People that use superfluous language usually are trying to bafflegab the reader into silence.
...Or possibly I am a native speaker of the language and don't have the cognitive limitations that you seem to. Go and read some Hume and then tell me about the need for kindergarten syntax in effective communication. (Though, come to think of it, if you're blind to the distinction between "that being said" and "but", you may not be able to get far.)
As to your slur on mental abilities of non-anglophones, have you read much educated French prose? Or German? Or Chinese? Baby talk is far from the universal fashion, and those people who (and I believe the word for people is 'who,' not 'that,' even in your impoverished style) are not native English speakers are probably more comfortable with textual complexity than you are.
In all seriousness, people speak different dialects, and I write as I speak. Given your dismissive attitude to my politics, I expect it was too much to ask for you to put any effort into reading my prose. You might be exposed to an idea!
Oh, sorry. I translate into words of one syllable, for your convenience:
...Or I am not dumb like you. Read a book by Hume. Then tell me big words and fine speech are not good. (Though if you think "but" and "that said" are the same, you will find it hard.)
You do not seem to know this: those who come from far lands and do not speak this tongue from birth are not all dumb like you. Most of them can use big words! They can use a lot of big words, and speak big thoughts with them!
That was my joke. In truth, some talk this way, some talk that way. I write as I speak. Though now I know how you think of what I say of life and law, I should not hope for you to read my words with care.
a significant portion of the earth's surface is under aggressive active 'management,' it's an obvious recipe for disaster that we are not, in fact, managing it. But it seems like Al Gore is the only person in politics who has figured out how to articulate this effectively as a source of fear
Whoops, your wheels fell off (or at least it seems they only turn left).
I expect that from your perspective I am somewhere off the left edge of the universe; the entire US political spectrum is further right than I can generally get my head around (I'm afraid that my attitude is that you build infrastructure, so the idea of paying for healthcare, education, transportation, communication, food, housing or sex is just weird to me. I do believe in a free market, too, and the broadest feasible civil liberties, but Americans usually decide I'm a communist and stop talking to me out of fear and/or loathing before I get to this point in the explanation). I doubt you could envisage me turning any further left, from over there. But that said, and assuming that I am indeed interpreting you correctly as being way on the ravening right, what am I missing? Here I thought I had written a finely balanced right-wing-loony-sensitive paragraph in which I simultaneously utter banal platitudes about the need for competent management while casting Gore as a scaremonger.
Which he is.
(Even though he may well be right.)
(Which I didn't say, in order to avoid pulling any right wing chains.)
But why is your goal to make people be afraid of you and "comply"? Isn't the goal to make people friendly towards you and want to have sex/do business/stop setting fire to your cattle?
Dominating people does not make them peaceful or well-disposed towards you. This is an obvious truth that almost every individual learns from personal experience by the time they are seven. I simply do not understand why at the level of national policy, nobody seems to grasp it.
But you see, doing nothing (at least, doing nothing very visible to the public) was the correct response to the first WTC incident, and would have been a better response to the second. Haven't you noticed how much more crap everyday life is, this time around? That's the effects of the crazy, exaggerated response that you're feeling. The attack itself was just part of an ongoing pattern where the US gets its terrorist attacks (and yes, every country suffers them routinely, and always has) in rarer, larger lumps. It was (in the statistical sense) expected, and need have changed nothing.
To fight terrorism, you need to avoid instilling fear. Because terrorism is the instilling of systemic fear. I understand that the word was originally coined for the case where the government is doing it, and I'm not sure that isn't what's happening now....
...At this point they are x-raying your shoes and stealing your drinks, to my mind for political gain. They figure that in dangerous times, you will vote for dangerous people. Statistically, the only thing that's measurably dangerous about the 21st century is the state of the environment - and I'm not trying to be a scaremonger myself; it's just that now that a significant portion of the earth's surface is under aggressive active 'management,' it's an obvious recipe for disaster that we are not, in fact, managing it. But it seems like Al Gore is the only person in politics who has figured out how to articulate this effectively as a source of fear, so everyone else is starting wars and x-raying footwear to, as they say, 'scare up the votes.'
At a deeper level, this may all be a reflection of party politics, as a phenomenon. After all, in times of calm, we're less inclined to think in us-versus-them terms, so, logically, we're less inclined to support parties over policies. To get the majority of frankly sensible people to vote for their parties without question, regardless of any unsavoury planks in party platforms, perhaps a level of freaked-out-ness is required. It's a sobering thought.
Electric drive, fly by wire - mechanically this can be vastly simpler than a conventional car. Sure, the mechanic will charge you an arm and a leg - but that's mostly because he can, and because you're the sort of person who is willing to pay for a perky droid in the dashboard, not because of any huge complexity in the repairable components.
Look, the great plagues of our species are vengeance cycles and similar violent prejudice. "I was just defending myself! We know what kinds of animals these people are, and if I had given him one more minute, he would have killed me!" It is worth sacrificing a few people to make this stop, because without it there is no civilisation. When two people are thinking of doing each other harm, it is for the court to decide which, if either, is in the right, because in the heat of the moment people, especially armed people, or people who feel (possibly because a gun is pointed at them) that they are about to be raped or murdered, cannot make a rational judgment—indeed, it is very clear from the responses I've been getting that many of them do not even wish to! Yes, I KNOW that there are large, industrial nations (not to mention, apparently, the IOC) that reject this theory. The US rejects the authority of the International Criminal Court, because it prefers its cowboy justice model whereby having the biggest guns somehow makes it the judge and the jury. But this does not make it any more than dangerous lunacy.
Try to understand this. It is a statistical thing. If you suddenly find a stranger in your bedroom, they are probably just a burglar, or perhaps your spouse's lover. This is not something for which they deserve death—I'm not sure anything is. But if you have a gun yourself, you will act on the basis of what you think is happening, will you not? And what you think is going on, even when we are making these thought experiments, and how much more in the heat of the moment, involves rape or murder. Partly this is a natural hormonal reaction. But mostly it has to do with the fact that you are letting the gun culture do your thinking for you. It's a drug! They are not out to get you! That poor burglar most likely won't even try to 'defend' himself, beyond running for the window, unless you have a gun because you are determined to 'defend' yourself against him.
But by now I feel I am debating with sociopaths, and this is an endeavour doomed to failure.
Are you so dim that the word "Olympics" confounds you?
Indeed not. Are you so dim that you feel it is somehow logically impossible for the IOC to do something stupid?
> You do not have the right to threaten another citizen with death.
Wrong.
Ooh! Good argument!
Again, reality eludes you. In nearly all cases where a firearm is used in self defense the weapon is *not* fired. The attackers flees or surrenders.
How nice to know that in the remaining cases your victim is almost not dead.
Knives have a better deterrent effect than guns, I am told. Your spouse (who is, after all, the person most likely to be at the other end of it) is more likely to figure out you are serious, in time. And you still get to hold a trial. Seriously, I think it is you, not I, who is, as you say, out of touch with reality.
You have proven that you have little imagination. Firearms are primarily used for sport. The Olympics features several such events.
I have seen many firearms. I have had several firearms pointed at me. I have never seen one used for 'sport.' Even if this were a sensible idea (and goodness knows what kind of 'sport' you are talking about), I doubt you can persuade me that the risks of having these devices lying about exceed any 'sporting' benefits.
And indeed, if 'it's just for sport' is a defense, then what can one not get away with? Is 'sport' some kind of magic word, for you?
Apparently you lack common sense as well. Incidents of self defense usually do not require firing the weapon. More importantly, self defense is not a crime.
If your notion of 'self defense' involves lethal weapons, well, it damn well ought to be a crime. You do not have the right to threaten another citizen with death. This stands to reason; if it were otherwise, what could you possibly argue that you were defending yourself against with this gun you want so badly?
Everyone has a right to minimum force, and everyone has a right to due process. A gun provides neither.
"Historically, some of the worst atrocities have been carried out in the name of God."
"Historically, some of the worst atrocities have been carried out in the name of nationalism."
"Historically, some of the worst atrocities have been carried out in the name of science."
Seriously, atrocities are all carried out by psychopathic lying nutjobs. What they say it's "in the name of" hardly matters, and bears not at all on the question of what that thing is or means to those who are not a priori criminally insane.
Of course, we might not be the 'fittest,' in which case it is our evolutionary duty to hurry up and die. In which case we should adopt the stupidest set of beliefs we can. Seriously, trying to second-guess evolution in this way is pointless, dangerous and bizarre.
Not that I disagree with your observations about the past.
Generally, the use of creationism references young Earth creationism... where part of the belief is that the Earth is only a couple of thousand years old. This flavor of creationism can't stand alongside evolution.
Yes. This is why it is important to isolate this particularly irrational minority, and not force all theists into finding common cause by a blanket attack on religious culture.
Much of the difficulty arises from the fact that anti-creationists are too intellectually lazy to find out what their supposed opponents actually believe. Two sides are shouting, but nobody is listening.
How would you imprison the people who make and purchase firearms if you have no firearms of your own to subdue them and force them into prison.
First, yes, there may be special circumstances. I can see that this argument, in abstracto, might justify the manufacture of, say, a few hundred of the devices, around the globe, to deal with the situation of rogue gunsmiths as it arose.
But second, how does one use a gun to 'subdue' someone? We are talking about guns; surely this 'subdue' is a euphemism for 'kill'? I don't, personally, believe in posthumous trial any more than I believe in posthumous voting. There's a need to find another method. Talking to people is a traditional alternative first recourse, and works much better if the people you are talking to don't think you are just trying to buy time before you shoot them.
And, yes, I do realise that I'm not addressing the issue of how we get there from here. This is largely because my real question is, what kind of idiots are we that we came here in the first place? I'm tired of the structure of debate that goes "it's so f***ed up now that we should no longer consider what would be better."
So when you say,
If the organisation currently in control of a country (the government) gave up it's weapons they would just be overthrown by another organisation that kept theirs.Do you really belive that the new government would be as nice as your current one (yes the governments of western europen nations do have thier flaws but in general they manage to create a much nicer situation for thier citizenry than most recently formed dictatorships).
it sounds suspiciously as if you are agreeing with me: that more guns (and thus more use of force) generally means worse government. Is it really such a big step to the notion that such groups should, therefore, be prevented from having guns in the first place?
1) Without weapons, the weak have no recourse against the strong. Your idea of "democracy" really would come down to two wolves and a sheep making dinner plans.
2) Guns are fun, mmm'kay?
So, your theory is that in some way the strong are mysteriously unable to use guns? This time I must be missing something.
As to your second point, here's an odd thing: almost without exception, theories of civilised behaviour draw the line at allowing the kind of fun where other people, unwillingly, die. Odd, that. So, no, not ok, actually.
I think you missed a bit. See, they're making guns. Clearly human life means nothing to them. Under the assumption that human life means nothing, well, yes, this is funny. After all, if one equals two, then I'm the king of Armenia.
It's unimaginable to me that we don't just imprison people who make or purchase firearms. Who wants to be shot? What else is a gun good for?
Of course, people act like it makes a difference who is doing the killing. Americans are even fond of the notion that if they own the gun, it's ok, the only problem is when 'criminals' have guns - rather missing the point that by owning a gun they are undertaking a plan to kill somebody - from which it is readily concluded that they are criminals. Even in the civilised world, it is widely held that it is legitimate for agents of the state to be armed. But guess what? A state that plans to kill people is a terrorist state, and has no legitimacy left - dead people, after all, cannot vote.
When you think about it, it's all bloody hilarious.
You understand, it's not that I'm disagreeing with you. The comment I was commenting on was not wildly off-base in content so much as in tone. I'm not terribly impressed by a wind-powered LED, but it is certainly true that there are and have been times and places were a wind-powered shortwave would be a thing to kill (or, sadly, be killed) for.
But it's also true that a couple of kilowatts has a lot more uses.
Perhaps it's also a matter of third world vs. third world: in most of the 'third world' you can get AA cells. But as a matter of fact, you can also get diesel fuel. So on the one hand, there are places where the real difficulty is that you can't afford a generator; and on the other, there are other places where there is so little infrastructure that you can't get the batteries or the fuel.
Of course, that still leaves a question: if there isn't a place to buy batteries, is there a place to buy wind-powered generators, even if they can be made as cheap as AA cells?
The only real risk I see here, is that it may allow the government to buy these records in the future (directly or via a contractor) instead of subpoenaing them....
I'm not grasping something here. On your analysis, the government is your enemy, and your only enemy?
Subsidies are necessary, you're not thinking about how the world works. A country should never let a large proportion of it's food production all be outsourced. What happens in case of war or political/trade fallout?
<cynical>Yes, we understand, the US must always consider what will happen when it starts a war or antagonises its neighbours by reneging on its trade commitments.</cynical>
It seems to me that the changes in transportation and telecommunications are such that even mapping the individual states of the union at the time of confederation onto the nations of the world today is an understatement. So if your logic were to hold true, then policy would require each community of two hundred years ago to be self-sufficient, in case it had a falling out with its neighbours. In fact, the solution is to negotiate in good faith, and have more friends.
But in any case, I can't imagine that this is really what the corn subsidies are really about. So much food in America is crazy-sweet, and corn syrup is always an ingredient. Now they're burning it to run cars, saying that it helps the environment (though I understand the jury is still out on this). I can only conclude that corn is so massively overproduced that it is being dumped.
I don't know what's going on, but I don't think it's simple, rational behaviour, as you imply.
I like how you're faulting "western" inventors. Are you American by any chance? Or at least from a western nation yourself?
I've seen your kind of reaction turn up in the Slashdot discussions about the OLPC project. Here's a summary of what I see as being your argument:
"This is a waste of time -- a worthless solution -- because it doesn't provide the power and performance that I, as a westerner, demand from technology."
So, myself, I am English, but I certainly don't believe that disqualifies me from the discussion. Where I was born certainly does not mean that I am utterly blind to reality. As it happens, the least developed place I've lived did have running water, most of the time, though you really, really wanted to boil it before using it; it did have electricity, much of the time; it did (I believe) have telephone service, if you were willing to walk half a mile to the post office, though I must admit I never saw the actual telephone myself. Quite civilised, actually. But I might just as well have ended up somewhere poorer; how not?
Anyway, to you, who go to such elaborate lengths to insult the grandparent, perhaps he was worrying about getting enough power to run the water pump? Because, my goodness, I can tell you, the inconvenience of having to use an oil lamp instead of LEDs to do your late-night reading pales in comparison to having to carry your water up from the river.
And that's without considering the matter of whether 'third world' areas want to stay in the third world, or whether perhaps they wouldn't like the opportunity to develop a competitive economy, too. (Note the comment about Western agricultural subsidies.)
My Dad was once going to the States from Canada. The border guard asked him if he was carrying firearms. He replied, "My God, is it really that bad here? Do you seriously recommend it?"
While I thought it was funny, I will also admit that I didn't think it was the brightest thing to say at that time and place... but I guess clergy can get away with some things.
Everyone loves their neighbor as long as they love your God. Thats where the problem starts.
First, you notice that Jews, Christians and Moslems worship the same God, so whatever problem you are referring to, it's a different one from the discussion above. Second, there is nothing in the injunction to love your neighbour that makes it in any way conditional on that neighbour's beliefs. In fact, speaking once again for Christianity, you will note that Jesus was notorious for having the 'wrong' friends, made it clear that 'neighbour' encompasses the 'wrong' people, and made a point of being willing to violate the letter of religious law in order to help people out. Where the problem starts, it would seem, is people having their own nasty and selfish ideas and projecting them onto religions that, for their own advantage, they claim to adhere to.
All these doctrines call for the ahnialation of all the others. Now how people implement the philosophies may vary, and some interpretations cherry pick and are benign enough to be tolerant. But the doctrines are not Tolerant.
I'm sorry, but this is purest FUD.
Speaking for Christianity, Jesus of Nazareth was asked what the primary teaching of his religion was. And he said, first, love God; second, love your neighbour. Everyone who has spent any time in a church has heard this and knows this. Anyone preaching hate and destruction is self-consciously lying if they claim to be a Christian. And this view is not a matter of, as you say, cherry-picking; it is purely a question of putting Jesus' explanation of his teaching ahead of some of the material from the background reading sections of the bible, or the self-educated views of Fred Q. Warmonger at the Full Gospel Church of Death down the street.
You speak of the Ten Commandments, one of the core components of the religion of Jesus' upbringing. Here we go: (1) you may yourself have no other gods; (2) you may make no idols; (3) no swearing; (4) respect the sabbath; (5) honour your parents; (6) do not murder; (7) do not steal; (8) do not slander; (9) do not covet property; (10) do not covet persons. Now, I can see a way to read (1) and (2) as opposing nationalism; I can see a way of reading (6) and (7) as opposing war; I can see a way of reading (9) and (10) as opposing imperialism. But where do they 'call for annihilation,' as you claim?
Finally, to touch on Islam (but here I admit my knowledge is very thin), Jews and Christians are explicitly acknowledged as 'people of the book,' and provided with certain guarantees. Yes, some of the more xenophobic passages of the Qur'an call for the subjugation of Jews and Christians, but annihilation? Certainly not. God alone is to be the judge of his various followers.
From a historical perspective, too, you are being disingenuous at best. Some of the best past examples of 'liberal free society' have existed in Christian and Moslem matrices. Indeed, the cultural values of freedom and tolerance that you hold most dear were probably birthed in these very milieux.
The fact of the matter is that evil men may fly any flag. Atheist regimes have done as much harm as religious ones, and are equally likely to be xenophobic. Often this happens in the same style: the manifestos, the founding documents of the movement, and the beliefs of the originators call for freedom and respect for all; the demagogues who later arise turn their backs on these principles and speak only for selfishness, blood and fire.
Let's take your own example, of Jeffersonianism. Looking at the USA today, should the blame for the wrongs of the past century, or indeed of the present decade, be laid at Jefferson's door - for all that the US is the world's premier Jeffersonian state? Is Mr. Bush a better spokesman for Jefferson than Jefferson himself was?
Yes. Why there can't be, I dunno, distinctive background colours for, e.g., trivia, or original research, I do not know. These are also things I would like to find in my encyclopaedia!
But perhaps it just means that the fundamentally flat, non-hypertexty (I've never thought that HTML, limited to links and images, was very 'hyper' - where's the dynamic organisation? Without it it's just an optimised implementation of a book with an index) medium is wrong. The world needs an aspect-oriented encyclopaedia.
In fact, this is insane behaviour. If someone is making critically poor decisions, giving them less time off is not going to help. You could fine the guy; that would be a punishment. You could give him more training, more resources, and more vacation; that would be a remedy. You could replace him, and that would solve the political problem but likely accomplish nothing practical. Taking away his down time? That's a cynical attempt to exploit him in revenge, which is doomed to failure.
American culture (broadly speaking) has a mental block when it comes to the maintenance requirements for human beings. It's very odd.
To the contrary, we're even luckier with language than we are with biology. We have historical texts to track linguistic evolution over time (for example, each decade or so sees a new translation of the Bible into English), but better yet, because languages adapt quasi-continuously and do not have strong evolved pro-speciation mechanisms (other perhaps than nationalistic governments), we have all kinds of living intermediate forms. Consider French and Italian, for example; they are distinct languages, but there is no line between them. You can walk from France to Italy, and at each point people (assuming they are speaking normally, not the standard forms promulgated by their governments) can talk to their neighbours. Indeed, there is still an almost-functioning bridge between German and English, neatly attesting to their common history.
Of course, as with biological evolution, there is a cogent counter-argument: it involves sticking your fingers in your ears and shouting 'nah nah nah I'm not listening!'
Oh, or, I guess, you could believe in a God who lies a lot. The entire Universe could be a practical joke....
Slashdot Mirror
So you would support me screwing up your travel plans because I find your attitudes annoying - or am I missing something?
...Or possibly I am a native speaker of the language and don't have the cognitive limitations that you seem to. Go and read some Hume and then tell me about the need for kindergarten syntax in effective communication. (Though, come to think of it, if you're blind to the distinction between "that being said" and "but", you may not be able to get far.)
As to your slur on mental abilities of non-anglophones, have you read much educated French prose? Or German? Or Chinese? Baby talk is far from the universal fashion, and those people who (and I believe the word for people is 'who,' not 'that,' even in your impoverished style) are not native English speakers are probably more comfortable with textual complexity than you are.
In all seriousness, people speak different dialects, and I write as I speak. Given your dismissive attitude to my politics, I expect it was too much to ask for you to put any effort into reading my prose. You might be exposed to an idea!
Oh, sorry. I translate into words of one syllable, for your convenience:
...Or I am not dumb like you. Read a book by Hume. Then tell me big words and fine speech are not good. (Though if you think "but" and "that said" are the same, you will find it hard.)
You do not seem to know this: those who come from far lands and do not speak this tongue from birth are not all dumb like you. Most of them can use big words! They can use a lot of big words, and speak big thoughts with them!
That was my joke. In truth, some talk this way, some talk that way. I write as I speak. Though now I know how you think of what I say of life and law, I should not hope for you to read my words with care.
A thought might get in your head. Oh noes!
I expect that from your perspective I am somewhere off the left edge of the universe; the entire US political spectrum is further right than I can generally get my head around (I'm afraid that my attitude is that you build infrastructure, so the idea of paying for healthcare, education, transportation, communication, food, housing or sex is just weird to me. I do believe in a free market, too, and the broadest feasible civil liberties, but Americans usually decide I'm a communist and stop talking to me out of fear and/or loathing before I get to this point in the explanation). I doubt you could envisage me turning any further left, from over there. But that said, and assuming that I am indeed interpreting you correctly as being way on the ravening right, what am I missing? Here I thought I had written a finely balanced right-wing-loony-sensitive paragraph in which I simultaneously utter banal platitudes about the need for competent management while casting Gore as a scaremonger.
Which he is.
(Even though he may well be right.)
(Which I didn't say, in order to avoid pulling any right wing chains.)
So what gives?
But why is your goal to make people be afraid of you and "comply"? Isn't the goal to make people friendly towards you and want to have sex/do business/stop setting fire to your cattle?
Dominating people does not make them peaceful or well-disposed towards you. This is an obvious truth that almost every individual learns from personal experience by the time they are seven. I simply do not understand why at the level of national policy, nobody seems to grasp it.
But you see, doing nothing (at least, doing nothing very visible to the public) was the correct response to the first WTC incident, and would have been a better response to the second. Haven't you noticed how much more crap everyday life is, this time around? That's the effects of the crazy, exaggerated response that you're feeling. The attack itself was just part of an ongoing pattern where the US gets its terrorist attacks (and yes, every country suffers them routinely, and always has) in rarer, larger lumps. It was (in the statistical sense) expected, and need have changed nothing.
To fight terrorism, you need to avoid instilling fear. Because terrorism is the instilling of systemic fear. I understand that the word was originally coined for the case where the government is doing it, and I'm not sure that isn't what's happening now....
...At this point they are x-raying your shoes and stealing your drinks, to my mind for political gain. They figure that in dangerous times, you will vote for dangerous people. Statistically, the only thing that's measurably dangerous about the 21st century is the state of the environment - and I'm not trying to be a scaremonger myself; it's just that now that a significant portion of the earth's surface is under aggressive active 'management,' it's an obvious recipe for disaster that we are not, in fact, managing it. But it seems like Al Gore is the only person in politics who has figured out how to articulate this effectively as a source of fear, so everyone else is starting wars and x-raying footwear to, as they say, 'scare up the votes.'
At a deeper level, this may all be a reflection of party politics, as a phenomenon. After all, in times of calm, we're less inclined to think in us-versus-them terms, so, logically, we're less inclined to support parties over policies. To get the majority of frankly sensible people to vote for their parties without question, regardless of any unsavoury planks in party platforms, perhaps a level of freaked-out-ness is required. It's a sobering thought.
Electric drive, fly by wire - mechanically this can be vastly simpler than a conventional car. Sure, the mechanic will charge you an arm and a leg - but that's mostly because he can, and because you're the sort of person who is willing to pay for a perky droid in the dashboard, not because of any huge complexity in the repairable components.
Look, the great plagues of our species are vengeance cycles and similar violent prejudice. "I was just defending myself! We know what kinds of animals these people are, and if I had given him one more minute, he would have killed me!" It is worth sacrificing a few people to make this stop, because without it there is no civilisation. When two people are thinking of doing each other harm, it is for the court to decide which, if either, is in the right, because in the heat of the moment people, especially armed people, or people who feel (possibly because a gun is pointed at them) that they are about to be raped or murdered, cannot make a rational judgment—indeed, it is very clear from the responses I've been getting that many of them do not even wish to! Yes, I KNOW that there are large, industrial nations (not to mention, apparently, the IOC) that reject this theory. The US rejects the authority of the International Criminal Court, because it prefers its cowboy justice model whereby having the biggest guns somehow makes it the judge and the jury. But this does not make it any more than dangerous lunacy.
Try to understand this. It is a statistical thing. If you suddenly find a stranger in your bedroom, they are probably just a burglar, or perhaps your spouse's lover. This is not something for which they deserve death—I'm not sure anything is. But if you have a gun yourself, you will act on the basis of what you think is happening, will you not? And what you think is going on, even when we are making these thought experiments, and how much more in the heat of the moment, involves rape or murder. Partly this is a natural hormonal reaction. But mostly it has to do with the fact that you are letting the gun culture do your thinking for you. It's a drug! They are not out to get you! That poor burglar most likely won't even try to 'defend' himself, beyond running for the window, unless you have a gun because you are determined to 'defend' yourself against him.
But by now I feel I am debating with sociopaths, and this is an endeavour doomed to failure.
Indeed not. Are you so dim that you feel it is somehow logically impossible for the IOC to do something stupid?
Ooh! Good argument!
How nice to know that in the remaining cases your victim is almost not dead.
Knives have a better deterrent effect than guns, I am told. Your spouse (who is, after all, the person most likely to be at the other end of it) is more likely to figure out you are serious, in time. And you still get to hold a trial. Seriously, I think it is you, not I, who is, as you say, out of touch with reality.
I have seen many firearms. I have had several firearms pointed at me. I have never seen one used for 'sport.' Even if this were a sensible idea (and goodness knows what kind of 'sport' you are talking about), I doubt you can persuade me that the risks of having these devices lying about exceed any 'sporting' benefits.
And indeed, if 'it's just for sport' is a defense, then what can one not get away with? Is 'sport' some kind of magic word, for you?
If your notion of 'self defense' involves lethal weapons, well, it damn well ought to be a crime. You do not have the right to threaten another citizen with death. This stands to reason; if it were otherwise, what could you possibly argue that you were defending yourself against with this gun you want so badly?
Everyone has a right to minimum force, and everyone has a right to due process. A gun provides neither.
"Historically, some of the worst atrocities have been carried out in the name of God."
"Historically, some of the worst atrocities have been carried out in the name of nationalism."
"Historically, some of the worst atrocities have been carried out in the name of science."
Seriously, atrocities are all carried out by psychopathic lying nutjobs. What they say it's "in the name of" hardly matters, and bears not at all on the question of what that thing is or means to those who are not a priori criminally insane.
Of course, we might not be the 'fittest,' in which case it is our evolutionary duty to hurry up and die. In which case we should adopt the stupidest set of beliefs we can. Seriously, trying to second-guess evolution in this way is pointless, dangerous and bizarre.
Not that I disagree with your observations about the past.
Yes. This is why it is important to isolate this particularly irrational minority, and not force all theists into finding common cause by a blanket attack on religious culture.
Much of the difficulty arises from the fact that anti-creationists are too intellectually lazy to find out what their supposed opponents actually believe. Two sides are shouting, but nobody is listening.
First, yes, there may be special circumstances. I can see that this argument, in abstracto, might justify the manufacture of, say, a few hundred of the devices, around the globe, to deal with the situation of rogue gunsmiths as it arose.
But second, how does one use a gun to 'subdue' someone? We are talking about guns; surely this 'subdue' is a euphemism for 'kill'? I don't, personally, believe in posthumous trial any more than I believe in posthumous voting. There's a need to find another method. Talking to people is a traditional alternative first recourse, and works much better if the people you are talking to don't think you are just trying to buy time before you shoot them.
And, yes, I do realise that I'm not addressing the issue of how we get there from here. This is largely because my real question is, what kind of idiots are we that we came here in the first place? I'm tired of the structure of debate that goes "it's so f***ed up now that we should no longer consider what would be better."
So when you say,
it sounds suspiciously as if you are agreeing with me: that more guns (and thus more use of force) generally means worse government. Is it really such a big step to the notion that such groups should, therefore, be prevented from having guns in the first place?
So, your theory is that in some way the strong are mysteriously unable to use guns? This time I must be missing something.
As to your second point, here's an odd thing: almost without exception, theories of civilised behaviour draw the line at allowing the kind of fun where other people, unwillingly, die. Odd, that. So, no, not ok, actually.
I think you missed a bit. See, they're making guns. Clearly human life means nothing to them. Under the assumption that human life means nothing, well, yes, this is funny. After all, if one equals two, then I'm the king of Armenia.
It's unimaginable to me that we don't just imprison people who make or purchase firearms. Who wants to be shot? What else is a gun good for?
Of course, people act like it makes a difference who is doing the killing. Americans are even fond of the notion that if they own the gun, it's ok, the only problem is when 'criminals' have guns - rather missing the point that by owning a gun they are undertaking a plan to kill somebody - from which it is readily concluded that they are criminals. Even in the civilised world, it is widely held that it is legitimate for agents of the state to be armed. But guess what? A state that plans to kill people is a terrorist state, and has no legitimacy left - dead people, after all, cannot vote.
When you think about it, it's all bloody hilarious.
You understand, it's not that I'm disagreeing with you. The comment I was commenting on was not wildly off-base in content so much as in tone. I'm not terribly impressed by a wind-powered LED, but it is certainly true that there are and have been times and places were a wind-powered shortwave would be a thing to kill (or, sadly, be killed) for.
But it's also true that a couple of kilowatts has a lot more uses.
Perhaps it's also a matter of third world vs. third world: in most of the 'third world' you can get AA cells. But as a matter of fact, you can also get diesel fuel. So on the one hand, there are places where the real difficulty is that you can't afford a generator; and on the other, there are other places where there is so little infrastructure that you can't get the batteries or the fuel.
Of course, that still leaves a question: if there isn't a place to buy batteries, is there a place to buy wind-powered generators, even if they can be made as cheap as AA cells?
I dunno, man.
I'm not grasping something here. On your analysis, the government is your enemy, and your only enemy?
<cynical>Yes, we understand, the US must always consider what will happen when it starts a war or antagonises its neighbours by reneging on its trade commitments.</cynical>
It seems to me that the changes in transportation and telecommunications are such that even mapping the individual states of the union at the time of confederation onto the nations of the world today is an understatement. So if your logic were to hold true, then policy would require each community of two hundred years ago to be self-sufficient, in case it had a falling out with its neighbours. In fact, the solution is to negotiate in good faith, and have more friends.
But in any case, I can't imagine that this is really what the corn subsidies are really about. So much food in America is crazy-sweet, and corn syrup is always an ingredient. Now they're burning it to run cars, saying that it helps the environment (though I understand the jury is still out on this). I can only conclude that corn is so massively overproduced that it is being dumped.
I don't know what's going on, but I don't think it's simple, rational behaviour, as you imply.
So, myself, I am English, but I certainly don't believe that disqualifies me from the discussion. Where I was born certainly does not mean that I am utterly blind to reality. As it happens, the least developed place I've lived did have running water, most of the time, though you really, really wanted to boil it before using it; it did have electricity, much of the time; it did (I believe) have telephone service, if you were willing to walk half a mile to the post office, though I must admit I never saw the actual telephone myself. Quite civilised, actually. But I might just as well have ended up somewhere poorer; how not?
Anyway, to you, who go to such elaborate lengths to insult the grandparent, perhaps he was worrying about getting enough power to run the water pump? Because, my goodness, I can tell you, the inconvenience of having to use an oil lamp instead of LEDs to do your late-night reading pales in comparison to having to carry your water up from the river.
And that's without considering the matter of whether 'third world' areas want to stay in the third world, or whether perhaps they wouldn't like the opportunity to develop a competitive economy, too. (Note the comment about Western agricultural subsidies.)
My Dad was once going to the States from Canada. The border guard asked him if he was carrying firearms. He replied, "My God, is it really that bad here? Do you seriously recommend it?"
While I thought it was funny, I will also admit that I didn't think it was the brightest thing to say at that time and place... but I guess clergy can get away with some things.
First, you notice that Jews, Christians and Moslems worship the same God, so whatever problem you are referring to, it's a different one from the discussion above. Second, there is nothing in the injunction to love your neighbour that makes it in any way conditional on that neighbour's beliefs. In fact, speaking once again for Christianity, you will note that Jesus was notorious for having the 'wrong' friends, made it clear that 'neighbour' encompasses the 'wrong' people, and made a point of being willing to violate the letter of religious law in order to help people out. Where the problem starts, it would seem, is people having their own nasty and selfish ideas and projecting them onto religions that, for their own advantage, they claim to adhere to.
I'm sorry, but this is purest FUD.
Speaking for Christianity, Jesus of Nazareth was asked what the primary teaching of his religion was. And he said, first, love God; second, love your neighbour. Everyone who has spent any time in a church has heard this and knows this. Anyone preaching hate and destruction is self-consciously lying if they claim to be a Christian. And this view is not a matter of, as you say, cherry-picking; it is purely a question of putting Jesus' explanation of his teaching ahead of some of the material from the background reading sections of the bible, or the self-educated views of Fred Q. Warmonger at the Full Gospel Church of Death down the street.
You speak of the Ten Commandments, one of the core components of the religion of Jesus' upbringing. Here we go: (1) you may yourself have no other gods; (2) you may make no idols; (3) no swearing; (4) respect the sabbath; (5) honour your parents; (6) do not murder; (7) do not steal; (8) do not slander; (9) do not covet property; (10) do not covet persons. Now, I can see a way to read (1) and (2) as opposing nationalism; I can see a way of reading (6) and (7) as opposing war; I can see a way of reading (9) and (10) as opposing imperialism. But where do they 'call for annihilation,' as you claim?
Finally, to touch on Islam (but here I admit my knowledge is very thin), Jews and Christians are explicitly acknowledged as 'people of the book,' and provided with certain guarantees. Yes, some of the more xenophobic passages of the Qur'an call for the subjugation of Jews and Christians, but annihilation? Certainly not. God alone is to be the judge of his various followers.
From a historical perspective, too, you are being disingenuous at best. Some of the best past examples of 'liberal free society' have existed in Christian and Moslem matrices. Indeed, the cultural values of freedom and tolerance that you hold most dear were probably birthed in these very milieux.
The fact of the matter is that evil men may fly any flag. Atheist regimes have done as much harm as religious ones, and are equally likely to be xenophobic. Often this happens in the same style: the manifestos, the founding documents of the movement, and the beliefs of the originators call for freedom and respect for all; the demagogues who later arise turn their backs on these principles and speak only for selfishness, blood and fire.
Let's take your own example, of Jeffersonianism. Looking at the USA today, should the blame for the wrongs of the past century, or indeed of the present decade, be laid at Jefferson's door - for all that the US is the world's premier Jeffersonian state? Is Mr. Bush a better spokesman for Jefferson than Jefferson himself was?
I put it to you: no.
Yes. Why there can't be, I dunno, distinctive background colours for, e.g., trivia, or original research, I do not know. These are also things I would like to find in my encyclopaedia!
But perhaps it just means that the fundamentally flat, non-hypertexty (I've never thought that HTML, limited to links and images, was very 'hyper' - where's the dynamic organisation? Without it it's just an optimised implementation of a book with an index) medium is wrong. The world needs an aspect-oriented encyclopaedia.
In fact, this is insane behaviour. If someone is making critically poor decisions, giving them less time off is not going to help. You could fine the guy; that would be a punishment. You could give him more training, more resources, and more vacation; that would be a remedy. You could replace him, and that would solve the political problem but likely accomplish nothing practical. Taking away his down time? That's a cynical attempt to exploit him in revenge, which is doomed to failure.
American culture (broadly speaking) has a mental block when it comes to the maintenance requirements for human beings. It's very odd.
To the contrary, we're even luckier with language than we are with biology. We have historical texts to track linguistic evolution over time (for example, each decade or so sees a new translation of the Bible into English), but better yet, because languages adapt quasi-continuously and do not have strong evolved pro-speciation mechanisms (other perhaps than nationalistic governments), we have all kinds of living intermediate forms. Consider French and Italian, for example; they are distinct languages, but there is no line between them. You can walk from France to Italy, and at each point people (assuming they are speaking normally, not the standard forms promulgated by their governments) can talk to their neighbours. Indeed, there is still an almost-functioning bridge between German and English, neatly attesting to their common history.
Of course, as with biological evolution, there is a cogent counter-argument: it involves sticking your fingers in your ears and shouting 'nah nah nah I'm not listening!'
Oh, or, I guess, you could believe in a God who lies a lot. The entire Universe could be a practical joke....