Should I stop another culture from allowing the use of dangerous fireworks? Should I stop another culture from caning people? Should I stop another culture from restricting trade on the latest gee-whiz makes your life easier device? Should I stop another culture from oppressing freedom of speech and religion? Should I stop another culture from systematically sexually and physically abusing a minority group? Should I stop another culture from allowing slavery? Should I stop another culture from committing genocide?
Saying that we shouldn't impose our values on another culture is fine, but only to a certain point. Maybe we should allow them to censor information, but definitely we shouldn't make it easier for them to do so. There has to be a line somewhere, and our opposition to any culture should be proportional to how far along a "continuum of evil" they are. I think that today we shouldn't be helping China censor their population.
In my opintion bio-diesel is the future, and even if it was burned in a circa 1970 diesle engine (or even a ~1900 one) it doesn't matter much if it is dirty because it isn't new dirt like in oil.
Not a chance in hell. Farmers use chemicals because they get something out of it. Even if you could fertilize naturally there are still huge disease and insect problems. Like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soybean_rust
That's not what I've read. EtOH isn't produced from waste because of pitfully low yeilds, kernal is used because it has a high card (fermantable) content. The waste is waste because its mostly fiber, not good for eats or anything else.
The stalks aren't made in to feed, the seed is, again for the same reason - low carb content. And I really hope you mean the cob and not the stalk, because if you've ever driven by a corn field you can clearly see that they don't even bother to pull up the stalk.
The production of EtOH has been increasing, but the appropriate question to ask is would it be cheeper than gas if the EtOH subsidies were removed. It wouldn't have two years ago, but we may be getting close to the point where it is now.
However, if a farmer is going to sell a portion of his crop to EtOH production, that is all it would be used for.
As I understand it the parts of crops that are desirable for EtOH generaton aren't the stalks and chaf, but rather the kernals, for the same reason they're edible - high carb content.
I'm far from sold on the ethanol solution, but it isn't like we are using most of our agricultural land to feed people directly anyway. Most of the corn produced in the US goes to make pig feed.
Standard of living isn't just about education and food, it's also about better jobs, and healthcare, among many other things. Working on AIDS falls squarely into the better healthcare arena. Whether or not there is a new disease on the horizon we should still be trying to eliminate the current ones. Should we stop research on heart medicine because if we cure heart disease Americans will just die of cancer? Besides, heart disease is symptom of a social problem - poor diet, one that can be rectified through education.
If we could raise sub-saharan africa's standard of living overnight, and there were enough jobs, food, and (currently existing) medicine to go around, and if it we're all somehow fairly distributed AIDS would still be a tremendous problem - one that won't fix itself. Some countries have >30% of the population afflicted - undoubtedly there is a higher percentage of infected people in the 16-50 age range. If there is a one in three or better chance that any woman you meet is infected with AIDS how do you go about living a normal life? Monogamy is a great ideal, but if we can't achieve it in societies that genuinely believe that the consequence of unfaithfulness is eternal damnation, how are you going to combat human nature with education?
Furthermore, AIDS attacks rich and poor, educated and illiterate, guilty and innocent alike. How is it comforting to a rape victim, or a child bride, or a child born with AIDS to tell him that we don't need a cure, AIDS is a social problem?
You seem to not recognize that there are some pretty significant sociological issues preventing people from getting this kind of education, in addition to the problem that people are programmed to have sex.
For instance Catholic Bishops and priests teach their very God fearing populations that if they use contraceptives, including condoms they are committing a mortal sin. The attitude seems to be that people don't care if they're having sex outside of marriage, but they do care if they are using a condom...
It really isn't as simple as being careful about sex - because even if you do have sex in the confines of marriage there is no guarantee that your partner is faithful - centuries have of human history indicate that there will always be affairs, and an unfaithful partner in a country with ~30% infected population can very easily be a death sentence for both partners.
So even being careful about having sex isn't sufficient, sure total abstinence may work, unless you're a woman in sub-Saharan Africa who is betrothed to her 30 something husband at age 12...
One line of argument can be based on animal experiments.43 In some studies, chimpanzees deliberately infected with HIV-1 have gone on to develop AIDS-like conditions (though this appears to be rare),44 while HIV-2 has had the same effect on baboons.45 Macaque monkeys have developed AIDS after being infected with a hybrid virus called SHIV, which contains genes taken from HIV.46 And in mice engineered to have a human immune system, HIV produces the same patterns of disease as in humans.47
sources: #43 "Evidence from Animal and Laboratory Models", NIH, 1995 #44 "Progressive infection in a subset of HIV-1-positive chimpanzees", O'Neil et al, J Infect Dis 182(4), October 2000 #45 "Human immunodeficiency virus-2 infection in baboons is an animal model for human immunodeficiency virus pathogenesis in humans", Locher et al, Arch Pathol Lab Med 122(6), June 1998 #46 "Chimeric simian/human immunodeficiency virus that causes progressive loss of CD4+ T cells and AIDS in pig-tailed macaques", Joag et al, J Virol 70(5), May 1996 #47 "The SCID-hu mouse as a model for HIV-1 infection", Nature 363(6431), June 1993
(The MPAA)"The courts recognize that parties are entitled to make a copy of a work for use as evidence in possible future proceedings,"......Donaldson (the film makers lawyer) said he was unaware of any legal cases that supported the MPAA's position.
One expert on intellectual property and copyright law said that while he was unfamiliar with any cases specifically addressing the issue, the MPAA's argument might work.
"You can't make a copy as a general matter, but you can if you meet several tests," said Mark Lemley, a professor at Stanford Law School. It helps the MPAA, Lemley said, that it is not selling the copy of "This Film Is Not Yet Rated" for commercial gain.
Dick "is right to say you can't make a single copy unless you have a legitimate defense," Lemley said. "But it seems that in this case, [the MPAA] may have a legitimate defense."
(emphasis and parentheticals mine)
I still think that it's not as simple as you want it to be. If I understand correctly what Lemley (who apperently does not have a vested interest in this case) is saying, there are cases in which you can make copies, and a stalker's photos is probably one of them.
Eh, I dislike the *AA as much as the next slashdotter, but it is a bit murkier than that.
If I found myself in the defendant's chair I'd argue that it is more like having a stalker send you (copyrighted) photos of yourself and some friends - you went ahead and copied them to warn your friends.
I think both parities actions are ethically and legally dubious, but that's as far as I'd go without knowing more.
The way it reads to me the filmmaker was itching to stir something up to begin with, I mean why else would you specify that the MPAA not make any copies of the film - have any films actually been leaked by the ratings board?
I obviously don't know the background but when a guy makes an incidiary movie about the MPAA, makes specific requests of the MPAA, and pays attention to whether or not his instructions were followed it seems to be like he is trying to get a law suit.
I am torn between not liking the film maker for trying to find something to sue for and not liking the MPAA because they're cockroaches - I think I'll just settle on liking neither and hoping that the MPAA loses.
So what your saying is that the snotty conceited wannabe guy is still insanely more popular than you, despite your attempts to tell the whole school that you're actually smarter, and therefore better?
If you define Jungian archetypes as gods I suspect you also subscribe to Nietzsche's notion that god is a human construct, and that, "god is dead."
The God I believe in wouldn't care what I said about him either, however, I feel it is extremely arrogant to make any assumptions that limit the power of a being who's influence I cannot comprehend. Therefore, I would never think of god as human, at least as far as thinking about what he can do. Honestly I think it does that thinker a disservice to embrace thoughts such as, "God is just," I feel it is better to take a more mystical approach and think, "the quality of justness fails to describe God."
As for this: "he universe that we live in is substantially different from the one that we evolved for," I'm not sure what you're getting at. I can read it two different ways. Either you are saying that consciousness somehow alters the universe - some kind of twist on Platonic dualism where recognizing the spirit effects its form, or that something has changed physically since we began our physical evolution, or you are saying something else all together that I have failed to grasp... But either I disagree that the universe has in any fundemental way changed since any life came into being on this planet, and I'm curious as to the basis of this statement.
So now that the networks are seing a benifit to their core buisness my making content available online perhaps they should consider offereing it for online for free...
Yeah I know it will never happen, but I doubt that the revenue generated from iTunes outweighs the potental revenue bump associated with a ratings hike like this.
For me the more interesting question is whether it is possible to have a pre-determined nondeterministic universe. I think that is at the heart of the free-will omniscient god problem. (Which in my opinion is the stickiest philosophical question that Christians have to deal with.) It is my belief that yes, such a situation is possible, if you carefully define eternal. If eternal doesn't mean lasting forever and ever, but instead existing outside of time, you can chip away at the pre- part of pre-determined. Pre-determined can then be defined to be anything that is known by an eternal being. It is also my belief that by recognizing this you mitigate the causation problem (if He knows what I'm going to do I can't be free to do something else.)
Philisophically god is often personified, but rarely thought of as human.
SciFi - where your alternate reality frequently rears its unoriginal head - might occasionally touch on somewhat interesting philisophical questions.
The reasonably interesting question here is how do determine if a being is god or an imposter without testing him - a act sure to incure his wrath, god or not.
Ultimately there is no real good answer to this question, but since in this parallel world time travel is apperently plausable future knowledge and demonstrations of power are insufficient. So if I were in the position I would try to probe whether this being is eternal specifically if there was a time that he didn't exist.
You could, but to so would miss the point, the concept of rules does not apply to an omnipotent diety.
Philosophically god is also thought to be eternal and omniscient, so he doesn't have to wait around to see what will already happen, he's outside of time, so our concept of past and future apply to god about as well as the concept of rules do.
The problem with taking science as far as it can go is that there is no indication when that would have reached the end - additionally it seems kind of limiting that you could define god by subtraction. Again your left with a feebeled god of the gaps.
I fully subscribe to the idea that science can't find evidence of god, but I also think that religion makes a nice excuse to fight over things like land, money, or resources.
To tie it all together Muslims also believe not only is the universe deterministic, but rather it is determined...
Theologically this is very handy because you don't have to deal with the mess of free will like Catholics do, but then again you don't reap the benifits either.
It is my opinion that if there is an omnipotent god then we can never distinguish between his actions and "natural actions" - unless he wants us to. Any expectation that we'd be able to point at any one event and say "God dun it" is a failure to grasp the meaning of the word omnipotent.
It is also my belief that the Intelligent Design people have failed to grasp this very concept and have in the process created a feeble god of the gaps for themselves stemming from their incredulity - or to put it a less friendly way they can only believe in a god who has only the powers which they have assigned to him.
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Agreed, and in my mind slavery is well past the point that we should care about imposing on another culture.
Google may be acting hypocritically, but setting a double standard is, in my opinion, an equally repulsive moral act.
This is age old moral relativism...
Should I stop another culture from allowing the use of dangerous fireworks?
Should I stop another culture from caning people?
Should I stop another culture from restricting trade on the latest gee-whiz makes your life easier device?
Should I stop another culture from oppressing freedom of speech and religion?
Should I stop another culture from systematically sexually and physically abusing a minority group?
Should I stop another culture from allowing slavery?
Should I stop another culture from committing genocide?
Saying that we shouldn't impose our values on another culture is fine, but only to a certain point. Maybe we should allow them to censor information, but definitely we shouldn't make it easier for them to do so. There has to be a line somewhere, and our opposition to any culture should be proportional to how far along a "continuum of evil" they are. I think that today we shouldn't be helping China censor their population.
Ditto to Volkswagon.
Your experience wasn't with modern diesel motors.
In my opintion bio-diesel is the future, and even if it was burned in a circa 1970 diesle engine (or even a ~1900 one) it doesn't matter much if it is dirty because it isn't new dirt like in oil.
Not a chance in hell. Farmers use chemicals because they get something out of it. Even if you could fertilize naturally there are still huge disease and insect problems. Like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soybean_rust
That's not what I've read. EtOH isn't produced from waste because of pitfully low yeilds, kernal is used because it has a high card (fermantable) content. The waste is waste because its mostly fiber, not good for eats or anything else.
The stalks aren't made in to feed, the seed is, again for the same reason - low carb content. And I really hope you mean the cob and not the stalk, because if you've ever driven by a corn field you can clearly see that they don't even bother to pull up the stalk.
The production of EtOH has been increasing, but the appropriate question to ask is would it be cheeper than gas if the EtOH subsidies were removed. It wouldn't have two years ago, but we may be getting close to the point where it is now.
However, if a farmer is going to sell a portion of his crop to EtOH production, that is all it would be used for.
As I understand it the parts of crops that are desirable for EtOH generaton aren't the stalks and chaf, but rather the kernals, for the same reason they're edible - high carb content.
I'm far from sold on the ethanol solution, but it isn't like we are using most of our agricultural land to feed people directly anyway. Most of the corn produced in the US goes to make pig feed.
Standard of living isn't just about education and food, it's also about better jobs, and healthcare, among many other things. Working on AIDS falls squarely into the better healthcare arena. Whether or not there is a new disease on the horizon we should still be trying to eliminate the current ones. Should we stop research on heart medicine because if we cure heart disease Americans will just die of cancer? Besides, heart disease is symptom of a social problem - poor diet, one that can be rectified through education.
If we could raise sub-saharan africa's standard of living overnight, and there were enough jobs, food, and (currently existing) medicine to go around, and if it we're all somehow fairly distributed AIDS would still be a tremendous problem - one that won't fix itself. Some countries have >30% of the population afflicted - undoubtedly there is a higher percentage of infected people in the 16-50 age range. If there is a one in three or better chance that any woman you meet is infected with AIDS how do you go about living a normal life? Monogamy is a great ideal, but if we can't achieve it in societies that genuinely believe that the consequence of unfaithfulness is eternal damnation, how are you going to combat human nature with education?
Furthermore, AIDS attacks rich and poor, educated and illiterate, guilty and innocent alike. How is it comforting to a rape victim, or a child bride, or a child born with AIDS to tell him that we don't need a cure, AIDS is a social problem?
You seem to not recognize that there are some pretty significant sociological issues preventing people from getting this kind of education, in addition to the problem that people are programmed to have sex.
For instance Catholic Bishops and priests teach their very God fearing populations that if they use contraceptives, including condoms they are committing a mortal sin. The attitude seems to be that people don't care if they're having sex outside of marriage, but they do care if they are using a condom...
It really isn't as simple as being careful about sex - because even if you do have sex in the confines of marriage there is no guarantee that your partner is faithful - centuries have of human history indicate that there will always be affairs, and an unfaithful partner in a country with ~30% infected population can very easily be a death sentence for both partners.
So even being careful about having sex isn't sufficient, sure total abstinence may work, unless you're a woman in sub-Saharan Africa who is betrothed to her 30 something husband at age 12...
sources:
#43 "Evidence from Animal and Laboratory Models", NIH, 1995
#44 "Progressive infection in a subset of HIV-1-positive chimpanzees", O'Neil et al, J Infect Dis 182(4), October 2000
#45 "Human immunodeficiency virus-2 infection in baboons is an animal model for human immunodeficiency virus pathogenesis in humans", Locher et al, Arch Pathol Lab Med 122(6), June 1998
#46 "Chimeric simian/human immunodeficiency virus that causes progressive loss of CD4+ T cells and AIDS in pig-tailed macaques", Joag et al, J Virol 70(5), May 1996
#47 "The SCID-hu mouse as a model for HIV-1 infection", Nature 363(6431), June 1993
(emphasis and parentheticals mine)
I still think that it's not as simple as you want it to be. If I understand correctly what Lemley (who apperently does not have a vested interest in this case) is saying, there are cases in which you can make copies, and a stalker's photos is probably one of them.
Eh, I dislike the *AA as much as the next slashdotter, but it is a bit murkier than that.
If I found myself in the defendant's chair I'd argue that it is more like having a stalker send you (copyrighted) photos of yourself and some friends - you went ahead and copied them to warn your friends.
I think both parities actions are ethically and legally dubious, but that's as far as I'd go without knowing more.
The way it reads to me the filmmaker was itching to stir something up to begin with, I mean why else would you specify that the MPAA not make any copies of the film - have any films actually been leaked by the ratings board?
I obviously don't know the background but when a guy makes an incidiary movie about the MPAA, makes specific requests of the MPAA, and pays attention to whether or not his instructions were followed it seems to be like he is trying to get a law suit.
I am torn between not liking the film maker for trying to find something to sue for and not liking the MPAA because they're cockroaches - I think I'll just settle on liking neither and hoping that the MPAA loses.
So what your saying is that the snotty conceited wannabe guy is still insanely more popular than you, despite your attempts to tell the whole school that you're actually smarter, and therefore better?
I think the no-friends thing might be a denial of the reality
Additionally I believe that your entire post is a freudian slip belying some serious unresolved social issues
(Disclaimer: This post created in Firefox.)
If you define Jungian archetypes as gods I suspect you also subscribe to Nietzsche's notion that god is a human construct, and that, "god is dead."
The God I believe in wouldn't care what I said about him either, however, I feel it is extremely arrogant to make any assumptions that limit the power of a being who's influence I cannot comprehend. Therefore, I would never think of god as human, at least as far as thinking about what he can do. Honestly I think it does that thinker a disservice to embrace thoughts such as, "God is just," I feel it is better to take a more mystical approach and think, "the quality of justness fails to describe God."
As for this: "he universe that we live in is substantially different from the one that we evolved for," I'm not sure what you're getting at. I can read it two different ways. Either you are saying that consciousness somehow alters the universe - some kind of twist on Platonic dualism where recognizing the spirit effects its form, or that something has changed physically since we began our physical evolution, or you are saying something else all together that I have failed to grasp... But either I disagree that the universe has in any fundemental way changed since any life came into being on this planet, and I'm curious as to the basis of this statement.
They could, but reproduction is a requirement for evolution, and I don't see that happening.
So now that the networks are seing a benifit to their core buisness my making content available online perhaps they should consider offereing it for online for free...
Yeah I know it will never happen, but I doubt that the revenue generated from iTunes outweighs the potental revenue bump associated with a ratings hike like this.
Well then its a good thing for this, "Holy Scripture is therefore not the only theological source of the Revelation made by God to His Church. Side by side with Scripture there is tradition, side by side with the written revelation there is the oral revelation. This granted, it is impossible to be satisfied with the Bible alone for the solution of all dogmatic questions."
For me the more interesting question is whether it is possible to have a pre-determined nondeterministic universe. I think that is at the heart of the free-will omniscient god problem. (Which in my opinion is the stickiest philosophical question that Christians have to deal with.) It is my belief that yes, such a situation is possible, if you carefully define eternal. If eternal doesn't mean lasting forever and ever, but instead existing outside of time, you can chip away at the pre- part of pre-determined. Pre-determined can then be defined to be anything that is known by an eternal being. It is also my belief that by recognizing this you mitigate the causation problem (if He knows what I'm going to do I can't be free to do something else.)
Philisophically god is often personified, but rarely thought of as human.
SciFi - where your alternate reality frequently rears its unoriginal head - might occasionally touch on somewhat interesting philisophical questions.
The reasonably interesting question here is how do determine if a being is god or an imposter without testing him - a act sure to incure his wrath, god or not.
Ultimately there is no real good answer to this question, but since in this parallel world time travel is apperently plausable future knowledge and demonstrations of power are insufficient. So if I were in the position I would try to probe whether this being is eternal specifically if there was a time that he didn't exist.
You could, but to so would miss the point, the concept of rules does not apply to an omnipotent diety.
Philosophically god is also thought to be eternal and omniscient, so he doesn't have to wait around to see what will already happen, he's outside of time, so our concept of past and future apply to god about as well as the concept of rules do.
The problem with taking science as far as it can go is that there is no indication when that would have reached the end - additionally it seems kind of limiting that you could define god by subtraction. Again your left with a feebeled god of the gaps.
I fully subscribe to the idea that science can't find evidence of god, but I also think that religion makes a nice excuse to fight over things like land, money, or resources.
To tie it all together Muslims also believe not only is the universe deterministic, but rather it is determined...
Theologically this is very handy because you don't have to deal with the mess of free will like Catholics do, but then again you don't reap the benifits either.
It is my opinion that if there is an omnipotent god then we can never distinguish between his actions and "natural actions" - unless he wants us to. Any expectation that we'd be able to point at any one event and say "God dun it" is a failure to grasp the meaning of the word omnipotent.
It is also my belief that the Intelligent Design people have failed to grasp this very concept and have in the process created a feeble god of the gaps for themselves stemming from their incredulity - or to put it a less friendly way they can only believe in a god who has only the powers which they have assigned to him.