First of all, I'd like to say that I like debating you. You have understood all of my points and responded with good arguments of your own, and so far none of us have had to resort to weird personal attacks (or Hitler referrences... ooops)
But I think for the msot part we're going to just have to agree to disagree. I'm actually a lot more open to your viewpoint than you might imagine. I'm not dead-set against stem cell research, it just goes against what I believe as I understand things now.
I do believe that all life has value, but not that all life has the same value. I value human lives above others forms of life, although I'm a fairly strong animal-rights person too. I think how we treat other life, both animal and human, determines a lot about our own internal natures.
Once we get to human life, however, I think it is both dangerous and wrong to start generalizing about what kinds of human life are more valuable than others. I think even engaging in that kind of judgment is immoral (I'm saying nothing about specific cases). I think a binary decision is called for even if it is not entirely reflected in reality because it's a safety-measure to prevent the persecution of minorities.
So, as a pragmatic approach to reaching a moral ideal, I figure it makes the most sense to set up a "minimum standard" for humanity, and then treat everyone that reaches that minimum standard as having an essentially equal value (circumstances can effect the value later on).
Then the question is - where do you set up that minimum standard? My research into abortion - which is more my area of expertise, filled me with a passionate belief that our current standards are hideously high.
Essentially I start with an adult human and work backwards. Through puberty into childhood, then into infancy. A lot of physical changes take place, and certainly an adult is more a person than an infant (who may not even have a concept of self). But I think fundamentally an infant is a human just as much as you or I.
Once we get back to newborn and cross the birth threshold, I don't think anythign changes. Passing by the tedius details, I can comfortably go back to AT LEAST 8-9 weeks (when most abortions start). At that point I passionately believe we are still dealing with a human life. The most persuasive argument for this is pictures (not of abortions, of healthy, developing babies).
The first clear demarcation I find is at/around conception. And I admit that things get hazy there. I need to learn more. But if you're looking for a binary moment where life begins (remember, even I think this is necessary from a pragmatic standpoint) I can find no alternative to conception. And something about that just deeply resonates with me. A new human life begins somewhere. It doesn't begin with a sperm. I feel no more identity with the sperm I grew from than with food I eat. At best, a sperm is 1/2 of my essential genetic identity, but it's not a whole anything.
But I can comfortably trace my own development to conception and say "There, that is where I started."
Well, I've stated my viewpoint as best I can. I appreciate yours. And I'm going to continue to fight against EMBRYONIC stem cell research that harvests from embryo's because I'm just unconvinced that it's really going to be this great panacea, because adult stem cells offer similar benefits, and now more than ever because it's clear that, with extra research, we will be able to create embryonic stem cells without killing embryo's.
That is something that I can enthusiastically get behind.
You're unquestioning acceptance of the dogma that religious, ethical, and philosophical concerns have no weight next to scientific concerns in a policy discussion that obviously entails all of the above (and many others) makes you just as much a thoughtless automaton as any knee-jerk, fundamentalist Christian (or Muslim, Jew, etc.)
It's those who seek to preach the pre-eminence of their own sphere, be it anything from spiritualism to a specific religion to science to social sciences to atheism, who make reasoned debate on these issues impossible.
The fact of the matter is that we're not discussing a purely scientific matter. We're discussing policy that intersects with religion, ethics, science, medicine, economics and so on. And the debate needs to be informed by all rational and well-defended viewpoints that shed new light on the matter at hand. When discussing a policy issue no one sphere can automatically trump any other.
If you follow your own logic, than it makes perfect sense for a reverend to simply say, when discussing the policy of prayer in school, that the state has no business intruding on religious affairs, and that those who have not dedicated their lives to the understanding of theology have opinions that are worth, as you put it, less than a picogram. This is an insane approach to take, and it's ludicrous to think that a constitutional scholar's opinion should have no weight on such an issue because the religious nuts claimed it first.
You need to get beyond binary thinking. The religious fundamentalist may see the world in right/wrong with no middle ground, but your own dichotomy of religious/scientific is no more valid. It's just another case of people trying to impose a black/white world view on a manifestly more complex system.
Just because you are blind to the non-scientific aspects of this issue does not mean that everyone else should be. And, if you really are a scientist, I continue to be amazed that you have such a tenous grasp of basic logic. As long as you continue to demonstrate your absolute inability to think clearly and react rationally to this debate you make yourself to a scientist what Rudolph is to believing Christians - a self-marginalizing demagogue.
But,if nothing else, thank you for providing a case-in-point that irrational, dogmatic rhetoric can be found among the "scientists" just as it can be found (albeit with perhaps greater frequency) among the religious.
I'm still forming my opinion in regards to invitro fertilization (I'm against harvesting embryo's, and people like you who demand consistency have made me question my previous acceptance of in vitro fertilization).
One commonly accepted principle of ethics (nothing is accepted by everyone) is that intention influence s (or even determines) the morality of an action. So if I shoot you because I think you are going to kill me it's not so bad, but if I shoot you because I want to kill you it's murder and bad.
So when it comes to the topic of in vitro fertilization you have to ask whether or not it is immoral to try to have a child knowing that some of the children you successfully conceive will die. Considering the infant mortality rate for most of human history, you see that humans have a long-standing tradition of having kids only to have them die (before or after birth).
Thus the argument can be made that there is a moral difference between trying to have a child and, with the intent of creating life, accidentally creating additional life that will be killed, and on the other hand creating life just to be harvested.
Personally I think that there *IS* a difference, but I also think that trying to have kids while some of them will die accidentally is not at all the same as tossing out spare embryo's.
Nonetheless, my point is that there is a difference between in vitro fertilization and stem cell harvesting. And I don't think anyone is genuinely concerned about harvesting frozen embryo's (which will eventually be allowed to die without being born) AS MUCH as they are afraid that if it starts there it will end in harvesting.
I also believe that if I were ever to go in for in vitro I would want to at least discuss the possibility of trying to minimize the number of extraneous embryo's.
Oh yeah, one more thing. There's also the question of cost-benefit ratio. Cynical as that sounds, it's a part of ethics. We could all drive foam-covered cars with only 20 horsepower and that would prevent thousands of accidental deaths a year. But it's not worth it to us. So people die because as a society we drive fast, heavy, powerful cars. Is that immoral? If not, then why would it be immoral to follow a practice of in vitro fertilization (knowing that lives would be lost) because the alternative, trying one egg at a time, is too costly? But harvesting, on the other hand, is unlike either because instead of allowing lives to be lost because it's not practical to expend the effort to save them all, we're DELIBERATELY ending lives. So there's another difference (which I like more than the intention difference).
So I understand your point, but it's not so simple.
If you don't think that life begins at conception, when do you think that it does begin?
While an ultimate definition of life is not something I even claim to have a grasp on, to me the distinction between a sperm (or an unfertilized egg) and a fertilized egg is enormous. A sperm can't "grow up" to be a person, it's fundamental nature has to be changed. It's no more "alive" than any random carbon molecule that may become part of a living organism.
A fertilized egg, on the other hand, contains all of the genetic information necessary to develop into a full human. Yes, I said "to develop into a full human", but this doesn't imply that it's not already essentially human. We could just as easily say an infant is not yet "fully human", or anyone before puberty.
But even though we can make convincing arguments that a 2-yr old is not, in fact, a person, we choose to treat all human lives as fundamentally equal. I believe that all borders between person and non-person, human and non-human that occur along the developmental path of a human being are artificial. I believe a 5 yr old is not one iota "more" a human than a 2-yr old. Nor is a newborn more "alive" than a 9-month old fetus.
Try drawing a line wherever you like, but I think they all fail except the one at conception. Before conception there is no person to talk about, no independent human life. A sperm is no more alive than a white blood cell.
Ask a short question... get a long answer.
I don't think your logic holds up. Let's just say that we're talking about slavery. I'm an abolotionist. I say the african slaves have rights. You're a southerner, your livelihood depends on slavery. You could easily say to me "Look, I understand your moral compunctions. So don't own slaves. But the rest of us have our families to provide for, so don't stand in our way."
Of course you don't see it that way, because to you embryo's are not human and africans are. But to understand my viewpoint, you have to understand that whether or not you agree with me, I feel just as obligated to stand against stem cell research insofar as it involves the destruction of innocent life as I would have been to stand against slavery.
I understand that you googled where I fail to do so. But google factoids and wiki articles do not an argument make.
The simple fact is that for my argument, and for me personally, it makes no difference whatsoever whether stem cells are a potential cure for cancer or AIDs or the deadly whooping hiccup. It's utterly irrelevant to my simple point which I will restate for you:
I believe that a fertilized egg is an individual and unique human life, and that it is morally wrong for us to destroy that life in order to save another life. From an ethical standpoint, it doesn't matter if we save that life from disease A or condition B.
Now in my OTHER, and INDEPENDENT point, I mischaracterized someone as ill-informed and passionate, and opined that that was a dangerous state of mind to be making policy decisions. The fact that the person was NOT in fact misinformed doesn't negate my point. You needed to actually demonstrate that me being misinformed about cancer research was germane to my other points. You're welcome to try it, but you don't even seem to be aware that you actually need to make that implication yourself. Scientists you both may be, but logicians you certainly are not.
Keep swinging at the straw men all you like, but if you don't understand the logic of my post than we're not communicating and the rest is just tinkling brass and sounding cymbals.
Wow... that's a lot of anger. You might want to look into that. I had typed out a long response, but I realize in hindsight that this is probably just flamebait.
What serious scientist would attack me for a failure to "follow the pre-requisite understanding of the issue" in the midst of making absurd assumptions about everything from my sources of information to the books on my shelves? Physician, heal thyself.
On the off chance that you are an actual scientist, however, and that your post was made in seriousness, I would like to point out that by exhibiting such a remarkable tendency to judge on the basis of very little relevant information you undercut your desire to have non-specialists let you get back to doing "[y]our work".
In quick defense of my own post, I think any careful analysis of the logic of my post would quickly reveal that the specifics of any potential application of stem cell research are utterly moot with regards to my central thesis.
And on a final note I realize that this is an issue that sparks a lot of emotion, but you don't succeed in winning any points with anyone by allowing your emotion to make a straw man out of whatever post happens to strike your ire at the moment. I may not be versed in some of the medical aspects of the research, but I don't whip out my degree in philosophy and try to force scientists out of the realm of an ethical debate.
WARNING - DON'T READ IF YOUR SQUEAMISH
Not to be grotesque, but if you're referring to abortions you should know that most of them take place further along - like after 8 weeks or so. By that time the little suckers have arms, legs, beating heart, all that jazz. That's why they use vacuum cleaners to suction them out, piece at a time (to be reassembled afterwards to make sure they got all the bits).
Don't know how easy it would be to harvest stem cells from the mess that's left over.
There's a difference between respecting an opposing viewpoint and conceding to it. I certainly respect your opinion, just as I would have respected the opinion of Southerners in the 1850's who believed they were within their rights to secede from the Union. I live in the South and I still think they were right on that point.
But I also believe, as pretty much everyone does now, that all people of all races are entitled to the same fundamental human rights. And so while I would have respected the viewpoint of the South, I believe I would have sided with the North to fight slavery.
So while I respect the noble ambition to cure diseases that steal innocent lives, I believe there are certain moral lines that we should not cross in that quest.
For example, I think most of us can agree that it would be morally wrong to clone yourself and then use your clones as mere organ-replacement donors whenever necessary.
Similarly, I believe that at the moment of conception a new human life is formed, and I do not believe that it is ethically right to "harvest" those embryo's to save other lives.
In future generations I sincerely believe that people will look back at us with some of the same revulsion with which we now view slave traders and others who stood by and watched the abuse of fellow humans proceed unchecked.
If there's one thing we should have learned by now, it's that you can not judge humanity by things like location, size, or development. And yet we're still falling for the fundamental mistake that if it doesn't look like us, it must not be like us.
For starters, I don't think anyone has proposed any use of stem cells to fight cancer. So while I respect the emotion of your position, you seem to have no grasp of the actual specifics of the issues whatsoever. That makes you both passionate and uninformed. A dangerous combination.
Putting that aside...
My grandfather - who was extremely healthy, relatively young, and whom I was very close to - passed away last summer from stomach cancer. My wife's mother (I actually LIKE my mother-in-law) has been battling breast cancer for 15 years and is currently going through yet another round of chemo.
Diseases like this suck, and I hate them. But the truth is that I believe that even if I myself had cancer, I would refuse a treatment that involved using stem cells from an aborted embryo. For the same reason that I would refuse to have my life spared by the killing of an infant, a toddler, or any other human. Sure, you can taunt me and claim that I don't know because I haven't been there and that such high-minded principles fall by the wayside in the struggle for life istelf. But those are my principles, and they are what I beleive in.
No matter how bad the experiences in your life have been I think you need to be open to the possibility that other view points can also have compelling motivations and stir up just as much passion as your own.
Finally to the argument in general, I'm specifically opposed to stem cells harvested from destroyed embryos. I am also uncomfortable with the use of "discarded" embryos, and I am also uncomfortable with the whole notion of discarding (or even freezing) embryos that are left over from fertility treatments. I say "uncomfortable" and not "opposed" because I think conviction should be a function of both your opinion of the relevant facts and your degree of certainty in the relevant facts.
I think it would be good if more people followed that principle.
I think you're drastically over-simplifying things here and engaging in a little sophistry of your own.
You quote:
The influx of tens of thousands of requests exactly at the same time floods the spammers' Web site, causing it to become inoperable.
and say that that "sounds like" a DDoS attack. It also sounds exactly like someone getting slashdotted. One is illegal, the other is not. So by oversimplifying the issue you might as well say that all slashdot readers are guilty of participating in DDoS attacks on a more or less daily basis.
The key differences, as I see them, are first and foremost that the spammer is in violation of federal law before the retributory DDoS. Now of course just because someone breaks the law doesn't mean that you can use any means necessary to fight back. If someone threatens your life, you can kill them in self-defense. But if someone threatens to spam you, killing them is not justified.
But that brings us to the second important difference, the nature of those requests. The requests sent to overwhelm the server are legitimate requests to have a persons email address removed from the list. Since that's a legitimate request and not just a spurious effort to clog CPU cycles, I think they may have an opening. What law is there that states you have to ask to be removed from an illegal mailing list in a way that is convenient to the spammer?
While it is true that the incapication vs. shut-down aspect of the attack is irrelevant, I for one think there is at least room for argument over whether or not this constitutes a DDoS attack in the strict sense of the word.
In short: I think it's a good idea. We waste too much time in this country in general protecting perpetrators. All else equal, why would anyone side with the spammers?
Final note: I don't think we're in danger of a "slippery-slope" situation either. The spammers are not facing retribution because they are annoying. The criteria is far more specific - including ongoing violation of an explicit legal statute. This would not open the door for legally-condoned DDoS attacks on any systems other than those currently engaged in violation of the CAN-SPAM act. Yes, it may bring down an entire ISP and with it legitimate sites, but the ISP is given the chance to shut-down the spammer voluntarily, so it's really their fault.
About time we got serious about getting tough on spam.
did a 12-year old write that article for school?
on
The End of a Floppy Era
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· Score: 1, Insightful
All comments about floppy disks aside, that has to be the worst-written article I have ever read ever. Did no one else notice the appalling style?
Slashdot Mirror
First of all, I'd like to say that I like debating you. You have understood all of my points and responded with good arguments of your own, and so far none of us have had to resort to weird personal attacks (or Hitler referrences... ooops) But I think for the msot part we're going to just have to agree to disagree. I'm actually a lot more open to your viewpoint than you might imagine. I'm not dead-set against stem cell research, it just goes against what I believe as I understand things now. I do believe that all life has value, but not that all life has the same value. I value human lives above others forms of life, although I'm a fairly strong animal-rights person too. I think how we treat other life, both animal and human, determines a lot about our own internal natures. Once we get to human life, however, I think it is both dangerous and wrong to start generalizing about what kinds of human life are more valuable than others. I think even engaging in that kind of judgment is immoral (I'm saying nothing about specific cases). I think a binary decision is called for even if it is not entirely reflected in reality because it's a safety-measure to prevent the persecution of minorities. So, as a pragmatic approach to reaching a moral ideal, I figure it makes the most sense to set up a "minimum standard" for humanity, and then treat everyone that reaches that minimum standard as having an essentially equal value (circumstances can effect the value later on). Then the question is - where do you set up that minimum standard? My research into abortion - which is more my area of expertise, filled me with a passionate belief that our current standards are hideously high. Essentially I start with an adult human and work backwards. Through puberty into childhood, then into infancy. A lot of physical changes take place, and certainly an adult is more a person than an infant (who may not even have a concept of self). But I think fundamentally an infant is a human just as much as you or I. Once we get back to newborn and cross the birth threshold, I don't think anythign changes. Passing by the tedius details, I can comfortably go back to AT LEAST 8-9 weeks (when most abortions start). At that point I passionately believe we are still dealing with a human life. The most persuasive argument for this is pictures (not of abortions, of healthy, developing babies). The first clear demarcation I find is at/around conception. And I admit that things get hazy there. I need to learn more. But if you're looking for a binary moment where life begins (remember, even I think this is necessary from a pragmatic standpoint) I can find no alternative to conception. And something about that just deeply resonates with me. A new human life begins somewhere. It doesn't begin with a sperm. I feel no more identity with the sperm I grew from than with food I eat. At best, a sperm is 1/2 of my essential genetic identity, but it's not a whole anything. But I can comfortably trace my own development to conception and say "There, that is where I started." Well, I've stated my viewpoint as best I can. I appreciate yours. And I'm going to continue to fight against EMBRYONIC stem cell research that harvests from embryo's because I'm just unconvinced that it's really going to be this great panacea, because adult stem cells offer similar benefits, and now more than ever because it's clear that, with extra research, we will be able to create embryonic stem cells without killing embryo's. That is something that I can enthusiastically get behind.
You're unquestioning acceptance of the dogma that religious, ethical, and philosophical concerns have no weight next to scientific concerns in a policy discussion that obviously entails all of the above (and many others) makes you just as much a thoughtless automaton as any knee-jerk, fundamentalist Christian (or Muslim, Jew, etc.)
It's those who seek to preach the pre-eminence of their own sphere, be it anything from spiritualism to a specific religion to science to social sciences to atheism, who make reasoned debate on these issues impossible.
The fact of the matter is that we're not discussing a purely scientific matter. We're discussing policy that intersects with religion, ethics, science, medicine, economics and so on. And the debate needs to be informed by all rational and well-defended viewpoints that shed new light on the matter at hand. When discussing a policy issue no one sphere can automatically trump any other.
If you follow your own logic, than it makes perfect sense for a reverend to simply say, when discussing the policy of prayer in school, that the state has no business intruding on religious affairs, and that those who have not dedicated their lives to the understanding of theology have opinions that are worth, as you put it, less than a picogram. This is an insane approach to take, and it's ludicrous to think that a constitutional scholar's opinion should have no weight on such an issue because the religious nuts claimed it first.
You need to get beyond binary thinking. The religious fundamentalist may see the world in right/wrong with no middle ground, but your own dichotomy of religious/scientific is no more valid. It's just another case of people trying to impose a black/white world view on a manifestly more complex system.
Just because you are blind to the non-scientific aspects of this issue does not mean that everyone else should be. And, if you really are a scientist, I continue to be amazed that you have such a tenous grasp of basic logic. As long as you continue to demonstrate your absolute inability to think clearly and react rationally to this debate you make yourself to a scientist what Rudolph is to believing Christians - a self-marginalizing demagogue.
But,if nothing else, thank you for providing a case-in-point that irrational, dogmatic rhetoric can be found among the "scientists" just as it can be found (albeit with perhaps greater frequency) among the religious.
I'm still forming my opinion in regards to invitro fertilization (I'm against harvesting embryo's, and people like you who demand consistency have made me question my previous acceptance of in vitro fertilization). One commonly accepted principle of ethics (nothing is accepted by everyone) is that intention influence s (or even determines) the morality of an action. So if I shoot you because I think you are going to kill me it's not so bad, but if I shoot you because I want to kill you it's murder and bad. So when it comes to the topic of in vitro fertilization you have to ask whether or not it is immoral to try to have a child knowing that some of the children you successfully conceive will die. Considering the infant mortality rate for most of human history, you see that humans have a long-standing tradition of having kids only to have them die (before or after birth). Thus the argument can be made that there is a moral difference between trying to have a child and, with the intent of creating life, accidentally creating additional life that will be killed, and on the other hand creating life just to be harvested. Personally I think that there *IS* a difference, but I also think that trying to have kids while some of them will die accidentally is not at all the same as tossing out spare embryo's. Nonetheless, my point is that there is a difference between in vitro fertilization and stem cell harvesting. And I don't think anyone is genuinely concerned about harvesting frozen embryo's (which will eventually be allowed to die without being born) AS MUCH as they are afraid that if it starts there it will end in harvesting. I also believe that if I were ever to go in for in vitro I would want to at least discuss the possibility of trying to minimize the number of extraneous embryo's. Oh yeah, one more thing. There's also the question of cost-benefit ratio. Cynical as that sounds, it's a part of ethics. We could all drive foam-covered cars with only 20 horsepower and that would prevent thousands of accidental deaths a year. But it's not worth it to us. So people die because as a society we drive fast, heavy, powerful cars. Is that immoral? If not, then why would it be immoral to follow a practice of in vitro fertilization (knowing that lives would be lost) because the alternative, trying one egg at a time, is too costly? But harvesting, on the other hand, is unlike either because instead of allowing lives to be lost because it's not practical to expend the effort to save them all, we're DELIBERATELY ending lives. So there's another difference (which I like more than the intention difference). So I understand your point, but it's not so simple.
If you don't think that life begins at conception, when do you think that it does begin? While an ultimate definition of life is not something I even claim to have a grasp on, to me the distinction between a sperm (or an unfertilized egg) and a fertilized egg is enormous. A sperm can't "grow up" to be a person, it's fundamental nature has to be changed. It's no more "alive" than any random carbon molecule that may become part of a living organism. A fertilized egg, on the other hand, contains all of the genetic information necessary to develop into a full human. Yes, I said "to develop into a full human", but this doesn't imply that it's not already essentially human. We could just as easily say an infant is not yet "fully human", or anyone before puberty. But even though we can make convincing arguments that a 2-yr old is not, in fact, a person, we choose to treat all human lives as fundamentally equal. I believe that all borders between person and non-person, human and non-human that occur along the developmental path of a human being are artificial. I believe a 5 yr old is not one iota "more" a human than a 2-yr old. Nor is a newborn more "alive" than a 9-month old fetus. Try drawing a line wherever you like, but I think they all fail except the one at conception. Before conception there is no person to talk about, no independent human life. A sperm is no more alive than a white blood cell. Ask a short question... get a long answer.
I don't think your logic holds up. Let's just say that we're talking about slavery. I'm an abolotionist. I say the african slaves have rights. You're a southerner, your livelihood depends on slavery. You could easily say to me "Look, I understand your moral compunctions. So don't own slaves. But the rest of us have our families to provide for, so don't stand in our way."
Of course you don't see it that way, because to you embryo's are not human and africans are. But to understand my viewpoint, you have to understand that whether or not you agree with me, I feel just as obligated to stand against stem cell research insofar as it involves the destruction of innocent life as I would have been to stand against slavery.
I understand that you googled where I fail to do so. But google factoids and wiki articles do not an argument make. The simple fact is that for my argument, and for me personally, it makes no difference whatsoever whether stem cells are a potential cure for cancer or AIDs or the deadly whooping hiccup. It's utterly irrelevant to my simple point which I will restate for you: I believe that a fertilized egg is an individual and unique human life, and that it is morally wrong for us to destroy that life in order to save another life. From an ethical standpoint, it doesn't matter if we save that life from disease A or condition B. Now in my OTHER, and INDEPENDENT point, I mischaracterized someone as ill-informed and passionate, and opined that that was a dangerous state of mind to be making policy decisions. The fact that the person was NOT in fact misinformed doesn't negate my point. You needed to actually demonstrate that me being misinformed about cancer research was germane to my other points. You're welcome to try it, but you don't even seem to be aware that you actually need to make that implication yourself. Scientists you both may be, but logicians you certainly are not. Keep swinging at the straw men all you like, but if you don't understand the logic of my post than we're not communicating and the rest is just tinkling brass and sounding cymbals.
Wow... that's a lot of anger. You might want to look into that. I had typed out a long response, but I realize in hindsight that this is probably just flamebait. What serious scientist would attack me for a failure to "follow the pre-requisite understanding of the issue" in the midst of making absurd assumptions about everything from my sources of information to the books on my shelves? Physician, heal thyself. On the off chance that you are an actual scientist, however, and that your post was made in seriousness, I would like to point out that by exhibiting such a remarkable tendency to judge on the basis of very little relevant information you undercut your desire to have non-specialists let you get back to doing "[y]our work". In quick defense of my own post, I think any careful analysis of the logic of my post would quickly reveal that the specifics of any potential application of stem cell research are utterly moot with regards to my central thesis. And on a final note I realize that this is an issue that sparks a lot of emotion, but you don't succeed in winning any points with anyone by allowing your emotion to make a straw man out of whatever post happens to strike your ire at the moment. I may not be versed in some of the medical aspects of the research, but I don't whip out my degree in philosophy and try to force scientists out of the realm of an ethical debate.
WARNING - DON'T READ IF YOUR SQUEAMISH Not to be grotesque, but if you're referring to abortions you should know that most of them take place further along - like after 8 weeks or so. By that time the little suckers have arms, legs, beating heart, all that jazz. That's why they use vacuum cleaners to suction them out, piece at a time (to be reassembled afterwards to make sure they got all the bits). Don't know how easy it would be to harvest stem cells from the mess that's left over.
There's a difference between respecting an opposing viewpoint and conceding to it. I certainly respect your opinion, just as I would have respected the opinion of Southerners in the 1850's who believed they were within their rights to secede from the Union. I live in the South and I still think they were right on that point. But I also believe, as pretty much everyone does now, that all people of all races are entitled to the same fundamental human rights. And so while I would have respected the viewpoint of the South, I believe I would have sided with the North to fight slavery. So while I respect the noble ambition to cure diseases that steal innocent lives, I believe there are certain moral lines that we should not cross in that quest. For example, I think most of us can agree that it would be morally wrong to clone yourself and then use your clones as mere organ-replacement donors whenever necessary. Similarly, I believe that at the moment of conception a new human life is formed, and I do not believe that it is ethically right to "harvest" those embryo's to save other lives. In future generations I sincerely believe that people will look back at us with some of the same revulsion with which we now view slave traders and others who stood by and watched the abuse of fellow humans proceed unchecked. If there's one thing we should have learned by now, it's that you can not judge humanity by things like location, size, or development. And yet we're still falling for the fundamental mistake that if it doesn't look like us, it must not be like us.
I stand corrected, I hadn't heard those yet.
For starters, I don't think anyone has proposed any use of stem cells to fight cancer. So while I respect the emotion of your position, you seem to have no grasp of the actual specifics of the issues whatsoever. That makes you both passionate and uninformed. A dangerous combination. Putting that aside... My grandfather - who was extremely healthy, relatively young, and whom I was very close to - passed away last summer from stomach cancer. My wife's mother (I actually LIKE my mother-in-law) has been battling breast cancer for 15 years and is currently going through yet another round of chemo. Diseases like this suck, and I hate them. But the truth is that I believe that even if I myself had cancer, I would refuse a treatment that involved using stem cells from an aborted embryo. For the same reason that I would refuse to have my life spared by the killing of an infant, a toddler, or any other human. Sure, you can taunt me and claim that I don't know because I haven't been there and that such high-minded principles fall by the wayside in the struggle for life istelf. But those are my principles, and they are what I beleive in. No matter how bad the experiences in your life have been I think you need to be open to the possibility that other view points can also have compelling motivations and stir up just as much passion as your own. Finally to the argument in general, I'm specifically opposed to stem cells harvested from destroyed embryos. I am also uncomfortable with the use of "discarded" embryos, and I am also uncomfortable with the whole notion of discarding (or even freezing) embryos that are left over from fertility treatments. I say "uncomfortable" and not "opposed" because I think conviction should be a function of both your opinion of the relevant facts and your degree of certainty in the relevant facts. I think it would be good if more people followed that principle.
I think you're drastically over-simplifying things here and engaging in a little sophistry of your own. You quote: The influx of tens of thousands of requests exactly at the same time floods the spammers' Web site, causing it to become inoperable. and say that that "sounds like" a DDoS attack. It also sounds exactly like someone getting slashdotted. One is illegal, the other is not. So by oversimplifying the issue you might as well say that all slashdot readers are guilty of participating in DDoS attacks on a more or less daily basis. The key differences, as I see them, are first and foremost that the spammer is in violation of federal law before the retributory DDoS. Now of course just because someone breaks the law doesn't mean that you can use any means necessary to fight back. If someone threatens your life, you can kill them in self-defense. But if someone threatens to spam you, killing them is not justified. But that brings us to the second important difference, the nature of those requests. The requests sent to overwhelm the server are legitimate requests to have a persons email address removed from the list. Since that's a legitimate request and not just a spurious effort to clog CPU cycles, I think they may have an opening. What law is there that states you have to ask to be removed from an illegal mailing list in a way that is convenient to the spammer? While it is true that the incapication vs. shut-down aspect of the attack is irrelevant, I for one think there is at least room for argument over whether or not this constitutes a DDoS attack in the strict sense of the word. In short: I think it's a good idea. We waste too much time in this country in general protecting perpetrators. All else equal, why would anyone side with the spammers? Final note: I don't think we're in danger of a "slippery-slope" situation either. The spammers are not facing retribution because they are annoying. The criteria is far more specific - including ongoing violation of an explicit legal statute. This would not open the door for legally-condoned DDoS attacks on any systems other than those currently engaged in violation of the CAN-SPAM act. Yes, it may bring down an entire ISP and with it legitimate sites, but the ISP is given the chance to shut-down the spammer voluntarily, so it's really their fault. About time we got serious about getting tough on spam.
All comments about floppy disks aside, that has to be the worst-written article I have ever read ever. Did no one else notice the appalling style?