At least one could imagine a significant potential benefit for this (even if outweighed by the negatives), and it required a bit of innovation. The one-click purchase (where you don't get a confirmation) always seemed crazy to me - like inventing an automobile without brakes so that it always has to be coasted to a stop.
That reminds me of my high school Spanish class. We spent the first few minutes of class copying about 10 words and their definitions from the board, then the rest of the class on lecture. I loved that class! Sadly we got a different teacher later.
I've never understood how note taking helps the information sink in. For me it interferes with listening and understanding. While listening to the lecture I can either think through what is being said, what implications it has other things I know about, how it fits into other things we're learning, and how important it is - or I can be making split-second decisions about what to write down and scribbling furiously while trying to translate spoken words into written notes.
A laptop might make it easier by helping me keep up - I can generally type faster than I can draw letters - but it is still an additional task to perform when I should be learning.
Learning to take notes is a good thing - it is very important for business meetings and such. But for classes where there is a book or a slide deck provided by the teacher I don't see what spending your mental energies on scribbling gets you in terms of learning about the subject.
I plead Guilty, at least through high school and college. My daily grades were poor, my test scores good and my finals not even a problem. Even today friends and colleagues are impressed by how much I remember from high school and college.
Then I went to grad school where they told me my grades had to be all A's and B's. I decided to buckle down. I took notes. I studied for tests. I did the daily homework. My grades were all A's and B's, but I don't remember anything.
In high school and college I was listening to the lectures for the purpose of learning interesting things. I learned. In grad school I was taking notes during lectures for the purpose of getting good grades. I got good grades, but forgot everything shortly after the tests.
The Post may lean left less than it used to on international affairs, but it is still very far to the left on everything else and is hardly comparable to the Wall Street Journal which actually leans right on most things.
As a conservative I long ago learned to live with the fact that most of the news media leaned left. The WP did so, but at least seemed to make an effort to focus on the reporting rather than the propaganda.
However their reporting on illegal immigration seemed so deliberately dishonest and manipulative that I was glad to cancel my subscription.
Whoever told you that is an idiot and/or a jerk. I don't think you should feel responsible for Nazi war crimes.
As for paying for Nazi war crimes, that's a bit more complicated. Certainly you shouldn't be punished for them (sometimes "be punished for" is what people mean when they say "pay for").
However when it comes to fiscal depts - medical treatments for surviving victims still suffering from WWII era wounds, for example, there is a collective debt of the country (Gemany) and no good way to separate the obligation owed by the older generation vs the younger generation. Unfortunately that's the way government debt works. American children today who have no voice in government will spend their lives paying off the debts incurred by reckless borrowing of the Clinton-Bush-Obama years (I don't include Reagan and Bush I because their debt was arguably needed for fighting the Cold War).
However, the number of Nazi War Crime victims grows smaller and smaller. I wouldn't worry to much about a dwindling financial obligation. However if their children start demanding payment when those children didn't suffer - then I think you have something to complain about.
Inter-generational moral-debt is a recipe for permanent war. See the middle east, for example. At some point you have to accept what you were born to and try to better yourself through your own efforts rather than trying to blame each others' grandparents did to each other.
My point was only that the method of having a pacifist doctrine and tiny military doesn't work for all countries. How long would Taiwan or Israel last if they shrank their military to practically nothing (we may find out with Taiwan)?
I checked out some of your postings and note that you have spent time in China and are originally from the American South. Spending time in China, you likely have been told that Taiwan has always been part of China and that they share the same ancestry and culture. Growing up during the Cold War, you probably learned that Taiwan was the "Free China" (in other words, part of China).
Let me ask you, do you consider America to be the "Free Europe"? Do you believe America is part of Europe and do you consider yourself European? Does that fact that most Americans have predominantly European ancestry and speak a European language mean that we should always be part of Europe?
Taiwan has a similar much like America - but even more like Mexico or Cuba.
Taiwan has an aboriginal population just like the Americas do. Taiwan started getting large amounts of immigration from China in the 1600s, just like the Americas started getting large amounts of immigration from Europe at that time. Taiwan was nominally under the control of China starting in the mid-1600s, but control was weak and distant. Like Mexico, Taiwan's aboriginal population shrank to a small amount due to war, assimilation, and intermarriage (unlike America where the aboriginal population was mostly wiped out, Taiwan's population mostly has aboriginal ancestry) Like Cuba, Taiwan was separated from its colonial master by a different colonial master at the tail end of the 1800s and since that time has hardly ever been controlled by that original master.
Some differences: It was Japan that brought education to Taiwan. It was Japan that finally brought the whole of the island under one rule (the Dutch and later the Chinese were never able to gain control of the eastern mountainous regions). It was Japan that first made the island rich. I'm not sure what parallel we have for that in the Americas. And when the Chinese returned, there was only a four year period (1945 to 1949) in which they ruled both Taiwan and large portions of China - meaning Taiwan has been politically united with China under Chinese rule for only 4 of the past 115 years. The Chinese government that took over was guilty of massacres, large numbers of political killings, lawlessness, corruption, and looting.
But that's not what you heard during the Cold War because the Chinese dictator running Taiwan wanted everyone to believe Taiwan was free and part of China. And the American government didn't want to set the record straight because the Chinese dictator was an ally against communism. And the Chinese government doesn't want to set the record straight because they want an excuse to annex Taiwan.
The Taiwanese suffered a wave of immigration such that 1/6 of the population came from China shortly after WWII. For the next 40+ years they were told on TV, radio, newspapers and in schools that they were part of China - and to argue could get you imprisoned or even killed. Children were forced to learn a new language - the language of Beijing. They learned almost nothing of Taiwan's history as their history focused on the history of China. To this day they suffer an identity crisis, but as time passes more and more of them are saying they are Taiwanese, not Chinese or even Taiwanese Chinese, but just Taiwanese.
The way I see it, they do so for the same reason I say I'm an "American", not an African American, Asian American or European American. My country belongs to none of those places. I'm an American plain and simple.
Yes, the Japanese military that took over Taiwan was for some reason very different in behavior from the forces that took over Korea. In Korea the behavior of Japanese military forces was barbaric. In Taiwan the Japanese rule was a civilizing influence that made great strides toward moving Taiwan into the modern world. Also to be considered is the wretched treatment the Taiwanese suffered at the hands of the Chinese rulers who replaced the Japanese.
Under Japanese rule, the Taiwanese were treated as second class to the Japanese - but there treated that way under the Chinese rule that followed the Japanese rule. And the earlier Chinese rule that was largely a matter of neglect. The Japanese brought industrialization, wealth, infrastructure, and education. At the beginning of WWII in Asia Taiwan was second only to Japan in per capita earnings. Primary school attendance went from less that 5% to 70% during the Japanese era. Corruption went to tiny amounts, only to be brought back by the following Chinese rule (and it still hasn't been brought under control again - the main reason the legislature stayed under the control of the Chinese Nationalist Party throughout Taiwanese democratic era).
Life under the Japanese wasn't perfect, but it was a damn site better than what followed under the Chinese.
Japan has hardly been sabre rattling. Nor have the Phillippines, India, Taiwan, and Vietnam been sabre-rattling. The sabre-rattling has been on the Chinese side.
Just what was it that persuaded Thatcher to give up Hong Kong island (which was given to Britain permanently, it was only the new territories that were under lease)? Was it a promise to remain peaceful?
Not sure in which part of the Art of War he said that the best defense is to create new enemies, or promote new weapon races (even in fields where you can participate with widely available and cheap technology, like the internet based ones), but it should be somewhere because US is following that to the letter and the rest of their (for now) allies are following the example.
Which part of Art of War says appease rising powers when they try to bully you?
It will be interesting to track how this plays out... unless you happen to live in a country or belong to a race that the Chinese think have historically wronged China, or a race that the Chinese see as being inferior, in which case it could be scary to see Chinese attitudes of resentful nationalism closely tracking those of Japan and Germany prior to WW II.
The military was neutered, but the constitution that was forced on Japan was basically a Western system of government with a token emperor. Surprisingly, this worked really well for Japan. Without any possibility to create a hawkish foreign policy and with a government that generally respects human rights, Japan advanced faster than almost any other country in history--from rubble and millions dead to massive manufacturing industries and cities full of skyscrapers in less than 50 years. This is what can happen when you spend 1% or less of your GDP on the military. Perhaps this should be a lesson to some other countries in the world.
Yeah, every country should sign a defense treaty with the United States and have America provide a security guarantee.
If someone steals you're property or hurts someone in your family, you're not allowed to use violence yourself to punish them. You have to get law enforcement to do so for you. The only exception is self-defense (or defense of someone else) while the actual crime is occurring. The ability to manhandle someone, force handcuffs on them, and either lock them away or execute them is reserved for the government. You're also not allowed to go fight a war against another country without your government's approval.
Whether or not the government always uses force in an ethical or moral fashion and how we can try to ensure that it is always ethical and moral is a valid and difficult question well worth exploring.
And don't forget:
*Shy wholesome girl versus rich arrogant supposedly pretty girl (but with one ugly feature like an oversized nose) in competition for guy.
*Girl torn between rich polished stylish boy and poor tough hard-working diamond-in-the-rough boy.
*Horses.
The article suggests that the formula is used for books to. Do the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings books follow this formula? If not, is that one of the reasons the movie adaptions (outside of the sets and costumes) have been so awful? (well, the Hobbit wasn't that bad, but that weird orc dedicated to killing off Thorin's family feels like it was added for no reason other than some formula).
With a family, I'm finding the advantage for paper books is lack of contention for the limited number of book reading devices. It's annoying when you want to read your book but can't because someone else is playing a game, watching YouTube, watching a movie, reading a different book, etc..
The Wall Street Journal is barely in the mainstream. Slashdot certainly isn't. I'd heard about these abuses too, but from National Review which is arguably outside the mainstream. Slashdot readers aren't typical. The vast majority of Americans don't read it or spend much time reading any non-mainstream news source. If it isn't on ABC, CBS, MSNBC, FOX News, NBC, or CNN, it didn't happen.
Shortly after the arrest in the Boston bombing, I was talking with some co-workers and made a comment about the shutdown of an entire city being overkill. Everyone seemed to think I was nuts. I've even had someone say to be "Freedom and liberty are good, but security has to come first".
I don't know how well this represents the larger population as most of the people I was talking to were both immigrants and females. I live in a pretty diverse area and I've found that immigrants in general seem to have a huge problem understanding the concept of freedom.
Also, the government is granted power because we DON'T want private parties to have that power.
Exactly. We want a clean distinction between those who are allowed to use force to ruin our lives, and those who are granted other abilities. The government by definition has a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence for purposes other than self-defence. Having been given that, we should be very wary every time we consider giving them any additional power.
When we let the government start interfering in those parts of our lives that have previously been dealt with through private means, we are doing exactly what you warn against - we're mixing private and government power.
Slashdot Mirror
At least one could imagine a significant potential benefit for this (even if outweighed by the negatives), and it required a bit of innovation. The one-click purchase (where you don't get a confirmation) always seemed crazy to me - like inventing an automobile without brakes so that it always has to be coasted to a stop.
That reminds me of my high school Spanish class. We spent the first few minutes of class copying about 10 words and their definitions from the board, then the rest of the class on lecture. I loved that class! Sadly we got a different teacher later.
I've never understood how note taking helps the information sink in. For me it interferes with listening and understanding. While listening to the lecture I can either think through what is being said, what implications it has other things I know about, how it fits into other things we're learning, and how important it is - or I can be making split-second decisions about what to write down and scribbling furiously while trying to translate spoken words into written notes.
A laptop might make it easier by helping me keep up - I can generally type faster than I can draw letters - but it is still an additional task to perform when I should be learning.
Learning to take notes is a good thing - it is very important for business meetings and such. But for classes where there is a book or a slide deck provided by the teacher I don't see what spending your mental energies on scribbling gets you in terms of learning about the subject.
I plead Guilty, at least through high school and college. My daily grades were poor, my test scores good and my finals not even a problem. Even today friends and colleagues are impressed by how much I remember from high school and college.
Then I went to grad school where they told me my grades had to be all A's and B's. I decided to buckle down. I took notes. I studied for tests. I did the daily homework. My grades were all A's and B's, but I don't remember anything.
In high school and college I was listening to the lectures for the purpose of learning interesting things. I learned. In grad school I was taking notes during lectures for the purpose of getting good grades. I got good grades, but forgot everything shortly after the tests.
The Post may lean left less than it used to on international affairs, but it is still very far to the left on everything else and is hardly comparable to the Wall Street Journal which actually leans right on most things. As a conservative I long ago learned to live with the fact that most of the news media leaned left. The WP did so, but at least seemed to make an effort to focus on the reporting rather than the propaganda. However their reporting on illegal immigration seemed so deliberately dishonest and manipulative that I was glad to cancel my subscription.
Whoever told you that is an idiot and/or a jerk. I don't think you should feel responsible for Nazi war crimes.
As for paying for Nazi war crimes, that's a bit more complicated. Certainly you shouldn't be punished for them (sometimes "be punished for" is what people mean when they say "pay for").
However when it comes to fiscal depts - medical treatments for surviving victims still suffering from WWII era wounds, for example, there is a collective debt of the country (Gemany) and no good way to separate the obligation owed by the older generation vs the younger generation. Unfortunately that's the way government debt works. American children today who have no voice in government will spend their lives paying off the debts incurred by reckless borrowing of the Clinton-Bush-Obama years (I don't include Reagan and Bush I because their debt was arguably needed for fighting the Cold War).
However, the number of Nazi War Crime victims grows smaller and smaller. I wouldn't worry to much about a dwindling financial obligation. However if their children start demanding payment when those children didn't suffer - then I think you have something to complain about.
Inter-generational moral-debt is a recipe for permanent war. See the middle east, for example. At some point you have to accept what you were born to and try to better yourself through your own efforts rather than trying to blame each others' grandparents did to each other.
Who said I was blaming them?
My point was only that the method of having a pacifist doctrine and tiny military doesn't work for all countries. How long would Taiwan or Israel last if they shrank their military to practically nothing (we may find out with Taiwan)?
I checked out some of your postings and note that you have spent time in China and are originally from the American South. Spending time in China, you likely have been told that Taiwan has always been part of China and that they share the same ancestry and culture. Growing up during the Cold War, you probably learned that Taiwan was the "Free China" (in other words, part of China).
Let me ask you, do you consider America to be the "Free Europe"? Do you believe America is part of Europe and do you consider yourself European? Does that fact that most Americans have predominantly European ancestry and speak a European language mean that we should always be part of Europe?
Taiwan has a similar much like America - but even more like Mexico or Cuba.
Taiwan has an aboriginal population just like the Americas do. Taiwan started getting large amounts of immigration from China in the 1600s, just like the Americas started getting large amounts of immigration from Europe at that time. Taiwan was nominally under the control of China starting in the mid-1600s, but control was weak and distant. Like Mexico, Taiwan's aboriginal population shrank to a small amount due to war, assimilation, and intermarriage (unlike America where the aboriginal population was mostly wiped out, Taiwan's population mostly has aboriginal ancestry) Like Cuba, Taiwan was separated from its colonial master by a different colonial master at the tail end of the 1800s and since that time has hardly ever been controlled by that original master.
Some differences: It was Japan that brought education to Taiwan. It was Japan that finally brought the whole of the island under one rule (the Dutch and later the Chinese were never able to gain control of the eastern mountainous regions). It was Japan that first made the island rich. I'm not sure what parallel we have for that in the Americas. And when the Chinese returned, there was only a four year period (1945 to 1949) in which they ruled both Taiwan and large portions of China - meaning Taiwan has been politically united with China under Chinese rule for only 4 of the past 115 years. The Chinese government that took over was guilty of massacres, large numbers of political killings, lawlessness, corruption, and looting.
But that's not what you heard during the Cold War because the Chinese dictator running Taiwan wanted everyone to believe Taiwan was free and part of China. And the American government didn't want to set the record straight because the Chinese dictator was an ally against communism. And the Chinese government doesn't want to set the record straight because they want an excuse to annex Taiwan.
The Taiwanese suffered a wave of immigration such that 1/6 of the population came from China shortly after WWII. For the next 40+ years they were told on TV, radio, newspapers and in schools that they were part of China - and to argue could get you imprisoned or even killed. Children were forced to learn a new language - the language of Beijing. They learned almost nothing of Taiwan's history as their history focused on the history of China. To this day they suffer an identity crisis, but as time passes more and more of them are saying they are Taiwanese, not Chinese or even Taiwanese Chinese, but just Taiwanese.
The way I see it, they do so for the same reason I say I'm an "American", not an African American, Asian American or European American. My country belongs to none of those places. I'm an American plain and simple.
Yes, the Japanese military that took over Taiwan was for some reason very different in behavior from the forces that took over Korea. In Korea the behavior of Japanese military forces was barbaric. In Taiwan the Japanese rule was a civilizing influence that made great strides toward moving Taiwan into the modern world. Also to be considered is the wretched treatment the Taiwanese suffered at the hands of the Chinese rulers who replaced the Japanese.
Under Japanese rule, the Taiwanese were treated as second class to the Japanese - but there treated that way under the Chinese rule that followed the Japanese rule. And the earlier Chinese rule that was largely a matter of neglect. The Japanese brought industrialization, wealth, infrastructure, and education. At the beginning of WWII in Asia Taiwan was second only to Japan in per capita earnings. Primary school attendance went from less that 5% to 70% during the Japanese era. Corruption went to tiny amounts, only to be brought back by the following Chinese rule (and it still hasn't been brought under control again - the main reason the legislature stayed under the control of the Chinese Nationalist Party throughout Taiwanese democratic era).
Life under the Japanese wasn't perfect, but it was a damn site better than what followed under the Chinese.
You don't think MI5 already knows whether you're looking at porn?
Japan has hardly been sabre rattling. Nor have the Phillippines, India, Taiwan, and Vietnam been sabre-rattling. The sabre-rattling has been on the Chinese side.
Just what was it that persuaded Thatcher to give up Hong Kong island (which was given to Britain permanently, it was only the new territories that were under lease)? Was it a promise to remain peaceful?
Not sure in which part of the Art of War he said that the best defense is to create new enemies, or promote new weapon races (even in fields where you can participate with widely available and cheap technology, like the internet based ones), but it should be somewhere because US is following that to the letter and the rest of their (for now) allies are following the example.
Which part of Art of War says appease rising powers when they try to bully you?
As always, follow de Monet...
It will be interesting to track how this plays out ... unless you happen to live in a country or belong to a race that the Chinese think have historically wronged China, or a race that the Chinese see as being inferior, in which case it could be scary to see Chinese attitudes of resentful nationalism closely tracking those of Japan and Germany prior to WW II.
It's not as though any of Japan's neighbors are necessarily going to like it...
The Taiwanese are sure to like it (though not their government).
The military was neutered, but the constitution that was forced on Japan was basically a Western system of government with a token emperor. Surprisingly, this worked really well for Japan. Without any possibility to create a hawkish foreign policy and with a government that generally respects human rights, Japan advanced faster than almost any other country in history--from rubble and millions dead to massive manufacturing industries and cities full of skyscrapers in less than 50 years. This is what can happen when you spend 1% or less of your GDP on the military. Perhaps this should be a lesson to some other countries in the world.
Yeah, every country should sign a defense treaty with the United States and have America provide a security guarantee.
If someone steals you're property or hurts someone in your family, you're not allowed to use violence yourself to punish them. You have to get law enforcement to do so for you. The only exception is self-defense (or defense of someone else) while the actual crime is occurring. The ability to manhandle someone, force handcuffs on them, and either lock them away or execute them is reserved for the government. You're also not allowed to go fight a war against another country without your government's approval.
Whether or not the government always uses force in an ethical or moral fashion and how we can try to ensure that it is always ethical and moral is a valid and difficult question well worth exploring.
If the person owning the guns doesn't shoot you or anyone else, what does their owning of guns have to do with your freedom from gun violence?
And don't forget:
*Shy wholesome girl versus rich arrogant supposedly pretty girl (but with one ugly feature like an oversized nose) in competition for guy.
*Girl torn between rich polished stylish boy and poor tough hard-working diamond-in-the-rough boy.
*Horses.
The article suggests that the formula is used for books to. Do the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings books follow this formula? If not, is that one of the reasons the movie adaptions (outside of the sets and costumes) have been so awful? (well, the Hobbit wasn't that bad, but that weird orc dedicated to killing off Thorin's family feels like it was added for no reason other than some formula).
With a family, I'm finding the advantage for paper books is lack of contention for the limited number of book reading devices. It's annoying when you want to read your book but can't because someone else is playing a game, watching YouTube, watching a movie, reading a different book, etc..
The Wall Street Journal is barely in the mainstream. Slashdot certainly isn't. I'd heard about these abuses too, but from National Review which is arguably outside the mainstream. Slashdot readers aren't typical. The vast majority of Americans don't read it or spend much time reading any non-mainstream news source. If it isn't on ABC, CBS, MSNBC, FOX News, NBC, or CNN, it didn't happen.
Shortly after the arrest in the Boston bombing, I was talking with some co-workers and made a comment about the shutdown of an entire city being overkill. Everyone seemed to think I was nuts. I've even had someone say to be "Freedom and liberty are good, but security has to come first".
I don't know how well this represents the larger population as most of the people I was talking to were both immigrants and females. I live in a pretty diverse area and I've found that immigrants in general seem to have a huge problem understanding the concept of freedom.
Also, the government is granted power because we DON'T want private parties to have that power.
Exactly. We want a clean distinction between those who are allowed to use force to ruin our lives, and those who are granted other abilities. The government by definition has a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence for purposes other than self-defence. Having been given that, we should be very wary every time we consider giving them any additional power.
When we let the government start interfering in those parts of our lives that have previously been dealt with through private means, we are doing exactly what you warn against - we're mixing private and government power.