Left is the openminded ("crackpot theories") and poor, and right is the educated and rich. Did I get that right? Then you put every single action and thought into those 2 camps, so you can say stuff like "no, that's a leftist way of thinking, how can that be when he's a republican?".
No, both sides have their crackpots (right wing crackpots subscribe to theories such as "the earth is only 6,000 years old; God planted fossils to test our faith").
And left is probably more likely to be educated. Most of academia has a left-leaning tendency (except business schools, law schools, a few others). And education is supposed to be a broadening experience that runs counter to many of the right-wing ideals. The right wing is supported by a lot of uneducated salt-of-the-earth types, in addition to successful businessmen. Most farmers lean to the right (no matter how much they keep getting hurt by free markets (ameliorated by farm subsidies, of course)).
But you are correct about the polarization, and the ability to pigeonhole "every single action and thought". It is usually easy to say "he is a republican, he is a democrat" just from their positions on one or two issues (the exception being the libertarians, who are just nuts.)
SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP! God gave us the light bulb and immunizations and antibiotics and the printing press and the Internet. What did those damed bolshevik, nazi, homosexual atheists ever do for us?
Don't be too proud of this technological terror you've contructed. The power to destroy a single website is insignificant compared to the power of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
Like it or not, the majority of the world's Christians are Catholic. If you want to nit-pick then there is probably not a single thing that you could say "Christians believe", because you can always find some fringe group that doesn't believe X.
Incorrect. We live in a Constitutional Republic, and it is the Consitution-part rather than the Republic-part that protects us from the tyranny of the majority. Even a unanimous referendum is not allowed to pass unconstitutional laws. If you can convince 100% of Americans to become Southern Baptist, you must still go through the process of repealing the first ammendment before you can outlaw freedom of religion. Good luck.
I hate to dispel your notions about secularists (disclaimer: no I don't), but those of us who don't believe that God gave us free will, also don't believe that everything that happens on earth is his choosing. The whole god-thing is pretty much a non-issue for us until someone tries to trample on our religious freedom.
Unfortunately, as all too often happens: you come up with a disposable prototype and management insists on tweaking it and deploying it as a final product.
A lifeguard's work (at a well run pool) is preventing the need to rescue someone. Do you sneer at your useless seatbelt or airbag because they don't seem to do anything for years at a time? So STFU, and get back to Baywatch; I'm sure that they are much better lifeguards.
The rules for a rescue (note, my training was 20 yrs ago): reach, row, throw, go. The last thing that you want to do is go into the water and grapple a drowning swimmer. They are usually panicked and can be incredibly strong as they wrap themselves around you seeking safety. Lifeguards (and even worse: untrained rescuers) run the risk of being killed in 'double drowning' situations.
I agree. I was a lifeguard for two years (summers only) in high school (40-60 hours per week). We didn't require a multilap swim test, just 10 meters or so. It was enough to weed-out poor swimmers.
I had to go into the water twice in 2 years to rescue somebody, and one of those was a kid who was taking the swim test. It was pretty obvious from the way that he approached the water that he was a non-swimmer, so both eyes were on him the whole time.
My sister was later a lifeguard at a pool that didn't have a swim test policy. She probably had to pull somebody out of the water twice a week! That is dangerous for the lifeguard and the swimmers. Stupid.
There was a SciFi story like this (sorry, don't remember title or author). In order to be allowed 'manual control' of a car, you had to hold a special license (probably as hard to get as a pilot's license). Everybody else (non-control-freaks) just let the cars drive for them.
This system should be mandatory for anyone with a Drunk Driving conviction. It will also be a real boon to geriatric drivers (whether it is mandatory for them or not). They will be able to drive safer, and won't have to lose their license because their reaction times have slowed or because they get 'confused'. You can expect the aging boomers to demand that this device be allowed on the streets.
Different sources of uranium leave different signatures, even after having gone through a nuclear explosion. Extensive testing was done with this during the cold war to enusre that if someone attacked the US, we could retaliate at the correct party resposible.
Such a signature will be useless. If Bin Laden ever gets his hands on uranium, it will almost certainly be Russian material sold on the black market. If terrorists nuke NYC, we are not going to nuke Russia, just because the material is leftover from the USSR.
the US military has not a single weapon in it's repertoire that wasn't developed in the private sector
BS. The military usually outsources the production of weapons, but a lot of the research is performed by DARPA. And the nuclear weapons in our arsenal are almost 100% government science and engineering (though they do outsource parts manufacturing). The parent post is almost the opposite of reality; try this one: the US military has not a single weapon in it's repertoire that was developed entirely in the private sector.
These risks act as a deterrent to most businessmen.
The risks don't act as enough of a deterrent that there is any town (or school, or prison) in America where you can't find marijuana, cocaine, heroin, meth, and ecstacy. It's true that 'most businessmen' don't sell drugs, but that's only because the market for all other goods combined is larger than the market for drugs.
Actually, yes. It might seem odd, but we have to keep re-norming our IQ tests in the 'down' direction. Because a 100 IQ is by definition average, when the average baby boomer scored 610 on an IQ test, then 610 meant 100 IQ. If you gave that same test to a million Gen Y's, the average score would be higher. So we might have to say that all Gen Y's who score 630 are 100 IQ.
I don't know why people are getting smarter, but I have heard of (not yet read) a book with the title 'Everything Bad is Good for You' (IIRC). The premise was that TV and video games and such improve mental function. This may have been a bad summary.
How much of an IQ test is learned skill, and how much is actually innate ability based on genetics or something else?
We have IQ tests that are given to young children. As long as these still correlate to other tests, then we are probably not measuring learned information as much as we are measuring natural ability. BTW, we also have non-verbal tests for people who are illiterate, or speak foreign languages. This ability to test young children, and to administer a test that has few cultural cues or requirements should address many of your issues about wisdom, culture and situation. A 2-year old from Harlem is probably almost indistinguishable from a 2-year old from Kansas or Calcutta.
I just don't know that it's what is being measured by an IQ test
One very simple answer that does not require proof or justification is that g (general intelligence) is whatever is measured by a highly-correlated IQ test. Our definition of g may not corresond to a certain gene sequence, or anything 'natural', but it is related to certain behaviors (like those exhibited when taking an IQ test.) Then you can look to see if there are larger social and cultural benefits and penalties to high or low IQ.
Look at 'basketball proficiency': height, running speed, eye-hand coordination (shooting, passing, dribbling), stamina, social skills (teamwork), etc. These different categories may not have anything to do with each other in nature, but we can decide to evaluate them together and determine a person's basketball proficiency quotient. We can then use the BPQ to predict how well they will perform on the court.
Slashdot Mirror
No, both sides have their crackpots (right wing crackpots subscribe to theories such as "the earth is only 6,000 years old; God planted fossils to test our faith").
And left is probably more likely to be educated. Most of academia has a left-leaning tendency (except business schools, law schools, a few others). And education is supposed to be a broadening experience that runs counter to many of the right-wing ideals. The right wing is supported by a lot of uneducated salt-of-the-earth types, in addition to successful businessmen. Most farmers lean to the right (no matter how much they keep getting hurt by free markets (ameliorated by farm subsidies, of course)).
But you are correct about the polarization, and the ability to pigeonhole "every single action and thought". It is usually easy to say "he is a republican, he is a democrat" just from their positions on one or two issues (the exception being the libertarians, who are just nuts.)
Unfortunately, if you are like most Americans, you will run out of equity before you run out of life.
SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP! God gave us the light bulb and immunizations and antibiotics and the printing press and the Internet. What did those damed bolshevik, nazi, homosexual atheists ever do for us?
Don't be too proud of this technological terror you've contructed. The power to destroy a single website is insignificant compared to the power of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
Like it or not, the majority of the world's Christians are Catholic. If you want to nit-pick then there is probably not a single thing that you could say "Christians believe", because you can always find some fringe group that doesn't believe X.
Yes, you are right. I understand that Darwin did not have all of the answers. And now you know the difference between a scientist and a zealot.
No, it is not the Napkin that is Intelligent. This is the Deus Ex Napkin theory.
If you can't reconcile pink+invisible, stay away from the Christians. They have this 'trinity' 3-but-1 thing that will confuse the hell out of you.
Incorrect. We live in a Constitutional Republic, and it is the Consitution-part rather than the Republic-part that protects us from the tyranny of the majority. Even a unanimous referendum is not allowed to pass unconstitutional laws. If you can convince 100% of Americans to become Southern Baptist, you must still go through the process of repealing the first ammendment before you can outlaw freedom of religion. Good luck.
I hate to dispel your notions about secularists (disclaimer: no I don't), but those of us who don't believe that God gave us free will, also don't believe that everything that happens on earth is his choosing. The whole god-thing is pretty much a non-issue for us until someone tries to trample on our religious freedom.
Unfortunately, as all too often happens: you come up with a disposable prototype and management insists on tweaking it and deploying it as a final product.
A lifeguard's work (at a well run pool) is preventing the need to rescue someone. Do you sneer at your useless seatbelt or airbag because they don't seem to do anything for years at a time? So STFU, and get back to Baywatch; I'm sure that they are much better lifeguards.
You mean like 'Death Tax' and 'Patriot Act'? Business and government are obviously in bed with each other.
The rules for a rescue (note, my training was 20 yrs ago): reach, row, throw, go. The last thing that you want to do is go into the water and grapple a drowning swimmer. They are usually panicked and can be incredibly strong as they wrap themselves around you seeking safety. Lifeguards (and even worse: untrained rescuers) run the risk of being killed in 'double drowning' situations.
I had to go into the water twice in 2 years to rescue somebody, and one of those was a kid who was taking the swim test. It was pretty obvious from the way that he approached the water that he was a non-swimmer, so both eyes were on him the whole time.
My sister was later a lifeguard at a pool that didn't have a swim test policy. She probably had to pull somebody out of the water twice a week! That is dangerous for the lifeguard and the swimmers. Stupid.
cd /home
There was a SciFi story like this (sorry, don't remember title or author). In order to be allowed 'manual control' of a car, you had to hold a special license (probably as hard to get as a pilot's license). Everybody else (non-control-freaks) just let the cars drive for them.
This system should be mandatory for anyone with a Drunk Driving conviction. It will also be a real boon to geriatric drivers (whether it is mandatory for them or not). They will be able to drive safer, and won't have to lose their license because their reaction times have slowed or because they get 'confused'. You can expect the aging boomers to demand that this device be allowed on the streets.
Have you ever been in an accident where your medical bills exceeded $500,000? It's not hard to do. Yeah, airbags are cheap.
Such a signature will be useless. If Bin Laden ever gets his hands on uranium, it will almost certainly be Russian material sold on the black market. If terrorists nuke NYC, we are not going to nuke Russia, just because the material is leftover from the USSR.
BS. The military usually outsources the production of weapons, but a lot of the research is performed by DARPA. And the nuclear weapons in our arsenal are almost 100% government science and engineering (though they do outsource parts manufacturing). The parent post is almost the opposite of reality; try this one: the US military has not a single weapon in it's repertoire that was developed entirely in the private sector.
The risks don't act as enough of a deterrent that there is any town (or school, or prison) in America where you can't find marijuana, cocaine, heroin, meth, and ecstacy. It's true that 'most businessmen' don't sell drugs, but that's only because the market for all other goods combined is larger than the market for drugs.
Actually, yes. It might seem odd, but we have to keep re-norming our IQ tests in the 'down' direction. Because a 100 IQ is by definition average, when the average baby boomer scored 610 on an IQ test, then 610 meant 100 IQ. If you gave that same test to a million Gen Y's, the average score would be higher. So we might have to say that all Gen Y's who score 630 are 100 IQ.
I don't know why people are getting smarter, but I have heard of (not yet read) a book with the title 'Everything Bad is Good for You' (IIRC). The premise was that TV and video games and such improve mental function. This may have been a bad summary.
We have IQ tests that are given to young children. As long as these still correlate to other tests, then we are probably not measuring learned information as much as we are measuring natural ability. BTW, we also have non-verbal tests for people who are illiterate, or speak foreign languages. This ability to test young children, and to administer a test that has few cultural cues or requirements should address many of your issues about wisdom, culture and situation. A 2-year old from Harlem is probably almost indistinguishable from a 2-year old from Kansas or Calcutta.
I just don't know that it's what is being measured by an IQ test
One very simple answer that does not require proof or justification is that g (general intelligence) is whatever is measured by a highly-correlated IQ test. Our definition of g may not corresond to a certain gene sequence, or anything 'natural', but it is related to certain behaviors (like those exhibited when taking an IQ test.) Then you can look to see if there are larger social and cultural benefits and penalties to high or low IQ.
Look at 'basketball proficiency': height, running speed, eye-hand coordination (shooting, passing, dribbling), stamina, social skills (teamwork), etc. These different categories may not have anything to do with each other in nature, but we can decide to evaluate them together and determine a person's basketball proficiency quotient. We can then use the BPQ to predict how well they will perform on the court.
The answer is...horny! And I don't even have to know the dude.