In New Zealand, you have virtually no immigration by comparison
Immigration New Zealand might disagree with you on that... New Zealand is actually VERY MUCH a migrant country.
You can't sum up literacy into a simple percentage and call it a day
I agree completely that literacy can't be summed up in such a simple way, but as far as I'm aware, most countries that measure literacy of the population do so taking in to account language differences and so on, not merely "how well can a random sample of people comprehend a particular piece of text"
There's no way a country like the US could EVER have a literacy rate at the top
I'll grant that, given the situation, but my comment was more that literacy rates do seem to be lower than they should be, not that they are lower than any particular country. I only used New Zealand as an example (which, according to the percentages I showed, isn't actually a very good example anyway, and most likely due to many of the factors you've referred to). Also note that I actually assumed US literacy at a much higher percentage than the 99.0% figure that I quoted.
As an interesting side note, I wonder how much the literacy rate is affected by the amount of homeless people that have been homeless for a great deal of their lives - such a thing is extra-ordinarily rare (to the point of practical non-existence) in New Zealand, however unfortunately as far as I've seen, most major US cities have at least a small percentage (probably well under 1%) of people that fit this category.
Wow... so according to that actual percentage of literate people, by what a rational person would define as truly literate, is LOWER than 99%? I was giving the US the benefit of the doubt in my previous post and assuming the stated figure was too low (as it seems to be for New Zealand), however if 99% is actually too HIGH, that's a very serious and disturbing issue.
Or would any remake of Shakespeare be immediately nominated for best script?
I'd hope not... that "soap opera hack" of his time deserves nominations for the WORST scripting in known history. Bad storylines, characters that don't make sense, extremely flimsy attempts at "moral of the story" that only appeal to the unwashed masses... he certainly hit his target audience, but that wasn't the intellectual elite that these days profess how great he was, it was the drunken, oafish, uneducated masses that like crude jokes about genitalia and recycled murder mysteries - the soap opera crowd.
To get slightly back on topic - Yes, Sir Clarke will be sadly missed. I always preferred Asimov for writing style and "big impact", but Clarke certainly wasn't far behind.
You can divide up any country in this fashion: 20% are smart to brilliant, 60% are average (or somewhat stupid as I see it), and [20% are] stupid to moronic.
Perhaps, but I'd contest that these percentages are all around the national average, which varies greatly. The brilliant seem to be brilliant anywhere, granted, but the "average" and "stupid to moronic" seem to vary greatly from place to place (and not even "country to country" necessarily - you can compare individual states in the US, or even individual towns/cities within a state should you wish).
I've traveled to eight countries (including England) and this seems to hold true everywhere I go.
I've LIVED in 5 countries, and visited 39 so far. The place I spent most of my childhood was southern New Zealand, and the very idea of an illiterate person conjured up images of people raised in the wilderness by wild animals. Much later in life, I learned that the slums of Auckland do indeed contain semi-illiterate people, but it's a rare find indeed. To find an illiterate person in the US is unfortunately quite easy apparently.
(Note: I just checked Wikipedia and it seems that both New Zealand and the US are listed as 99.0% literate, but I honestly can not believe that 1 in every 100 people in New Zealand is illiterate (which would be 41000 people), even given the slums of Auckland. And even taking in to account what I just said about the US, I also have a hard time believing there are 3 million illiterate Americans.)
To get back to my point though - the "average" person seems to vary quite a lot, so even if your rough percentages are moderately accurate, the qualifications that those percentages refer to may differ somewhat.
$2477 take home seems fairly respectable (not "good", but certainly reasonable). I can imagine it wouldn't go so far in Manhattan though, so I understand what you mean about the average Manhattanite likely wishing they had a bit more.
The whole "employer benefits package" thing sounds fairly interesting, so I did some Google searching, and it does appear to be extremely common - that's something I'm not at all used to.
I recently (around 8 months ago) moved from Sydney, Australia to Hannover, Germany. Best move I ever made from a standard of living perspective. Sydney is notoriously expensive for pretty much everything, and the pay, while reasonable, wasn't great (I guess comparable to the cost/pay ratio in Manhattan from the looks of it). In Hannover, life costs me about half what it did in Sydney, and I get paid about one and a half times as much. Sure, Hannover's not a big city and hardly the most exciting city in Europe, but it's a fairly short drive (or train ride if you don't like European petrol prices) to anywhere else in Europe (especially after getting used to Australian distances). I assume there are comparable places in the US, where you get much better pay/cost ratios while still being able to travel to somewhere more "interesting" if you so desire. In Germany, from what I've seen, it's less worth it to live somewhere like Munich for example - the pay is similar to Hannover, and the cost of living is twice as much (so, err, Sydney costs).
Anyway, thanks for your feedback, my curiosity is now somewhat sated:)
Okay, glad to hear it... I couldn't really believe it could POSSIBLY have been that low.
Just to get a feel for how it compares to other places I'm more familiar with, is that $3577 before or after tax and other pretty much mandatory things that you pay out of your income (I assume private health care etc)? If it's before tax/etc (as I guess), what does that work out to after tax/etc? $2000? More? Less?
I want to be able to look at Washington and actually believe that those politicians are doing the best they can to maintain a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.
Of course, being ABLE to look at what Washington is doing is a fairly major point. A poster above linked to a YouTube video of a Q&A with Obama at Google. As a non-American, the thing I found most appealing about it was how dedicated he seemed to the idea of transparency in the government. That's something that seems to be missing in a lot of the world, but no-where more so in the western world than the US as far as I've seen.
If I was a US citizen, Obama would get my vote on this point alone.
I agree actually. I'd love to know the religious breakdown of Slashdotters, even more than the political leanings (mostly because I don't live in the US and therefore the political leanings with regard to the US elections are mostly of an academic interest only (except in those cases where the US govt may have strong negative effects on the rest of the world (which can easily happen given the size and power of the US)))
Anyway... as far as religion goes, that might make an interesting Slashdot poll.
We have bases in Germany, Italy, Greenland, Guam, The Netherlands, and Spain - there are no serious protests of these military installations by the general public (perhaps by a very fringe minority).
Perhaps not by the AMERICAN general public, but believe me that most of the people in those countries are generally pretty against you being there...
You also have military bases in places like Australia, where the government loves you, but the people are strongly against your continued presence with no just cause whatsoever (however too apathetic to make it a political concern - but that's one of Australia's unique problems I think)
We aren't there to "protect America". We're there to keep Iraq stable until it can take care of itself.
Okay, so you (as a nation, not you personally), screwed up and sent troops in when it wasn't necessary. And now, you plan on staying until you decide that you've cleaned up your mistake (which, by leaving troops there, may never actually happen)?
How about simply getting the hell out of there, apologising profusely (money would help) and then leaving them to it. Should they destroy themselves, that's regrettable, but NOT YOUR CONCERN. America has no right to control the affairs of other countries. If America were threatened, then you'd have some say in the matter, but you (personally, not as a nation) just said that you (as a nation, not personally) aren't there to "protect America" - so, GET OUT!
Lots of negative questions in that... rather frustrating actually!
Suffice to say, I came up -4.62 / -5.49, which is roughly where I expected to fall as a "typical European IT geek".
I also think the test could probably do with some more degrees of "agree/disagree", and clarification over some questions. The question "a significant advantage of a one-party state is that it avoids all the arguments that delay progress in a democratic political system.", I had to agree with, because it IS an advantage of that system, despite the fact that that system is unworkable and horrific to me on so many other levels. Nor do I think that the delay of progress in a democratic system is really a problem - because the cause of that delay is the checks and balances that make sure what's being done is truly right. Without this delay, a lot of very bad stuff could happen. But, I still had to agree with the statement as it was worded, because if there were a way to have checks and balances WITHOUT a delay, it would be better, and therefore the lack of delay in a one-party system is an advantage. I'm not entirely sure that my answer "agree" accurately reflected my belief though.
From the looks of what I've seen, the Obama "racist" claims don't hold that much water. And as for "anti-american" and "socialist" - perhaps that's just what the US needs right now.
If by "anti-American", you mean he goes against the way things have been done in the US for so long now that everyone has become accustomed to it, perhaps it's worth examining what that line of thinking has done to the US, and why the whole country is beginning to show serious signs of weakening at the seams. A change away to some radically different ideas could make for a much better country.
As for "socialist", there are many great socialist democracies in Europe that are far more pleasant to live in (in many people's opinions) that the decidedly anti-socialist way that the US is run. While I doubt that any American politician (including Obama) would make America even half as socialist as these European countries, a slight move in that direction wouldn't hurt!
I don't live in the US, but I am currently here on a business trip.
I spent yesterday in NYC, as a sort of small holiday before travelling on to Connecticut where I've got my meeting.
In NYC, I took one of those tour bus things to take a look around as I didn't have much time or knowledge of the city to really spend it looking around on my own. One thing that sticks in my mind is a statement that the tour guide guy said. "The average income of a person in Manhattan is $1500 a month". He went on to clarify that that is of course taking in to account the millionaires as well as the dirt poor, however I think it may still be a fairly representative figure, but was clearly attempting to say that $1500 a month is a lot of money (basically attempting to impress the tourists about how wealthy Manhattan is). That surprised me a lot - from what I saw, it's NOT a cheap city to live in at all, and $1500 USD a month is NOTHING compared to the average wage back home, which is also a much cheaper place to live. If the US dollar continues to fall, I can really imagine places like Manhattan very quickly becoming slums.
Note that this is just "first impression" and I could well be wrong, but as an outsider's perspective, it's pretty scary. Whoever you do, as a nation, vote in next, I really hope it's someone that is capable of doing something about your economy.
As a side note: I'd also hope it's someone that can do something about your security policies and free speech... I almost got arrested for "public disturbance" at the Statue of Liberty for arguing with a couple of Americans about the meaning of "Liberty" and how excessive security erodes it. I was ALMOST tempted to continue the argument and let them arrest me just for the irony of being arrested for a discussion about the meaning of the word Liberty when standing only metres away from that icon that is supposed to represent it. (I decided instead to apologise to the "nice officer", shut-up and leave, as it would REALLY not make a good impression on my company to miss the business meeting due to being arrested in New York City)
Another interesting thought on this is just how much the "subconscious" processes can still be learned. They are not fixed in stone - even remotely.
Watching my mother attempt to operate a mouse is a painful experience, but how many of us on Slashdot even think twice about the motor movements we make to move the cursor around, click on things and scroll up and down?
My mother has no prosthetic limbs, and has a good 25 years more experience than me in using her arms and hands for normal day to day tasks. On the very rare occasions she may operate a mouse, there's still a huge amount of it that is automatic and reflexive, despite the awkwardness that is visible. Now think how much would go in to a machine to emulate just her ability, let alone yours or mine.
I applaud your brilliant analogy, but I think you missed the GP's point to an extent. He didn't say it (which is probably why it could be missed) but I think his implication (from his gripe about being in tech support) was that these people who know nothing about the tech still ASK about it, and that's a problem.
Clearly, you know at least a bit about home construction. Now imagine if all day every day people who "just own homes and live in them" came to ask you stupid questions about construction instead of going off and learning on their own. Then, when you politely suggest they learn something about it, they act as if they don't need to or just blatantly don't want to.
The person in the article is probably not one of these people from the looks of it, so if my reading of the GP's post is correct, he's offtopic anyway, but I just thought I'd try to defend his viewpoint a little!
I think we may have to agree to disagree I'm afraid... but since you brought up "consider the maths", please think about this for a moment:
As you say, small effects may have big impacts. I won't actually disagree with you on this - it's possible that the amount of radiation/energy/gravity/whatever coming from Alpha Centauri is enough to have an impact on a developing foetus. I don't have enough data either way (nor do I think anyone else does, but my personal opinion (and it is opinion only) is that it probably isn't enough). However, even if so, then the fluctuations in radiation/energy/gravity/whatever coming from our own planet, our own sun, and the many things we humans have created will vastly overpower the amount coming from anything even as distant as Mars, let alone the far off stars. If the constellation of Leo has had any effect on me as a human being while I was in my mother's womb, then I can guarantee that the fact my mother's neighbour was a HAM radio nut had a far greater effect!
I also believe faster than light travel is impossible, so none have ever, or will ever, visit Earth.
Faster than light travel isn't necessary for interstellar travel (to visit another planet)... it helps if you're planning on going home again and expect to see everyone you know, but a one way trip to many places at significant sub-light speeds is quite possible due to the wonders of time dilation during your journey.
Given the opportunity, I'd jump at the chance to be on a craft to go visit a known alien world, even knowing that I'd be leaving the Earth and everyone on it forever. While I'm surely in the minority, I don't think I'm unique in that, so given an alien race capable of significant sub-light speeds were to detect us (through whatever method is another question for another day), I think there's a pretty good chance they'd send someone. The biggest point is that other question - I don't think we've been around long enough to be detected.
The problem with 'majority rules' democracies is that intelligent, logically thinking, people are always a tiny minority of any population.
Actually yes... when I wrote that post, I didn't stop to consider the fact that democracy as a concept in general is inherently flawed because of exactly this. It's been said, by smarter people than I, that democracy isn't a good system, it's simply the least bad one.
Now maybe if you had to pass some kind of IQ test to vote or to run for office...
See my other post about requiring politicians to study "politics" at University and pass an exam in the same way as doctors or lawyers... do you think that might help somewhat?
I don't get what you mean about them not actually believing in God. If you're convinced something is true, doesn't that mean you believe it?
Yes, that's exactly what it means.
If I'm a persuasive speaker, I might convince you that leprechauns were really tax collectors selected for their diminutive size so as not to appear threatening. From then on, you would believe that leprechauns once existed in exactly the same way that you believe that Canada exists.
Yes, I would... but you'd have to be one hell of a persuasive speaker to be able to present convincing and persuasive arguments to go against a lifetime of facts that point to the non-existence of leprechauns!
The only difference in the case of faith is that "you" and "I" in that example refer to the same person.
But the chances of me, with no external input, being able to come up with arguments so persuasive that I could counter a lifetime of evidence to the contrary is ridiculously slim. No matter how much I try to convince myself (and not that I would try, but even if I did), I couldn't logically argue against the non-existence of pink bathroom hippopotamuses enough to be able to change my own mind. In exactly the same way, I couldn't come up with convincing enough arguments to change my mind about the non-existence of God either.
I think the problem with many of the US states, and indeed the Federal Government there, is that politicians have altogether too much power once they're in. There are limits on what they can do, and checks and balances do exist, but just "in general" you get your chance to vote for someone and then after that they can turn around on every promise they made and royally screw everyone.
I used to be quite anti-American, but after meeting many more Americans I've decided that it's not really the people's fault. Yes, there are stupid people in America, but there are stupid people everywhere and there are plenty of intelligent people in America too. The problem is that those people have no real power to do anything.
Exactly HOW to fix this problem, I can't say, but the general idea of "more real control by the people" is something that could be worked from. Perhaps even some kind of vote for every law that is passed. Sure, VERY few people would actually go and vote ten times a day for every law out there, but anything you feel strongly about, you could take the time to give your voice to. Even if only a hundred people vote on a particular law for the whole country, you can say that everyone else is in the "don't care either way" camp, and determine whether or not the law goes in to effect based on that vote. (this vote would be the final stage of course - after all the normal processes which may get it abandoned). This idea is somewhat similar to a referendum, but instead of it being only for certain things, have it for EVERY law. I can imagine when such a system is first implemented, politicians would go crazy for a while trying to get everyone to vote on their "extremely important issues", but simply with the sheer number of things going through, everyone would eventually just get over it and it may be quite a workable system.
In this case, you have other, better educated politicians talk to the stupid ones
about things like equal protection, or chilling effects on free speech. You know,
the stuff the ignorance of which has ended the careers of so many other stupid politicians.
I've always wanted to see some kind of system where politicians are required to be sufficiently trained to do their jobs and do them properly. No more lawyers, accountants and other "related" professions becoming politicians - unless they cross train. Just like a doctor can't be a doctor without extensive medical training, it should be required that you need to attend university for 5 years and pass a hellishly hard exam to be a politician.
The exam would have to be pretty broad reaching, and one can even imagine specialities occurring just as happens with law and medicine.
The biggest and most important part of this whole idea is that the politicians would NOT be trained to be anything like the current politicians of the world. They would have it drummed in to them that the purpose of government is to serve the people - not the other way around. Hopefully, after 5 years of this, they'd come out and actually be able to effectively do their jobs.
Or, maybe it wouldn't work and we'd just be wasting more money, but it's probably worth a shot!
You raise an interesting thought there... are you saying that by my definition of belief (as per the belief in Canada and non-belief in God examples), religious folk actually DON'T believe in God, and are simply "convincing themselves" of it and calling that belief? If so, that's roughly what I was thinking that probably SOME so-called "religious" people do (see another post of mine further down). But the way you describe it, I'm beginning to think that that "some" might be a number quite close to 100% (with the remaining very small number being "actual" believers, which is in all probability some form of mental illness)
It's possible people will look at the parent post to this one and not give it any thought since it is so short and at first glance it may appear to be devoid of valuable content. However, this is actually a fundamental concept that I think should be elaborated upon. I really can not understand the viewpoint that many people with religious beliefs and other supernatural ideas have. People assume that I can choose what I believe. I can't. I believe what I believe. Those beliefs may change in the face of new evidence (and in fact throughout my childhood they often did change (less so now that I'm older, but they still do)), but I can not CHOOSE to change my beliefs. I could certainly PRETEND I believe in something else, if I wanted to, but that really seems a little silly. I even think some people strongly try to convince themselves of something and then manage to simply put it out of their minds so they don't have to consider it further, then give a passing "sure, I believe that", when asked. I've often wondered how many "Christians" / "astrology believers" / "Muslims" / "whatever" fall in to this kind of "belief". In some religions/ideas, I think the percentage is quite low, however in some more mainstream and popular ones (such as those examples) I think it's probably quite a high percentage.
I believe there is a place called Canada. I've never been there, but all the evidence presented to me so far in my life points to the existence of it. If I went to where it should be and found nothing but ocean, then I may change that belief. I believe there is no God. All of the evidence presented to me so far in my life points to the non-existence of it. If God turned up tomorrow and gave me a tour of heaven, then I may change that belief. (note that for both of these examples, I use "MAY change that belief", because there are still possibilities such as psycho-active drugs or insanity to consider)
I've heard the whole "tidal effect" thing so many times and it really does annoy the hell out of me.
I'll let you do the maths - but just to get you started, compare the force of gravity exerted on you by Mount Everest to the amount exerted on you by Saturn. Then compare either of those to the amount exerted on you by the moon, and then by the sun. After that, tell me if you really think the distant planets could have ANY meaningful effect.
Or, if you want to think about things other than just gravity, take a look at the different kinds of things that actually reach you from the planets. In general, far MORE of these same things come from the much further distant stars, yet those are never accounted for.
That's the short version, but in essence, I think it's completely fair to say that astrology is complete and utter bunk.
Slashdot Mirror
Immigration New Zealand might disagree with you on that... New Zealand is actually VERY MUCH a migrant country.
You can't sum up literacy into a simple percentage and call it a dayI agree completely that literacy can't be summed up in such a simple way, but as far as I'm aware, most countries that measure literacy of the population do so taking in to account language differences and so on, not merely "how well can a random sample of people comprehend a particular piece of text"
There's no way a country like the US could EVER have a literacy rate at the topI'll grant that, given the situation, but my comment was more that literacy rates do seem to be lower than they should be, not that they are lower than any particular country. I only used New Zealand as an example (which, according to the percentages I showed, isn't actually a very good example anyway, and most likely due to many of the factors you've referred to). Also note that I actually assumed US literacy at a much higher percentage than the 99.0% figure that I quoted.
As an interesting side note, I wonder how much the literacy rate is affected by the amount of homeless people that have been homeless for a great deal of their lives - such a thing is extra-ordinarily rare (to the point of practical non-existence) in New Zealand, however unfortunately as far as I've seen, most major US cities have at least a small percentage (probably well under 1%) of people that fit this category.
Wow... so according to that actual percentage of literate people, by what a rational person would define as truly literate, is LOWER than 99%? I was giving the US the benefit of the doubt in my previous post and assuming the stated figure was too low (as it seems to be for New Zealand), however if 99% is actually too HIGH, that's a very serious and disturbing issue.
I'd hope not... that "soap opera hack" of his time deserves nominations for the WORST scripting in known history. Bad storylines, characters that don't make sense, extremely flimsy attempts at "moral of the story" that only appeal to the unwashed masses... he certainly hit his target audience, but that wasn't the intellectual elite that these days profess how great he was, it was the drunken, oafish, uneducated masses that like crude jokes about genitalia and recycled murder mysteries - the soap opera crowd.
To get slightly back on topic - Yes, Sir Clarke will be sadly missed. I always preferred Asimov for writing style and "big impact", but Clarke certainly wasn't far behind.
Perhaps, but I'd contest that these percentages are all around the national average, which varies greatly. The brilliant seem to be brilliant anywhere, granted, but the "average" and "stupid to moronic" seem to vary greatly from place to place (and not even "country to country" necessarily - you can compare individual states in the US, or even individual towns/cities within a state should you wish).
I've traveled to eight countries (including England) and this seems to hold true everywhere I go.I've LIVED in 5 countries, and visited 39 so far. The place I spent most of my childhood was southern New Zealand, and the very idea of an illiterate person conjured up images of people raised in the wilderness by wild animals. Much later in life, I learned that the slums of Auckland do indeed contain semi-illiterate people, but it's a rare find indeed. To find an illiterate person in the US is unfortunately quite easy apparently.
(Note: I just checked Wikipedia and it seems that both New Zealand and the US are listed as 99.0% literate, but I honestly can not believe that 1 in every 100 people in New Zealand is illiterate (which would be 41000 people), even given the slums of Auckland. And even taking in to account what I just said about the US, I also have a hard time believing there are 3 million illiterate Americans.)
To get back to my point though - the "average" person seems to vary quite a lot, so even if your rough percentages are moderately accurate, the qualifications that those percentages refer to may differ somewhat.
$2477 take home seems fairly respectable (not "good", but certainly reasonable). I can imagine it wouldn't go so far in Manhattan though, so I understand what you mean about the average Manhattanite likely wishing they had a bit more.
:)
The whole "employer benefits package" thing sounds fairly interesting, so I did some Google searching, and it does appear to be extremely common - that's something I'm not at all used to.
I recently (around 8 months ago) moved from Sydney, Australia to Hannover, Germany. Best move I ever made from a standard of living perspective. Sydney is notoriously expensive for pretty much everything, and the pay, while reasonable, wasn't great (I guess comparable to the cost/pay ratio in Manhattan from the looks of it). In Hannover, life costs me about half what it did in Sydney, and I get paid about one and a half times as much. Sure, Hannover's not a big city and hardly the most exciting city in Europe, but it's a fairly short drive (or train ride if you don't like European petrol prices) to anywhere else in Europe (especially after getting used to Australian distances). I assume there are comparable places in the US, where you get much better pay/cost ratios while still being able to travel to somewhere more "interesting" if you so desire. In Germany, from what I've seen, it's less worth it to live somewhere like Munich for example - the pay is similar to Hannover, and the cost of living is twice as much (so, err, Sydney costs).
Anyway, thanks for your feedback, my curiosity is now somewhat sated
Okay, glad to hear it... I couldn't really believe it could POSSIBLY have been that low.
Just to get a feel for how it compares to other places I'm more familiar with, is that $3577 before or after tax and other pretty much mandatory things that you pay out of your income (I assume private health care etc)? If it's before tax/etc (as I guess), what does that work out to after tax/etc? $2000? More? Less?
Of course, being ABLE to look at what Washington is doing is a fairly major point. A poster above linked to a YouTube video of a Q&A with Obama at Google. As a non-American, the thing I found most appealing about it was how dedicated he seemed to the idea of transparency in the government. That's something that seems to be missing in a lot of the world, but no-where more so in the western world than the US as far as I've seen.
If I was a US citizen, Obama would get my vote on this point alone.
I agree actually. I'd love to know the religious breakdown of Slashdotters, even more than the political leanings (mostly because I don't live in the US and therefore the political leanings with regard to the US elections are mostly of an academic interest only (except in those cases where the US govt may have strong negative effects on the rest of the world (which can easily happen given the size and power of the US)))
Anyway... as far as religion goes, that might make an interesting Slashdot poll.
Perhaps not by the AMERICAN general public, but believe me that most of the people in those countries are generally pretty against you being there...
You also have military bases in places like Australia, where the government loves you, but the people are strongly against your continued presence with no just cause whatsoever (however too apathetic to make it a political concern - but that's one of Australia's unique problems I think)
Okay, so you (as a nation, not you personally), screwed up and sent troops in when it wasn't necessary. And now, you plan on staying until you decide that you've cleaned up your mistake (which, by leaving troops there, may never actually happen)?
How about simply getting the hell out of there, apologising profusely (money would help) and then leaving them to it. Should they destroy themselves, that's regrettable, but NOT YOUR CONCERN. America has no right to control the affairs of other countries. If America were threatened, then you'd have some say in the matter, but you (personally, not as a nation) just said that you (as a nation, not personally) aren't there to "protect America" - so, GET OUT!
Lots of negative questions in that... rather frustrating actually!
Suffice to say, I came up -4.62 / -5.49, which is roughly where I expected to fall as a "typical European IT geek".
I also think the test could probably do with some more degrees of "agree/disagree", and clarification over some questions. The question "a significant advantage of a one-party state is that it avoids all the arguments that delay progress in a democratic political system.", I had to agree with, because it IS an advantage of that system, despite the fact that that system is unworkable and horrific to me on so many other levels. Nor do I think that the delay of progress in a democratic system is really a problem - because the cause of that delay is the checks and balances that make sure what's being done is truly right. Without this delay, a lot of very bad stuff could happen. But, I still had to agree with the statement as it was worded, because if there were a way to have checks and balances WITHOUT a delay, it would be better, and therefore the lack of delay in a one-party system is an advantage.
I'm not entirely sure that my answer "agree" accurately reflected my belief though.
From the looks of what I've seen, the Obama "racist" claims don't hold that much water. And as for "anti-american" and "socialist" - perhaps that's just what the US needs right now.
If by "anti-American", you mean he goes against the way things have been done in the US for so long now that everyone has become accustomed to it, perhaps it's worth examining what that line of thinking has done to the US, and why the whole country is beginning to show serious signs of weakening at the seams. A change away to some radically different ideas could make for a much better country.
As for "socialist", there are many great socialist democracies in Europe that are far more pleasant to live in (in many people's opinions) that the decidedly anti-socialist way that the US is run. While I doubt that any American politician (including Obama) would make America even half as socialist as these European countries, a slight move in that direction wouldn't hurt!
I don't live in the US, but I am currently here on a business trip.
I spent yesterday in NYC, as a sort of small holiday before travelling on to Connecticut where I've got my meeting.
In NYC, I took one of those tour bus things to take a look around as I didn't have much time or knowledge of the city to really spend it looking around on my own. One thing that sticks in my mind is a statement that the tour guide guy said. "The average income of a person in Manhattan is $1500 a month". He went on to clarify that that is of course taking in to account the millionaires as well as the dirt poor, however I think it may still be a fairly representative figure, but was clearly attempting to say that $1500 a month is a lot of money (basically attempting to impress the tourists about how wealthy Manhattan is). That surprised me a lot - from what I saw, it's NOT a cheap city to live in at all, and $1500 USD a month is NOTHING compared to the average wage back home, which is also a much cheaper place to live. If the US dollar continues to fall, I can really imagine places like Manhattan very quickly becoming slums.
Note that this is just "first impression" and I could well be wrong, but as an outsider's perspective, it's pretty scary. Whoever you do, as a nation, vote in next, I really hope it's someone that is capable of doing something about your economy.
As a side note: I'd also hope it's someone that can do something about your security policies and free speech... I almost got arrested for "public disturbance" at the Statue of Liberty for arguing with a couple of Americans about the meaning of "Liberty" and how excessive security erodes it. I was ALMOST tempted to continue the argument and let them arrest me just for the irony of being arrested for a discussion about the meaning of the word Liberty when standing only metres away from that icon that is supposed to represent it. (I decided instead to apologise to the "nice officer", shut-up and leave, as it would REALLY not make a good impression on my company to miss the business meeting due to being arrested in New York City)
Another interesting thought on this is just how much the "subconscious" processes can still be learned. They are not fixed in stone - even remotely.
Watching my mother attempt to operate a mouse is a painful experience, but how many of us on Slashdot even think twice about the motor movements we make to move the cursor around, click on things and scroll up and down?
My mother has no prosthetic limbs, and has a good 25 years more experience than me in using her arms and hands for normal day to day tasks. On the very rare occasions she may operate a mouse, there's still a huge amount of it that is automatic and reflexive, despite the awkwardness that is visible. Now think how much would go in to a machine to emulate just her ability, let alone yours or mine.
I applaud your brilliant analogy, but I think you missed the GP's point to an extent. He didn't say it (which is probably why it could be missed) but I think his implication (from his gripe about being in tech support) was that these people who know nothing about the tech still ASK about it, and that's a problem.
Clearly, you know at least a bit about home construction. Now imagine if all day every day people who "just own homes and live in them" came to ask you stupid questions about construction instead of going off and learning on their own. Then, when you politely suggest they learn something about it, they act as if they don't need to or just blatantly don't want to.
The person in the article is probably not one of these people from the looks of it, so if my reading of the GP's post is correct, he's offtopic anyway, but I just thought I'd try to defend his viewpoint a little!
I think we may have to agree to disagree I'm afraid... but since you brought up "consider the maths", please think about this for a moment:
As you say, small effects may have big impacts. I won't actually disagree with you on this - it's possible that the amount of radiation/energy/gravity/whatever coming from Alpha Centauri is enough to have an impact on a developing foetus. I don't have enough data either way (nor do I think anyone else does, but my personal opinion (and it is opinion only) is that it probably isn't enough).
However, even if so, then the fluctuations in radiation/energy/gravity/whatever coming from our own planet, our own sun, and the many things we humans have created will vastly overpower the amount coming from anything even as distant as Mars, let alone the far off stars. If the constellation of Leo has had any effect on me as a human being while I was in my mother's womb, then I can guarantee that the fact my mother's neighbour was a HAM radio nut had a far greater effect!
See what I'm trying to get at here?
Faster than light travel isn't necessary for interstellar travel (to visit another planet)... it helps if you're planning on going home again and expect to see everyone you know, but a one way trip to many places at significant sub-light speeds is quite possible due to the wonders of time dilation during your journey.
Given the opportunity, I'd jump at the chance to be on a craft to go visit a known alien world, even knowing that I'd be leaving the Earth and everyone on it forever. While I'm surely in the minority, I don't think I'm unique in that, so given an alien race capable of significant sub-light speeds were to detect us (through whatever method is another question for another day), I think there's a pretty good chance they'd send someone. The biggest point is that other question - I don't think we've been around long enough to be detected.
Actually yes... when I wrote that post, I didn't stop to consider the fact that democracy as a concept in general is inherently flawed because of exactly this. It's been said, by smarter people than I, that democracy isn't a good system, it's simply the least bad one.
Now maybe if you had to pass some kind of IQ test to vote or to run for office...See my other post about requiring politicians to study "politics" at University and pass an exam in the same way as doctors or lawyers... do you think that might help somewhat?
Yes, that's exactly what it means.
If I'm a persuasive speaker, I might convince you that leprechauns were really tax collectors selected for their diminutive size so as not to appear threatening. From then on, you would believe that leprechauns once existed in exactly the same way that you believe that Canada exists.Yes, I would... but you'd have to be one hell of a persuasive speaker to be able to present convincing and persuasive arguments to go against a lifetime of facts that point to the non-existence of leprechauns!
The only difference in the case of faith is that "you" and "I" in that example refer to the same person.But the chances of me, with no external input, being able to come up with arguments so persuasive that I could counter a lifetime of evidence to the contrary is ridiculously slim. No matter how much I try to convince myself (and not that I would try, but even if I did), I couldn't logically argue against the non-existence of pink bathroom hippopotamuses enough to be able to change my own mind. In exactly the same way, I couldn't come up with convincing enough arguments to change my mind about the non-existence of God either.
I think the problem with many of the US states, and indeed the Federal Government there, is that politicians have altogether too much power once they're in. There are limits on what they can do, and checks and balances do exist, but just "in general" you get your chance to vote for someone and then after that they can turn around on every promise they made and royally screw everyone.
I used to be quite anti-American, but after meeting many more Americans I've decided that it's not really the people's fault. Yes, there are stupid people in America, but there are stupid people everywhere and there are plenty of intelligent people in America too. The problem is that those people have no real power to do anything.
Exactly HOW to fix this problem, I can't say, but the general idea of "more real control by the people" is something that could be worked from. Perhaps even some kind of vote for every law that is passed. Sure, VERY few people would actually go and vote ten times a day for every law out there, but anything you feel strongly about, you could take the time to give your voice to. Even if only a hundred people vote on a particular law for the whole country, you can say that everyone else is in the "don't care either way" camp, and determine whether or not the law goes in to effect based on that vote. (this vote would be the final stage of course - after all the normal processes which may get it abandoned).
This idea is somewhat similar to a referendum, but instead of it being only for certain things, have it for EVERY law. I can imagine when such a system is first implemented, politicians would go crazy for a while trying to get everyone to vote on their "extremely important issues", but simply with the sheer number of things going through, everyone would eventually just get over it and it may be quite a workable system.
I've always wanted to see some kind of system where politicians are required to be sufficiently trained to do their jobs and do them properly. No more lawyers, accountants and other "related" professions becoming politicians - unless they cross train. Just like a doctor can't be a doctor without extensive medical training, it should be required that you need to attend university for 5 years and pass a hellishly hard exam to be a politician.
The exam would have to be pretty broad reaching, and one can even imagine specialities occurring just as happens with law and medicine.
The biggest and most important part of this whole idea is that the politicians would NOT be trained to be anything like the current politicians of the world. They would have it drummed in to them that the purpose of government is to serve the people - not the other way around. Hopefully, after 5 years of this, they'd come out and actually be able to effectively do their jobs.
Or, maybe it wouldn't work and we'd just be wasting more money, but it's probably worth a shot!
You raise an interesting thought there... are you saying that by my definition of belief (as per the belief in Canada and non-belief in God examples), religious folk actually DON'T believe in God, and are simply "convincing themselves" of it and calling that belief? If so, that's roughly what I was thinking that probably SOME so-called "religious" people do (see another post of mine further down). But the way you describe it, I'm beginning to think that that "some" might be a number quite close to 100% (with the remaining very small number being "actual" believers, which is in all probability some form of mental illness)
It's possible people will look at the parent post to this one and not give it any thought since it is so short and at first glance it may appear to be devoid of valuable content. However, this is actually a fundamental concept that I think should be elaborated upon. I really can not understand the viewpoint that many people with religious beliefs and other supernatural ideas have. People assume that I can choose what I believe. I can't. I believe what I believe. Those beliefs may change in the face of new evidence (and in fact throughout my childhood they often did change (less so now that I'm older, but they still do)), but I can not CHOOSE to change my beliefs.
I could certainly PRETEND I believe in something else, if I wanted to, but that really seems a little silly. I even think some people strongly try to convince themselves of something and then manage to simply put it out of their minds so they don't have to consider it further, then give a passing "sure, I believe that", when asked. I've often wondered how many "Christians" / "astrology believers" / "Muslims" / "whatever" fall in to this kind of "belief". In some religions/ideas, I think the percentage is quite low, however in some more mainstream and popular ones (such as those examples) I think it's probably quite a high percentage.
I believe there is a place called Canada. I've never been there, but all the evidence presented to me so far in my life points to the existence of it. If I went to where it should be and found nothing but ocean, then I may change that belief.
I believe there is no God. All of the evidence presented to me so far in my life points to the non-existence of it. If God turned up tomorrow and gave me a tour of heaven, then I may change that belief.
(note that for both of these examples, I use "MAY change that belief", because there are still possibilities such as psycho-active drugs or insanity to consider)
So, ummm... mod parent up!
I've heard the whole "tidal effect" thing so many times and it really does annoy the hell out of me.
I'll let you do the maths - but just to get you started, compare the force of gravity exerted on you by Mount Everest to the amount exerted on you by Saturn. Then compare either of those to the amount exerted on you by the moon, and then by the sun. After that, tell me if you really think the distant planets could have ANY meaningful effect.
Or, if you want to think about things other than just gravity, take a look at the different kinds of things that actually reach you from the planets. In general, far MORE of these same things come from the much further distant stars, yet those are never accounted for.
That's the short version, but in essence, I think it's completely fair to say that astrology is complete and utter bunk.
Staring at a monitor AT ALL while on Acid can be a fairly unpleasant experience - let's not make it worse by using IE!