We need a way to document, rate, review each traveler. We need a way to at least know the difference between the good and bad guests. Perhaps if there is a nice advanced communication system between all of the people involved in this activity, then yes, what can happen is, you can take in strangers, but you'd also know which strangers not to accept based on how they treated that friend of yours who took them in.
I don't worry so much about just the houses, you also have to worry about the guests. As far as sexual predators, and knowing whos house you are in, thats another huge problem. You seem to think only young women would be lured, but young men also could be lured, any situation is possible, all I can say is, we'd need a good safety system in place before this could take off beyond a few hundred people, once you have thousands of people doing it, you will have your percentage of crazies.
Of course privacy exists. I'm thinking of a particular colour now. No-one knows which one but me. I watched a downloaded movie last night, but nobody but my household knows which one. I voted a certain way last election, but nobody knows how.
If someone wanted to know, they'd know. You have no proof that thoughts are secure, I'm assuming we don't have the technology to scan a persons thoughts with such precision, but FMRI does exist.
Also, if you tell your household something, then people already know. Just accept that you have no secrets. Secrets do not exist.
All these things are private... hence privacy. Now, it's possible for the government to find out many (not all) of these things, but that doesn't mean that at the moment they aren't private.
If the government knows everything, and nothing is private, then what exactly do you mean when you say at the moment these things are private? A government is made up of people.
Mere possibility of discovery doesn't mean privacy is extinct, as long as that information hasn't already been discovered or spread. I could break into the national records office and read all the classified files they store in there, but that doesn't mean those records aren't "private".
Not only is privacy extinct, it never existed, it always was extinct. The government always read your mail, now it's your email, so what?
3. I can write anything I like and prevent people from reading it - in the extreme case by burning it immediately, or secreting it in my underwear for the forseeable future. How is that not private? I can wander into a charity shop wearing a halloween mask, but a book with cash and remove the mask and change my clothes only when I'm in a large public space (with no cameras) or in an enclosed space with too many other people to track (eg, a club). How is that transaction not private?
How do you know that? What if there are ways to see it and you just don't know about it because it's classified?
And I don't know about the USA, but in the UK we fought the IRA for twenty or thirty years without having to have CCTV cameras on every street corner, warrantless searches, no-knock rules, RFID passports or secret courts. Sure, it makes it harder, but one of the things you're fighting against with terrorism is the kind of people who want to turn your country into a theocracy or police state. Exactly how does doing that yourself "beat" them?
What exactly are you talking about? You make absolutely no sense, you have no idea what the war is about. If the war were not called the war on terrorism and were framed differently, and called the war on war, it would still exist because it's in peoples hearts and minds to do it and how it's framed does not really matter. The name of the war came after the fact.
Secrecy does exist. This is why we still have things like tax evasion, terrorism, and all the other things you list as a consequence of privacy. In fact, a moment's thought would indicate that if these things are the consequence of privacy, the fact that we still have these things indicates there's still some level of privacy. QED.
Once again, you don't have a clue what you are talking about. Wars are acts of violence, organized violence. It has nothing to do with secrecy, tax evasion, terrorism, or any of these things. Terrorism is a frame for the current war, just like the cold war was a frame, we could always simply call it world war 3, or world war 4 and it would be just as accurate. The war on terror is a frame, perhaps it's a bad frame, but it's a frame.
To be honest, your position sounds more like "unthinking government cheerleader" than "informed citizen of a democracy".
Say your government decides to ban guns, forces kids in Kansas to learn evolution, announces it's suspending democractic elections indefinitely and moves the army in to keep order. You'd really s
You think it's an idea that would only be tried in China? Why not put tracking devices in all watches, all headphones, all ipods, all electronics, and connect that to GPS so you know where ever human on earth is, 100% of the time?
You have to admit, it would be very good for security.
There is no such thing as individual privacy. That's the main reason why the national security system works, it's because no privacy exists, it's an illusion.
All records are stored in databases, and they aren't private. Anything you ever tell anyone else can be shared so thats not private. Anything you write, anything you read, anything you do, can be tracked, so in reality, there is limited privacy, and it's always been like this.
Individuals have no real need for privacy, corporations need privacy, governments should protect the privacy of corporations as state secrets, because corporations stay in a country that protects it's privacy.
A citizen on the other hand, well, if you mean by privacy, privacy from other citizens, sure, but if you mean by privacy, secrecy, it doesnt exist. It's a good thing that it doesnt exist because if it did exist, how exactly would the government fight terrorism? How would the police fight crime?
And you are correct, it's only a good thing if you support the US government all the time, but if you are a US citizen, you sorta have to support your government because a government is made up of citizens. What exactly are you supposed to do? Not support your government? Your taxes pay for it, and you work for it in some cases, or you get services from it, it's a situation where yeah the government if it's too big can do some bad things, but on the other hand, when it comes to security, there is really no better entity to handle it.
The local police cannot handle organized crime. You might not agree with the war on drugs, or which crimes are being focused on, thats politics, but we all agree that we need the tools to fight crime, I don't see anyone really standing up for organized crime except maybe organized crime. You have to remeber that the NSA, CIA, FBI, and a lot of other agencies, yeah they spy on everyone, but they also fight organized crime, and in a very efficient way.
If there were no secrets for these agencies, then they would not be able to do their job fighting organized crime. If there were privacy, how exactly would they go after say, Al Capone? Privacy should exist, you should have privacy, but if you are commiting crimes of course you can expect these agencies to track you down. Surveillance is also good for communities. CCTV works well, and I think local police, and community policing groups should take advantage of technology to do their own surveillance. If you want privacy, stay inside your house.
A lot of people view systems as 'people", talking about the government as "THE GOVERNMENT" instead of "OUR GOVERNMENT", a government is a group of people.
The main reason people are afraid of the CIA is because they don't like secrecy. At the same time, it's obvious why secrecy is essential for national security. Some of our technologies NEED to be secret. If there are nano technology companies wouldnt you rather the CIA keep the most dangerous aspects of it secret? Or do you want terrorists, criminals and people such as that to get a hold of it?
In the case with Google, I don't think Google and the CIA would be working on something "evil", as Google is a search engine. Basically, just about all the major corporations work with some of the federal agencies, Google, Microsoft, most of the Linux companies, maybe Yahoo also.
The CIA, basically from Googles point of view is business, you can only make a lot of money by working with the feds, if you work against the feds you won't last very long. If Google were in China they'd be forced to work with the Chinese government. If Google were in Europe they'd be forced to work with the EU, and it would likely be in their best interest to work with whoever they can, within reason.
This really isnt news, this is to be expected, and if the CIA is doing it's job, well then you'd expect EXACTLY this.
Social work is very important. Just because your sister is underpaid, it does not mean her degree was or is bad or useless.
If a social worker is underpaid it means society is useless, it does not mean the degree is useless. It's always better to have a degree, ANY degree, than to be uneducated.
It's pay now or pay later, thats generally how the economy works. College works like this, you pay and go into debt now, so you can have quality of life later. It all solves itself in the end.
However, if people decide they want to do nothing, well, why are they working so hard if the world is going to be in ruins in 50 years?
The longer you wait to fix something, the more expensive it will be to fix it. This should be painfully obvious, because in economic or environmental entropy, over time things deteriorate, and get worse, and as things get worse it becomes more difficult to make things better. Basically the longer humans wait to improve quality of life for humans, or to fix the environment, or do make the world more efficient, the more difficult it will be later, because if something is inefficient, and keeps getting bigger and more inefficient, it only means your children will have even more work, and it only means you'll have more work, and your quality of life will be directly affected, because it will be your lack of clean air and water. Maybe if you are 60-70 years old you can say you don't care, but if you are 20 years old, or 30, you might have at least another 30-40 years of life, meaning you arent even half finished yet. How would you like to work harder, while quality of life continues to decrease despite the fact that you work more hours, are more educated and more productive than ever?
And then just think that your kids if you have them, will inherit a world that is harsher and less efficient than the world we are in now. Most civilizations aim to make life easier, longer, and generally build and improve stuff, if a civilization exists to make life harder, to add endless toil, to offer endless and unlimited poverty, and limited wealth and efficiency, over time it just is not sustainable from an economic perspective. In order for an economy to be sustainable, it has to be efficient, and people have to be working for something.
In specific, younger people like us. You are right, if you are over 50 you wont pay, but anyone in their 20s will pay, and anyone who has kids should consider the impact of global warming on quality of life for their children.
Greed is a part of human nature, so is altruism, so is everything else humans do. It's in mans best interest to improve quality of life for man.
All the while, when we were killing ourselves, in specific our tribal versions, we basically killed off the people who knew how to take care of the earth, destroying thousands of years of knowledge that likely was passed down form word of mouth.
Go back further, during the inquisition and during other times of war, entire libraries with thousands of books were burned, knowledge which could have advanced us much sooner was vanished out of existance due to religious reasons. Now it's still happening, as we are as inefficient as we have ever been.
We have 6 billion people, maybe 2 billion are surviving, the other 4 billion live in complete poverty, and we arent using them for anything. We could be using these people to go into space and build on the moon, or mars, or any planet we want. We could build huge solar spaceships, and literally live in space cities floating around if we wanted to, we have the man power, the brain power, the will, the need, the only thing we lack is the heart. We hate ourselves to the point of inefficiency, just think about it, if all 6 billion people got together to do something, yes we could do it. We built pyramids, we went to the moon, it's all a matter of what we choose to focus on. We can focus on dominance of the planet and it's resources until theres nothing left to do,minate but ourselves, and then dominate ourselves out of existance, or we can move into space and take on aliens, or whatever the hell is in space. Since we don't even know whats up there, it would make sense to find out, I mean what else is there to do down here besides kill ourselves, fight over resources, starve,work, and watch the environment fall apart?
And no, we will not be able to take our wars into space like starwars if there are aliens in space, in fact if aliens don't like us they'd infect us with a virus and wipe us out and we'd have no defense for it. We can't even deal with stuff like HIV and the avian flu, if a virus came that spread through the air that killed instantly, it would likely kill everyone off before they could cure it, or worse if a virus just made us go insane and destroy ourselves the same result would happen.
Basically, humans will likely go extinct, it won't be any aliens that do it, if we cannot get along with each other we certainly can't get along with any aliens and would likely be killed off as soon as aliens discover us. Aliens would simply kill all humans and then fly their saucers down to the earth to live on whatevers left. Why would humans be useful to aliens? We don't make good slaves, we are violent, and the humans that arent violent and who do make good slaves get bullied out of existance by aggressive groups of people. Trust me, there are no aliens, and if there were, we'd never get to meet them, they'd wipe us out and take our resources just like we do to ourselves, because they'd play the game the same way we play it, just wipe us out and take the earth.
When might makes right, and as a species we decide to consciously live by that rule, if there are aliens, even if these aliens are not aggressive, they will see that humans are aggressive and there will be no dialog, no diplomacy, no deal, no communication, we would never discover they even exist, we'd simply be wiped out, likely in such a way that we can't stop it, and likely to simply steal the earth from the monsters(humans) that are destroying it.
So if you put yourself in the perspective of alien, what the hell would you do if you saw some monsters on earth destroying it, you'd simply kill all of them, and then land your ship, very much like if you saw anything else infested with pests, like roaches,. So the same response humans would give in the situation, assume aliens would give that exact response to us, assume we are pests. You know, maybe we had a choice to choose between being pet or pest, but if we can't take care of ourselves, or the planet, we won't be able to take care of aliens, or be useful in any way, not intellectually, not scientifically, aliens would have no reason at all to ever communicate with a species that has a gun to it's own head. Why should alienns care to talk us our of suicide if we want it so badly as to spend ALL of our thoughts trying to find new ways to do it?
You should write an essay and post it on your own blog.
Yes what you say is true, humans do have a great chance and responsibility to the earth and to each other, but humans hate life, and each other. How exactly do you reach humans who hate existance itself and who wish life could be shorter and more brutal?
If you think that way of thinking is insane, alright, how do you reach nihilists who think life is worthless, pointless, meaningless, and that we live simply to die? Finally, how do you harness/channel the energy of hate and convert it from a negative destructive force into a positive creative force? We are being destroyed by our own hatred. We are being destroyed by the fact that we are inefficient.
We have 6 billion people, but we don't have full employement, thats inefficiency. If we had full employement of all humans on planet earth we'd have cities on mars by now. If we did not invest so much time and money on wars, we'd have gone into mars hundreds of years ago and we'd be talking from different planets right now. So you see, our species is one of the most inefficient species that exists, we hunt ourselves down into extinction, a lot of the time for no reason at all, and other times for religious reasons or strategic turf reasons. Basically, we are doomed, programmed to destroy, it's in our genes.
But I would still argue that it is indeed society that has taught you not to kill. I could be wrong (it's not as if that doesn't happen all the time) but if you'd been born into one of the few remaining hunter-gatherer societies, knowing no other way of life, I'm pretty sure that putting meat on the table, as a daily survival thing, would take precedence. And in today's society, you're a killer by proxy if you eat meat. I don't mean to insult--no way am I a vegetarian or vegan. Bring me the barbeque, or the shellfish. So I'm a killer by proxy.
I'd prefer to hunt fish, I don't see how hunter gathering is efficient as it's the survival strategy of last resort, after your ocean runs dry and your crop runs short, then you have to hunt and gather. Generally, fishermen, they use a net and catch hundreds or thousands of fish at a time. This provides enough food to last for months if propery stored, dried, etc.
Then you have the other way, which is hunting mammals, and this is just not for everyone. I don't think society can teach or take away the killer instinct, I think everyone would hunt mammals if thats all there were to eat, but even if thats the case it's not the same as murder. A hunter who has to eat, hunts because it's the only way they know how to survive. A murderer on the other hand, does not need any rational reason to do it, they just feel like it, thats the difference.
Overall, I sympathize with your viewpoint, and would be the first to agree that a reluctance to kill is definitely a Good Thing. As a species, we are way too good at it. The ultimate irony would be that doing something that ensured the survival of a species at one point, in the form of developing a hunting ability, would be their ultimate downfall, in the form of developing nuclear or biological warfare (chemical warfare is vastly overrated as a viable military tool) technologies. But history is rife with examples of species that got too good at something, and set the stage for their own downfall.
Hunting is not the most efficient survival strategy, it certainly works, it's damn simple, it's just not efficient. Eventually you run out of things to hunt, it also takes a lot more time and energy than growing stuff or even fishing. So yes we have to kill to survive, but theres a difference again in what we choose to kill. If you kill fish, you can get your daily supply of protien and fats, along with nutritious calories, without having to kill a mammal. Fish are less conscious than mammals, at least most fish, and fish when you remove them from water die in a natural way, it's not the same as when you hunt a deer with a gun.
Also, I just have problems with the idea of eating mammals, It's not like fish where we don't know if they feel pain, we KNOW mammals feel pain, so it's just not the same. Society never really says killing is bad or wrong, society would let me fish or hunt. The question is, do I need to fish or hunt to survive?
For me it's a calculation of finding efficient sources of calories. Efficient means the least amount of energy spent by me, quick, so I can scoop up hundreds of them at a time, and as painfree as possible. The idea is that I should not have to enjoy the act, it's not like everyone can enjoy hunting, it's more that, I need the calories, and I need to stay healthy. It's that simple. When you are starving and theres no food, no matter what society taught you, you'll become a fisherman if you are a fisherman, you'll become a farmer if you are a farmer, you'll become a hunter if you are a hunter, whatever natural of eating you are designed for is what you'll revert to. Some people are designed to eat a lot of fish, some people eat only meat, some people are vegetarians, some people are vegans, some people will eat anything, in general I think a lot of people eat what they can't hunt because theres supermarkets, so more people are eating mammal now than ever, but this does not mean that it's natural for this many people to eat mammal all the time, in nature it might h
There is a difference between killing and murder. Anyone can kill and killing can be ethical in some situations, but murder is a totally different thing, as it's planned, and murdering your wife should be unthinkable for most people, and if thinkable, undoable.
Also It's not society that taught me it's wrong to kill. I never liked klling. It does not feel good to kill wild animals, society says it's okay, but its not like everyone can enjoy hunting for sport.
Yeah that's what I was trying to say, but how did he measure the general population? That seems like a difficult task, sure it's something I can believe, but 1%? We have 300 million people, thats like, less than 500,000, I think it's likely more than 1%, but less than 20%, but really, how can we really know?
In prison you can watch how people act and see that there are psychopaths there. Outside of prison, you have to rely on small samples, so we know it's rare, but it's not so rare that we don't all know someone who is one. 1% based on how it was collected is not as accurate as the 20% we know for sure because we collected it in prison.
What say you? How exactly would you measure the general population?
Yeah I know, thats what I don't understand, why do people actually favor gun control, yet we invite unlimited illegal immigration?
I'm not making the case that illegal immigrants are criminals, plenty are good people, most are, but you always have good coming in with the bad and, it's not guns that are bad, it's when you have gun control only for good people who follow the law, and for criminals free or cheap guns. You know many people actually think somehow that it's good to have this setup and it's completely irrational.
I'm not saying, thoughts, everyone has weird thoughts. I'm saying most people don't go and get equipment and actually plan out all the details to seriously do it. Or maybe I'm wrong? How many people actually planned on killing their wife?
Once again, I said the prison population, not the general population. It's impossible to measure the general population unless you can test every single person in the general population and even then it's not going to be the same as the prison environment where you can test and then see people in action.
But who knows, I could be wrong about this you know. If you have so much faith in humanity, and if you believe only 4-5% of the population are psychopaths, then the world should be filled with compassion and empathy, and unity should be just around the corner. I don't really have much faith in that. I'm sure it's over 4-5%, but it might be less than 20%, even if it's 15%, it's high enough that we all know people like this.
I read the 20% number in a book by Robert Hare, you should be able to find his site online somewhere. In general, the number is for the prison population. However if 20% of prisoners think like this, well you know that a lot of people outside of prison think like this, certainly more than 5% in my opinion, but maybe less than 20%. I'm sure you know some people who think just like the profile says, and no not everyone is psychopath who thinks like this, psychopath is specific for the lack of empathy. Sociopath however is also lack of empathy, but a sociopath is more likely to be a businessman blended into society and not a criminal. Then you have a range of disorders which can produce symptoms which cause psycho behavior but which are not technically because yeah, under enough pressure or stress anyone an act like a psychopath, this has been proven.
You put people in a situation that is just right, and they'll lose empathy, even if just for a short while, they'll still feel guilt, but empathy can be paused.
I never said Mr.Reiser for sure killed his wife, and I never said for fun, did you read what I wrote? Quote me.
I said that if there were no laws, and we legalized murder, people would kill for fun. The reason people don't is because people think they won't get away with it, and it has nothing to do with Mr.Reiser.
What I'm saying is, empathy is important because it keeps humans from killing non-stop for fun. Empathy means, when you kill someone else you also kill a part of yourself.
Slashdot Mirror
We need a way to document, rate, review each traveler. We need a way to at least know the difference between the good and bad guests. Perhaps if there is a nice advanced communication system between all of the people involved in this activity, then yes, what can happen is, you can take in strangers, but you'd also know which strangers not to accept based on how they treated that friend of yours who took them in.
I don't worry so much about just the houses, you also have to worry about the guests. As far as sexual predators, and knowing whos house you are in, thats another huge problem. You seem to think only young women would be lured, but young men also could be lured, any situation is possible, all I can say is, we'd need a good safety system in place before this could take off beyond a few hundred people, once you have thousands of people doing it, you will have your percentage of crazies.
Of course privacy exists. I'm thinking of a particular colour now. No-one knows which one but me. I watched a downloaded movie last night, but nobody but my household knows which one. I voted a certain way last election, but nobody knows how.
If someone wanted to know, they'd know. You have no proof that thoughts are secure, I'm assuming we don't have the technology to scan a persons thoughts with such precision, but FMRI does exist.
Also, if you tell your household something, then people already know. Just accept that you have no secrets. Secrets do not exist.
All these things are private... hence privacy. Now, it's possible for the government to find out many (not all) of these things, but that doesn't mean that at the moment they aren't private.
If the government knows everything, and nothing is private, then what exactly do you mean when you say at the moment these things are private? A government is made up of people.
Mere possibility of discovery doesn't mean privacy is extinct, as long as that information hasn't already been discovered or spread. I could break into the national records office and read all the classified files they store in there, but that doesn't mean those records aren't "private".
Not only is privacy extinct, it never existed, it always was extinct. The government always read your mail, now it's your email, so what?
3. I can write anything I like and prevent people from reading it - in the extreme case by burning it immediately, or secreting it in my underwear for the forseeable future. How is that not private? I can wander into a charity shop wearing a halloween mask, but a book with cash and remove the mask and change my clothes only when I'm in a large public space (with no cameras) or in an enclosed space with too many other people to track (eg, a club). How is that transaction not private?
How do you know that? What if there are ways to see it and you just don't know about it because it's classified?
And I don't know about the USA, but in the UK we fought the IRA for twenty or thirty years without having to have CCTV cameras on every street corner, warrantless searches, no-knock rules, RFID passports or secret courts. Sure, it makes it harder, but one of the things you're fighting against with terrorism is the kind of people who want to turn your country into a theocracy or police state. Exactly how does doing that yourself "beat" them?
What exactly are you talking about? You make absolutely no sense, you have no idea what the war is about. If the war were not called the war on terrorism and were framed differently, and called the war on war, it would still exist because it's in peoples hearts and minds to do it and how it's framed does not really matter. The name of the war came after the fact.
Secrecy does exist. This is why we still have things like tax evasion, terrorism, and all the other things you list as a consequence of privacy. In fact, a moment's thought would indicate that if these things are the consequence of privacy, the fact that we still have these things indicates there's still some level of privacy. QED.
Once again, you don't have a clue what you are talking about. Wars are acts of violence, organized violence. It has nothing to do with secrecy, tax evasion, terrorism, or any of these things. Terrorism is a frame for the current war, just like the cold war was a frame, we could always simply call it world war 3, or world war 4 and it would be just as accurate. The war on terror is a frame, perhaps it's a bad frame, but it's a frame.
To be honest, your position sounds more like "unthinking government cheerleader" than "informed citizen of a democracy".
Say your government decides to ban guns, forces kids in Kansas to learn evolution, announces it's suspending democractic elections indefinitely and moves the army in to keep order. You'd really s
You think it's an idea that would only be tried in China? Why not put tracking devices in all watches, all headphones, all ipods, all electronics, and connect that to GPS so you know where ever human on earth is, 100% of the time?
You have to admit, it would be very good for security.
There is no such thing as individual privacy. That's the main reason why the national security system works, it's because no privacy exists, it's an illusion.
All records are stored in databases, and they aren't private. Anything you ever tell anyone else can be shared so thats not private. Anything you write, anything you read, anything you do, can be tracked, so in reality, there is limited privacy, and it's always been like this.
Individuals have no real need for privacy, corporations need privacy, governments should protect the privacy of corporations as state secrets, because corporations stay in a country that protects it's privacy.
A citizen on the other hand, well, if you mean by privacy, privacy from other citizens, sure, but if you mean by privacy, secrecy, it doesnt exist. It's a good thing that it doesnt exist because if it did exist, how exactly would the government fight terrorism? How would the police fight crime?
And you are correct, it's only a good thing if you support the US government all the time, but if you are a US citizen, you sorta have to support your government because a government is made up of citizens. What exactly are you supposed to do? Not support your government? Your taxes pay for it, and you work for it in some cases, or you get services from it, it's a situation where yeah the government if it's too big can do some bad things, but on the other hand, when it comes to security, there is really no better entity to handle it.
The local police cannot handle organized crime. You might not agree with the war on drugs, or which crimes are being focused on, thats politics, but we all agree that we need the tools to fight crime, I don't see anyone really standing up for organized crime except maybe organized crime. You have to remeber that the NSA, CIA, FBI, and a lot of other agencies, yeah they spy on everyone, but they also fight organized crime, and in a very efficient way.
If there were no secrets for these agencies, then they would not be able to do their job fighting organized crime. If there were privacy, how exactly would they go after say, Al Capone? Privacy should exist, you should have privacy, but if you are commiting crimes of course you can expect these agencies to track you down. Surveillance is also good for communities. CCTV works well, and I think local police, and community policing groups should take advantage of technology to do their own surveillance. If you want privacy, stay inside your house.
A lot of people view systems as 'people", talking about the government as "THE GOVERNMENT" instead of "OUR GOVERNMENT", a government is a group of people.
The main reason people are afraid of the CIA is because they don't like secrecy. At the same time, it's obvious why secrecy is essential for national security. Some of our technologies NEED to be secret. If there are nano technology companies wouldnt you rather the CIA keep the most dangerous aspects of it secret? Or do you want terrorists, criminals and people such as that to get a hold of it?
In the case with Google, I don't think Google and the CIA would be working on something "evil", as Google is a search engine. Basically, just about all the major corporations work with some of the federal agencies, Google, Microsoft, most of the Linux companies, maybe Yahoo also.
The CIA, basically from Googles point of view is business, you can only make a lot of money by working with the feds, if you work against the feds you won't last very long. If Google were in China they'd be forced to work with the Chinese government. If Google were in Europe they'd be forced to work with the EU, and it would likely be in their best interest to work with whoever they can, within reason.
This really isnt news, this is to be expected, and if the CIA is doing it's job, well then you'd expect EXACTLY this.
This should be obvious. It's a search engine!
Don't be surprised if Slashdot is involved with the CIA as well.
Social work is very important. Just because your sister is underpaid, it does not mean her degree was or is bad or useless.
If a social worker is underpaid it means society is useless, it does not mean the degree is useless. It's always better to have a degree, ANY degree, than to be uneducated.
It's pay now or pay later, thats generally how the economy works. College works like this, you pay and go into debt now, so you can have quality of life later. It all solves itself in the end.
However, if people decide they want to do nothing, well, why are they working so hard if the world is going to be in ruins in 50 years?
The longer you wait to fix something, the more expensive it will be to fix it. This should be painfully obvious, because in economic or environmental entropy, over time things deteriorate, and get worse, and as things get worse it becomes more difficult to make things better. Basically the longer humans wait to improve quality of life for humans, or to fix the environment, or do make the world more efficient, the more difficult it will be later, because if something is inefficient, and keeps getting bigger and more inefficient, it only means your children will have even more work, and it only means you'll have more work, and your quality of life will be directly affected, because it will be your lack of clean air and water. Maybe if you are 60-70 years old you can say you don't care, but if you are 20 years old, or 30, you might have at least another 30-40 years of life, meaning you arent even half finished yet. How would you like to work harder, while quality of life continues to decrease despite the fact that you work more hours, are more educated and more productive than ever?
And then just think that your kids if you have them, will inherit a world that is harsher and less efficient than the world we are in now. Most civilizations aim to make life easier, longer, and generally build and improve stuff, if a civilization exists to make life harder, to add endless toil, to offer endless and unlimited poverty, and limited wealth and efficiency, over time it just is not sustainable from an economic perspective. In order for an economy to be sustainable, it has to be efficient, and people have to be working for something.
What are we currently working so hard for?
In specific, younger people like us. You are right, if you are over 50 you wont pay, but anyone in their 20s will pay, and anyone who has kids should consider the impact of global warming on quality of life for their children.
Greed is a part of human nature, so is altruism, so is everything else humans do. It's in mans best interest to improve quality of life for man.
All the while, when we were killing ourselves, in specific our tribal versions, we basically killed off the people who knew how to take care of the earth, destroying thousands of years of knowledge that likely was passed down form word of mouth.
Go back further, during the inquisition and during other times of war, entire libraries with thousands of books were burned, knowledge which could have advanced us much sooner was vanished out of existance due to religious reasons. Now it's still happening, as we are as inefficient as we have ever been.
We have 6 billion people, maybe 2 billion are surviving, the other 4 billion live in complete poverty, and we arent using them for anything. We could be using these people to go into space and build on the moon, or mars, or any planet we want. We could build huge solar spaceships, and literally live in space cities floating around if we wanted to, we have the man power, the brain power, the will, the need, the only thing we lack is the heart. We hate ourselves to the point of inefficiency, just think about it, if all 6 billion people got together to do something, yes we could do it. We built pyramids, we went to the moon, it's all a matter of what we choose to focus on. We can focus on dominance of the planet and it's resources until theres nothing left to do,minate but ourselves, and then dominate ourselves out of existance, or we can move into space and take on aliens, or whatever the hell is in space. Since we don't even know whats up there, it would make sense to find out, I mean what else is there to do down here besides kill ourselves, fight over resources, starve,work, and watch the environment fall apart?
And no, we will not be able to take our wars into space like starwars if there are aliens in space, in fact if aliens don't like us they'd infect us with a virus and wipe us out and we'd have no defense for it. We can't even deal with stuff like HIV and the avian flu, if a virus came that spread through the air that killed instantly, it would likely kill everyone off before they could cure it, or worse if a virus just made us go insane and destroy ourselves the same result would happen.
Basically, humans will likely go extinct, it won't be any aliens that do it, if we cannot get along with each other we certainly can't get along with any aliens and would likely be killed off as soon as aliens discover us. Aliens would simply kill all humans and then fly their saucers down to the earth to live on whatevers left. Why would humans be useful to aliens? We don't make good slaves, we are violent, and the humans that arent violent and who do make good slaves get bullied out of existance by aggressive groups of people. Trust me, there are no aliens, and if there were, we'd never get to meet them, they'd wipe us out and take our resources just like we do to ourselves, because they'd play the game the same way we play it, just wipe us out and take the earth.
When might makes right, and as a species we decide to consciously live by that rule, if there are aliens, even if these aliens are not aggressive, they will see that humans are aggressive and there will be no dialog, no diplomacy, no deal, no communication, we would never discover they even exist, we'd simply be wiped out, likely in such a way that we can't stop it, and likely to simply steal the earth from the monsters(humans) that are destroying it.
So if you put yourself in the perspective of alien, what the hell would you do if you saw some monsters on earth destroying it, you'd simply kill all of them, and then land your ship, very much like if you saw anything else infested with pests, like roaches,. So the same response humans would give in the situation, assume aliens would give that exact response to us, assume we are pests. You know, maybe we had a choice to choose between being pet or pest, but if we can't take care of ourselves, or the planet, we won't be able to take care of aliens, or be useful in any way, not intellectually, not scientifically, aliens would have no reason at all to ever communicate with a species that has a gun to it's own head. Why should alienns care to talk us our of suicide if we want it so badly as to spend ALL of our thoughts trying to find new ways to do it?
You should write an essay and post it on your own blog.
Yes what you say is true, humans do have a great chance and responsibility to the earth and to each other, but humans hate life, and each other. How exactly do you reach humans who hate existance itself and who wish life could be shorter and more brutal?
If you think that way of thinking is insane, alright, how do you reach nihilists who think life is worthless, pointless, meaningless, and that we live simply to die? Finally, how do you harness/channel the energy of hate and convert it from a negative destructive force into a positive creative force? We are being destroyed by our own hatred. We are being destroyed by the fact that we are inefficient.
We have 6 billion people, but we don't have full employement, thats inefficiency. If we had full employement of all humans on planet earth we'd have cities on mars by now. If we did not invest so much time and money on wars, we'd have gone into mars hundreds of years ago and we'd be talking from different planets right now. So you see, our species is one of the most inefficient species that exists, we hunt ourselves down into extinction, a lot of the time for no reason at all, and other times for religious reasons or strategic turf reasons. Basically, we are doomed, programmed to destroy, it's in our genes.
But I would still argue that it is indeed society that has taught you not to kill. I could be wrong (it's not as if that doesn't happen all the time) but if you'd been born into one of the few remaining hunter-gatherer societies, knowing no other way of life, I'm pretty sure that putting meat on the table, as a daily survival thing, would take precedence. And in today's society, you're a killer by proxy if you eat meat. I don't mean to insult--no way am I a vegetarian or vegan. Bring me the barbeque, or the shellfish. So I'm a killer by proxy.
I'd prefer to hunt fish, I don't see how hunter gathering is efficient as it's the survival strategy of last resort, after your ocean runs dry and your crop runs short, then you have to hunt and gather. Generally, fishermen, they use a net and catch hundreds or thousands of fish at a time. This provides enough food to last for months if propery stored, dried, etc.
Then you have the other way, which is hunting mammals, and this is just not for everyone. I don't think society can teach or take away the killer instinct, I think everyone would hunt mammals if thats all there were to eat, but even if thats the case it's not the same as murder. A hunter who has to eat, hunts because it's the only way they know how to survive. A murderer on the other hand, does not need any rational reason to do it, they just feel like it, thats the difference.
Overall, I sympathize with your viewpoint, and would be the first to agree that a reluctance to kill is definitely a Good Thing. As a species, we are way too good at it. The ultimate irony would be that doing something that ensured the survival of a species at one point, in the form of developing a hunting ability, would be their ultimate downfall, in the form of developing nuclear or biological warfare (chemical warfare is vastly overrated as a viable military tool) technologies. But history is rife with examples of species that got too good at something, and set the stage for their own downfall.
Hunting is not the most efficient survival strategy, it certainly works, it's damn simple, it's just not efficient. Eventually you run out of things to hunt, it also takes a lot more time and energy than growing stuff or even fishing. So yes we have to kill to survive, but theres a difference again in what we choose to kill. If you kill fish, you can get your daily supply of protien and fats, along with nutritious calories, without having to kill a mammal. Fish are less conscious than mammals, at least most fish, and fish when you remove them from water die in a natural way, it's not the same as when you hunt a deer with a gun.
Also, I just have problems with the idea of eating mammals, It's not like fish where we don't know if they feel pain, we KNOW mammals feel pain, so it's just not the same. Society never really says killing is bad or wrong, society would let me fish or hunt. The question is, do I need to fish or hunt to survive?
For me it's a calculation of finding efficient sources of calories. Efficient means the least amount of energy spent by me, quick, so I can scoop up hundreds of them at a time, and as painfree as possible. The idea is that I should not have to enjoy the act, it's not like everyone can enjoy hunting, it's more that, I need the calories, and I need to stay healthy. It's that simple. When you are starving and theres no food, no matter what society taught you, you'll become a fisherman if you are a fisherman, you'll become a farmer if you are a farmer, you'll become a hunter if you are a hunter, whatever natural of eating you are designed for is what you'll revert to. Some people are designed to eat a lot of fish, some people eat only meat, some people are vegetarians, some people are vegans, some people will eat anything, in general I think a lot of people eat what they can't hunt because theres supermarkets, so more people are eating mammal now than ever, but this does not mean that it's natural for this many people to eat mammal all the time, in nature it might h
http://hare.org/links/saturday.html see
There is a difference between killing and murder. Anyone can kill and killing can be ethical in some situations, but murder is a totally different thing, as it's planned, and murdering your wife should be unthinkable for most people, and if thinkable, undoable.
Also It's not society that taught me it's wrong to kill. I never liked klling. It does not feel good to kill wild animals, society says it's okay, but its not like everyone can enjoy hunting for sport.
There is a difference between murder and killing. Anyone can kill, but not anyone can murder.
Yeah that's what I was trying to say, but how did he measure the general population? That seems like a difficult task, sure it's something I can believe, but 1%? We have 300 million people, thats like, less than 500,000, I think it's likely more than 1%, but less than 20%, but really, how can we really know?
In prison you can watch how people act and see that there are psychopaths there. Outside of prison, you have to rely on small samples, so we know it's rare, but it's not so rare that we don't all know someone who is one. 1% based on how it was collected is not as accurate as the 20% we know for sure because we collected it in prison.
What say you? How exactly would you measure the general population?
That's not the case, I'm saying humans don't act in their self interest, if we did, wouldnt the world reflect that?
Yeah I know, thats what I don't understand, why do people actually favor gun control, yet we invite unlimited illegal immigration?
I'm not making the case that illegal immigrants are criminals, plenty are good people, most are, but you always have good coming in with the bad and, it's not guns that are bad, it's when you have gun control only for good people who follow the law, and for criminals free or cheap guns. You know many people actually think somehow that it's good to have this setup and it's completely irrational.
I'm not saying, thoughts, everyone has weird thoughts. I'm saying most people don't go and get equipment and actually plan out all the details to seriously do it. Or maybe I'm wrong? How many people actually planned on killing their wife?
Still, it's not right.
Once again, I said the prison population, not the general population. It's impossible to measure the general population unless you can test every single person in the general population and even then it's not going to be the same as the prison environment where you can test and then see people in action.
But who knows, I could be wrong about this you know. If you have so much faith in humanity, and if you believe only 4-5% of the population are psychopaths, then the world should be filled with compassion and empathy, and unity should be just around the corner. I don't really have much faith in that. I'm sure it's over 4-5%, but it might be less than 20%, even if it's 15%, it's high enough that we all know people like this.
I read the 20% number in a book by Robert Hare, you should be able to find his site online somewhere. In general, the number is for the prison population. However if 20% of prisoners think like this, well you know that a lot of people outside of prison think like this, certainly more than 5% in my opinion, but maybe less than 20%. I'm sure you know some people who think just like the profile says, and no not everyone is psychopath who thinks like this, psychopath is specific for the lack of empathy. Sociopath however is also lack of empathy, but a sociopath is more likely to be a businessman blended into society and not a criminal. Then you have a range of disorders which can produce symptoms which cause psycho behavior but which are not technically because yeah, under enough pressure or stress anyone an act like a psychopath, this has been proven.
You put people in a situation that is just right, and they'll lose empathy, even if just for a short while, they'll still feel guilt, but empathy can be paused.
If empathy did not exist, and someone enjoys killing, and murder were legal, well yes you can imagine that some people would kill for fun.
If you want an example, take sport hunting, it's legal, and people do it for fun.
I never said Mr.Reiser for sure killed his wife, and I never said for fun, did you read what I wrote? Quote me.
I said that if there were no laws, and we legalized murder, people would kill for fun. The reason people don't is because people think they won't get away with it, and it has nothing to do with Mr.Reiser.
None of us knew who Scott Peterson or any of those other people were either.
What I'm saying is, empathy is important because it keeps humans from killing non-stop for fun. Empathy means, when you kill someone else you also kill a part of yourself.