If I'm a bank, is OpenID right for me? Maybe
What if I'm a web-based email provider? Maybe
What if I'm a site like youtube? Yes
What about MySpace? Yes
What about a health care company? See bank
What about accounts on Newegg or Amazon? Yes
What about bobs wordpress blog? Yes
What about Slashdot? Yes
My initial reaction for "should banks allow OpenID authentication for any and all providers" is no. However, I would say definitely yes for an approved provider that requires truly secured authentication like with a hardware token. That said, my answer currently would be yes. As it is, every consumer bank I've had the (mis)fortune to deal with has required a simple username/password combo for authentication with no option for an actual secure method and half the time they arbitrarily limit the number and type of character you can use for your password. One bank allowed only 6 character passwords with only letters or numbers. In that case, it seems to me that any existing OpenID provider would be a more secure solution.
As for a web email provider, sure I guess you could use an OpenID to login, but why? You already have a unique identifier (the email address) with them, you know what it is (or you wouldn't be trying to login to their service), and they know the "private" identifier already as well. So an OpenID would be of marginal use for a webmail provider.
For all the other cases you mentioned, OpenID is a great solution. It's good for the business and the consumer. I don't know about you but I probably have 3 separate accounts at Newegg since I've changed email addresses over the years. This is bad for me because it's a real pain if I ever want to go back and look at a previous order (which account was it on again?). It's also bad for the company in that it makes data mining harder.
So, in theory, one should never be "too important" to use OpenID. Perhaps you might have to use a whitelist of providers that meet your security standards, but the protocol is the same.
I can understand your reaction to having a third party handle the authentication of an identity, but at worst it's no different than current methods. Worst case with OpenID: provider says the user validated their identity (when the "user" is in fact a hacker). Worst case with username/password: your code says the user validated their identity with the correct username and password (when the "user" is in fact a hacker). The difference is...?
I'd like to point out that this happens all the time to in the "real world." When you apply for a job and they conduct a background check (that is, request one from a background check agency), what is that? Authentication by a third party. When you open an account with a company (bank or whatever) and they require one or more forms of government issued identification, what is that? Authentication by a third party. We can all argue until we're blue in the face about whether this is "good" to rely on a third party to verify everything about us, but it's simply efficient on both ends. The "user" doesn't have to worry about proving their identity every time they open a new account with a business and the businesses can rely on an existing trusted entity to verify the end user without taking on the cost/burden themselves.
(Unless the site makes weird hackish changes, like StackOverflow did, to get it to recognize multiple OpenIDs for a single account.)
Why is this a "weird, hackish change?" Hell, as far as I know, this is recommended protocol for OpenID consumer implementations.
It's not weird or hackish since it's just tying one or more "names" to a single identity. We do this in real life all the time. Human beings are single entities and our brains interpret other human beings as concepts. When I think about my brother or a friend, I don't think about the giant list of attributes that might "define" them, only a concept appears in my head. As such, it's trivial for people to accept nicknames for example. My name is Stuart but some people know me only as Stu (which in their head may actually be Stew). Does it matter to them or me? No, the reference to Stuart the entity is the same.
How is the concept multiple OpenIDs any different? Internally the company might know me as customer 123456789 but might have both Stu and Stuart attached to that number. Does it then matter if I introduce myself with "Hello, this is Stuart and I would like to connect" or "Hey man it's Stu, let me in?" Not at all and it should be entirely up to me which I use based on my own circumstances.
I'm not sure what I'm not explaining correctly, because my point seems to be continually missed. A $15/mo subscription to an MMO comes out to just over $0.02 per available hour of entertainment per month, making it a highly cost efficient pastime. No where did I state that it was the most cost effective form of entertainment, simply that it was one of them.
So while your statement is really not a rebuttal to my point, I'll argue against it anyway. Your statement ignores the fact that most current MMOs cost less than $50 for a new box and so, by definition, still provide a more cost effective entertainment solution than Fallout 3 (n.b. This is nothing against Fallout 3, and I sincerely hope that I receive a shiny box for Christmas). Even for a newly released MMO that initially cost $50, the cost per hour ratio is equivalent to Fallout 3.
While these numbers are hypothetical in general (i.e. no one, I hope, is going to be playing any game for 720 hours per month), it's a stretch to say Fallout 3 could provide 720 hours of entertainment. It's also probably a stretch for an MMO, but to a lesser degree. However, since MMOs are constantly rolling out new content, the next month looks quite different. The MMO at a renewed subscription of $15 now has more content to be consumed while Fallout 3 has been used up and a new $50 game replacement is required.
Do you see where I'm going with this? My point is not that MMOs are the end all of entertainment or even that anyone should like them. The only point I'm trying to make here is that MMOs have a lower [potential] cost per hour than any other consumer entertainment that I can think of.
In which case they are not (or should not) be spending money on entertainment and thus, are not relevant to the discussion, or at least my point. To reiterate, my point is that with respect to forms of entertainment that require monetary payment, MMOGs are highly efficient. That is, the cost per available hour of entertainment is extremely low.
How can someone not afford to pay for one, with or without current employment/income? I don't exactly make a lot of money and still a one-month subscription at $15 is less than a fraction of a percent of my monthly income.
MMOs are one of the most cost effective forms of entertainment available, so playing one without current employment might actually be a better choice than other, more expensive pastimes. There are plenty of valid reasons not to play MMOs (ranging from concerns about time commitment to simply not liking them), but cost is really not one of them.
CFC 114 is still used for enrichment and is 20,000 times more potent a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Up to 1 million pounds of CFC114 leak into the atmosphere per year (from the U.S alone) since the inception of the Montreal protocol [wikipedia.org], banning CFC's, in 1995.
Let's get some facts straight. CFC 114 is not "used for enrichment," it is used as a coolant like any other CFC. There is no technical reason that another, less ozone toxic chemical or method could not be used.
Furthermore, the primary reason coolant usage is so high in the US for the enrichment industry is because of anti-nuclear politics. The numbers you quote for CFC 114 leakage come from the only enrichment plant in the US. The plant is very old (started operation in 1952) and uses technology that has been obsolete since pretty much before it was built. It enriches uranium through gaseous diffusion which has long been made obsolete by the more energy efficient centrifuge. Gas centrifuges themselves may soon be made obsolete by new, laser based enrichment systems that use less energy still. If the nuclear industry was not so hindered by politics, we would probably not still be stuck with USEC producing U-235 through such an outdated method.
By the way, if modern nuclear power plants could get approval to be built, there would be less need for enrichment in the first place. Current light water reactors use U-235 as fuel and to obtain U-235 in sufficient quantities requires enrichment since natural uranium is 99.284% U-238. However, modern designs only require an initial source of enriched material and then can be fed U-238. They accomplish this through extensive reprocessing of nuclear waste and breeding new fissionable material. The end result is an extremely efficient system (uses 99.5% of the energy in uranium as opposed to a LWR which uses 1%) that produces very little waste.
The news gets better, CFC 114 attacks the ozone layer which protects that algae that makes THE OXYGEN WE BREATHE. Radioactive elements aside - CFC's released into the environment by the enrichment process are the number 1 cause of industrial CFC emissions in the U.S.
The news gets worse because there is nothing special about CFC 114 that destroys the ozone layer; all CFCs have this effect. You are correct that the CFC released into the atmosphere by the enrichment plant is the primary cause of industrial emissions, but that is industrial emissions. Industrial emissions amount to a small percent of the total amount of CFCs released per year. And as mentioned before, the reason for the CFC emissions being so high for industrial use is that the USEC plant is very old and has coolant pipelines that are corroded and leaking everywhere. In other words, stop trying to make it sounds like nuclear fuel enrichment is single-handedly causing the destruction of the ozone layer which is going to kill us all.
As for the bit about the algae, there is not a lot of evidence to support your assertion. The ozone layer does not "protect algae," it absorbs UV radiation, particularly UV-B. UV-B penetrates deep into tissue and so is cause for concern in humans and other life. However, in investigating the algae populations around Antarctica, where the effects of ozone depletion should be the greatest, no significant changes were observed by researchers. Now don't get me wrong, I do believe we need to take action and reduce our effect on the environment and we need to do that ASAP. However, being scared of nuclear technology and fighting against it is the exact opposite of what we need to be doing. Nuclear energy production has lower emission of all environmentally harmful products, including radioactivity, than other energy production methods such as coal burning.
Instead of being so patronising, you should investigate the scientific, medical, engineering, legal, political and social reasons for opposition to
(Mostly) incorrect. Nuclear fuel can be reprocessed extensively. Current light water reactors use very little of the energy in uranium, less than 1%. A fast breeder reactor uses 99.5%. This is a huge difference in efficiency (and thus, waste) and it is accomplished by reprocessing. One type of FBR, the Integral Fast Reactor, produces waste at the end of the fuel cycle that is reduced to normal levels of radioactivity after 200 years. The amount produced is tiny compared to LWRs.
In other words, Ihmhi is correct in saying that the fuel can be reprocessed and reused until there is only a small amount of unusable waste. The waste presents a radioactivity hazard so storing it underground might be the best solution, but dealing with the waste of a FBR is trivial as compared with the waste of a LWR.
We weren't discussing telcos. We were discussing internet companies, which means someone like Quantum Link (now AOL) or Erols or Earthlink.
Just what do think a telco is? Telco is a generic term for an LEC. In the vast majority of the US, the LEC is an RBOC. To quote the comment I originally replied to:
The latest technology called "FiOS" is being rolled-out, and that apparently can offer 100,000k connections.
FiOS is the term used by Verizon for what is actually known as FTTP (Fiber to the Premises). Guess what Verizon is: an RBOC, a telco. By the way, Verizon is the only company building out a FTTP network of any significant scale.
If you want to discuss "internet companies," just how do you think the data service provided by them gets to your home? Magical data lines of Freedom? It all runs over the lines owned by the ILEC, so they are the ones worth discussing, not the high-speed connections that [insert your favorite CLEC here] wants to provide you.
Those were the ones I was discussing which gradually grew from 1.2k to 56k to 12,000k connections. They didn't have to do that, but they did, in order to keep customers happy.
"The ones"? Everyone "gradually" grew along with technology, and they didn't do it because of their big hearts and a desire to make people happy. It would be business suicide not to provide a service to your customers that another company is trying to provide. Notice how AT&T is just now starting to come out with their U-Verse service in response to Verizon's growing FiOS network?
The US is the in the bandwidth dark ages compared to other first-world countries.In countries in Asia and Europe, ISPs offer full 100Mbps connections for less than we pay for crappy DSL in the US.
The U.S. average is approximately 10 megabit/s. The E.U. average and Canadian average and Australian average is also 10 megabit/s. I don't see how we're falling behind.
Well, as evidenced by the sentence after the one you quoted (which you left out), I was referring in particular to the maximum available connection speed as offered to residential customers. If you want to discuss averages, fine, but where are you getting your numbers? A hat? The CWA says the US average is 1.9Mbps whereas the ITIF says 4.8Mbps. See: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070529-survey-average-broadband-speed-in-us-is-1-9mbps.html Either way, it's quite short of your "approximately 10 megabit/s."
As for the $200 billion, that was given for *telephone line improvements*, not just fiber optics. Most of the money was earmarked for upgrading rural telephone lines from analog to digital connections. Stop reading PBS articles, and go read the actual 1996 bill, and you'll see that was I say is true.
Interesting, because every source that I can find seems to disagree with you. Care to provide one? There is no way it takes anywhere near $200 billion to upgrade from analog to digital telephone connections. Besides, computerization of the telephone exchanges happened back in the 80s and doesn't require modification of anything but the branch exchange, the subscriber loop stays the same. Even the bill seems to disagree with you, at least in terms of intention:
To promote competition and reduce regulation in order to secure
lower prices and higher quality services for American
telecommunications consumers and encourage the rapid deployment of
new telecommunications technologies.
Higher quality service for lower price with rapid deployment of new technology... yeah, that happened.
I... I'm not sure what to say. Telcos do not have a history of "serving their customers extremely well," quite the opposite. The only thing they have a history of is monopolizing the market to rape customers for as much as possible. The US is the in the bandwidth dark ages compared to other first-world countries. In countries in Asia and Europe, ISPs offer full 100Mbps connections for less than we pay for crappy DSL in the US.
The fiber that is just now being rolled out? It was supposed to be everywhere by 2000, over eight years ago. The government gave the telcos $200 billion to build out this network, and they just pocketed the money without doing a thing. Read (for example, there are many, many articles about this; google "$200 billion" and any term related you can think of like teclos, fiber, etc.) this.
Oh, and that fiber they're rolling out now? It's only in very limited amounts to very high wealth areas and new high wealth developments. The rest of us will be stuck on our intermittent and slow connections for many years.
As it transpired (and wasn't particularly surprising) most people didn't bother paying anything at all [breitbart.com].
Something else that's not particularly surprising: The "study" cited in that article is completely worthless. From the article:
The results of the study were drawn from data gathered from a few hundred people
A few hundred people? Out of the millions that bought/downloaded the album? Even if only a million copies of the album were sold (for any price), a "few hundred" people represent on the order of one hundredth of a percent of the total number of copies sold. That could just as well mean that 62% of that 0.01% paid $0 and the other 99.98% of people paid money. It's worthless. To highlight the problem, when the sample size is increased to 3,000 people (as cited on Wikipedia), only a third of the people paid $0. One order of magnitude made a difference of one third in the final outcome. The sample size would have to be another couple of orders of magnitude still to have any meaning at all.
Either they thought it was worthless (then why bother getting it?) or the mere fact that they could get it for free meant they jumped on the chance.
I think you hit the nail on the head. Most people probably did get it simply because it was free. We seem to be hardwired (and reinforced by our society) to collect stuff. I've lost count of how many computers I've brought home from work that were going to be tossed out. I didn't need them, and most I've never used but I took them anyway because I couldn't resist free hardware. If on any occasion the company had wanted anything more than the $20 I might have had in my wallet, I would have declined because it wouldn't be worth my time or money to bother with it. I suspect it's the same with the Radiohead album. Some people downloaded it just to have it and have never listened to it. Others actually wanted the album but not enough that they would have paid any money for it.
Of course people then trot out the familiar retort about the difference between stealing a tangible item vs a digital reproduction. The media is irrelevant really, you're paying for someones time & expertise, it's not your place to determine how much this is worth, you either buy it or you don't.
Well there is a difference: a physical object can typically only belong to one individual at a time so for that object to come into the possession of another individual without authorization, it necessarily requires the violation of the natural rights of the former owner. Distributing knowledge without authorization (copyright infringement) is an entirely different situation with its own unique issues.
If you think there is no difference between media, you might want to consult the RIAA. If I steal a CD, I'm probably going to be required to make restitution to the store and possibly suffer some sort of punitive measure like a fine, depending on the situation. If I infringe on a copyright by making an unauthorized copy of a single MP3, according to the RIAA I should pay thousands of dollars. In both cases I have not "payed for someone's time & expertise," so why is there such an enormous difference in the penalties? I find it very odd that when someone can be proved to have been deprived of something the punishment is reasonable and in proportion to the crime, but when it cannot be proved that anyone has been deprived of anything the punishment for the "crime" is very severe. Why?
Reminds me of the CGI days which were really quite primitive compared with web applications that can be built today with the much better tools. Perhaps you are one of the ellusive jedi masters of C and C++, but I think it is fair to say that C or C++ are really innapropriate choices for the majority of web developers these days.
Care to elaborate? What makes C and/or C++ "really innapropriate choices" for web development? As with C#/.NET, the key feature for web development is a library that abstracts and facilitates working with web requests. If we assume that the library is there for C++ (it has been a while since I looked into it, but I think it's a fairly safe assumption since working with HTTP requests is not a complicated task), how is it really any different than developing with C#?
For the record I write C# code (mostly ASP.NET) for a living, although that's mostly because we're a Microsoft shop and I don't really have much choice in the matter. Point being, I'm not trying to make an argument that C#/.NET is a hunk of crap (although there are plenty of things that bother me about it), just to find out why you think that it's "fair" to say that C++ is an inappropriate choice compared to the "much better tools" (implied.NET).
US Constitution, Article I, Section 8 (emphasis mine):
To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;
Seems to me that the authors of said document believed that a limited monopoly (i.e. one that ends, after which said exclusive rights are forfeited to the public domain) is an essential part of promoting the progress of science and the useful arts.
If creations are not eventually passed into the public domain, no progress has actually been made. In both the sciences and arts, one must have the ability to work freely and without restriction to truly pursue their creative potential. If one is impeded from using an idea because its copyright belongs to another individual, that idea might as well not exist because it is useless. Has progress really been made if ideas are restricted from general use and any "creator" can, with full backing of the law, prevent an idea from being distributed for as long as they hold the copy rights?
Yes, things being created are a benefit to the public and that clause of the Constitution exists to provide an incentive for authors to continue creating useful works. However, the public has not received the full benefit of the work until it "owns" the rights and copies and derivations of the work can be made without restriction.
The Palestinians decided that launching rockets from their new land at the Israelis was a fine thing.
Obviously now the best idea I can think of. Even when only thinking in terms of Palestinians' good.
What? Palenstinians launching rockets onto Israeli towns is a good thing? Is it a good thing with Israelis drop ordinance on Palestinian settlements? If we removed support from Israel and they no longer had access to precision weapons and had to resort to inaccurate area of effect weapons like rockets and mortars, would that be more acceptable?
I would suggest you first compare the amount of money the US sent to the Palestinians to the amount of money it sent Israel (hint, at least an order of magnitude difference). An even more interesting thing to look at is the amount the US gives Israel (billions *per year*) vs Israel's military budget. Basically, the US is pretty much paying for all the military gear Israel uses to kill Palestinians.
I'll agree with you that the amount of money we give to Israel is questionable from many perspectives, not the least of which is that our support (financially and politically) of Israel is likely a significant factor in the negative views of the US in the Middle East. However, I take exception with your statement of "the military gear Israel uses to kill Palestinians." While correct on a technical level, it implies malice directed in an offensive manner. That is, it implies that the Israelis are out to massacre as many Palestinians as possible, which is just grossly inaccurate. If one was fighting an offensive war, one would not build fences or launch only retaliatory attacks using precision weaponry; that's a defensive war. As you say, we've helped Israel quite a bit with military technology and funding. If they wanted, they have many methods at their disposal to level any and all Palestinian settlements of their choosing, and that's only counting conventional weaponry and not the nuclear weapons they are suspected to possess. When Israel starts launching unprovoked missile attacks (guided even) on civilian targets, then you can say Israel is killing Palestinians.
I've always thought that if the US had been on the Palestinians' side, we'd see Palestinians bombing Israel with F-16s and Israelis blowing themselves up in Palestine while throwing home-made rockets. Hell, put any two nations in the same economic/political context and you'll see pretty much the same outcome.
While you're right that Palestinians would (and do) use any method at their disposal to cause destruction in Israel, I doubt you'd see Israelis blowing themselves up or expressing the same kind of genocidal intent as the Palestinians currently are. For Israelis, killing in a war to defend Israel, and Jerusalem in particular, is justified by their beliefs. For most Palestinians, their right to Israel is protected by a waqf and as such, it is their religious duty to jihad against Israelis in order to conquer Jerusalem. While both beliefs have the potential to lead to war (and I'll disclose that I do believe that Israel's belief in the right to defend it's territory has the greater moral authority as compared with the belief in killing anyone who disagrees with your beliefs, a la Hamas), especially when you pair the two, Judaism does not justify killing yourself and your fellow countrymen in a suicide bombing attack. Many Muslim scholars will tell you that Islamic jihad does not support this either, but obviously a "holy war on behalf of God" is too easy to misinterpret and certainly Muhammad didn't exactly help solidify jihad as solely a personal religious struggle to become closer with Allah. Point being, Israelis are not the same as Palestinians and there is more to the issue than just support from the US.
It's easy to just sit back and declare that it's all our fault, that our aiding of Israel is the cause for all the problems and violence in
I also wonder how technology like this might change testing procedures in general. Especially as implantable receiving technology, like cochlear implants, becomes more ubiquitous, what's to stop students from cheating on examinations? With this current technology it would be fairly easy to prevent by checking students for transmitting neck bands (or perhaps by using school provided, encrypted neckbands that only communicate with the classroom server). What about with a more future tech though? I can imagine a future where infants are injected with nanomachines at birth which travel to the brain and form a transmitter with connections to the speech processing center. Children could be taught to imagine this device in their brain as a 'person' they could talk to in order to transmit that speech. In such a future, would students have to complete examinations inside a chamber that blocked transmissions? That's the obvious solution but I wonder if there is a more interesting one that embraces the technology rather than sequestering it.
Wow, if I had mod points I'd mod you funny because you must be joking.
The number of people that own guns is more like 25%, nowhere near 90%. Furthermore, less than half of gun owners own guns for self defense. The vast majority own them for hunting and recreation, activities which favor rural areas. In other words, if you're in a rural area, the chances of encountering someone who owns a gun are quite high (although even there, the chances of them having a firearm on their person are still quite low). In an urban area, the chances of encountering someone who owns a gun are comparatively very low even given the very large difference in population density.
Though he was trolling, there is something to be said for the GP's statement that most mass killings occur in gun free zones (e.g. schools). There is a reason that crime is much lower in rural areas, and I don't think it's because the people residing there are simply of a higher moral fiber; they're humans like everyone else. That's not to say that significantly higher gun ownership is the reason, but there is a good chance it is a factor. I know that I wouldn't be caught dead trespassing on a farm in the middle of the night, let alone trying to steal the TV.
You then seem to make the logical leap that any use of secrecy in the last 7 years has been to cover up corruption (and this has never happened at any other time in US history...?).
What are you saying here? That corruption and covering it up is acceptable in the present day simply because we've had corrupt men in power before?
1. Some exclusively foreign traffic between foreign individuals can now travel through equipment located physically in the United States. Why should that be off limits? Indeed, if telecommunications operators are willing to assist, we should absolutely leverage the fact that we have direct access to the traffic.
Article 12.
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.
Would you also endorse monitoring the traffic of US citizens? After all it passes through equipment physically located within the US, so it must be alright. If not, from where do US citizens draw their superior qualities that put them above the rest of the world in regard to basic respect for the individual?
Yes, it is the unfortunate reality that militaries and military intelligence are necessities. As long as the need for them exists, there will be instances where there is also a need to violate the human rights of someone, somewhere. That doesn't mean we need to take the arrogant approach and treat every non-US citizen as a second class human. When US citizens are surveilled, there is a formal process that must first take place to ensure (or at least help ensure) that it is an appropriate action. Personally, I don't see any reason why the same shouldn't take place for a non-US citizen but even if it doesn't, intelligence gathering should still be conducted in a respectful manner. Go after the targets of interest or relevance to national security, but why monitor and collect the personal information of everyone just because it passes through a router that just happens to be in the US?
For what it's worth, I really don't see this Google case as much of an issue either. As has been mentioned already, depending on the circumstances, Google probably should not have even had their request granted. Taking down photographs of in the inside of an active military base is a reasonable security precaution, is not an example of the government misusing secrecy or censorship, and should come as a surprise to no one. As far as I know, photography is very strictly forbidden on even the most unclassified military property.
There may be some social stigma attached to still having his foreskin, but there are enough Hispanics in this country now such that I don't think it will be an issue. (Hispanics don't typically circumcise IIRC). I'll have to learn to clean the thing, but it doesn't seem like a big deal (I can handle my much more anatomically complicated daughter!).
There shouldn't be a social stigma regardless, but circumcision rates are approaching parity anyway. In fact in the Western US it is more common to be left intact. Of course neither are an issue until the country gets over the social stigma of being naked near other men.
I think you are not giving enough credit to the importance of tradition in people's lives. Without knowing you personally, it is hard to relate to you - but maybe Christmas is a happy time for you - maybe Thanksgiving. You like to put up the tree, you like to wrap the presents, whatever - substitute your favorite ritual here. Circumcision is an important ritual for certain people. I'll agree that it is not necessary (and even undesirable) to circumcise every boy in the US, but at the same time recognize that it has an important meaning to people of various persuasions. I hesitate very strongly to take away a tradition without a clear demonstration of harm.
Well if we're referring to a "ritual" in a religious sense, that's a separate issue and one I'm willing to give more leeway to (and I did mention that in my first reply). I'm much more concerned with institutionalizing leaving boys intact and leaving circumcision as an option only for those with medical necessity or religious obligations. In that case it should weed itself out over time as men become increasingly dissatisfied with their circumcisions due to being ever more "the odd man out." I have no problem with adults hacking themselves to bits over their religious beliefs but it's a bit harder to stomach when they do it to innocent children who have not made a conscious decision to follow the same path. In other words, believe what you want about the Divine or your body, but don't force those beliefs on everyone else.
Look at it another way - inoculations have saved innumerable lives. They clearly are beneficial. And yet, we have allowed parents to deny them to their children due to religious or ethical objections. In the case of inoculations, we are clearly putting tradition and parental prerogative ahead of the welfare of the child. In the case of circumcision, we don't even know that the child's welfare is impaired - so why be more strict than we are with inoculations?
Well again it's the difference between intentional and unintentional harm. In not immunizing a child there is a chance he will not catch the disease, just as there is a chance he won't injure himself at the playground. The chance of injury during circumcision is 100%, thus choosing to have the procedure be performed on your child is intentional injury.
Immunizations are further different since they play a larger role in the overall health of a society. The more people immunized against a disease, the less likely it is that there will be a significant outbreak since there are fewer potential carriers. This then even benefits those that are not immunized, for whatever reason. While parents can obtain exemptions for immunization, it is not a free pass. If a child is put in serious risk of harm due to a parent's refusal of immunization, child protection services will get involved and mandate the immunization and possibly charge the parent with medical neglect. All this is really quite similar to the First Law of Robotics, except in this case it's "A parent may not injure their child or, through inaction, allow their child to come to harm." A parent who circumcises their child is causing harm, while a parent who does not immunize may be allowing their child to come to harm. This is why we are (or should be) strict about both.
No, and we're both using the same item as our point:) I'm pointing to it as "look, these guys aren't harmed because they are not aware of any difference and are perfectly happy." You are pointing to the same fact and saying "these guys are harmed because they will never know what it is like to be uncircumcised. They will never know what they are missing."
Let's ignore most of the harms of circumcision for a moment and focus only on the completely understood sliding mechanism of the foreskin. Removal of the foreskin prevents this action and is scientifically undeniable. Your argument is that this harm does not exist because the circumcised men don't complain since they don't know any better. My argument is that the harm is irrefutable and should be avoided if possible. The ignorance of circumcised men as to the full potential of the human penis is irrelevant to my argument.
Isn't it more important to look at real-world effects in the end? Why does circumcision deserve such attention when it's affect - if measurable at all - is so much smaller than the affect of other choices that parents make in the rearing of a child?
Clearly you refuse to believe that its affect is not small in spite of the evidence, so I'm probably going to have to let that go. Again, disregarding any harm, it is still an unauthorized (and almost certainly unwanted) intrusion into the body of the child. Given your attitude, I would hazard a guess and say that you would be opposed to outlawing circumcision since it removes a "choice" for parents. Why do you not feel the same for your son? Should he not have the opportunity to decide what he wants to do with his own penis?
So I guess I have two points that I don't understand: why the separation between brain and body and why so much attention on something that hasn't been shown to actually matter?
This is really not relevant to the discussion on circumcision, but I'll give it some service anyway. There is a marked difference between the brain and body. Cutting off the foreskin is a permanent change to a male's body which cannot be reversed and (in the case of infants) is done without permission. The brain is much harder to permanently change. Parents cannot directly dictate the development of it, only provide input and influence. As many parents can attest, the strong individualization that occurs during puberty can undue years of mental conditioning. In your example of Jews, Jewish children can and do decide not to practice the Jewish faith. If it were so easy to make permanent changes to a child's mental development, the world would be a strikingly different place of much less diversity than we see today.
I wasn't trying to justify anything. I was pointing out a "flaw" in the study. Their criteria for a complication was quite high compared to what people might have been aware of. I was pointing out that what they considered a "complication", other people considered beautiful... and we're not talking about sociopaths looking at car crashes - we are talking about horny guys getting off on pictures of normal dicks.
Now I'm a little lost. Are we contrasting men looking at intact penises against men looking at circumcised ones? A circumcised penis is still a penis and looks the same as an uncircumcised one (although the uncircumcised one will have a healthier color and texture to the glans and tissue surrounding it) with the foreskin retracted, which is common with an erection. It's not surprising on that level then that men may enjoy seeing even a circumcised penis. Even more likely however is that a majority of men who like to look at other men prefer to see those like themselves. Since a majority of men in this country are circumcised, it is again unsurprising that pictures of circumcised men would be popular.
I think you would find that most guys are happy with their dicks (except possibly for size
Do you have a scientific basis for this or are you just saying it without evidence. Show me a study that ties enjoyment of sex to infant circumcision.
The issue is clearly clouded. I have seen studies that support conclusions about circumcision from any perspective imaginable. If I scoured journals and the Internet long enough, I could undoubtedly find a study that supports my views perfectly, just as I'm sure you could do the same. I'm not on a crusade however, and in the absence of scientific evidence supporting a conclusion either way, I'd rather stick to logical and moral discussion from a humanistic perspective. However, I do find it interesting that you focus on infant circumcision since men who were circumcised at birth clearly have no point of comparison. Humans are wired to enjoy and seek out sex, so much so that genital stimulation is not even required for orgasm. Is it any surprise then that men who were circumcised as infants do not generally report any greater level of sexual dissatisfaction than uncircumcised men, especially when they don't know any better?
You are barking up the wrong tree - I'm not likely to circumcise my kids. But it is my choice.
I applaud your decision. However, I staunchly oppose your statement that it is your choice (implied right), or at least that it should be so. In my opinion, and I hope the opinion of everyone that believes in the natural rights of Man, it is never acceptable to disfigure a human without their permission. I find it very telling that circumcision is only an issue with those who cannot express their opinion (in words anyway) or give permission: infants. Were the male older, say a teenager, no doctor would circumcise the boy on the request of his parents if he opposed it. Just because the infant cannot say no, that makes it acceptable? The child may be yours, but it is a human being not your property. No doctor would cut off a finger or toe at the request of a parent, so why is it different with the foreskin? Who gave parents ownership over their son's foreskin that they can decide whether it is to be severed?
Better go after the ear piercers then, because piercing ears also violates that principle. But that won't get people worked into a lather because it doesn't involve sex.
I'm going to infer here that you're talking about parents that pierce their infants ears since, just as with circumcision, it is a non-issue if the child is old enough to request the procedure. I was not aware of parents piercing their children's ears, but I oppose it on the same grounds as I do forced circumcision. It is not the right of the parent to modify their child's body to their own liking. You are right that I'm not going to get working into a "lather" over ear piercing but not because it does not involve sex. It is still a violation of the right of the child to the security of her own body, but it is not to the same degree as circumcision because it does not permanently change or remove the naturally evolved function of the human body. I don't claim to know much about ear piercing but it is my understanding that the body will restore itself to normal appearance if the hole is absent a piece of jewelry, given enough time. If the same was true of the foreskin it would be less of an issue although I would still see it as an unjust intrusion into another's body.
Yes, I saw the "paper" that gave this "estimate". It includes uneven scaring as a complication. It then shows "mutilated" penises found in gay porn as examples of these complications. Excuse me if I am not impressed when something so horribly "mutilated" is used to sell magazines and get people sexually aroused. How horrible can it be if people are happy with it and paid to show it off?
I fail to see this as justification for continuing to mutilate children. People enjoy viewing a wide range of intense images ranging from botched surgery to gruesome killings
You're deliberately ignoring arguments left and right to support your view. For example:
If you had the opportunity to give your son the ability to enjoy sex even more, would you?
My, that IS a simple question. Sure, I'd do that!
But oh, wait - there's no study linking infant circumcision to the inability to enjoy sex.
Note the emphasis. The AC was not saying that infant circumcision (or any age for that matter) prevents one from enjoying sex. Not being circumcised, however, allows one to enjoy sex even more. You've already said that given the choice to provide your son with a more enjoyable sex life you would take it, thus I recommend that you do not circumcise any of your children.
Of course I'm sure you're going to turn right around and say that there is no evidence that uncircumcised males can enjoy sex more, so I'll head that argument off with some supporting evidence. For the record, I'm quite aware that I'll never convince you of the truth of this matter; you're already fully convinced that a tradition of butchering our sons' penises is a valid one simply because it is a tradition. As such, the following arguments against circumcision are rather targeted at others who have not decided or are simply uninformed on the issue in the hopes that fewer will choose to circumcise their children. Perhaps someday it will be so common for parents to specifically request that doctors do not perform a circumcision that will simply become standard practice to only perform them upon request and only the sons of the religious will have to endure the procedure.
Circumcision removes the foreskin. The foreskin serves many useful functions, including protecting the glans from abrasion, contaminants, and keratinization. Additionally, the foreskin facilitates smooth sexual intercourse through its gliding action. The gliding action complements the vagina's natural lubrication as well as serves to keep the lubricant inside the vagina as opposed to the circumcised penis's tendency to pull the lubrication outside of the body. The foreskin also accounts for some of the penis's girth, the most important factor in pleasure for most women according to many studies.
Circumcision removes the frenar band, Meissner's Corpuscles, and the frenulum (not always). Each of these structures is a highly erogenous zone. The loss of these structures reduces the completeness of sexual enjoyment by necessity. The frenar band is the primary erogenous zone on the intact penis and is responsible for the intensity of sexual response. The Meissner's Corpuscles are fine touch sensors that detect small changes in motion, temperature, and texture. The corpuscles represent another, albeit more subtle, component of the normal male sexual response. The frenulum, which is not always removed during circumcision, serves as a tether for the foreskin and is also an erogenous zone. The frenulum is often the only remaining primary erogenous zone left on circumcised men and is therefore usually the most sensitive part of the circumcised penis (assuming it has not been removed).
The intact foreskin serves immunological functions as well. The mucosa of the inner foreskin contain plasma cells which produce antibacterial and antiviral proteins as well as lysozyme. Additionally, circumcision removes lymph vessels, reducing the flow of lymph to and from the penis. The lymphatic system is a major part of the body's immune system.
Circumcision can affect the natural development of the penis. Circumcision can directly alter the development of the penis in the cases of excess scar tissue or excess tissue removal. Either of these cases can alter the normal growth of the penis, most commonly by increasing the curvature of the penis. Additionally, circumcision removes a significant amount of blood vessels in the penis. This loss of circulation reduces the amount of blood flow to the penis, altering its growth and developm
The interesting thing is that if the US had a health care system based more around prevention rather than treatment (and that includes insurance companies as well), costs would probably be lower since it's often cheaper to 'treat' illness factors before they become a full disease. In the case of DNA testing, if it revealed I had a predisposition for a certain disease it's stupid for insurance companies to "punish" me for finding this out since I may be able to prevent it from ever becoming a really expensive problem, thus saving them money.
Isn't the jury supposed to decide if the accused is guilty of the deed they are accused of ? Instead of "sending her a message" because she hurt their feelings ?
It may sound bad, but that's the jury system working as intended. If all we wanted was a strict logical interpretation of the law, we'd have criminal cases decided by a panel of judges who know the law inside and out, with the final verdict decided by a majority vote. However, in contrast to what judges and prosecuting lawyers will tell you, juries are supposed to factor their feelings into their decision. You might be thinking that that introduces unfairness into the application of the law, but that viewpoint assumes that the law is fair to begin with. Juries allow the people to be the final veto on any law, which is very important in the case of draconian laws which are inherently unjust. It should come as no surprise that people do not like to be lied to, and I personally have no sympathy for anyone that does not show proper respect for a group of their peers. When that group of peers is also deciding your level of guilt and your punishment, it's plain stupidity to disrespect them.
Having your fate decided by a bunch of random idiots is indeed a gamble. It is entirely possible that you will get a room full of bigots who will decide your fate simply by the way you look, your race, or some other completely subjective personal opinion. You can take some solace in the fact that it takes only one principled person who does not believe you've been shown to be guilty to hang the jury and cause a mistrial or acquittal. A jury trial could pay off quite well however if you're accused of something that the vast majority of citizens believe is not a crime. Note also that if you truly believe that all of your peers are "idiots" and/or can't handle treating them with the respect due a peer, you also have the option to waive your right to a jury trial in which case the judge alone will be the finder of law and finder of fact.
What's wrong with that?
You act like that's a bad thing.
What this country needs is MORE parenting, not less.
That's exactly the point. Children need parenting, not a draconian overlord. That's the environment our school system typically provides, and we can all see how well that's working. Humans of any age need some degree of freedom to be productive and grow as individuals. As a parent you are a guide for your child. With respect to boundaries, your job is to teach them about boundaries (and set some appropriate ones for their level of development), not try to box them in with as many as possible. In case you didn't understand Scrameustache's point, that's what he was saying: so many parents simply "lay down the law" and prevent their children from doing certain activities simply because complete restriction is much simpler to manage and enforce than fine tuning it for the situation. Worse is that many parents (and I've seen this several times in this topic) see their job as making sure their child lives to his/her 18th birthday as if that's some sort of magical age at which they are now completely responsible for their own lives and the parents' job is over. Many will be ready by their 18th birthday if they have been taught to handle their own lives and take responsibility for them. How are they to learn that if their parents control everything that they do, hear, or see? All that style of "parenting" breeds is people who are fit only to take orders and cannot easily adapt to changes in their own lives without an outsider stepping in to save them.
Inevitably some 16-24 year old who hasn't raised a child starts babbling about applying libertarian political philosophies to parenting.
Technically you can count me in that group since I have never raised a child myself, so feel free to ignore me if it's your bent to ignore arguments based on the author rather than their content. So while I cannot take any wisdom on the subject from my own direct experience, I do have two shining examples to look to. It's with all humility that I say that I think I've turned out pretty well. I'm educated, responsible for my own affairs, and socially well adjusted. Did I have many rules as a kid? Not really, no "laws" handed down from on high, anyway. Instead my own moral compass was allowed to develop and I learned to follow it because, like that vast majority of children, I wanted to please my parents and have them be proud of me. Even without fences setup around my life with signs indicated authorization for use of force should they be crossed, I knew there were boundaries. Instead of being taught that my parents were right simply because they were parents and could lay down any decree they liked, I learned that they were right because they had wisdom far beyond my own due to their years of experience beyond my own. As such, I respected their opinions and used them to temper my decisions and thus, needed no concrete barriers. The end result is that I responsible for my own problems but if I encounter something I can't handle on my own, I know I can turn to my parents for real advice and not just a printout of things I can and cannot do.
There is a reason the French economy is so far behind the rest of Western Europe.
Do tell, I was under the impression that the French economy is the sixth largest in the world and the third largest in Europe. Of course I agree that this is a ridiculous event, but it's dishonest to portray the French economy as some sort of backwater operation that can't keep up with the rest of the world.
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My initial reaction for "should banks allow OpenID authentication for any and all providers" is no. However, I would say definitely yes for an approved provider that requires truly secured authentication like with a hardware token. That said, my answer currently would be yes. As it is, every consumer bank I've had the (mis)fortune to deal with has required a simple username/password combo for authentication with no option for an actual secure method and half the time they arbitrarily limit the number and type of character you can use for your password. One bank allowed only 6 character passwords with only letters or numbers. In that case, it seems to me that any existing OpenID provider would be a more secure solution.
As for a web email provider, sure I guess you could use an OpenID to login, but why? You already have a unique identifier (the email address) with them, you know what it is (or you wouldn't be trying to login to their service), and they know the "private" identifier already as well. So an OpenID would be of marginal use for a webmail provider.
For all the other cases you mentioned, OpenID is a great solution. It's good for the business and the consumer. I don't know about you but I probably have 3 separate accounts at Newegg since I've changed email addresses over the years. This is bad for me because it's a real pain if I ever want to go back and look at a previous order (which account was it on again?). It's also bad for the company in that it makes data mining harder.
So, in theory, one should never be "too important" to use OpenID. Perhaps you might have to use a whitelist of providers that meet your security standards, but the protocol is the same.
I can understand your reaction to having a third party handle the authentication of an identity, but at worst it's no different than current methods. Worst case with OpenID: provider says the user validated their identity (when the "user" is in fact a hacker). Worst case with username/password: your code says the user validated their identity with the correct username and password (when the "user" is in fact a hacker). The difference is...?
I'd like to point out that this happens all the time to in the "real world." When you apply for a job and they conduct a background check (that is, request one from a background check agency), what is that? Authentication by a third party. When you open an account with a company (bank or whatever) and they require one or more forms of government issued identification, what is that? Authentication by a third party. We can all argue until we're blue in the face about whether this is "good" to rely on a third party to verify everything about us, but it's simply efficient on both ends. The "user" doesn't have to worry about proving their identity every time they open a new account with a business and the businesses can rely on an existing trusted entity to verify the end user without taking on the cost/burden themselves.
Why is this a "weird, hackish change?" Hell, as far as I know, this is recommended protocol for OpenID consumer implementations.
It's not weird or hackish since it's just tying one or more "names" to a single identity. We do this in real life all the time. Human beings are single entities and our brains interpret other human beings as concepts. When I think about my brother or a friend, I don't think about the giant list of attributes that might "define" them, only a concept appears in my head. As such, it's trivial for people to accept nicknames for example. My name is Stuart but some people know me only as Stu (which in their head may actually be Stew). Does it matter to them or me? No, the reference to Stuart the entity is the same.
How is the concept multiple OpenIDs any different? Internally the company might know me as customer 123456789 but might have both Stu and Stuart attached to that number. Does it then matter if I introduce myself with "Hello, this is Stuart and I would like to connect" or "Hey man it's Stu, let me in?" Not at all and it should be entirely up to me which I use based on my own circumstances.
I'm not sure what I'm not explaining correctly, because my point seems to be continually missed. A $15/mo subscription to an MMO comes out to just over $0.02 per available hour of entertainment per month, making it a highly cost efficient pastime. No where did I state that it was the most cost effective form of entertainment, simply that it was one of them.
So while your statement is really not a rebuttal to my point, I'll argue against it anyway. Your statement ignores the fact that most current MMOs cost less than $50 for a new box and so, by definition, still provide a more cost effective entertainment solution than Fallout 3 (n.b. This is nothing against Fallout 3, and I sincerely hope that I receive a shiny box for Christmas). Even for a newly released MMO that initially cost $50, the cost per hour ratio is equivalent to Fallout 3.
While these numbers are hypothetical in general (i.e. no one, I hope, is going to be playing any game for 720 hours per month), it's a stretch to say Fallout 3 could provide 720 hours of entertainment. It's also probably a stretch for an MMO, but to a lesser degree. However, since MMOs are constantly rolling out new content, the next month looks quite different. The MMO at a renewed subscription of $15 now has more content to be consumed while Fallout 3 has been used up and a new $50 game replacement is required.
Do you see where I'm going with this? My point is not that MMOs are the end all of entertainment or even that anyone should like them. The only point I'm trying to make here is that MMOs have a lower [potential] cost per hour than any other consumer entertainment that I can think of.
In which case they are not (or should not) be spending money on entertainment and thus, are not relevant to the discussion, or at least my point. To reiterate, my point is that with respect to forms of entertainment that require monetary payment, MMOGs are highly efficient. That is, the cost per available hour of entertainment is extremely low.
How can someone not afford to pay for one, with or without current employment/income? I don't exactly make a lot of money and still a one-month subscription at $15 is less than a fraction of a percent of my monthly income.
MMOs are one of the most cost effective forms of entertainment available, so playing one without current employment might actually be a better choice than other, more expensive pastimes. There are plenty of valid reasons not to play MMOs (ranging from concerns about time commitment to simply not liking them), but cost is really not one of them.
Let's get some facts straight. CFC 114 is not "used for enrichment," it is used as a coolant like any other CFC. There is no technical reason that another, less ozone toxic chemical or method could not be used.
Furthermore, the primary reason coolant usage is so high in the US for the enrichment industry is because of anti-nuclear politics. The numbers you quote for CFC 114 leakage come from the only enrichment plant in the US. The plant is very old (started operation in 1952) and uses technology that has been obsolete since pretty much before it was built. It enriches uranium through gaseous diffusion which has long been made obsolete by the more energy efficient centrifuge. Gas centrifuges themselves may soon be made obsolete by new, laser based enrichment systems that use less energy still. If the nuclear industry was not so hindered by politics, we would probably not still be stuck with USEC producing U-235 through such an outdated method.
By the way, if modern nuclear power plants could get approval to be built, there would be less need for enrichment in the first place. Current light water reactors use U-235 as fuel and to obtain U-235 in sufficient quantities requires enrichment since natural uranium is 99.284% U-238. However, modern designs only require an initial source of enriched material and then can be fed U-238. They accomplish this through extensive reprocessing of nuclear waste and breeding new fissionable material. The end result is an extremely efficient system (uses 99.5% of the energy in uranium as opposed to a LWR which uses 1%) that produces very little waste.
The news gets worse because there is nothing special about CFC 114 that destroys the ozone layer; all CFCs have this effect. You are correct that the CFC released into the atmosphere by the enrichment plant is the primary cause of industrial emissions, but that is industrial emissions. Industrial emissions amount to a small percent of the total amount of CFCs released per year. And as mentioned before, the reason for the CFC emissions being so high for industrial use is that the USEC plant is very old and has coolant pipelines that are corroded and leaking everywhere. In other words, stop trying to make it sounds like nuclear fuel enrichment is single-handedly causing the destruction of the ozone layer which is going to kill us all.
As for the bit about the algae, there is not a lot of evidence to support your assertion. The ozone layer does not "protect algae," it absorbs UV radiation, particularly UV-B. UV-B penetrates deep into tissue and so is cause for concern in humans and other life. However, in investigating the algae populations around Antarctica, where the effects of ozone depletion should be the greatest, no significant changes were observed by researchers. Now don't get me wrong, I do believe we need to take action and reduce our effect on the environment and we need to do that ASAP. However, being scared of nuclear technology and fighting against it is the exact opposite of what we need to be doing. Nuclear energy production has lower emission of all environmentally harmful products, including radioactivity, than other energy production methods such as coal burning.
(Mostly) incorrect. Nuclear fuel can be reprocessed extensively. Current light water reactors use very little of the energy in uranium, less than 1%. A fast breeder reactor uses 99.5%. This is a huge difference in efficiency (and thus, waste) and it is accomplished by reprocessing. One type of FBR, the Integral Fast Reactor, produces waste at the end of the fuel cycle that is reduced to normal levels of radioactivity after 200 years. The amount produced is tiny compared to LWRs.
In other words, Ihmhi is correct in saying that the fuel can be reprocessed and reused until there is only a small amount of unusable waste. The waste presents a radioactivity hazard so storing it underground might be the best solution, but dealing with the waste of a FBR is trivial as compared with the waste of a LWR.
Just what do think a telco is? Telco is a generic term for an LEC. In the vast majority of the US, the LEC is an RBOC. To quote the comment I originally replied to:
FiOS is the term used by Verizon for what is actually known as FTTP (Fiber to the Premises). Guess what Verizon is: an RBOC, a telco. By the way, Verizon is the only company building out a FTTP network of any significant scale.
If you want to discuss "internet companies," just how do you think the data service provided by them gets to your home? Magical data lines of Freedom? It all runs over the lines owned by the ILEC, so they are the ones worth discussing, not the high-speed connections that [insert your favorite CLEC here] wants to provide you.
"The ones"? Everyone "gradually" grew along with technology, and they didn't do it because of their big hearts and a desire to make people happy. It would be business suicide not to provide a service to your customers that another company is trying to provide. Notice how AT&T is just now starting to come out with their U-Verse service in response to Verizon's growing FiOS network?
Well, as evidenced by the sentence after the one you quoted (which you left out), I was referring in particular to the maximum available connection speed as offered to residential customers. If you want to discuss averages, fine, but where are you getting your numbers? A hat? The CWA says the US average is 1.9Mbps whereas the ITIF says 4.8Mbps. See: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070529-survey-average-broadband-speed-in-us-is-1-9mbps.html
Either way, it's quite short of your "approximately 10 megabit/s."
Interesting, because every source that I can find seems to disagree with you. Care to provide one? There is no way it takes anywhere near $200 billion to upgrade from analog to digital telephone connections. Besides, computerization of the telephone exchanges happened back in the 80s and doesn't require modification of anything but the branch exchange, the subscriber loop stays the same. Even the bill seems to disagree with you, at least in terms of intention:
Higher quality service for lower price with rapid deployment of new technology... yeah, that happened.
I... I'm not sure what to say. Telcos do not have a history of "serving their customers extremely well," quite the opposite. The only thing they have a history of is monopolizing the market to rape customers for as much as possible. The US is the in the bandwidth dark ages compared to other first-world countries. In countries in Asia and Europe, ISPs offer full 100Mbps connections for less than we pay for crappy DSL in the US.
The fiber that is just now being rolled out? It was supposed to be everywhere by 2000, over eight years ago. The government gave the telcos $200 billion to build out this network, and they just pocketed the money without doing a thing. Read (for example, there are many, many articles about this; google "$200 billion" and any term related you can think of like teclos, fiber, etc.) this.
Oh, and that fiber they're rolling out now? It's only in very limited amounts to very high wealth areas and new high wealth developments. The rest of us will be stuck on our intermittent and slow connections for many years.
Something else that's not particularly surprising: The "study" cited in that article is completely worthless. From the article:
A few hundred people? Out of the millions that bought/downloaded the album? Even if only a million copies of the album were sold (for any price), a "few hundred" people represent on the order of one hundredth of a percent of the total number of copies sold. That could just as well mean that 62% of that 0.01% paid $0 and the other 99.98% of people paid money. It's worthless. To highlight the problem, when the sample size is increased to 3,000 people (as cited on Wikipedia), only a third of the people paid $0. One order of magnitude made a difference of one third in the final outcome. The sample size would have to be another couple of orders of magnitude still to have any meaning at all.
I think you hit the nail on the head. Most people probably did get it simply because it was free. We seem to be hardwired (and reinforced by our society) to collect stuff. I've lost count of how many computers I've brought home from work that were going to be tossed out. I didn't need them, and most I've never used but I took them anyway because I couldn't resist free hardware. If on any occasion the company had wanted anything more than the $20 I might have had in my wallet, I would have declined because it wouldn't be worth my time or money to bother with it. I suspect it's the same with the Radiohead album. Some people downloaded it just to have it and have never listened to it. Others actually wanted the album but not enough that they would have paid any money for it.
Well there is a difference: a physical object can typically only belong to one individual at a time so for that object to come into the possession of another individual without authorization, it necessarily requires the violation of the natural rights of the former owner. Distributing knowledge without authorization (copyright infringement) is an entirely different situation with its own unique issues.
If you think there is no difference between media, you might want to consult the RIAA. If I steal a CD, I'm probably going to be required to make restitution to the store and possibly suffer some sort of punitive measure like a fine, depending on the situation. If I infringe on a copyright by making an unauthorized copy of a single MP3, according to the RIAA I should pay thousands of dollars. In both cases I have not "payed for someone's time & expertise," so why is there such an enormous difference in the penalties? I find it very odd that when someone can be proved to have been deprived of something the punishment is reasonable and in proportion to the crime, but when it cannot be proved that anyone has been deprived of anything the punishment for the "crime" is very severe. Why?
For the record I write C# code (mostly ASP.NET) for a living, although that's mostly because we're a Microsoft shop and I don't really have much choice in the matter. Point being, I'm not trying to make an argument that C#/.NET is a hunk of crap (although there are plenty of things that bother me about it), just to find out why you think that it's "fair" to say that C++ is an inappropriate choice compared to the "much better tools" (implied
If creations are not eventually passed into the public domain, no progress has actually been made. In both the sciences and arts, one must have the ability to work freely and without restriction to truly pursue their creative potential. If one is impeded from using an idea because its copyright belongs to another individual, that idea might as well not exist because it is useless. Has progress really been made if ideas are restricted from general use and any "creator" can, with full backing of the law, prevent an idea from being distributed for as long as they hold the copy rights?
Yes, things being created are a benefit to the public and that clause of the Constitution exists to provide an incentive for authors to continue creating useful works. However, the public has not received the full benefit of the work until it "owns" the rights and copies and derivations of the work can be made without restriction.
What? Palenstinians launching rockets onto Israeli towns is a good thing? Is it a good thing with Israelis drop ordinance on Palestinian settlements? If we removed support from Israel and they no longer had access to precision weapons and had to resort to inaccurate area of effect weapons like rockets and mortars, would that be more acceptable?
I'll agree with you that the amount of money we give to Israel is questionable from many perspectives, not the least of which is that our support (financially and politically) of Israel is likely a significant factor in the negative views of the US in the Middle East. However, I take exception with your statement of "the military gear Israel uses to kill Palestinians." While correct on a technical level, it implies malice directed in an offensive manner. That is, it implies that the Israelis are out to massacre as many Palestinians as possible, which is just grossly inaccurate. If one was fighting an offensive war, one would not build fences or launch only retaliatory attacks using precision weaponry; that's a defensive war. As you say, we've helped Israel quite a bit with military technology and funding. If they wanted, they have many methods at their disposal to level any and all Palestinian settlements of their choosing, and that's only counting conventional weaponry and not the nuclear weapons they are suspected to possess. When Israel starts launching unprovoked missile attacks (guided even) on civilian targets, then you can say Israel is killing Palestinians.
While you're right that Palestinians would (and do) use any method at their disposal to cause destruction in Israel, I doubt you'd see Israelis blowing themselves up or expressing the same kind of genocidal intent as the Palestinians currently are. For Israelis, killing in a war to defend Israel, and Jerusalem in particular, is justified by their beliefs. For most Palestinians, their right to Israel is protected by a waqf and as such, it is their religious duty to jihad against Israelis in order to conquer Jerusalem. While both beliefs have the potential to lead to war (and I'll disclose that I do believe that Israel's belief in the right to defend it's territory has the greater moral authority as compared with the belief in killing anyone who disagrees with your beliefs, a la Hamas), especially when you pair the two, Judaism does not justify killing yourself and your fellow countrymen in a suicide bombing attack. Many Muslim scholars will tell you that Islamic jihad does not support this either, but obviously a "holy war on behalf of God" is too easy to misinterpret and certainly Muhammad didn't exactly help solidify jihad as solely a personal religious struggle to become closer with Allah. Point being, Israelis are not the same as Palestinians and there is more to the issue than just support from the US.
It's easy to just sit back and declare that it's all our fault, that our aiding of Israel is the cause for all the problems and violence in
I also wonder how technology like this might change testing procedures in general. Especially as implantable receiving technology, like cochlear implants, becomes more ubiquitous, what's to stop students from cheating on examinations? With this current technology it would be fairly easy to prevent by checking students for transmitting neck bands (or perhaps by using school provided, encrypted neckbands that only communicate with the classroom server). What about with a more future tech though? I can imagine a future where infants are injected with nanomachines at birth which travel to the brain and form a transmitter with connections to the speech processing center. Children could be taught to imagine this device in their brain as a 'person' they could talk to in order to transmit that speech. In such a future, would students have to complete examinations inside a chamber that blocked transmissions? That's the obvious solution but I wonder if there is a more interesting one that embraces the technology rather than sequestering it.
Wow, if I had mod points I'd mod you funny because you must be joking.
The number of people that own guns is more like 25%, nowhere near 90%. Furthermore, less than half of gun owners own guns for self defense. The vast majority own them for hunting and recreation, activities which favor rural areas. In other words, if you're in a rural area, the chances of encountering someone who owns a gun are quite high (although even there, the chances of them having a firearm on their person are still quite low). In an urban area, the chances of encountering someone who owns a gun are comparatively very low even given the very large difference in population density.
Though he was trolling, there is something to be said for the GP's statement that most mass killings occur in gun free zones (e.g. schools). There is a reason that crime is much lower in rural areas, and I don't think it's because the people residing there are simply of a higher moral fiber; they're humans like everyone else. That's not to say that significantly higher gun ownership is the reason, but there is a good chance it is a factor. I know that I wouldn't be caught dead trespassing on a farm in the middle of the night, let alone trying to steal the TV.
Yes, it is the unfortunate reality that militaries and military intelligence are necessities. As long as the need for them exists, there will be instances where there is also a need to violate the human rights of someone, somewhere. That doesn't mean we need to take the arrogant approach and treat every non-US citizen as a second class human. When US citizens are surveilled, there is a formal process that must first take place to ensure (or at least help ensure) that it is an appropriate action. Personally, I don't see any reason why the same shouldn't take place for a non-US citizen but even if it doesn't, intelligence gathering should still be conducted in a respectful manner. Go after the targets of interest or relevance to national security, but why monitor and collect the personal information of everyone just because it passes through a router that just happens to be in the US?
For what it's worth, I really don't see this Google case as much of an issue either. As has been mentioned already, depending on the circumstances, Google probably should not have even had their request granted. Taking down photographs of in the inside of an active military base is a reasonable security precaution, is not an example of the government misusing secrecy or censorship, and should come as a surprise to no one. As far as I know, photography is very strictly forbidden on even the most unclassified military property.
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Congratulations, you have successfully filtered humour from your life. No longer will your boring life be terrorized by "this stupid shit."There shouldn't be a social stigma regardless, but circumcision rates are approaching parity anyway. In fact in the Western US it is more common to be left intact. Of course neither are an issue until the country gets over the social stigma of being naked near other men.
Well if we're referring to a "ritual" in a religious sense, that's a separate issue and one I'm willing to give more leeway to (and I did mention that in my first reply). I'm much more concerned with institutionalizing leaving boys intact and leaving circumcision as an option only for those with medical necessity or religious obligations. In that case it should weed itself out over time as men become increasingly dissatisfied with their circumcisions due to being ever more "the odd man out." I have no problem with adults hacking themselves to bits over their religious beliefs but it's a bit harder to stomach when they do it to innocent children who have not made a conscious decision to follow the same path. In other words, believe what you want about the Divine or your body, but don't force those beliefs on everyone else.
Well again it's the difference between intentional and unintentional harm. In not immunizing a child there is a chance he will not catch the disease, just as there is a chance he won't injure himself at the playground. The chance of injury during circumcision is 100%, thus choosing to have the procedure be performed on your child is intentional injury.
Immunizations are further different since they play a larger role in the overall health of a society. The more people immunized against a disease, the less likely it is that there will be a significant outbreak since there are fewer potential carriers. This then even benefits those that are not immunized, for whatever reason. While parents can obtain exemptions for immunization, it is not a free pass. If a child is put in serious risk of harm due to a parent's refusal of immunization, child protection services will get involved and mandate the immunization and possibly charge the parent with medical neglect. All this is really quite similar to the First Law of Robotics, except in this case it's "A parent may not injure their child or, through inaction, allow their child to come to harm." A parent who circumcises their child is causing harm, while a parent who does not immunize may be allowing their child to come to harm. This is why we are (or should be) strict about both.
Let's ignore most of the harms of circumcision for a moment and focus only on the completely understood sliding mechanism of the foreskin. Removal of the foreskin prevents this action and is scientifically undeniable. Your argument is that this harm does not exist because the circumcised men don't complain since they don't know any better. My argument is that the harm is irrefutable and should be avoided if possible. The ignorance of circumcised men as to the full potential of the human penis is irrelevant to my argument.
Clearly you refuse to believe that its affect is not small in spite of the evidence, so I'm probably going to have to let that go. Again, disregarding any harm, it is still an unauthorized (and almost certainly unwanted) intrusion into the body of the child. Given your attitude, I would hazard a guess and say that you would be opposed to outlawing circumcision since it removes a "choice" for parents. Why do you not feel the same for your son? Should he not have the opportunity to decide what he wants to do with his own penis?
This is really not relevant to the discussion on circumcision, but I'll give it some service anyway. There is a marked difference between the brain and body. Cutting off the foreskin is a permanent change to a male's body which cannot be reversed and (in the case of infants) is done without permission. The brain is much harder to permanently change. Parents cannot directly dictate the development of it, only provide input and influence. As many parents can attest, the strong individualization that occurs during puberty can undue years of mental conditioning. In your example of Jews, Jewish children can and do decide not to practice the Jewish faith. If it were so easy to make permanent changes to a child's mental development, the world would be a strikingly different place of much less diversity than we see today.
Now I'm a little lost. Are we contrasting men looking at intact penises against men looking at circumcised ones? A circumcised penis is still a penis and looks the same as an uncircumcised one (although the uncircumcised one will have a healthier color and texture to the glans and tissue surrounding it) with the foreskin retracted, which is common with an erection. It's not surprising on that level then that men may enjoy seeing even a circumcised penis. Even more likely however is that a majority of men who like to look at other men prefer to see those like themselves. Since a majority of men in this country are circumcised, it is again unsurprising that pictures of circumcised men would be popular.
The issue is clearly clouded. I have seen studies that support conclusions about circumcision from any perspective imaginable. If I scoured journals and the Internet long enough, I could undoubtedly find a study that supports my views perfectly, just as I'm sure you could do the same. I'm not on a crusade however, and in the absence of scientific evidence supporting a conclusion either way, I'd rather stick to logical and moral discussion from a humanistic perspective. However, I do find it interesting that you focus on infant circumcision since men who were circumcised at birth clearly have no point of comparison. Humans are wired to enjoy and seek out sex, so much so that genital stimulation is not even required for orgasm. Is it any surprise then that men who were circumcised as infants do not generally report any greater level of sexual dissatisfaction than uncircumcised men, especially when they don't know any better?
I applaud your decision. However, I staunchly oppose your statement that it is your choice (implied right), or at least that it should be so. In my opinion, and I hope the opinion of everyone that believes in the natural rights of Man, it is never acceptable to disfigure a human without their permission. I find it very telling that circumcision is only an issue with those who cannot express their opinion (in words anyway) or give permission: infants. Were the male older, say a teenager, no doctor would circumcise the boy on the request of his parents if he opposed it. Just because the infant cannot say no, that makes it acceptable? The child may be yours, but it is a human being not your property. No doctor would cut off a finger or toe at the request of a parent, so why is it different with the foreskin? Who gave parents ownership over their son's foreskin that they can decide whether it is to be severed?
I'm going to infer here that you're talking about parents that pierce their infants ears since, just as with circumcision, it is a non-issue if the child is old enough to request the procedure. I was not aware of parents piercing their children's ears, but I oppose it on the same grounds as I do forced circumcision. It is not the right of the parent to modify their child's body to their own liking. You are right that I'm not going to get working into a "lather" over ear piercing but not because it does not involve sex. It is still a violation of the right of the child to the security of her own body, but it is not to the same degree as circumcision because it does not permanently change or remove the naturally evolved function of the human body. I don't claim to know much about ear piercing but it is my understanding that the body will restore itself to normal appearance if the hole is absent a piece of jewelry, given enough time. If the same was true of the foreskin it would be less of an issue although I would still see it as an unjust intrusion into another's body.
I fail to see this as justification for continuing to mutilate children. People enjoy viewing a wide range of intense images ranging from botched surgery to gruesome killings
Note the emphasis. The AC was not saying that infant circumcision (or any age for that matter) prevents one from enjoying sex. Not being circumcised, however, allows one to enjoy sex even more. You've already said that given the choice to provide your son with a more enjoyable sex life you would take it, thus I recommend that you do not circumcise any of your children.
Of course I'm sure you're going to turn right around and say that there is no evidence that uncircumcised males can enjoy sex more, so I'll head that argument off with some supporting evidence. For the record, I'm quite aware that I'll never convince you of the truth of this matter; you're already fully convinced that a tradition of butchering our sons' penises is a valid one simply because it is a tradition. As such, the following arguments against circumcision are rather targeted at others who have not decided or are simply uninformed on the issue in the hopes that fewer will choose to circumcise their children. Perhaps someday it will be so common for parents to specifically request that doctors do not perform a circumcision that will simply become standard practice to only perform them upon request and only the sons of the religious will have to endure the procedure.
The interesting thing is that if the US had a health care system based more around prevention rather than treatment (and that includes insurance companies as well), costs would probably be lower since it's often cheaper to 'treat' illness factors before they become a full disease. In the case of DNA testing, if it revealed I had a predisposition for a certain disease it's stupid for insurance companies to "punish" me for finding this out since I may be able to prevent it from ever becoming a really expensive problem, thus saving them money.
Having your fate decided by a bunch of random idiots is indeed a gamble. It is entirely possible that you will get a room full of bigots who will decide your fate simply by the way you look, your race, or some other completely subjective personal opinion. You can take some solace in the fact that it takes only one principled person who does not believe you've been shown to be guilty to hang the jury and cause a mistrial or acquittal. A jury trial could pay off quite well however if you're accused of something that the vast majority of citizens believe is not a crime. Note also that if you truly believe that all of your peers are "idiots" and/or can't handle treating them with the respect due a peer, you also have the option to waive your right to a jury trial in which case the judge alone will be the finder of law and finder of fact.