"Given how often tasers are used as pain-forced compliance devices as opposed to an alternative to an actual deadly force situation"
You mean the 0.001% of cases that hit the media?
Tasers are a great technology. Sure they can be abused. Truncheons can be abused too. In fact, truncheons are a great non-lethal alternative to guns, and the fact that British police have never carried guns in the century and a half that policing has been around, is a good example to the world that police should not carry guns. (British police also carry Tasers today.)
Talk about a kneejerk reaction. I mean I don't exactly think highly of 8 out of 10 of the last American administrations (and worst of the current one), but this is something completely routine and reasonable. The Pentagon want a weapon that can stop planes from taking off without massively injuring the passengers or pilot. You know, air superiority.
Sure. Although I frankly think the last 8 branches in this thread have been pointless. The OP was unambiguous when he stated that of all the main OSes, only Windows and UNIX remained, and all others fell by the wayside. He even explicitly noted that Apple sells UNIX (and is one of the most popular desktop UNIX makers). So... another pointless thread at/.?:)
MacOS is not OS X. Mac OS is what died with version 9. Some of its toolkits still live, but what we have today are Windows and UNIX, and Apple is in the business of selling UNIX.
You seem to have confused 'life' and 'the market'. Using the same arguments you make, I could argue that Stalin was just the continuing to work, as he made rational decisions to seize power and distribute it in his cabal. You could argue that rioters throwing Molotov cocktails are just responding to free-market pressures against them. Life is naturally competitive; by your definition, life is a market.
"Market" is an economic term; thus we must root it in economics. If you involve politics or laws in this, we get out of the realm of economics and move into society. This is the conventional and useful definition (as it actually lets us reason, instead of saying "everything is a market" and being done with it). Thus, monopolies are not a market as they stifle economic competition; Stalin and the rioters are not market forces, etc. etc.
Such a world you describe is utopian. It does not seem to guard against assholes. It would not take many to corrupt such a system. It would in fact be extremely surprising if the system did not self-corrupt in the space of a few years.
Yes, that's not necessarily an accurate portrayal.
Mind you, why English-speaking? There are plenty of great countries where you will initially get by with English and can later pick up the lingo as needed. Switzerland (hell, your grandkids might become citizens:), the Scandinavian or Low countries, south of France, Italy, Austria, etc. You can also look beyond the West, although that really will get you farther from the typical English-speaking societies.
The UK is one of the few countries in the world where the police don't carry guns, with the exception of a few specialised units. Personally, I think the UK is much maligned these days. This is from someone who strongly believes in liberties and liberal policies (although politically I'm a social democrat), FWIW. Yes, the trends in the UK since the 80s have bothered me. Do I think it's a good place to live? Still yes.
Certainly. I think some people just got angry because the style of your posts seemed to read like you were supporting Reiser between the lines.
This sort of criticism is often unfair; but it's also not unreasonable. It's rare for people to be entirely open-minded and not actually be taking a position with the pretence of arguing fairly. I'm sorry you were misunderstood.
If the general use of a tool cause something, you may as well blame the tool. We know that drunk driving isn't caused by alcohol, but by alcohol abuse, but how are you going to disentangle the two? Some countries don't -- the US and Scandinavian countries (and many US states) place heavy limits on its consumption, and some have alcohol monopolies.
There are such things as 'societal ills', enabled by mere tools.
The process of making stupid more visible is also democratisation, and it has been going on and increasing in pace, since the end of the first world war. It is a necessary evil of freedom and democracy.
Agreed. I would just add that you do need to drill down, if you are reading non-factual articles (most of history, politics, society), because many or most contributors have agendas and will bias article summaries, overview articles, etc. This is why I use both encyclopaedias regularly (for leisure, mind, not for research).
Most universities have an online subscription to it, like they do to academic journals. I read it reguarly. I tend to read Wikipedia for science and trivia and Britannica for history or politics. These are not exclusive, but it's a general trend.
"People who contribute to Wikipedia and free software projects volunteer their efforts because they believe in the project and want to support it. Since the contributers are also users, they are rewarded with a better product."
As I said a few posts above, there is nothing exclusive here. Though I fully believe in OSS, and do not believe in proprietary software (and refuse to use it), I can and do believe in the cause of Britannica and do want to support it. I am a user, I would like to be a contributor, and I would be rewarded with a better product. There is no contradiction.
As a disclaimer, I read Wikipedia far more than I read Britannica; I find it to be more complete and verbose and thorough. I believe in Wikipedia too and contribute to it often.
What I don't believe in is the rivalry between the two. Wikipedia may supplant Britannica and Britannica may die, but I would still have liked and supported both.
Yeah, in stark opposition to all the hours of paid labour you put in on Wikipedia.
All the material you submit to Wikipedia is no longer yours either. It is under a permissive licence, and if this is what you want, then great, you put in volunteer work for a cause you like.
I would venture that many people also believe in the cause of Britannica enough to put in volunteer work for it, a cause they like, licence and all.
Pretty accurate -- I hate wetness too -- although I would add a minor modification. Many people actively resist this tribal mindset, and many other people will work to improve the lot of unfortunate people they don't know, not through sentiment or sympathy, but through rational compassion.
"I can't say the woman had it coming, but everyone knows that sort of behavior triggers primal and violent reactions. How enraged would you be?"
That's pretty ridiculous. We like to think of ourselves as not animals, for good reason.
"That being said, every human being is capable of murder given the right circumstances. At issue is the circumstances."
If we define murder to include self-defence, accident and unpremeditated violence, then you are right. If we exclude these categories, and almost all laws do, then no, many or most people will not commit murder under any circumstances. Many others will have their breaking-points, and these can too be dangerous to society.
I don't pirate, and I'm probably a minority (hell, all but 2 films in my collection are British, so yeah I'm a minority), but I love to rewatch good scenes from old movies once in a while. I'll go through 2 hours' worth of classic scenes from 5-10 movies instead of one new one.
Actually, I'm increasingly turning to a combination of PHP and perl to churn out things quickly. Perl wins hands down when it comes to text-munging and working in a stream. PHP wins hands down when building data structures and algorithms, and you have an enormous amount of functions at your fingertips. I also use the shell a lot, but I guess that's not very mainstream.
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"Given how often tasers are used as pain-forced compliance devices as opposed to an alternative to an actual deadly force situation"
You mean the 0.001% of cases that hit the media?
Tasers are a great technology. Sure they can be abused. Truncheons can be abused too. In fact, truncheons are a great non-lethal alternative to guns, and the fact that British police have never carried guns in the century and a half that policing has been around, is a good example to the world that police should not carry guns. (British police also carry Tasers today.)
Dude, did you RTFA?
Talk about a kneejerk reaction. I mean I don't exactly think highly of 8 out of 10 of the last American administrations (and worst of the current one), but this is something completely routine and reasonable. The Pentagon want a weapon that can stop planes from taking off without massively injuring the passengers or pilot. You know, air superiority.
Sure. Although I frankly think the last 8 branches in this thread have been pointless. The OP was unambiguous when he stated that of all the main OSes, only Windows and UNIX remained, and all others fell by the wayside. He even explicitly noted that Apple sells UNIX (and is one of the most popular desktop UNIX makers). So... another pointless thread at /.? :)
MacOS is not OS X. Mac OS is what died with version 9. Some of its toolkits still live, but what we have today are Windows and UNIX, and Apple is in the business of selling UNIX.
Or at least George Bush. I don't know, maybe he was designed!
Great, we can tick off science, religion, and politics. What's next? Oh, right, sex. Any male supremacists want to draw genetics into this?
You seem to have confused 'life' and 'the market'. Using the same arguments you make, I could argue that Stalin was just the continuing to work, as he made rational decisions to seize power and distribute it in his cabal. You could argue that rioters throwing Molotov cocktails are just responding to free-market pressures against them. Life is naturally competitive; by your definition, life is a market.
"Market" is an economic term; thus we must root it in economics. If you involve politics or laws in this, we get out of the realm of economics and move into society. This is the conventional and useful definition (as it actually lets us reason, instead of saying "everything is a market" and being done with it). Thus, monopolies are not a market as they stifle economic competition; Stalin and the rioters are not market forces, etc. etc.
Such a world you describe is utopian. It does not seem to guard against assholes. It would not take many to corrupt such a system. It would in fact be extremely surprising if the system did not self-corrupt in the space of a few years.
That's not a contradiction. The free market isn't exactly known for happy endings, or promoting the best long-term solutions.
Also chuck out windows and doors, safety belts, and hell, the lids on the boot. Apropos, Top Gear did just this on their cross-Africa challenge...
I ride a bike because I have a big penis. My mate Dennis walks to work because he has a really big penis. Gary has such a big penis he telecommutes.
Yes, that's not necessarily an accurate portrayal.
:), the Scandinavian or Low countries, south of France, Italy, Austria, etc. You can also look beyond the West, although that really will get you farther from the typical English-speaking societies.
Mind you, why English-speaking? There are plenty of great countries where you will initially get by with English and can later pick up the lingo as needed. Switzerland (hell, your grandkids might become citizens
The UK is one of the few countries in the world where the police don't carry guns, with the exception of a few specialised units. Personally, I think the UK is much maligned these days. This is from someone who strongly believes in liberties and liberal policies (although politically I'm a social democrat), FWIW. Yes, the trends in the UK since the 80s have bothered me. Do I think it's a good place to live? Still yes.
Certainly. I think some people just got angry because the style of your posts seemed to read like you were supporting Reiser between the lines.
This sort of criticism is often unfair; but it's also not unreasonable. It's rare for people to be entirely open-minded and not actually be taking a position with the pretence of arguing fairly. I'm sorry you were misunderstood.
If the general use of a tool cause something, you may as well blame the tool. We know that drunk driving isn't caused by alcohol, but by alcohol abuse, but how are you going to disentangle the two? Some countries don't -- the US and Scandinavian countries (and many US states) place heavy limits on its consumption, and some have alcohol monopolies.
There are such things as 'societal ills', enabled by mere tools.
The process of making stupid more visible is also democratisation, and it has been going on and increasing in pace, since the end of the first world war. It is a necessary evil of freedom and democracy.
Agreed. I would just add that you do need to drill down, if you are reading non-factual articles (most of history, politics, society), because many or most contributors have agendas and will bias article summaries, overview articles, etc. This is why I use both encyclopaedias regularly (for leisure, mind, not for research).
The UI is quite clean once you actually get in (I say this as a regular reader).
Most universities have an online subscription to it, like they do to academic journals. I read it reguarly. I tend to read Wikipedia for science and trivia and Britannica for history or politics. These are not exclusive, but it's a general trend.
"People who contribute to Wikipedia and free software projects volunteer their efforts because they believe in the project and want to support it. Since the contributers are also users, they are rewarded with a better product."
As I said a few posts above, there is nothing exclusive here. Though I fully believe in OSS, and do not believe in proprietary software (and refuse to use it), I can and do believe in the cause of Britannica and do want to support it. I am a user, I would like to be a contributor, and I would be rewarded with a better product. There is no contradiction.
As a disclaimer, I read Wikipedia far more than I read Britannica; I find it to be more complete and verbose and thorough. I believe in Wikipedia too and contribute to it often.
What I don't believe in is the rivalry between the two. Wikipedia may supplant Britannica and Britannica may die, but I would still have liked and supported both.
Yeah, in stark opposition to all the hours of paid labour you put in on Wikipedia.
All the material you submit to Wikipedia is no longer yours either. It is under a permissive licence, and if this is what you want, then great, you put in volunteer work for a cause you like.
I would venture that many people also believe in the cause of Britannica enough to put in volunteer work for it, a cause they like, licence and all.
Pretty accurate -- I hate wetness too -- although I would add a minor modification. Many people actively resist this tribal mindset, and many other people will work to improve the lot of unfortunate people they don't know, not through sentiment or sympathy, but through rational compassion.
"I can't say the woman had it coming, but everyone knows that sort of behavior triggers primal and violent reactions. How enraged would you be?"
That's pretty ridiculous. We like to think of ourselves as not animals, for good reason.
"That being said, every human being is capable of murder given the right circumstances. At issue is the circumstances."
If we define murder to include self-defence, accident and unpremeditated violence, then you are right. If we exclude these categories, and almost all laws do, then no, many or most people will not commit murder under any circumstances. Many others will have their breaking-points, and these can too be dangerous to society.
You say that like it's a bad thing...
I don't pirate, and I'm probably a minority (hell, all but 2 films in my collection are British, so yeah I'm a minority), but I love to rewatch good scenes from old movies once in a while. I'll go through 2 hours' worth of classic scenes from 5-10 movies instead of one new one.
Actually, I'm increasingly turning to a combination of PHP and perl to churn out things quickly. Perl wins hands down when it comes to text-munging and working in a stream. PHP wins hands down when building data structures and algorithms, and you have an enormous amount of functions at your fingertips. I also use the shell a lot, but I guess that's not very mainstream.