I didn't realize that geologists, biologists, and anthropologists (Oh my!) had to get past the whole quantum strangeness thing.
We are not talking about practical science any more than we are talking about practical religion (religious organizations do many mundane things that have nothing to do with dogma or even belief).
What we're talking about is the philosophy of science and how it relates to the philosophy of religion (aka Theology). I would not suggest that a geologist concern himself with the nature of space-time, but when that geologist makes an observation and attempts to formulate a theory about the world, they engaged in the practical application of a very abstract and quite simple concept - back up assumptions with evidence. And that is not always as straight forward as it would seem.
I need no faith. If I run a test and it always shows the same result, then I have empirical proof that the test works. If I can show that it fails in some way repeatably, then I have shown that the test is incorrect and I have learned something new.
I am not talking about faith in a particular result. I'm talking about faith in the scientific method itself. Faith in the ability of a human being to observe the world around them and to combine those observations in a logical construct to understand what's actually going on. For example, when Heisenberg came upon the serious (and as yet unresolved) problem of an observation changing the observed, he created a serious crisis of faith for methodical science. How could we depend on the scientific method to help us understand the world, when the method itself makes that understanding inherently limited?
You must, therefore, have faith that, even though we now know that methodical observation at best obscures and at worst alters reality, you can still rely on the result of whatever tests you are performing.
Einstein couldn't accept the results of their observations and theory as it clashed with [his] personal beliefs/faith.
Untrue. None of his skepticism had to do with his personal religious beliefs. He simply questioned what he believed to be a false propositions. He did not believe that the moon disappeared when you weren't looking at it, and that "action at a distance" was really what was going on. He believed that there was a deeper explanation we simply hadn't discovered yet. Never did he say, "god wouldn't let things be that way", or "that's not in the bible". In fact, he famously looked for clues as to whether god made the universe the way he did (yes, he believed the universe was made by god - deal with it) because he wanted to or because he had to. Sounds like someone willing to challenge dogma to me.
Push and pull are just words in English grammar. It doesn't mean there is a difference between "space pushing against things" and "mass pulling on them".
There is actually an enormous difference. Current theory suggests that the sun is not actually effecting the earth directly at all - which is what everyone since Newton had believed. Instead the thinking now suggests that the mass of the sun warps space-time and creates a curved 3-D surface. Since the earth moves along that 3-D surface, it is basically rolling down a hill toward the sun.
While you are correct in saying that from the perspective of someone on the earth, there appears to be no difference, when you're trying to understand nature of space-time itself, there is a huge difference.
So in your country they let people steal music and movies? Perhaps it's ok because it's american (and probably some british and french) IP that you're stealing and they're so rich they wont even miss it. Well you're wrong.
As in every society, a few artists achieve great fame and are granted equally great rewards. But most are simply making a living. And when the fruit of their collective labors is suddenly devalued simply because they can no longer stop people from stealing it (i.e., taking it from them when they did not agree to give it to you), they suffer greatly.
Seems to have worked pretty well for Lost, Heroes, Bones, and other television shows.
Because those are TV shows that rely on a different business model. They do not ask you for money up front. They ask you to watch commercials that retailers have paid them to show. They seek market share over everything else because the more people are interested in a show, the more they can charge for advertising.
Movies and music are paid for just like bread. You walk up and hand over cash. If you walk out of the store without paying, you're a thief. Same thing here...
Agreed. Had I paid to see it, I would have asked for my money back.
So if you like a movie, does that mean you pay afterwards? You are a thief. You take the product of someone's labors against their will and offer nothing in return. That has nothing to do with whether what you steal meets your personal standards.
Science didn't give us nukes or bioweapons, people did
Exactly. And theological concepts did not "give" us wars or oppression. People did. My point was simply that religion is a science with different rules about testability. One can have faith in the observation that gravity pulls things together and the observation that it's best not to judge other people unless you're willing to be judged. The problems arise when people say that you must believe this or that. That is not the wisdom, that's people's use of it.
No one discovered science or the scientific method, they merely reported their findings and methodologies which others built upon by repeating the tests.
Reported? Findings? Methodologies? They used the scientific method to develop the scientific method? Absurd on the face of it. Perhaps what you mean to say is that individuals discovered that they were more successful at what they were doing (mainly just surviving), if they kept track of and shared their successes and failures. People did indeed do science naturally and refined the technique into what we now call the scientific method. But such an understanding also applies to the notion of theology. People talked about the problems of existence in the same way they talked about the problems of finding food - by discussing experiences and trying to make use of what they learn. They debated, they re-assessed, they re-combined. All hallmarks of scientific thought. (And, BTW, claiming that dogma forces people into believing begs the point that in the same way science didn't make nukes, religion did not make oppression.)
This is my point about the obvious similarity (perhaps exact was the wrong word) between what we now think of as a scientist and a so-called "prophet". Forget the instant revelation stereotype. If you look at what little we know of them, (and i'm talking about the big ones who actually had a significant impact on things), they are all very thoughtful, articulate, respectful of history, aware of the tension they create and ready to defend their beliefs with self-evident logic. That sounds a lot like a scientific thinker. While the "evidence" is not something outside of ourselves that we can all turn and look at as confirmation that something is true, the reality of our individual experience makes or breaks a prophetic claim in the same way the reality of an individual test in a lab that makes or breaks a scientific claim. Do you really think anyone would even know Siddhartha's name if what he said didn't work out better for people than what they were doing before?
why must I have "faith"? Why can I not merely posit..
To "posit" is to create a hypothesis. To do so is to use the scientific method. Therefore it is prima facia absurd to put your belief in its validity aside while testing its effectiveness against some standard of proof.
Faith is, by definition, "[t]he confident belief or trust in the truth or trustworthiness of a person, concept or thing." You must have some degree of faith in the simple idea of testability, or you must abandon it and get your information about the world in some other way.
And as for your claims about bacteria, It is true that they have faith in anything. They simply react. But they have no faith in anything because they do not have a choice. It is the fact that we do have a choice that makes us human. We decide what we believe in (when we're paying attention). You decide to put your faith in the tool under consideration every time you put it to use.
By believing what they measure and observe and correlate it with theory?
Are you kidding? Measurements are not fact. Measurements are what we use to get our heads around a physical phenomena. Measuring gravity tells us nothing about what it actually is. We don't even know whether space "pushes" against things or mass pulls on them. There are theories that point in both directions, but ultimately you must have faith that science has something - anything - to say about the true nature of the phenomena. And sometimes measurements are completely useless on their own. The very phenomenon that lead to the discovery of quantum mechanics (the double slit experiment), was completely counter-intuitive and offered the "revelation" that measurements were inherently imperfect and limited. It was as close to an existential dilemma as science has ever had, and lead to real debates about whether the moon was really there when you weren't looking at it and whether the universe was really anything like what it looks like.
Do you know for a fact that we will ever know what causes the effect we call gravity? No. You only have faith in your belief that science is not only real, but has something to say about what things are really all about. That is exactly the same thing as believing that a particular theological point of view has and/or will have something to say about the human condition.
Science itself tells us that there are things it cannot tell us - e.g., Russell's paradox. It is simply another imperfect tool we use to make life more tolerable. Just like religious belief. (Not the institution, the system itself).
Scientific evidence is produced by probing the thing/system science wants to describe.
The irony here is that you are forgetting that human beings produced theological ideas based on exactly the same kind of thoughtful contemplation that you ascribe to scientific theory (Jesus in the desert, Buddha meditating for years, Muhammad in the cave, and that's just the "famous" ones) - which is exactly the same oversight that leads biblical literalists to believe that it was written by the divine hand of god. There are of course differences - primarily the lack of immediately testable evidence. But for every successful belief system (there are perhaps a few dozen still around), there have been countless failures. Why did they fail? Because they didn't deliver in one important way: they didn't make enough people's lives better. What more proof does a belief system need? Most do not attempt to explain why a rock and a feather fall at the same rate in a vacuum (the catholic church tried to hold on to some old beliefs to avoid challenges to its power, but Jesus had nothing to say about fluid dynamics). They simply try to alleviate the suffering of existence. No more proof is needed for the average believer.
Even so, in spite of how easily dismissed theological texts are these days, people put an enormous amount to thought into them. Just about every modern moral system is the result of thousands of years of theological evolution that has resulted in an incredibly sophisticated understanding of the human condition. Have you ever actually read a serious work of theological scholarship? Start with Joseph Campbell. He does a great job of explaining theological thinking in modern psychological terms. It will change the way you think about religious texts without requiring you to submit to any particular institutional view of them.
of course it is. how do you think scientists got past the mind blowing inconsistencies quantum mechanics requires us to grasp. There is still no real understanding of why things are that way, just a slightly better set of mathematical tools to describe it. It was a crisis of scientific faith. The average physicist would have had to make a monumental leap of faith to go from impenetrable paradox to reasonable understanding. It would have been very easy to thrown up one's hands and say that science has reached its limits, or worse, that science has been lying to us about what the world is really like. And many did. But those with the most faith in science's nature as an explanatory tool simply walked through the darkness in search of the light they knew was there.
If that's not faith in action, i don't know what is...
And furthermore, since even those who discovered it really didn't know what it meant, it was, from a psychological point of view, exactly like a prophet or priest communicating a revelation. those who heard the word had the choice of taking on faith, choosing not to believe (at ones own societal peril), or holding out for something one can get one's mind around more easily. Many declared it mathematical conjuring, others claimed they understood but didn't, and still more were more reasonably skeptical and asked for a more detailed explanation. But most simply accepted it as a newly discovered mystery to be solved, and set out with the faith and drive of a missionary on a quest to conquer the darkness with lasers and particle accelerators.
Science is basically an extension of religion. Both are the result of a quest for truth, but science is more demanding of the discoverers. the Buddha is a "household name" because what he gave people an extremely useful set of tools by which to make life more tolerable. Jesus is revered not because he conquered anything, but because he offered common sense rules for peaceful co-existence. They were among the greatest thinkers ever to walk the planet. You may say that their followers have distorted and abused the wisdom they shared for nefarious means, and you'd be right. But has science faired any better? Nukes? Bioweapons? Eavesdropping? Mind controlling drugs? Etc, etc.
Remember, people in biblical times accused "pagans" superstitious and backward. If they would only give up their old ways and adopt the new wisdom, everyone would be better off...
Your rather gruesome analogy aside, you have a point. The transfer of its industrial base overseas has resulted in a great deal of turmoil in the US economy.
However, the reduction in manufacturing jobs is by no means a negative for the US. The rest of the world - and by that I mean the 4+ billion people living in developing economies - need something to drive their growth, and they do not have the educational resources to transition to a service/IP economy anytime soon. And before you scream about how much better schools are in China or wherever, remember that those schools were built in the industrial boom kicked off by the very phenomena you are referring to. And that's just primary and secondary education. Colleges serve only a tiny fraction of the general population in both China and India.
A better educated, employed, upwardly mobile population is far more likely to share US/Western values (free-speech, human rights, individualism, etc.), than an uneducated mass of subsistence farmers being told time and again that their poverty is the result of a monopoly on production by the West.
Moreover, those same people are making things for Western companies who bring profits back to the West. Consider Dell or Apple, who generate enormous amounts of corporate income taxes for the US govt, which gets all the cash with none of the labor headaches that go with it. Plus, Dell and Apple are now also selling to very Chinese and Indian workers who make the stuff.
I agree that the loss of a real manufacturing base in the US is a problem for the "losers" in an information-based economy, but similar pressures forced 19th century farmers into the city where they were "modernized" and educated. Now the line-workers who can't find a job will have to migrate and evolve as well.
We dont need more factory jobs, we need more education. We need vocational training. We need people to be flexible skill seekers, not robots pulling levers and attaching wires all day. Imagine a nation of knowledge workers with varying degrees of expertise resulting in varying degrees of value and all the productive natural competition that such an environment creates. (With, of course, the appropriate "safety net" to make sure no one falls too far).
Making steel is no different than making software, processing information or managing systems. Both create value for a society and both result in wealth creation. Don't get confused by the ephemeral nature of information. It is, pound-for-pound, the most valuable thing human beings produce.
Trouble is, religions have this nasty habit of attempting to make claims that are, in fact, empirically verifiable (or, typically, falsifiable), and then throwing a fit when science calls them on it.
Unless the SCOTUS gave religions the same pseudo-person status to religions as they did to corporations, you are pointing the finger at the wrong entity. Religions don't throw fits. People do. More specifically, people with something to lose (power,money) when their authority is undermined by something they don't understand (or by something they believe their followers won't understand). The religion itself - and i use the term "self" loosely - has nothing to say because it's simply a group of ideas.
And moreover, I am not aware (correct me if I'm wrong) of any claims by the major "prophets" (Abraham, Moses, Siddhartha, Jesus, Mohammad, etc) regarding the natural world. They made plenty of claims about the human condition and how to live a better life, but I don't think Jesus was interested in why a rock and a feather fall at the same rate in a vacuum. Community leaders who were required to work within the framework of the local religion (of which they were most likely devout but pragmatic followers), could not appeal to formal scientific studies regarding the dangers of trichinosis, so they simply announced that god didn't want them to eat pork. It is hard for a modern person to understand how intricately religious beliefs were woven into the fabric of everyday society - which is why we are so shocked to see it in action in the mountains of Afghanistan and the suburbs of Utah. Religious rituals were and to some degree still are the primary vector by which wisdom and even common sense spread throughout a society. Thus when leaders were feeling their way around in the dark (ages), and trying to keep an almost completely uneducated public from abandoning the only social order in town, it's only natural to react violently when someone comes along and yells out that the emperor has no clothes. (Again, look at the Afghan situation and consider the challenge of explaining liberal democracy to someone who's never left their village.)
Religions are not about the world we see with our eyes. They are about the world behind our eyes. The overreach that leads to abuse is most often the result of people in power attempting to use it for other purposes - nefarious or otherwise.
[A] person could very well say "the only life you have so make yourself benefit by whatever means possible," meaning there is no real right and wrong so do whatever it takes to make your own life better.
But what if they were wrong? What if there are "rules" or "natural laws" based on physical properties of the universe that we are currently unaware of? And what if these properties determine the state of what is known in just about every belief system (godhead oriented or otherwise) as the "soul". And what if, just like exercise and good diet, you can strengthen that "soul" by doing some things and avoiding others?
Even modern psychology has something to say about the care of one's "state of mind". Consider how much time and effort - professional or otherwise - is put into developing "peace of mind".
Perhaps you should begin to see religions in the same way you see schools of scientific thought today. They are systems for managing the soul. Be nice to others and they will tend to be nice to you. Admit to yourself when you've done something "wrong", and you won't feel as bad about it. Love makes you feel good. Hate makes you feel bad. These are axioms most people take for granted. They are (among many others) the nuggets of wisdom important enough to codify and encourage among all members of a society. They make individuals healthier and happier, and make that society function more smoothly and effectively.
Ultimately I think your complaint is with the "can't argue with god" nature of many religious systems. When an elite group of teachers/prophets claim that they have seen the underlying order of the universe (whether through direct communication with god, meditation, experimentation, etc.), it tends to encourage an appeal-to-authority style system that tends to impose it's will upon the "ignorant" masses. This tendency has nothing to do with the underlying wisdom. It is a consequence of the way in which that wisdom is accumulated.
If you look at modern science, we have now accumulated enough wisdom about the way in which the world works - and more specifically the mind, that we have started to enforce that wisdom upon any who dare to go against it. Would a secular society tolerate your "benefit by whatever means possible" philosophy? No. In fact, there are powerful forces aligned against such thinking, and you see it every day. It is now embodied in our understanding of game theory, behavioral psychology and simple common sense. If one person is selfish, it will encourage others to be selfish too. That is not as simple a lesson as one might think. In fact, its one that every society must struggle to reinforce. There are, of course, individuals in every society who thrive outside these constrains, (Bernie Madoff, Goldman Sachs - pick your selfish villain). But for the most part, such behavior has successfully been discouraged. This is not because people are just naturally kind and generous, (some people are, but not everyone). Its because belief systems have offered a quid pro quo that has worked out quite well: follow this system and your lives will be better. If it didn't work, why has every society in every corner of the world since civilization began adopted one form of belief system or another? Has everyone everywhere simply been shooting themselves in the foot since the dawn of time??
It is the people who have decided that everyone must be a part of that system that cause the problem. I agree that such behavior has caused no end of suffering. But the system itself is not (necessarily) at fault. It is the fault of those who attempt impose it on others in the name of power. I would remind you that all societies have rules, and when a particular system becomes pervasive enough in a society, it tends to take on a life of its own. Jesus never wanted the church to burn people at the stake for speaking their minds. Muhammad never wanted women to walk into a crowded market and kill children with a bomb. These ar
While i agree that the industry needs to figure out how to make distribution more uniform and more easily accessible, you're arguments for stealing content are at best counter-productive and at worst criminal.
I run Linux
Yes, yes. We've heard this one before. I agree that its a pain in the ass to watch movies of any kind, much less blueray, on a linux box (did it for years). however, it's hard because they realize that if they make it easy for a developer friendly platform to get at codecs and such, they will quickly lose control over their content - a very, VERY valuable thing. The real problem is that with the possible exception of Ubuntu, there is not enough demand for consumer desktops running linux. As a result, Ubuntu wisely chooses to spend their licensing dollars on more important things right now. If/when linux becomes a viable consumer desktop environment with a sufficient number of content purchasing users, there will be an blueray player.
A series is not out on DVD yet in my country
You're kidding right? If a new gadget is available across town but not at you're local store, does that mean you can go to the other store and steal it? The idea that you're justifying theft in the name of inconvenience is why there is no blueray for linux.
DRM. You want me to not enjoy my games if I buy them, while you could easily for less money make me not have to activate it and you won't have to run expensive servers for it? Well then... I'll just download it! Too fscking bad...
Again, you're saying that you don't like having to activate a game online (something I personally have never had even seen any problems with - technical or otherwise), so you have the right to steal the work of hundreds of devs and designers?!? And say too fucking bad??? Had you considered that such thinking led to DRM in the first place?
Sometimes I just want to watch a video on demand and only once... And I do not want to get my ass all the way to the mall the next day so I can enjoy the video as early as the next day.
Wow. You're probably too fat to fit through the door of the video store anyway. Maybe you should consider taking a walk instead of cuddling up for that pirated Dr. Who marathon.
Sometimes games/vids are too expensive. Seriously... I buy PSP games all the time because they are 20 euro's or less. No problem. Steam showed that halving the game's price results is more than twice the sales. Which in the end means more profit. But instead it must be so goddamn expensive.
So when something is too expensive, you steal it? Is that something you do with clothes or food? Would you steal a car because you think it's overpriced?
As for the price of content, Steam lowered the price on a few older games (some were more than 4 years old) for a few days. Have you ever heard of a clearance sale? They did not lower the price on new releases because new releases are very expensive these days (Red Dead Redemption cost RSG almost $100 million to produce). They went for volume pricing to gain market share for franchises with soon-to-be-released sequels. It had nothing to do with the "real" price of a game.
To summarize, you are exactly the kind of selfish, tech savvy thief that gives the content industry all the ammunition they need to keep the status quo. What do you think they tell congress when they ask for protections? They tell them people are lazy and cheap and want to steal things whenever they can. They're talking about YOU
the USA has suddenly decided that the guiding principle of its society should be maintenance of the status quo, rather than progress
And upon what evidence are you basing this assertion? It would be much more accurate to say that US progress has accelerated over the past couple of decade and that the rest of the world is struggling to keep up.
The Chinese and Indians are making great progress, but from a starting point that looks more like the early twentieth century in the US - i.e., robber-baron generals/politicians/elites in complete control of the means of production, and poorly paid, powerless manual laborers are working endless hours for little pay in the hope of pulling themselves out of agro-poverty. (There is a growing middle class as there was in the 1920's in the US, but they are still a tiny minority).
The Europeans are more "advanced" in a socio-economic sense because they were forced to adopt a more comprehensive welfare-state model after WWII (devastated economy+demand for pre-war standard of living=modern welfare state), but most of their economies are still struggling to modernize. Even Germany's modern export economy is being challenged India and China's cheaper labor costs (see US during the 1980's).
Japan had a good run during the 70's and 80's, but they were also starting from the industrial dark ages after WWII, and have since struggled to modernize (their economy, not their technology) in the face of powerful old-school gov-biz cartels who have controlled their economy since the 19th century, as well as extremely powerful labor unions that negotiated for those once vaunted "lifetime" jobs.
Meanwhile in the US, the reality of a service/internet based economic system set in a long time ago, and people are starting to figure out ways to make money without actually making anything (i.e., value-added services). It's labor market is going through the process of reestablishing a balance between security and employment (see UAW pre/post auto meltdown). It's telling it's young people (whether they're listening or not) to train their minds rather than their hands. And most importantly, there is a vast new generation (both native and immigrant) who know only the internet/service economy and are organizing their lives accordingly. Most if not all of the technical innovations the rest of the world sees as the hallmarks of a modern lifestyle (PCs, smart phones, computer/social networking, online services/shopping), were all invented and reached maturity in the US over the past couple of decades.
Essentially the main fallacy in your argument is that the rest of the world is moving forward from the same starting point as the US, when in fact most of the rest of the world is still trying to catch up. I understand when people say that the US is not changing fast enough or that it is doing things wrong, but to claim that it is only interested in the status quo is downright ludicrous.
intelligently designed 'serious games' could allow complex situations to be presented in a simple way
Here go the "intelligent design" folks trying to dumb down the complexities of life again. We'll probably see a game where you have to "cause" genetic mutations with lighting bolts.
you know, when St. Obama gave vague feel-good speeches and didn't have to make any decisions.
so you've got nothing to say regarding his real point. just an ad-hominum attack with no evidence or any facts at all, posted and distributed on an RSS-enabled website dedicated to exactly the kind of sound-bite news blurbs we are all beginning to realize is a major problem both for our culture in general and our political discourse in particular.
British scientists have found a mechanism within our gene sequence that allows the growing of a new head — with brains, etc.
They did not discover anything "our gene sequence". They only found the gene in flatworms and claim that it is a first step in understanding the mechanism in those worms, which is a first step in understanding it in humans.
Either the poster or the editor should at least try to focus long enough to RTFA!
Both scenarios are covered under whistleblower exemptions in both the treaty and common law. Wikileaks does it regularly,and journalists are exempt from copyright restrictions anyway when pure reporting is the context.
homosexuality differs from the norm and is, biologically speaking, of no use to furthering the human species.
First of all, you're wrong about what "normal" is. If you mean - of all human beings, when a minority has a particular trait, it is not normal - then you are incorrectly conflating "normal" and "majority", and you've got some serious explaining to do. Is a blue-eyed person not "normal" because most people are brown eyed? What about a left-handed person? Blonde hair? Attached earlobes? Pale skin? (Caucasians are a distinct minority in the world). It is not the simple fact of being a minority that defines normal or abnormal. If a minority is persistent across time, it becomes part of the "norm".
Conversely, a two-headed cow is not "normal" because it happens very rarely and, more significantly, very irregularly. Homosexual animals (including people) occur in regular proportions (probably much more commonly then we previously thought) and persist at those levels across time. That makes them as "normal" as blondes or southpaws.
And going beyond what is normal or abnormal, there is also the matter of whether it is possible (or even normal) for a less-frequently appearing trait to achieve some kind of useful equilibrium with a more common inter-related trait in such a way as to have an overall positive effect. Consider the fact that a given individual's sexual preference is just a piece of a larger sociological puzzle that allows complex cultures to emerge. A more "feminine" male would not necessarily be interested in sexual relations with another male, but a latent attraction might allow more masculine males to assume leadership positions without need for violence or intimidation. Or similarly, maybe when there are too many masculine men in a society, there is too much competition and no one is able to establish stability and order. Therefore, the continuum of gender association is actually a fluid and quite useful trait.
Similarly, a woman with masculine traits can be quite normal and quite useful to a society. And just because they are attracted to other females instinctively, that does not necessarily diminish the powerful need to reproduce (remember, artificial insemination is a VERY new thing - lesbian women still had to get pregnant the old fashioned way...). So a woman ends up with the (occasionally) useful traits of masculinity with none of the side effects of lower overall reproductive rates.
And finally, your claim about homosexual behavior being selfish is rather odd considering that perhaps 99.9% of sexual intercourse takes place for selfish reasons. There is nothing about sex in fact that isn't selfish. It's about meeting needs and desires that have been around for hundreds of millions of years. Animals don't know they are reproducing. They only know that they have an overwhelming desire to do whatever it takes to have sex.
Even on a purely moral level, based on your logic, what would stop a homosexual from turning around and saying that your last non-baby-producing romp was selfish and useless and therefore should be considered "abnormal"? Moreover, a homosexual is almost completely free of any reproductive limitations by virtue of modern science. Artificial insemination is now quite common and very successful. Why shouldn't everyone be able to love and build a family with whomever they want if there is no practical reason for a penis to always meet up with a vagina?
And finally, even if you claim that the government shouldn't be endorsing same-sex marriages because they can't do what marriage was designed to do without help, does that mean a sterile person should face the same ban? What about a couple that has no intention of having children at all? Is it really about children then?
I'll ignore the "everybody does equally bad things" nonsense for now, and address your rather odd take on monotheism.
Monotheism is inherently antithetical to human life, as human life needs freedom and monotheism says there's only one way
First of all, you're saying that you know for a fact that the world works in such and such a way, and complain that a different belief system has got it all wrong. Isn't that a circular argument? And, isn't that the basis for all inter-theological fights? "No, no, you've got it all wrong. It's like this..."
And second, you're claim that "monotheism says there's only one way" is absolute nonsense. What way is that exactly? The way of a particular sect? The way of a particular time and place? There are as many "ways" as there are people. It's all about interpretation. Sometimes a particular interpretation gains enough followers that it takes on the force of the mob, but most people go about their business and deal with one another based on common sense.
Monotheism is about seeing the world as a single entity without the capricious nature of "godheads" or "mother earth". Every scrap of scientific knowledge we have points to a single monolithic universe (putting aside it's scale and theoretical "parallel-ness"). People simply recognized the power of such a concept before having even a notion of "proof" as we currently understand it. It gave people a way to simplify the world so they could get their increasingly sophisticated intellectual heads around it. Its a brilliant leap of understanding that has absolutely nothing to do with a given individual's claims about what that single entity wants exactly. Moses claimed God wanted "his people" set free. Jesus claimed God wanted everyone to go to heaven (among other things). Mohammad claimed God wanted people to submit to His will (the word Islam means roughly "submission"). Siddhartha (founder of Buddhism), claimed that there was no god, but that the universe was an indifferent but all-powerful singular thing. All of them (as well as many others) believed in a single power controlling everything everywhere, but what that single power actually "wants" various radically between them.
Monotheism is NOT a religion. It is a category of belief systems that includes our most modern understanding of the universe. We just don't call it god anymore. If you don't believe me, consider the remarkable similarity between the average creation story "god did XYZ and the world was born", to the creation story a physicist will tell you, "the singularity did XYZ and the universe was born". (There are many other 1=1 correlations if you bother to look).
I understand and share your feelings about institutionalized cults, but do not confuse the concept with it's application.
And my SCO analogy demonstrates it *CAN* be. This would make it easier to use an injunction as a defensive corporate tool against other companies, by claiming they are infringing on your copyright. Linus might get an injunction against Linksys (or Tivo) because they didn't publish their source code (thus, a copyright infringement), SCO against all Linux distributors, etc.
Not all "copyrighted works" are movies and songs.
What exactly does any of that have to do with prior restraint?
Getting a judge to issue an injunction against someone else reproducing your work illegally is not prior restraint. Prior restraint would be getting a judge to block an innovation by another company (that did not infringe on any patents/copyrights) simply because it would hurt your bottom line. What grounds would the judge have for such a move?
That said, I see your point about frivolous suits, but is it really that common? Even if you (disingenuously) claimed that an innovation is actually an infringement, and got a sympathetic judge to go along with it, you'd still have to spend many thousands if not millions to prove it in court. SCO was a high profile case because of the tech involved (*nix), and they had financial backing from MS. And because they were fighting over *nix, billions were at stake. This is not the norm. Most cases are about plain old piracy.
The treaty is simply trying to address the problem of a company profiting from the sale of bootleg movies/music/books/software/etc, getting shut down after making millions (paying little if any penalty), and then starting up with a different name somewhere else. By allowing for injunctions BEFORE they start selling, there would be much less incentive to even try.
No. Prior restraint is related to original publication. I.e., "Censorship that requires a person to seek governmental permission in the form of a license or imprimatur before publishing anything constitutes prior restraint every time permission is denied."
The key word here is censorship. The govt cannot stop the original work from being published, but it can stop someone else from stealing revenue from the author. If the person who published the original work had to get permission to do so, that's prior restraint. But in this case, the work has already been published, and the treaty is attempting (with arguable side-effects), to discourage the re-publication of copy-protected works. The public is therefore not denied access to the work by the government (assuming the author is interested in sharing it). Only the alleged infringer would be affected.
If you are planning to release a Rolling Stones album, you would be stopped from doing so, and with no recourse to prior restraint because you do not own the copyright. The public can still get Rolling Stones albums, just not from you...
This does not imply approval of the treaty. I am simply pointing out that this is not an issue of prior restraint...
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I didn't realize that geologists, biologists, and anthropologists (Oh my!) had to get past the whole quantum strangeness thing.
We are not talking about practical science any more than we are talking about practical religion (religious organizations do many mundane things that have nothing to do with dogma or even belief).
What we're talking about is the philosophy of science and how it relates to the philosophy of religion (aka Theology). I would not suggest that a geologist concern himself with the nature of space-time, but when that geologist makes an observation and attempts to formulate a theory about the world, they engaged in the practical application of a very abstract and quite simple concept - back up assumptions with evidence. And that is not always as straight forward as it would seem.
I need no faith. If I run a test and it always shows the same result, then I have empirical proof that the test works. If I can show that it fails in some way repeatably, then I have shown that the test is incorrect and I have learned something new.
I am not talking about faith in a particular result. I'm talking about faith in the scientific method itself. Faith in the ability of a human being to observe the world around them and to combine those observations in a logical construct to understand what's actually going on. For example, when Heisenberg came upon the serious (and as yet unresolved) problem of an observation changing the observed, he created a serious crisis of faith for methodical science. How could we depend on the scientific method to help us understand the world, when the method itself makes that understanding inherently limited?
You must, therefore, have faith that, even though we now know that methodical observation at best obscures and at worst alters reality, you can still rely on the result of whatever tests you are performing.
Einstein couldn't accept the results of their observations and theory as it clashed with [his] personal beliefs/faith.
Untrue. None of his skepticism had to do with his personal religious beliefs. He simply questioned what he believed to be a false propositions. He did not believe that the moon disappeared when you weren't looking at it, and that "action at a distance" was really what was going on. He believed that there was a deeper explanation we simply hadn't discovered yet. Never did he say, "god wouldn't let things be that way", or "that's not in the bible". In fact, he famously looked for clues as to whether god made the universe the way he did (yes, he believed the universe was made by god - deal with it) because he wanted to or because he had to. Sounds like someone willing to challenge dogma to me.
Push and pull are just words in English grammar. It doesn't mean there is a difference between "space pushing against things" and "mass pulling on them".
There is actually an enormous difference. Current theory suggests that the sun is not actually effecting the earth directly at all - which is what everyone since Newton had believed. Instead the thinking now suggests that the mass of the sun warps space-time and creates a curved 3-D surface. Since the earth moves along that 3-D surface, it is basically rolling down a hill toward the sun.
While you are correct in saying that from the perspective of someone on the earth, there appears to be no difference, when you're trying to understand nature of space-time itself, there is a huge difference.
So in your country they let people steal music and movies? Perhaps it's ok because it's american (and probably some british and french) IP that you're stealing and they're so rich they wont even miss it. Well you're wrong.
As in every society, a few artists achieve great fame and are granted equally great rewards. But most are simply making a living. And when the fruit of their collective labors is suddenly devalued simply because they can no longer stop people from stealing it (i.e., taking it from them when they did not agree to give it to you), they suffer greatly.
It's gonna get copied. Deal with it.
You're a thief. Deal with it.
Seems to have worked pretty well for Lost, Heroes, Bones, and other television shows.
Because those are TV shows that rely on a different business model. They do not ask you for money up front. They ask you to watch commercials that retailers have paid them to show. They seek market share over everything else because the more people are interested in a show, the more they can charge for advertising.
Movies and music are paid for just like bread. You walk up and hand over cash. If you walk out of the store without paying, you're a thief. Same thing here...
Agreed. Had I paid to see it, I would have asked for my money back.
So if you like a movie, does that mean you pay afterwards? You are a thief. You take the product of someone's labors against their will and offer nothing in return. That has nothing to do with whether what you steal meets your personal standards.
Science didn't give us nukes or bioweapons, people did
Exactly. And theological concepts did not "give" us wars or oppression. People did. My point was simply that religion is a science with different rules about testability. One can have faith in the observation that gravity pulls things together and the observation that it's best not to judge other people unless you're willing to be judged. The problems arise when people say that you must believe this or that. That is not the wisdom, that's people's use of it.
No one discovered science or the scientific method, they merely reported their findings and methodologies which others built upon by repeating the tests.
Reported? Findings? Methodologies? They used the scientific method to develop the scientific method? Absurd on the face of it. Perhaps what you mean to say is that individuals discovered that they were more successful at what they were doing (mainly just surviving), if they kept track of and shared their successes and failures. People did indeed do science naturally and refined the technique into what we now call the scientific method. But such an understanding also applies to the notion of theology. People talked about the problems of existence in the same way they talked about the problems of finding food - by discussing experiences and trying to make use of what they learn. They debated, they re-assessed, they re-combined. All hallmarks of scientific thought. (And, BTW, claiming that dogma forces people into believing begs the point that in the same way science didn't make nukes, religion did not make oppression.)
This is my point about the obvious similarity (perhaps exact was the wrong word) between what we now think of as a scientist and a so-called "prophet". Forget the instant revelation stereotype. If you look at what little we know of them, (and i'm talking about the big ones who actually had a significant impact on things), they are all very thoughtful, articulate, respectful of history, aware of the tension they create and ready to defend their beliefs with self-evident logic. That sounds a lot like a scientific thinker. While the "evidence" is not something outside of ourselves that we can all turn and look at as confirmation that something is true, the reality of our individual experience makes or breaks a prophetic claim in the same way the reality of an individual test in a lab that makes or breaks a scientific claim. Do you really think anyone would even know Siddhartha's name if what he said didn't work out better for people than what they were doing before?
why must I have "faith"? Why can I not merely posit..
To "posit" is to create a hypothesis. To do so is to use the scientific method. Therefore it is prima facia absurd to put your belief in its validity aside while testing its effectiveness against some standard of proof.
Faith is, by definition, "[t]he confident belief or trust in the truth or trustworthiness of a person, concept or thing." You must have some degree of faith in the simple idea of testability, or you must abandon it and get your information about the world in some other way.
And as for your claims about bacteria, It is true that they have faith in anything. They simply react. But they have no faith in anything because they do not have a choice. It is the fact that we do have a choice that makes us human. We decide what we believe in (when we're paying attention). You decide to put your faith in the tool under consideration every time you put it to use.
By believing what they measure and observe and correlate it with theory?
Are you kidding? Measurements are not fact. Measurements are what we use to get our heads around a physical phenomena. Measuring gravity tells us nothing about what it actually is. We don't even know whether space "pushes" against things or mass pulls on them. There are theories that point in both directions, but ultimately you must have faith that science has something - anything - to say about the true nature of the phenomena. And sometimes measurements are completely useless on their own. The very phenomenon that lead to the discovery of quantum mechanics (the double slit experiment), was completely counter-intuitive and offered the "revelation" that measurements were inherently imperfect and limited. It was as close to an existential dilemma as science has ever had, and lead to real debates about whether the moon was really there when you weren't looking at it and whether the universe was really anything like what it looks like.
Do you know for a fact that we will ever know what causes the effect we call gravity? No. You only have faith in your belief that science is not only real, but has something to say about what things are really all about. That is exactly the same thing as believing that a particular theological point of view has and/or will have something to say about the human condition.
Science itself tells us that there are things it cannot tell us - e.g., Russell's paradox. It is simply another imperfect tool we use to make life more tolerable. Just like religious belief. (Not the institution, the system itself).
Scientific evidence is produced by probing the thing/system science wants to describe.
The irony here is that you are forgetting that human beings produced theological ideas based on exactly the same kind of thoughtful contemplation that you ascribe to scientific theory (Jesus in the desert, Buddha meditating for years, Muhammad in the cave, and that's just the "famous" ones) - which is exactly the same oversight that leads biblical literalists to believe that it was written by the divine hand of god. There are of course differences - primarily the lack of immediately testable evidence. But for every successful belief system (there are perhaps a few dozen still around), there have been countless failures. Why did they fail? Because they didn't deliver in one important way: they didn't make enough people's lives better. What more proof does a belief system need? Most do not attempt to explain why a rock and a feather fall at the same rate in a vacuum (the catholic church tried to hold on to some old beliefs to avoid challenges to its power, but Jesus had nothing to say about fluid dynamics). They simply try to alleviate the suffering of existence. No more proof is needed for the average believer.
Even so, in spite of how easily dismissed theological texts are these days, people put an enormous amount to thought into them. Just about every modern moral system is the result of thousands of years of theological evolution that has resulted in an incredibly sophisticated understanding of the human condition. Have you ever actually read a serious work of theological scholarship? Start with Joseph Campbell. He does a great job of explaining theological thinking in modern psychological terms. It will change the way you think about religious texts without requiring you to submit to any particular institutional view of them.
Except science isn't an ideology.
of course it is. how do you think scientists got past the mind blowing inconsistencies quantum mechanics requires us to grasp. There is still no real understanding of why things are that way, just a slightly better set of mathematical tools to describe it. It was a crisis of scientific faith. The average physicist would have had to make a monumental leap of faith to go from impenetrable paradox to reasonable understanding. It would have been very easy to thrown up one's hands and say that science has reached its limits, or worse, that science has been lying to us about what the world is really like. And many did. But those with the most faith in science's nature as an explanatory tool simply walked through the darkness in search of the light they knew was there.
If that's not faith in action, i don't know what is...
And furthermore, since even those who discovered it really didn't know what it meant, it was, from a psychological point of view, exactly like a prophet or priest communicating a revelation. those who heard the word had the choice of taking on faith, choosing not to believe (at ones own societal peril), or holding out for something one can get one's mind around more easily. Many declared it mathematical conjuring, others claimed they understood but didn't, and still more were more reasonably skeptical and asked for a more detailed explanation. But most simply accepted it as a newly discovered mystery to be solved, and set out with the faith and drive of a missionary on a quest to conquer the darkness with lasers and particle accelerators.
Science is basically an extension of religion. Both are the result of a quest for truth, but science is more demanding of the discoverers. the Buddha is a "household name" because what he gave people an extremely useful set of tools by which to make life more tolerable. Jesus is revered not because he conquered anything, but because he offered common sense rules for peaceful co-existence. They were among the greatest thinkers ever to walk the planet. You may say that their followers have distorted and abused the wisdom they shared for nefarious means, and you'd be right. But has science faired any better? Nukes? Bioweapons? Eavesdropping? Mind controlling drugs? Etc, etc.
Remember, people in biblical times accused "pagans" superstitious and backward. If they would only give up their old ways and adopt the new wisdom, everyone would be better off...
Your rather gruesome analogy aside, you have a point. The transfer of its industrial base overseas has resulted in a great deal of turmoil in the US economy.
However, the reduction in manufacturing jobs is by no means a negative for the US. The rest of the world - and by that I mean the 4+ billion people living in developing economies - need something to drive their growth, and they do not have the educational resources to transition to a service/IP economy anytime soon. And before you scream about how much better schools are in China or wherever, remember that those schools were built in the industrial boom kicked off by the very phenomena you are referring to. And that's just primary and secondary education. Colleges serve only a tiny fraction of the general population in both China and India.
A better educated, employed, upwardly mobile population is far more likely to share US/Western values (free-speech, human rights, individualism, etc.), than an uneducated mass of subsistence farmers being told time and again that their poverty is the result of a monopoly on production by the West.
Moreover, those same people are making things for Western companies who bring profits back to the West. Consider Dell or Apple, who generate enormous amounts of corporate income taxes for the US govt, which gets all the cash with none of the labor headaches that go with it. Plus, Dell and Apple are now also selling to very Chinese and Indian workers who make the stuff.
I agree that the loss of a real manufacturing base in the US is a problem for the "losers" in an information-based economy, but similar pressures forced 19th century farmers into the city where they were "modernized" and educated. Now the line-workers who can't find a job will have to migrate and evolve as well.
We dont need more factory jobs, we need more education. We need vocational training. We need people to be flexible skill seekers, not robots pulling levers and attaching wires all day. Imagine a nation of knowledge workers with varying degrees of expertise resulting in varying degrees of value and all the productive natural competition that such an environment creates. (With, of course, the appropriate "safety net" to make sure no one falls too far).
Making steel is no different than making software, processing information or managing systems. Both create value for a society and both result in wealth creation. Don't get confused by the ephemeral nature of information. It is, pound-for-pound, the most valuable thing human beings produce.
Trouble is, religions have this nasty habit of attempting to make claims that are, in fact, empirically verifiable (or, typically, falsifiable), and then throwing a fit when science calls them on it.
Unless the SCOTUS gave religions the same pseudo-person status to religions as they did to corporations, you are pointing the finger at the wrong entity. Religions don't throw fits. People do. More specifically, people with something to lose (power,money) when their authority is undermined by something they don't understand (or by something they believe their followers won't understand). The religion itself - and i use the term "self" loosely - has nothing to say because it's simply a group of ideas.
And moreover, I am not aware (correct me if I'm wrong) of any claims by the major "prophets" (Abraham, Moses, Siddhartha, Jesus, Mohammad, etc) regarding the natural world. They made plenty of claims about the human condition and how to live a better life, but I don't think Jesus was interested in why a rock and a feather fall at the same rate in a vacuum. Community leaders who were required to work within the framework of the local religion (of which they were most likely devout but pragmatic followers), could not appeal to formal scientific studies regarding the dangers of trichinosis, so they simply announced that god didn't want them to eat pork. It is hard for a modern person to understand how intricately religious beliefs were woven into the fabric of everyday society - which is why we are so shocked to see it in action in the mountains of Afghanistan and the suburbs of Utah. Religious rituals were and to some degree still are the primary vector by which wisdom and even common sense spread throughout a society. Thus when leaders were feeling their way around in the dark (ages), and trying to keep an almost completely uneducated public from abandoning the only social order in town, it's only natural to react violently when someone comes along and yells out that the emperor has no clothes. (Again, look at the Afghan situation and consider the challenge of explaining liberal democracy to someone who's never left their village.)
Religions are not about the world we see with our eyes. They are about the world behind our eyes. The overreach that leads to abuse is most often the result of people in power attempting to use it for other purposes - nefarious or otherwise.
[A] person could very well say "the only life you have so make yourself benefit by whatever means possible," meaning there is no real right and wrong so do whatever it takes to make your own life better.
But what if they were wrong? What if there are "rules" or "natural laws" based on physical properties of the universe that we are currently unaware of? And what if these properties determine the state of what is known in just about every belief system (godhead oriented or otherwise) as the "soul". And what if, just like exercise and good diet, you can strengthen that "soul" by doing some things and avoiding others?
Even modern psychology has something to say about the care of one's "state of mind". Consider how much time and effort - professional or otherwise - is put into developing "peace of mind".
Perhaps you should begin to see religions in the same way you see schools of scientific thought today. They are systems for managing the soul. Be nice to others and they will tend to be nice to you. Admit to yourself when you've done something "wrong", and you won't feel as bad about it. Love makes you feel good. Hate makes you feel bad. These are axioms most people take for granted. They are (among many others) the nuggets of wisdom important enough to codify and encourage among all members of a society. They make individuals healthier and happier, and make that society function more smoothly and effectively.
Ultimately I think your complaint is with the "can't argue with god" nature of many religious systems. When an elite group of teachers/prophets claim that they have seen the underlying order of the universe (whether through direct communication with god, meditation, experimentation, etc.), it tends to encourage an appeal-to-authority style system that tends to impose it's will upon the "ignorant" masses. This tendency has nothing to do with the underlying wisdom. It is a consequence of the way in which that wisdom is accumulated.
If you look at modern science, we have now accumulated enough wisdom about the way in which the world works - and more specifically the mind, that we have started to enforce that wisdom upon any who dare to go against it. Would a secular society tolerate your "benefit by whatever means possible" philosophy? No. In fact, there are powerful forces aligned against such thinking, and you see it every day. It is now embodied in our understanding of game theory, behavioral psychology and simple common sense. If one person is selfish, it will encourage others to be selfish too. That is not as simple a lesson as one might think. In fact, its one that every society must struggle to reinforce. There are, of course, individuals in every society who thrive outside these constrains, (Bernie Madoff, Goldman Sachs - pick your selfish villain). But for the most part, such behavior has successfully been discouraged. This is not because people are just naturally kind and generous, (some people are, but not everyone). Its because belief systems have offered a quid pro quo that has worked out quite well: follow this system and your lives will be better. If it didn't work, why has every society in every corner of the world since civilization began adopted one form of belief system or another? Has everyone everywhere simply been shooting themselves in the foot since the dawn of time?? It is the people who have decided that everyone must be a part of that system that cause the problem. I agree that such behavior has caused no end of suffering. But the system itself is not (necessarily) at fault. It is the fault of those who attempt impose it on others in the name of power. I would remind you that all societies have rules, and when a particular system becomes pervasive enough in a society, it tends to take on a life of its own. Jesus never wanted the church to burn people at the stake for speaking their minds. Muhammad never wanted women to walk into a crowded market and kill children with a bomb. These ar
in the soviet union, historical data predicts you...
I run Linux
Yes, yes. We've heard this one before. I agree that its a pain in the ass to watch movies of any kind, much less blueray, on a linux box (did it for years). however, it's hard because they realize that if they make it easy for a developer friendly platform to get at codecs and such, they will quickly lose control over their content - a very, VERY valuable thing. The real problem is that with the possible exception of Ubuntu, there is not enough demand for consumer desktops running linux. As a result, Ubuntu wisely chooses to spend their licensing dollars on more important things right now. If/when linux becomes a viable consumer desktop environment with a sufficient number of content purchasing users, there will be an blueray player.
A series is not out on DVD yet in my country
You're kidding right? If a new gadget is available across town but not at you're local store, does that mean you can go to the other store and steal it? The idea that you're justifying theft in the name of inconvenience is why there is no blueray for linux.
DRM. You want me to not enjoy my games if I buy them, while you could easily for less money make me not have to activate it and you won't have to run expensive servers for it? Well then... I'll just download it! Too fscking bad...
Again, you're saying that you don't like having to activate a game online (something I personally have never had even seen any problems with - technical or otherwise), so you have the right to steal the work of hundreds of devs and designers?!? And say too fucking bad??? Had you considered that such thinking led to DRM in the first place?
Sometimes I just want to watch a video on demand and only once... And I do not want to get my ass all the way to the mall the next day so I can enjoy the video as early as the next day.
Wow. You're probably too fat to fit through the door of the video store anyway. Maybe you should consider taking a walk instead of cuddling up for that pirated Dr. Who marathon.
Sometimes games/vids are too expensive. Seriously... I buy PSP games all the time because they are 20 euro's or less. No problem. Steam showed that halving the game's price results is more than twice the sales. Which in the end means more profit. But instead it must be so goddamn expensive.
So when something is too expensive, you steal it? Is that something you do with clothes or food? Would you steal a car because you think it's overpriced?
As for the price of content, Steam lowered the price on a few older games (some were more than 4 years old) for a few days. Have you ever heard of a clearance sale? They did not lower the price on new releases because new releases are very expensive these days (Red Dead Redemption cost RSG almost $100 million to produce). They went for volume pricing to gain market share for franchises with soon-to-be-released sequels. It had nothing to do with the "real" price of a game.
To summarize, you are exactly the kind of selfish, tech savvy thief that gives the content industry all the ammunition they need to keep the status quo. What do you think they tell congress when they ask for protections? They tell them people are lazy and cheap and want to steal things whenever they can. They're talking about YOU
the USA has suddenly decided that the guiding principle of its society should be maintenance of the status quo, rather than progress
And upon what evidence are you basing this assertion? It would be much more accurate to say that US progress has accelerated over the past couple of decade and that the rest of the world is struggling to keep up.
The Chinese and Indians are making great progress, but from a starting point that looks more like the early twentieth century in the US - i.e., robber-baron generals/politicians/elites in complete control of the means of production, and poorly paid, powerless manual laborers are working endless hours for little pay in the hope of pulling themselves out of agro-poverty. (There is a growing middle class as there was in the 1920's in the US, but they are still a tiny minority).
The Europeans are more "advanced" in a socio-economic sense because they were forced to adopt a more comprehensive welfare-state model after WWII (devastated economy+demand for pre-war standard of living=modern welfare state), but most of their economies are still struggling to modernize. Even Germany's modern export economy is being challenged India and China's cheaper labor costs (see US during the 1980's).
Japan had a good run during the 70's and 80's, but they were also starting from the industrial dark ages after WWII, and have since struggled to modernize (their economy, not their technology) in the face of powerful old-school gov-biz cartels who have controlled their economy since the 19th century, as well as extremely powerful labor unions that negotiated for those once vaunted "lifetime" jobs.
Meanwhile in the US, the reality of a service/internet based economic system set in a long time ago, and people are starting to figure out ways to make money without actually making anything (i.e., value-added services). It's labor market is going through the process of reestablishing a balance between security and employment (see UAW pre/post auto meltdown). It's telling it's young people (whether they're listening or not) to train their minds rather than their hands. And most importantly, there is a vast new generation (both native and immigrant) who know only the internet/service economy and are organizing their lives accordingly. Most if not all of the technical innovations the rest of the world sees as the hallmarks of a modern lifestyle (PCs, smart phones, computer/social networking, online services/shopping), were all invented and reached maturity in the US over the past couple of decades.
Essentially the main fallacy in your argument is that the rest of the world is moving forward from the same starting point as the US, when in fact most of the rest of the world is still trying to catch up. I understand when people say that the US is not changing fast enough or that it is doing things wrong, but to claim that it is only interested in the status quo is downright ludicrous.
intelligently designed 'serious games' could allow complex situations to be presented in a simple way
Here go the "intelligent design" folks trying to dumb down the complexities of life again. We'll probably see a game where you have to "cause" genetic mutations with lighting bolts.
you know, when St. Obama gave vague feel-good speeches and didn't have to make any decisions.
so you've got nothing to say regarding his real point. just an ad-hominum attack with no evidence or any facts at all, posted and distributed on an RSS-enabled website dedicated to exactly the kind of sound-bite news blurbs we are all beginning to realize is a major problem both for our culture in general and our political discourse in particular.
Sounds like he is spot on to me.
British scientists have found a mechanism within our gene sequence that allows the growing of a new head — with brains, etc.
They did not discover anything "our gene sequence". They only found the gene in flatworms and claim that it is a first step in understanding the mechanism in those worms, which is a first step in understanding it in humans.
Either the poster or the editor should at least try to focus long enough to RTFA!
this treaty is about piracy, plain and simple.
homosexuality differs from the norm and is, biologically speaking, of no use to furthering the human species.
First of all, you're wrong about what "normal" is. If you mean - of all human beings, when a minority has a particular trait, it is not normal - then you are incorrectly conflating "normal" and "majority", and you've got some serious explaining to do. Is a blue-eyed person not "normal" because most people are brown eyed? What about a left-handed person? Blonde hair? Attached earlobes? Pale skin? (Caucasians are a distinct minority in the world). It is not the simple fact of being a minority that defines normal or abnormal. If a minority is persistent across time, it becomes part of the "norm".
Conversely, a two-headed cow is not "normal" because it happens very rarely and, more significantly, very irregularly. Homosexual animals (including people) occur in regular proportions (probably much more commonly then we previously thought) and persist at those levels across time. That makes them as "normal" as blondes or southpaws.
And going beyond what is normal or abnormal, there is also the matter of whether it is possible (or even normal) for a less-frequently appearing trait to achieve some kind of useful equilibrium with a more common inter-related trait in such a way as to have an overall positive effect. Consider the fact that a given individual's sexual preference is just a piece of a larger sociological puzzle that allows complex cultures to emerge. A more "feminine" male would not necessarily be interested in sexual relations with another male, but a latent attraction might allow more masculine males to assume leadership positions without need for violence or intimidation. Or similarly, maybe when there are too many masculine men in a society, there is too much competition and no one is able to establish stability and order. Therefore, the continuum of gender association is actually a fluid and quite useful trait.
Similarly, a woman with masculine traits can be quite normal and quite useful to a society. And just because they are attracted to other females instinctively, that does not necessarily diminish the powerful need to reproduce (remember, artificial insemination is a VERY new thing - lesbian women still had to get pregnant the old fashioned way...). So a woman ends up with the (occasionally) useful traits of masculinity with none of the side effects of lower overall reproductive rates.
And finally, your claim about homosexual behavior being selfish is rather odd considering that perhaps 99.9% of sexual intercourse takes place for selfish reasons. There is nothing about sex in fact that isn't selfish. It's about meeting needs and desires that have been around for hundreds of millions of years. Animals don't know they are reproducing. They only know that they have an overwhelming desire to do whatever it takes to have sex.
Even on a purely moral level, based on your logic, what would stop a homosexual from turning around and saying that your last non-baby-producing romp was selfish and useless and therefore should be considered "abnormal"? Moreover, a homosexual is almost completely free of any reproductive limitations by virtue of modern science. Artificial insemination is now quite common and very successful. Why shouldn't everyone be able to love and build a family with whomever they want if there is no practical reason for a penis to always meet up with a vagina?
And finally, even if you claim that the government shouldn't be endorsing same-sex marriages because they can't do what marriage was designed to do without help, does that mean a sterile person should face the same ban? What about a couple that has no intention of having children at all? Is it really about children then?
I'll ignore the "everybody does equally bad things" nonsense for now, and address your rather odd take on monotheism.
Monotheism is inherently antithetical to human life, as human life needs freedom and monotheism says there's only one way
First of all, you're saying that you know for a fact that the world works in such and such a way, and complain that a different belief system has got it all wrong. Isn't that a circular argument? And, isn't that the basis for all inter-theological fights? "No, no, you've got it all wrong. It's like this..."
And second, you're claim that "monotheism says there's only one way" is absolute nonsense. What way is that exactly? The way of a particular sect? The way of a particular time and place? There are as many "ways" as there are people. It's all about interpretation. Sometimes a particular interpretation gains enough followers that it takes on the force of the mob, but most people go about their business and deal with one another based on common sense.
Monotheism is about seeing the world as a single entity without the capricious nature of "godheads" or "mother earth". Every scrap of scientific knowledge we have points to a single monolithic universe (putting aside it's scale and theoretical "parallel-ness"). People simply recognized the power of such a concept before having even a notion of "proof" as we currently understand it. It gave people a way to simplify the world so they could get their increasingly sophisticated intellectual heads around it. Its a brilliant leap of understanding that has absolutely nothing to do with a given individual's claims about what that single entity wants exactly. Moses claimed God wanted "his people" set free. Jesus claimed God wanted everyone to go to heaven (among other things). Mohammad claimed God wanted people to submit to His will (the word Islam means roughly "submission"). Siddhartha (founder of Buddhism), claimed that there was no god, but that the universe was an indifferent but all-powerful singular thing. All of them (as well as many others) believed in a single power controlling everything everywhere, but what that single power actually "wants" various radically between them.
Monotheism is NOT a religion. It is a category of belief systems that includes our most modern understanding of the universe. We just don't call it god anymore. If you don't believe me, consider the remarkable similarity between the average creation story "god did XYZ and the world was born", to the creation story a physicist will tell you, "the singularity did XYZ and the universe was born". (There are many other 1=1 correlations if you bother to look).
I understand and share your feelings about institutionalized cults, but do not confuse the concept with it's application.
And my SCO analogy demonstrates it *CAN* be. This would make it easier to use an injunction as a defensive corporate tool against other companies, by claiming they are infringing on your copyright. Linus might get an injunction against Linksys (or Tivo) because they didn't publish their source code (thus, a copyright infringement), SCO against all Linux distributors, etc.
Not all "copyrighted works" are movies and songs.
What exactly does any of that have to do with prior restraint?
Getting a judge to issue an injunction against someone else reproducing your work illegally is not prior restraint. Prior restraint would be getting a judge to block an innovation by another company (that did not infringe on any patents/copyrights) simply because it would hurt your bottom line. What grounds would the judge have for such a move?
That said, I see your point about frivolous suits, but is it really that common? Even if you (disingenuously) claimed that an innovation is actually an infringement, and got a sympathetic judge to go along with it, you'd still have to spend many thousands if not millions to prove it in court. SCO was a high profile case because of the tech involved (*nix), and they had financial backing from MS. And because they were fighting over *nix, billions were at stake. This is not the norm. Most cases are about plain old piracy.
The treaty is simply trying to address the problem of a company profiting from the sale of bootleg movies/music/books/software/etc, getting shut down after making millions (paying little if any penalty), and then starting up with a different name somewhere else. By allowing for injunctions BEFORE they start selling, there would be much less incentive to even try.
Isn't that called "prior restraint"?
No. Prior restraint is related to original publication. I.e., "Censorship that requires a person to seek governmental permission in the form of a license or imprimatur before publishing anything constitutes prior restraint every time permission is denied."
The key word here is censorship. The govt cannot stop the original work from being published, but it can stop someone else from stealing revenue from the author. If the person who published the original work had to get permission to do so, that's prior restraint. But in this case, the work has already been published, and the treaty is attempting (with arguable side-effects), to discourage the re-publication of copy-protected works. The public is therefore not denied access to the work by the government (assuming the author is interested in sharing it). Only the alleged infringer would be affected.
If you are planning to release a Rolling Stones album, you would be stopped from doing so, and with no recourse to prior restraint because you do not own the copyright. The public can still get Rolling Stones albums, just not from you...
This does not imply approval of the treaty. I am simply pointing out that this is not an issue of prior restraint...