we had space (and time) I'd write a point by point analysis, but at the very least it certainly explains the US position more.
"You note that the charges were false, and assume they were trumped up by Bush. The latter isn't immediately derived from the former."
Actually, I didn't believe Bush knowingly lied until I saw the proof. In case you haven't read it, the DSM is a genuine (and subseq
The paper concerned doesn't "disprove" the existence of dark matter any more than conventional wisdom regarded it as "proved" in the first place.
Sensationalist headline and non-TFA-reading posters aside, the paper merely shows that there is an interpretation of general relativity that someone's only just discovered that eliminates the need for dark matter to explain one type of observation where the theory didn't quite fit reality. There are several other scenarios where Dark Matter is still thought to be a possible explanation, and this paper doesn't appear to touch those subjects.
Dark Matter required the relatively-trivial addition of a new particle (or class of particles) to the Standard Modelm and a small amount of retrofitting of a few other theories.
Fairies require a complete reworking of the fundamental basis of physics, some kind of scientific explanation of magic, and either the location of a large amount of hidden real estate for the Faerie realm, or the postulation of prallel dimensions and a method of traversing between them that doens't require wormholes or gravitational singularities.
I'm terrible sorry - you appear to be under the misapprehension that the scientific method should be designed to your taste.
The scientific method is designed to find the best answer we are aware of, not to conform to your simplistic ideas of what constitutes "progress".
Yes, sometimes this means changing your mind, and sometimes it means throwing out years of work, because it was based on an erroneous model.
However, two points occur:
i) Even when we throw out an old model, work on that model isn't wasted. At the very least (to paraphrase Edison, on the lightbulb) we have "found another way it doesn't work", and so have increased the sum total of human knowledge.
ii) Sometimes, work done on the old model is directly applicable to the new one. Or at the very least, it can help us avoid making similar mistakes to the old one.
I'm sorry you find the fact that science is occasionally wrong to be frustrating, but since first-time-perfection isn't humanely achievable, would you rather:
i) Occasionally have to face up to the fact you get things wrong, and learn from those mistakes, or
ii) Claim erroneously that your first answer is the right one (the "religious" option), and still be living in a tree, eating your meat raw and occasionally getting killed by leopards?
Oh, and FYI: theoretical physics isn't stopping anyone researching a cure for cancer, and all the money spent on it isn't wasted. Blue-sky theoretical physics gave us the freaking transistor, and you can't get a much more basic ingredient of your modern lifestyle than that.
"... I am not ignorant of just how out of touch with modern European thinking many of the things I am saying are. But... America has significant cultural dissimilarities to modern Europe, and we are not ready to toss these ideas out the window, regardless of how provincial they may seem to Europe.... Many in Europe feel that the average European mindset is the center, and America is off to the right somewhere. Americans feel that they may be right of center, but Europe is left of center, and finding commen ground requires Europe to move toward an American view while America moves to a more European view."
That's a very fair and interesting point of view, and one which I'd never appreciated before. I think most Europeans see someone like the USSR/China as "extreme left", the USA as "extreme right" and themselves as relatively in the center. The USA, in contrast, seems to see themselves as "a bit right" and Europe as "a bit left" - this does explain a lot.
Just out of interest, where do you see China - "really extreme left"? And would there be an example of an "extreme right" country further right than the US?
I ask because it seems (to me personally) that one can derive the centre by selecting a point mid-way between the two extremes. If we've got an "extreme left" and only "a bit right", this would make me think we'd mis-chosen the centre position, unless there's another country further right than the USA which would make the USA "only a bit" right.
I guess my point is that "extreme" and "only a bit" are relative quantities, and only have meaning relative to the scale you're working on - if something's at one end of the current political spectrum, to my mind it's "extreme" by definition. I appreciate that it's always possible to be "more extreme", but then that same argument would excuse fascist or totalitarian states, since they could "always be more totalitarian"...
"Nonetheless, I would have to modify that last statement to something more like, "and one which should be undertaken with international approval, or at least acceptance, except in the most extreme conditions.""
You make a very good addition - there are times where only you know something that legitimises an attack, or where you simply don't have time to garner international consensus.
In this situation, I'd support un-consensual action, but only if:
i) You provide evidence justifying the action as soon as possible afterwards, even if it's only to the heads of state of other UN nations (eg, for classified or compromising material).
ii) You only take actions that you feel would be agreed-to by international consensus, if they knew what you know. This is a hard one, since it requires a great degree of empathy and a good understanding of your fellow heads of state. However, it also protects against "unfair" or purely self-serving ("evil") actions, and I'd argue the two requirements of it, while hard, are essential qualities for any good leader of a country.
"But truly, the UN does not have the trust of the US government or the American people. We can't gloss over that; it needs to be worked through; it's not all since the US action in Iraq. The UN has been hostile to the US for a very long time, and the US has been hostile to the UN."
I understand the UN and the USA have a certain mutual antipathy, but I didn't realise why (from the USA's end) before. Obviously this is a judgement call - my experience in Europe suggests that everyone dislikes the UN a bit (that's a good definition of "consensus", to my mind;-), but that the USA dislikes it strongly because the USA contributes the most and suffers the most restrictions on its behaviour.
That said, the USA also (again, from a European perspective) performs the most "unacceptable" or questionable actions, which are then questioned or decried by the UN. So, "good guy" unfairly restrained by its ungrateful peers, or "frequent bad guy" justifiably restrained by reasonable consens
"You consistently "overstate" your position, to the point where it's not overstatement."
I'd debate that, but I've listened and I'll watch it in the future.
"You're lying, and you're doing it on purpose. Every time I see a post from you, I can be assured of a gross factual inaccuracy, which is inevitably used to disparage the US or something related to the US."
Excuse me? Can you please point to one "gross factual inaccuracy" that I've posted? And "lying" is knowing and deliberate misrepresentation of facts - I'm open to the idea I might be mistaken, but I've never knowingly lied on a Slashdot discussion - what would be the point?
TBH, I'd value "having the right opinion" over "scoring a point over an essentially anonymous other person on an obscure story on a geeky website". Having the "correct" opinion (ie, most realistic, most grounded in fact) is worth something - winning an argument when you're in the wrong is worthless, unless you really, really value "looking good" in front of the three other/. geeks that'll read to the very end of the debate, and who don't already know better themselves.
And please be aware, I'm not actually rabidly anti-US. I am, however, anti-corruption, anti-ignorance, and anti-aggression. In the context of Slashdot political discussions (which every thread seems to converge on these days), US political corruption, military aggression an/or international ignorance seems to play a major part in practically every discussion.
If you've really read everything I've posted (and aren't wildly generalising from one misunderstanding and a couple of previous debates where you ignored my actual arguments in favour of picking holes in unimportant side-details), you'd see that I'm just as hard on "my" UK as I am on "your" America when the situation warrants it - see if you can find my postings on UK ID Cards, the UK's involvement in the Iraq war, Tony Blaire's "leadership", etc, etc, etc.
Short version: I think you're wildly overstating your case, and attributing motives to me you have no evidence for.
Yes, I can be arrogant, condescending and ranty (hey, I'm working on them), but if you can actually argue me down on the facts and evidence, I'm quite happy to change my opinion, or at least re-think it pending more research on the matter.
If you'd like to try and actually arguing the facts, as opposed to merely misunderstanding phraseology or nit-picking unimportant incidental details and seeking to thereby discredit my position, I'm more than happy for you to do so. In fact, please do - I love a good debate that doesn't just descend into a flamefest.
I meant the US was the "biggest and most powerful", you know, economically, militarily, culturally... all the ways that actually matter.
As long as they're merely "average" or higher, total territory or population don't matter for shit when you've got nukes, your currency is the world's preferred medium of exchange and your culture is the most influential one on earth. Look at the UK - we're still important in world events far out of proportion to our actual size, because we've got nukes, and the British Empire left a large imprint on world language and culture.
I'll note, however, that just like last time you're selecting one small (irrelevant) part of my argument to pick holes in, and completely ignoring the actual point I've made.
My apologies for phrasing one of my ancilliary points poorly, but you can tell me off when you actually answer my main point, instead of ignoring or skirting around the issue.
First off, many thanks for such a considered and thoughtful response.
"Yes, certain actions taken by the US government are too arrogant, inward-looking, and aggressively expansionist... various voices around the world which criticize the US... desire the US to be... fundamentally different... these voices will not be satisfied with appropriate humility, a more globally aware view, and restricting natural expansionist tendencies... They want US actions to be dominated by world opinion... and both maintain a completely hands-off policy regarding other nations activities, while providing any and all support requested by any nation."
I understand your difficulty, and I sympathise - it's famously impossible to please all the people all of the time, and being the biggest kid on the block means you're the one many people turn to and expect you to do it.
Nevertheless, there's a big difference between trying your best to satisfy your (acceptable) desires without unnecessarily alienating anyone, and doing more or less exactly what you want and blatantly snubbing the rest of the world.
Sure, there will always be the lunatic fringe who won't be happy until the USA is a repressive fundamentalist regime, or until it's a wishy-washy liberal utopia where everyone stands areound all day holding hands. There are also those who would rather the US closed its borders and permitted no-one in or out, and those who want it to come round their house and put a plaster on every time they stub their toe.
Nevertheless, there is a happy middle ground that most western countries seem to find, where they balance satisfying their wants against the desires of others, and respect world opinion without being a slave to it.
For example, individually invading another soverign country is generally considered an exceedingly serious step, and one which should be undertaken only with international approval, or at least acceptance.
Even in a situation like 9/11, it would likely be accepted by other nations so long as it was proven that Afghanistan had materially aided terrorists (and, to be fair, you don't have a huge amount of protest over that, so you?).
In contrast, Iraq was blatantly overstepping the boundaries. No international accord was agreed. No evidence was submitted. The US invaded alone (ok, the UK helped, but that's because Blair went against the express wishes of the majority of the populace), and worse, invaded on provably trumped-up charges.
I would go so far as to say had the US stopped with Afghanistan, their reputation would have emerged pretty much intact. Slightly bruised, perhaps (Bush's vengeful tubthumping jingoism didn't do you any favours over a more thoughtful, regretful but determined rhetoric would have done), but basically ok.
Instead, he defied international opinion to pursue his own agenda (whether that was oil for his industry buddies, glory, personal power and a shoe-in second term in office, or a highly uninformed belief that he was Doing Good).
As a result, he's run up billions in debts, killed thousands of US and Iraqi soldiers, hugely damaged the US's reputation worldwide (once by letting him do it, again by not impeaching or voting him out once it emerged that he'd knowingly lied about the reasons), and destabilised what was the one single example of a successful (not "nice", but stable and prosperous) secular muslim nation holding back the tide of Iran-style islamic fundamentalism in the middle east.
It's this kind of unjustified overreaching, and then total failure to self-reflect or apologise afterwards that has caused such a dramatic downturn in the USA's reputation.
As I said, you can't please everyone all the time, but at the moment America's trying to please nobody but itself, is unrepentant of the consequences, and its image is suffering accordingly.
"Yes, but like it or not, the world needs to recognize that the US selects it's leaders -primarily- on the basis of their -domestic agendas-. I'm not
You're right in what you say, and I shouldn't have included trade tariffs in the list, as is is unfair on the US (especially given the UK and Europe's ridiculous farm subsidies).
There is a side-point about the difference in purchasing power between the US and any other individual country in the world meaning such comparisons are slightly flawed. See my response to the previous poster for a colourful metaphor involving a fight between two normal kids, and a fight involving a hairy-chinned football player and a six-year-old...;-)
And I'm not talking about the US invading Europe, although have a point for a veiled low-blow about WWII (just to finish it off, shouldn't you have asked if I spoke German, and then explained why not?).
The context of my original remark was that the US in unpopular because it has, many times, in recent history, invasively manipulated and even invaded and deposed democratic regimes with popular support, solely to further its own interests.
Sure, you've left Europe and Russia alone, but do you really think even you could get away with that without causing WWIII? Look at anyone smaller and less able to fight back, like countries in South America, Africa or the Middle East - are you trying to tell me you aren't hugely more invasive and vastly more comfortable with throwing your (military) weight around than anyone else around today?
Granted, including tariffs was over-stating my position somewhat. Nevertheless, the fact that the US is a de facto monopoly in world trade means that when they use such practices it's a lot more harmful than when other countries do it to them.
No, I don't believe it's fair that any country should use practices like these against another, but one normal kid punching another kid is a fight. One hairy-chinned adolescent football player punching a six-year-old is bullying. With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility, right?
And I notice you studiously avoided my discussion of trade embargoes and military action, instead picking on the single weakest point I made in the whole post...?
One of the less-trusted One of the most ignorant about other cultures One of the most interfering and invasive One of the most inward-looking and self-censoring, and One of the most convinced it knows what's best for everybody.
Welcome to the monopoly position - when nobody else can force you to do the right thing, you have a moral obligation to make sure you do it voluntarily.
You don't have any right at all to merely be the biggest kid in the playground, beat up on any of the smaller kids you like, and put your hands over your ears and chant loudly when anyone points out your behaviour is less than perfect.
Slashdot Mirror
Stop assuming you're right and google the damn phrase.
;-)
Microsoft has a documented history of deliberately, maliciously and completely unnecessarily breaking compatability with competitors' products. This isn't even a question any more - it's been proven repeatedly. There are even articles reverse-engineering MS code and showing you the breaking at work, FFS.
I'm all for giving companies (Microsoft included) the benefit of the doubt, but I'm also all for actually researching my position before I start arguing it in public...
You're assuming here management will believe you when you say "it's not possible", or that they'll accept simple facts like documentary proof that it's their fault. This is a bad assumption.
In my experience, non-technical managers tend to have a mysteriously selective faith in developers - namely that:
1) We can simultaneously do an unlimited number of things in an ever-decreasing timespan with no loss of quality, and
2) Our own estimates of "time to complete a job" are always inaccurate to the point they can safely be dismissed out of hand, in favour of a number pulled out of the boss's arse on the spur of the moment.
Then, when we cut corners and/or perform miracles and get something out the door by the deadline, this is taken as proof that the two beliefs above are correct.
Then, when whatever we chucked out the door proves to be missing half the original features or full of bugs, it's proof that we're lazy and/or incompetent.
If there's one thing I've come to realise, it's that a depressing fraction of the world's population simply aren't rational, and that the worst examples of these tend to gravitate to middle/upper management.
They'll quite happily push you to do a job badly, then complain when it's done badly, then completely fail to accept that it's a direct consequence of their actions when you point it out, all without a hint of cognitive dissonance.
It's the original "stamp on your toes then shout at you for not standing up straight", and it does nothing but shift blame from the master to the slave, and demotivate the only people who actually produce the products that keep the company in the black.
What, cynical? Moi?
One question only, remember.
"So... you might be a habitual liar, or you might be a habitual truth-teller... how many fingers am I holding up?"
"Three"
"Hah! It was two! You're the liar! So I take path... erm... um... uh... (guesses at random, and runs a 50% chance of dying horribly)".
The answer is to ask them "Assuming I want to find the Village of Life, which path would someone from the other village to you tell me to take?"
You then take the other path.
This works, because either you'll have a truth-teller, who will (truthfully) pass on the lie that the other-village-resident would have told you, or you have a liar, who will lie and tell you the opposite path to the one the truth-teller would have told you.
Either way, you know you've been lied to exactly once, so you choose the opposite path and live happily ever after.
I asked a friend of mine this the other day, and he instantly came back with the answer... "12 arbitrary units".
I was suitably impressed, especially since it answers practically any quantitative question, and always correctly.
(Actually it also reminds me of the old "How long is a piece of string?"... "Twice as long as half its length.")
You raise a few good points, but you're also not the first person to make this mistake... ;-)
Theft is a zero-sum game - you take $100 from me, I've lost $100. Certainly, yes, your punishment should be more than the loss you caused to me, or you're making "crime" a 50/50 bet of enrichment (which is no deterrent at all, since people routinely play worse odds than this in casinos, for fun).
Copyright infringement isn't a zero-sum game - my taking a copy from you directly deprives you of nothing. Instead, I indirectly deprive you of a possible sale - in other words, I deprive you only of your profit margin on the item, and only if you assume I would otherwise have bought it, and from you, and brand new/at full price.
Our present system is biased in favour of the MPAA/RIAA to the maximum extent that they can get away with - they were claiming filesharing was killing the CD market for years before it even showed a dropping-off of sales, and I've seen studies comissioned by them that contain ridiculous assumptions (eg, that each single MP3ed song on someone's hard disk indicated they would definitely have otherwise bought the entire album it was on, at full price). Frankly, they're prepared to pull any dirty trick they can to inflate the numbers and excessively victimise (even small-time) infringers.
In addition, as other posters have noted, punitive damages are only granted where the injury to the complainant was "egregiously invidious" - Google handily gives us the definitions "bad, blatant, or ridiculous to an extraordinary degree" and "discriminatory: containing or implying a slight or showing prejudice".
I'd argue that copyright infringement is hardly egregious, and certainly not when compared to the over-zealous actions of the *AA in response to it. I'd also argue that it's not invidious - most filesharers are sharing "music", generally, not targeting one company or artist in particular, with the malicious intent to do them harm specifically.
Since low-level filesharing therefore isn't egregiously invidious, the *AA's damages should be limited to actual damages, not punitive + actual damages.
And their actual damages aren't anything like the amounts they typically seek in a lawsuit - say, "full price of a song" x "total number of songs copied". Their actual damages don't include losing the money put into producing and distributing the physical media (since it's a "free" digital copy), so the actual damages are more like "pure profit margin on a song" x "probability the user would otherwise have bought the song" x "number of songs".
Although this is impossible to work out in practice (who decides where on the scale from 0..1 the probability of a user buying a particular song falls?), even ignoring this (very important) term still gives us "pure profit margin" x "number of songs", and "pure profit margin" is very, very different from "market cost of song, including costs of physical media creation, duplication and distribution".
Please note, I'm not arguing that copyright infringement is good, right or justified, but the legal system presently is so weighted towards the *AA that my sympathise actually lie more with the small-time filesharers than the over-controlling, paranoid Big Media who can afford to purchase laws to prop up their obsolete business model, rather than provide cheap, unencumbered downloads of digital music (which is, really, all most people want)...
Fair point, but strictly speaking you aren't the one making copies in this instance. As I understand it, you're merely "leaving the media lying around", and other people are chosing to make copies of it themselves.
I don't know if there are any precedents for this, but it strikes me that you could make an argument that damages awarded against an individual should be limited to the number of copies they make or take, not the number of copies other people make from their source.
For example, if I left a CD lying around my house and a friend stole it, copied it, then returned the original without my knowledge, AFAIAA I wouldn't have comitted a crime - they would.
With torrents you have to make a conscious decision to seed the file for sharing which indicates prior intent, but this is a bit of a grey area. What about systems like Kazaa, where everything you download is automatically dumped into your "shared" folder (in fact, some versions could/do automatically scan your hard drive and default to sharing all the media they find)? Although you've shared a file, you didn't have to make a conscious effort to do so, so your crime becomes one of omission, not comission.
This is roughly analogous to leaving your CD around, knowing that a friend might nick it and copy it, but not actually being sure either way. Are there any legal precedents for this situation? My instincts indicate that the person who owned the CD wouldn't be prosecutable without materially and deliberately aiding and abetting the crime of copying... Does merely "not taking enough precautions" count as deliberately abetting?
I agree on all points. I merely meant that the MPAA/RIAA's claims of actual damages should be limited to the going market rate for the media, instead of the tens to thousands of dollars per movie they curently claim.
In fact, even this is unfair, since everybody knows that people will pick up for free things they'd never in a million years pay a cent for, so to be strictly fair actual damages should be capped at
market rate of media X probability defendant would have bought said media
Of course, this is unworkable in practice (who determines what the chances are of you "buying" $crappy_movie (or an episode of $crappy_tv_series), but the principle is still there...
Fine, as long as the maximum damages sought for copyright infringement by the MPAA is set at $2.00 for every 45 minutes of video copied.
After all, that's what it's "worth" now, right?
Cheers - that was extremely interesting, but hardly conclusive.
Taking your links one-by-one:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/06/05/iraq.mai n/
"U.S. Marines and Iraqi soldiers have uncovered a 503,000-square-foot underground insurgent hideout in central Iraq containing large stores of weapons, ammunition and supplies" - no WMDs there. I don't think anyone's trying to say Saddam didn't have underground facilities, but "Eek, he may have a few holes in the ground!" isn't doing anything bad, and the reason Bush gave for invading - WMDs (and terrorism!) were. No WMDs here, so it's pretty irrelevant. Finally, even worse, "it is not yet known if the bunker was built by Saddam Hussein's regime or if the insurgents created it from the remnants of the quarry".
http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/declassdocs/cia/199605 17/cia_65175_65173_01.html
Direct quote form the article: "Subject: UNDERGROUND FACILITIES IN IRAQ
Not Finally Evaluated Intelligence... CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
WARNING: INFORMATION REPORT, NOT FINALLY EVALUATED INTELLIGENCE".
Given the extremely dubious information typically initially reported in situations like this, and the humongous warnings plastered all over the report, isn't it just possible that this was an inaccurate initial report, that was perhaps proven wrong by later intelligence or analysis?
Wait a moment - I just noticed... This dates from January 1991 - it's from before the first gulf war. Saddam was known to have (and have used) chemical weapons (which, guess what, he got from the USA, amongst others - fourth paragraph). However, in the aftermath of the Gulf War, he was instructed to destroy all chemical and biological weapons, and cease any production or research of future ones. No-one's denying he had (and used) them fifteen years ago, but he was forced to destroy the lot, and this is simply not evidence that he still had them in the Gulf War II.
Did you not notice the date, or was this intended to be deliberately misleading? I don't mean to call your integrity into question, but so far you're 0 for two.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,120137,00.html
I'll see your Fox News link, and raise you a statistically-proven right-wing propaganda bias: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_News#Controversie s_and_allegations_of_bias
(Particularly the paragraph "Reports, polls and studies").
Hell, I'll also raise you a direct quote from the article: "However, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said the results were from a field test, which can be imperfect, and said more analysis was needed. If confirmed, it would be the first finding of a banned weapon upon which the United States based its case for war". so, if Even Rumsfeld is casting doubts on the authenticity of the results, show me the article where it's confirmed, or I'll have to disregard this as a credible piece of evidence.
Oh, and if you want to dispute Fox's known and pronounced right-wing bias, please, please, please also read this.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2005/08/13/AR2005081300530.html
"Monday's early morning raid found 11 precursor agents, "some of them quite dangerous by themselves," a military spokesman, Lt. Col. Steven A. Boylan, said in Baghdad". This is very different to finding actual w
Dude. Seriously. Point us at one reputable source that shows WMDs being discovered in Iraq. Had they been, the US and UK governments would have been screaming the news from the bloody hilltops - regardless of whether the media wanted to cover it or not, they'd have been forced to by sheer repetition.
It would vindicate your entire invasion of Iraq, and would go a long way to repairing your reputation with the rest of the world.
And republican/right-wing blogs and pundits would have been screaming it 24/7 - a quick Google search would be enough to turn up documentary proof.
Like, say the Downing St. Memo, which has been authenticated as real, admitted by the UK government (from which it was inadvertantly leaked, severely embarrassing them in the process), and indicates that Bush wanted to go into Iraq regardless of whether it had WMDs or not. It even moots the idea of using WMDs or terrorism as excuses to go in.
Seriously, are you trolling, or had you honestly never thought of these points?
Excellent! So, porn references and illegal MP3s at Microsoft, and that's just in one screenshot.
:-D
Great PR, guys
"We may still be failing to connect here. I would say the American perspective is very influenced by mainstream Christian moral teaching. This draws a distinction between "freedom" and "license", with the American view that Liberty is close related to if not identical to Freedom.
Freedom would allow any moral (licit) act, and license would allow an act, regardless of it's moral component."
That's interesting, because to me your definition doesn't really mean "liberty" at all - it seems to paraphrase as "do anything you like, as long as it doesn't contravene this strict and specific set of rules about how you should live your life". Now, those rules may well be "moral", but whose morals? We're talking about law here, and it seems to suggest a fundamental disconnection between our respective ideas of what that should cover.
To me "liberty" means "freedom of (any) action", and laws are a specific set of rules that establish the infringements of liberty necessary to allow us to all gather into a stable society.
I think "Law" and "Morals" are two entirely separate things: the Law should specifiy the basic rules essential for a stable society - "no murder", "no theft", "no corruption", etc, since without these a society couldn't cohere or function. "Morals" should be a guideline to good living for each individual, and are (roughly) a superset of Law. For example, adultery or promiscuity shouldn't be illegal, but it's clearly immoral. This is roughly why we have different processes for crimes and lawsuits - some things should be punished by society, or it simply couldn't exist. Some things should be punished by (and at the discretion of) the individual(s) it risks or injures, and (to preserve liberty/freedom of action), society should take no part.
I think a lot of Europeans view things this way, which is why we find the US attitude so dangerous - if you're going to make Laws and Morals the same thing, whose morals do you use? I know people who think that homosexuals should be imprisoned or killed, and I've also known (of) people who thought it was funny to spike people's drinks with illegal drugs - whose Morals do you take as the basis for Laws?
I'd argue that you can't, since no-one's morals will be acceptable to all. In fact, pretty much the only things a sufficient majority would agree on would be basic things essential for a society, like "no killing", "no theft", etc.
I think it's this perceived intrusion of Morals into Law that make a lot of Europeans uncomfortable with the US system, just as with the (perceived) intrusion of Religion into Science.
Now, this can just be written off as moral relativism, but I don't think that's entirely fair - Europeans are still "as moral" a people as Americans, it's just that we believe that some things need to be prevented or rectified by society, and some things need to be prevented/rectified by the individuals concerned.
Ironically enough, this sounds almost like the traditional US aim of minimizing unnecesary government, and certainly sounds like we're arguing for more freedom of action/less government interference. I also think it places more emphasis on the individual to make decisions for themselves - if all immoral things are illegal, law-abiding citizens don't have a choice whether they act morally or not, which reduces the virtue of their morality.
If the government or law determines what's moral for everyone, they start to lose the ability or inclination to decide for themselves - IMO this is exactly the kind of "nanny state" that many in the US disapprove of, just a less obvious, more insidious version of it.
"In the case above, killing the child (the object) is indisputably an evil. However, the individual with the gun acts in very constrained circumstances, and his intent is not the death of the child, but preserving the lives of those he can save."
The trouble is, it's always possible to slice such a scenario in different ways to reveal different
How can you tell that?
Everything on the media player says "Teenage Wasteland"...
While it may not be to your personal taste, the fact that roughly every other post on the subject is referencing or directly quoting TPB indicates that you're in the minority.
Geeks love TPB - it's a cult thing.
And if you haven't seen it, do so - at least then you'll see what everyone's raving about. It's hysterical.
"There's a key, but subtle point about the American view there: Americans would almost -universally- put Liberty -before- Justice."
;-p
Apologies - I was talking from the perspective of "the individual", meaning I think everyone has the right to Life first, then the right to Justice (basically, "what they deserve" - this may include locking up if they're criminals). Finally, they deserve Liberty.
IE, Life trumps Justice (so no death penalty), and Justice trumps Liberty (so you can still punish/imprison people for wrongdoing).
If you're talking about the society level, then I'd say Justice, Liberty, then Life - Justice (basically, evryone getting what they deserve) is the most important aspect of any society, followed by Liberty. This ensures that people genuinely do get what they deserve, instead of being abused/ripped off/taken advantage of by the "Liberties" of con-men or more powerful individuals. Finally, Life is the least important, since you should be prepared to (eventually) lay down your life to defend those values.
This is a bit of an artificially-restricted way to talk about the subject (eg, despite the above I still support the individual's right to choose euthanasia, which is technically Liberty over Life). However, this just plays back into my problem with absolutes - I find myself starting to believe that perhaps there aren't any absolutes, since you can construct a scenario whereby following any hard rule leads to the "Wrong" thing happening (eg, you with the gun, and the small child packed with explosives running towards a crowd of nuns).
"I would agree that universal healthcare is essential -in the modern world- for life. I would not agree to a purely European style health-care system, nor do I agree that universal healthcare and welfare are essential to life, out of the context of modern society."
Well, we were talking about the modern world, weren't we?
Apart from that, I don't know of anyone who believes that the US should institute a "European-style" healthcare system, only that they should institute one which is
i) Free
ii) Good, and
iii) Open to all
Beyond that, do it however you like. Again, nobody I've heard seems to care how it works, just that you have a good safety net for the most disadvantaged in your society.
As an aside, what is a "European-style healthcare system"? Every country in Europe manages its own system, and apart from the fact they're all free, open to all, (ideally) good and supported (at least in part) by the government, there are no common threads between all of them. "European-style healthcare system" means about as much as "car-coloured truck" - any set that includes the lot is so vague as to be practically meaningless...
"Well, I didn't say that the right or the left are closer to the universal good, or that I or most Americans know what it is."
But this is what the argument's all about - the US is quite happy to wade into someone's country and tell them not only how to live their lives, but also what their constitution should say, which economic policies to use and what trade deals to allow with other countries.
If the US isn't certain it's got a demonstrably better idea than the rest of the world what Right is, what gives them the right?
"Our essential disagreement with our perception of European thinking is that the Europeans we speak to seem to act as if there are -no- real absolutes. That if the majority of the world agreed to reduce population through forced birth control and abortion, removing the Liberty of procreation, as China does, or decided to adopt Sharia law, then that's just dandy."
Well, not dandy, but ultimately their decision. We'll try to persuade them otherwise, and certainly make it as easy as possible for any of their population that wants to to defect. We'll even possibly covertly aid opposition groups, and seek to change the minds of t
(Discussion mercilessly pruned in the interests of participating in the discussion within a realistic "goofing off from work" time-span ;-)
;-).
"The American view is that the center represents a real, if abstract, concept that represents a desirable goal. That goal doesn't change, although our view of where it is may change. For example, "Life, Liberty, and Justice For All" is a fixed concept. What needs to be done to achieve this changes with time. At one time, giving white male landowners elected representation seemed to be the thing. Over time, this was broadened to include those who owned no land, women and blacks."
That's a fair enough position, and one which I agree with. Although I have a grave problem with absolutes, if I had to choose one to subscribe to, that would be it (in the order Life, Justice then Liberty, however, since that takes care of the problem of criminality and avoids the death penalty
While I agree with you that there are universal (or near-universal) Truths/Good, I think we disagree on how to achieve these aims, and how much they apply to the real world. For example, I believe that universal healthcare and welfare is essential to Life, and that Justice can be served by removing merely Liberty, instead of Liberty and Life.
I find it hard to agree that these universal absolutes apply to things as base as political position. I wouldn't agree that either the Right or the Left has a right to claim they're closer to the universal good, since both sides have policies that go against it (eg, the Right's traditional lack of support for "big government" knocks out much hope of universal healthcare/Life, and the far-left Liberals' penchant for inhibiting free speech/Liberty for political correctness).
Give this absence of clear absolutes in terms of which political party you support, I think a centrist view is the "safest" - you can take the best from both ends of the spectrum without being tied to any one ideology.
"We're starting to see common ground here. One other possibility, cogent to the UN argument; if enemies of what is right obstruct the UN from ratifying consensus."
This is the same point we keep coming back to - you believe in absolute Right, and think the US knows best (or at least roughly) where it is.
I believe you can never be sure you're right (eg, many of the Founding Fathers were slave owners, even while writing "Life, Liberty & Justice for all"), so the best way of ensuring rightness is by debate and consensus with as many other people as you can find.
I don't think we're going to resolve this, since it's fundamental to our separate world-views. That said, I am curious as to what your answer to my point above is - how do you know the current ideology is "right"? People have been certain of their rightness before, even people regarded as "wrong" by the rest of us (psychopaths, Hitler, religious people of all types, etc). Hell, suicide bombers are convinced of their own rightness - what makes you sure that you are, above and beyond anyone else?
Again, not a trap, but honest curiosity - I'd love to have that kind of certainty, as long as it was justified...
""AMERICA'S SKEPTICISM ABOUT THE UNITED NATIONS" by John Bolton, our UN Ambassador that everyone was so against. It gives some nice details of UN vs US over the last half century."
I read the linked article. Although I don't agree with everything in it, it was very enlightening. If we had space (and time) I'd write a point by point analysis, but at the very least it certainly explains the US position more.
"You note that the charges were false, and assume they were trumped up by Bush. The latter isn't immediately derived from the former."
Actually, I didn't believe Bush knowingly lied until I saw the proof. In case you haven't read it, the DSM is a genuine (and subseq
The paper concerned doesn't "disprove" the existence of dark matter any more than conventional wisdom regarded it as "proved" in the first place.
;-)
Sensationalist headline and non-TFA-reading posters aside, the paper merely shows that there is an interpretation of general relativity that someone's only just discovered that eliminates the need for dark matter to explain one type of observation where the theory didn't quite fit reality. There are several other scenarios where Dark Matter is still thought to be a possible explanation, and this paper doesn't appear to touch those subjects.
Dark Matter required the relatively-trivial addition of a new particle (or class of particles) to the Standard Modelm and a small amount of retrofitting of a few other theories.
Fairies require a complete reworking of the fundamental basis of physics, some kind of scientific explanation of magic, and either the location of a large amount of hidden real estate for the Faerie realm, or the postulation of prallel dimensions and a method of traversing between them that doens't require wormholes or gravitational singularities.
So year, Dark Matter is simpler,
I'm terrible sorry - you appear to be under the misapprehension that the scientific method should be designed to your taste.
The scientific method is designed to find the best answer we are aware of, not to conform to your simplistic ideas of what constitutes "progress".
Yes, sometimes this means changing your mind, and sometimes it means throwing out years of work, because it was based on an erroneous model.
However, two points occur:
i) Even when we throw out an old model, work on that model isn't wasted. At the very least (to paraphrase Edison, on the lightbulb) we have "found another way it doesn't work", and so have increased the sum total of human knowledge.
ii) Sometimes, work done on the old model is directly applicable to the new one. Or at the very least, it can help us avoid making similar mistakes to the old one.
I'm sorry you find the fact that science is occasionally wrong to be frustrating, but since first-time-perfection isn't humanely achievable, would you rather:
i) Occasionally have to face up to the fact you get things wrong, and learn from those mistakes, or
ii) Claim erroneously that your first answer is the right one (the "religious" option), and still be living in a tree, eating your meat raw and occasionally getting killed by leopards?
Oh, and FYI: theoretical physics isn't stopping anyone researching a cure for cancer, and all the money spent on it isn't wasted. Blue-sky theoretical physics gave us the freaking transistor, and you can't get a much more basic ingredient of your modern lifestyle than that.
Or were you just taking the piss?
"... I am not ignorant of just how out of touch with modern European thinking many of the things I am saying are. But... America has significant cultural dissimilarities to modern Europe, and we are not ready to toss these ideas out the window, regardless of how provincial they may seem to Europe.... Many in Europe feel that the average European mindset is the center, and America is off to the right somewhere. Americans feel that they may be right of center, but Europe is left of center, and finding commen ground requires Europe to move toward an American view while America moves to a more European view."
;-), but that the USA dislikes it strongly because the USA contributes the most and suffers the most restrictions on its behaviour.
That's a very fair and interesting point of view, and one which I'd never appreciated before. I think most Europeans see someone like the USSR/China as "extreme left", the USA as "extreme right" and themselves as relatively in the center. The USA, in contrast, seems to see themselves as "a bit right" and Europe as "a bit left" - this does explain a lot.
Just out of interest, where do you see China - "really extreme left"? And would there be an example of an "extreme right" country further right than the US?
I ask because it seems (to me personally) that one can derive the centre by selecting a point mid-way between the two extremes. If we've got an "extreme left" and only "a bit right", this would make me think we'd mis-chosen the centre position, unless there's another country further right than the USA which would make the USA "only a bit" right.
I guess my point is that "extreme" and "only a bit" are relative quantities, and only have meaning relative to the scale you're working on - if something's at one end of the current political spectrum, to my mind it's "extreme" by definition. I appreciate that it's always possible to be "more extreme", but then that same argument would excuse fascist or totalitarian states, since they could "always be more totalitarian"...
"Nonetheless, I would have to modify that last statement to something more like, "and one which should be undertaken with international approval, or at least acceptance, except in the most extreme conditions.""
You make a very good addition - there are times where only you know something that legitimises an attack, or where you simply don't have time to garner international consensus.
In this situation, I'd support un-consensual action, but only if:
i) You provide evidence justifying the action as soon as possible afterwards, even if it's only to the heads of state of other UN nations (eg, for classified or compromising material).
ii) You only take actions that you feel would be agreed-to by international consensus, if they knew what you know. This is a hard one, since it requires a great degree of empathy and a good understanding of your fellow heads of state. However, it also protects against "unfair" or purely self-serving ("evil") actions, and I'd argue the two requirements of it, while hard, are essential qualities for any good leader of a country.
"But truly, the UN does not have the trust of the US government or the American people. We can't gloss over that; it needs to be worked through; it's not all since the US action in Iraq. The UN has been hostile to the US for a very long time, and the US has been hostile to the UN."
I understand the UN and the USA have a certain mutual antipathy, but I didn't realise why (from the USA's end) before. Obviously this is a judgement call - my experience in Europe suggests that everyone dislikes the UN a bit (that's a good definition of "consensus", to my mind
That said, the USA also (again, from a European perspective) performs the most "unacceptable" or questionable actions, which are then questioned or decried by the UN. So, "good guy" unfairly restrained by its ungrateful peers, or "frequent bad guy" justifiably restrained by reasonable consens
"You consistently "overstate" your position, to the point where it's not overstatement."
/. geeks that'll read to the very end of the debate, and who don't already know better themselves.
I'd debate that, but I've listened and I'll watch it in the future.
"You're lying, and you're doing it on purpose. Every time I see a post from you, I can be assured of a gross factual inaccuracy, which is inevitably used to disparage the US or something related to the US."
Excuse me? Can you please point to one "gross factual inaccuracy" that I've posted? And "lying" is knowing and deliberate misrepresentation of facts - I'm open to the idea I might be mistaken, but I've never knowingly lied on a Slashdot discussion - what would be the point?
TBH, I'd value "having the right opinion" over "scoring a point over an essentially anonymous other person on an obscure story on a geeky website". Having the "correct" opinion (ie, most realistic, most grounded in fact) is worth something - winning an argument when you're in the wrong is worthless, unless you really, really value "looking good" in front of the three other
And please be aware, I'm not actually rabidly anti-US. I am, however, anti-corruption, anti-ignorance, and anti-aggression. In the context of Slashdot political discussions (which every thread seems to converge on these days), US political corruption, military aggression an/or international ignorance seems to play a major part in practically every discussion.
If you've really read everything I've posted (and aren't wildly generalising from one misunderstanding and a couple of previous debates where you ignored my actual arguments in favour of picking holes in unimportant side-details), you'd see that I'm just as hard on "my" UK as I am on "your" America when the situation warrants it - see if you can find my postings on UK ID Cards, the UK's involvement in the Iraq war, Tony Blaire's "leadership", etc, etc, etc.
Short version: I think you're wildly overstating your case, and attributing motives to me you have no evidence for.
Yes, I can be arrogant, condescending and ranty (hey, I'm working on them), but if you can actually argue me down on the facts and evidence, I'm quite happy to change my opinion, or at least re-think it pending more research on the matter.
If you'd like to try and actually arguing the facts, as opposed to merely misunderstanding phraseology or nit-picking unimportant incidental details and seeking to thereby discredit my position, I'm more than happy for you to do so. In fact, please do - I love a good debate that doesn't just descend into a flamefest.
Your call.
Sorry - should have phrased that better.
I meant the US was the "biggest and most powerful", you know, economically, militarily, culturally... all the ways that actually matter.
As long as they're merely "average" or higher, total territory or population don't matter for shit when you've got nukes, your currency is the world's preferred medium of exchange and your culture is the most influential one on earth. Look at the UK - we're still important in world events far out of proportion to our actual size, because we've got nukes, and the British Empire left a large imprint on world language and culture.
I'll note, however, that just like last time you're selecting one small (irrelevant) part of my argument to pick holes in, and completely ignoring the actual point I've made.
My apologies for phrasing one of my ancilliary points poorly, but you can tell me off when you actually answer my main point, instead of ignoring or skirting around the issue.
First off, many thanks for such a considered and thoughtful response.
"Yes, certain actions taken by the US government are too arrogant, inward-looking, and aggressively expansionist... various voices around the world which criticize the US... desire the US to be... fundamentally different... these voices will not be satisfied with appropriate humility, a more globally aware view, and restricting natural expansionist tendencies... They want US actions to be dominated by world opinion... and both maintain a completely hands-off policy regarding other nations activities, while providing any and all support requested by any nation."
I understand your difficulty, and I sympathise - it's famously impossible to please all the people all of the time, and being the biggest kid on the block means you're the one many people turn to and expect you to do it.
Nevertheless, there's a big difference between trying your best to satisfy your (acceptable) desires without unnecessarily alienating anyone, and doing more or less exactly what you want and blatantly snubbing the rest of the world.
Sure, there will always be the lunatic fringe who won't be happy until the USA is a repressive fundamentalist regime, or until it's a wishy-washy liberal utopia where everyone stands areound all day holding hands. There are also those who would rather the US closed its borders and permitted no-one in or out, and those who want it to come round their house and put a plaster on every time they stub their toe.
Nevertheless, there is a happy middle ground that most western countries seem to find, where they balance satisfying their wants against the desires of others, and respect world opinion without being a slave to it.
For example, individually invading another soverign country is generally considered an exceedingly serious step, and one which should be undertaken only with international approval, or at least acceptance.
Even in a situation like 9/11, it would likely be accepted by other nations so long as it was proven that Afghanistan had materially aided terrorists (and, to be fair, you don't have a huge amount of protest over that, so you?).
In contrast, Iraq was blatantly overstepping the boundaries. No international accord was agreed. No evidence was submitted. The US invaded alone (ok, the UK helped, but that's because Blair went against the express wishes of the majority of the populace), and worse, invaded on provably trumped-up charges.
I would go so far as to say had the US stopped with Afghanistan, their reputation would have emerged pretty much intact. Slightly bruised, perhaps (Bush's vengeful tubthumping jingoism didn't do you any favours over a more thoughtful, regretful but determined rhetoric would have done), but basically ok.
Instead, he defied international opinion to pursue his own agenda (whether that was oil for his industry buddies, glory, personal power and a shoe-in second term in office, or a highly uninformed belief that he was Doing Good).
As a result, he's run up billions in debts, killed thousands of US and Iraqi soldiers, hugely damaged the US's reputation worldwide (once by letting him do it, again by not impeaching or voting him out once it emerged that he'd knowingly lied about the reasons), and destabilised what was the one single example of a successful (not "nice", but stable and prosperous) secular muslim nation holding back the tide of Iran-style islamic fundamentalism in the middle east.
It's this kind of unjustified overreaching, and then total failure to self-reflect or apologise afterwards that has caused such a dramatic downturn in the USA's reputation.
As I said, you can't please everyone all the time, but at the moment America's trying to please nobody but itself, is unrepentant of the consequences, and its image is suffering accordingly.
"Yes, but like it or not, the world needs to recognize that the US selects it's leaders -primarily- on the basis of their -domestic agendas-. I'm not
You're right in what you say, and I shouldn't have included trade tariffs in the list, as is is unfair on the US (especially given the UK and Europe's ridiculous farm subsidies).
;-)
There is a side-point about the difference in purchasing power between the US and any other individual country in the world meaning such comparisons are slightly flawed. See my response to the previous poster for a colourful metaphor involving a fight between two normal kids, and a fight involving a hairy-chinned football player and a six-year-old...
And I'm not talking about the US invading Europe, although have a point for a veiled low-blow about WWII (just to finish it off, shouldn't you have asked if I spoke German, and then explained why not?).
The context of my original remark was that the US in unpopular because it has, many times, in recent history, invasively manipulated and even invaded and deposed democratic regimes with popular support, solely to further its own interests.
Sure, you've left Europe and Russia alone, but do you really think even you could get away with that without causing WWIII? Look at anyone smaller and less able to fight back, like countries in South America, Africa or the Middle East - are you trying to tell me you aren't hugely more invasive and vastly more comfortable with throwing your (military) weight around than anyone else around today?
Granted, including tariffs was over-stating my position somewhat. Nevertheless, the fact that the US is a de facto monopoly in world trade means that when they use such practices it's a lot more harmful than when other countries do it to them.
No, I don't believe it's fair that any country should use practices like these against another, but one normal kid punching another kid is a fight. One hairy-chinned adolescent football player punching a six-year-old is bullying. With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility, right?
And I notice you studiously avoided my discussion of trade embargoes and military action, instead picking on the single weakest point I made in the whole post...?
Nope, it doesn't... but the US is:
The biggest country
The most powerful country
And, sadly, these days:
One of the less-trusted
One of the most ignorant about other cultures
One of the most interfering and invasive
One of the most inward-looking and self-censoring, and
One of the most convinced it knows what's best for everybody.
Welcome to the monopoly position - when nobody else can force you to do the right thing, you have a moral obligation to make sure you do it voluntarily.
You don't have any right at all to merely be the biggest kid in the playground, beat up on any of the smaller kids you like, and put your hands over your ears and chant loudly when anyone points out your behaviour is less than perfect.