Adult stem cells, I'm told, have had lots of applications (hence the research money available for it). It's the embryonic stem cells that don't seem to have as many applications.
Who, exactly, is telling you all of this? A moron President, pandering to the vocal minority that constitutes his base, has cut off the largest source of potential funding for a line of research that looks far more promising, at least to the large majority of professionals who study stem cell therapies. No wonder you aren't seeing "as many applications." You're putting the cart before the horse here; "post hoc ergo propter hoc" and all that.
It's like one party in America loves to put a bounty on the heads of the unborn; ever notice[...]the willingness of people to cannibalize babies just seems wrong
Interesting. I would suggest that the withholding of research with lifesaving potential for actual people, for the sake of protecting potential people - all based on a disagreement of moral language over the use and connotations of "unborn" and "baby" vis a vis their application to a microscopic group of cells - "just seems wrong," and appears to place a sort of "bounty" on sufferers of degenerative diseases and nerve damage, by declaring the serious potential to save their lives to be worth less than a collection of tissue destined for disposal.
"Cannibalize," indeed. Save it for the Operation Rescue get-togethers.
Who the f*** decided that sentences on the Internet shall no longer be formatted with two spaces after a period?!
The A.P.A. and M.L.A. manuals instruct the reader to use one space after the full stop. Perhaps the public schools have followed suit?
This practice is distasteful, true, but if successive generations want to remove helpful verbal timing cues from the language, then how is anyone to stop them? Usage changes over time in a multicultural environment, and this is not a bad thing, although we can all find personally annoying instances of this change.
In one hundred years, I am certain that a book shall be published, as many are today, that prompts the reader to laugh at the eccentricities of their own dialect's history - this book, no doubt, will be a reprint of such a book presently in existence, with such appended oddities as, "They used 2 use 2 periods after each sentence! Buncha fusking fangaks," with "fangaks" being some contemporary slang involving genetically-modified sex organs.
Or, perhaps, a tribe of hardy linguists will establish a haven in a remote New England valley - after the Oil Wars destroy the global economy - where they shall revel in the beauty of earlier dialects, all the while inventing new and sublime constructions and punctuation to enhance the beauty of English without forcing it into awkwardness. Their lives shall be filled with pastoral beauty, at least until the coming of the Wandering Mutants.
I tend to be just a touch pessimistic sometimes, you might've noticed
Oh yes, I can usually recognize a fellow pessimist.
I find that reason is often the best counteragent for instances of pessimism (and pessimism's close cousins, bitterness and resentment). When life finds me surrounded by folks I find unpleasant, pessimism makes it easy for me to project my impressions of those folks over American society at large, thus leading to further pessimism about the state of the country. As I've grown more accustomed to thinking critically about my ideas, however, it is easier to realize that while I may be right, I can't logically reach my conclusions based on my limited anecdotal experience, so reacting to them or perpetuating them is just as irrational as assuming that everyone is rationally looking after their own interests. (See Fallacies of Economics.)
Of course, reason may not always counteract pessimism: I believe the U.S. is headed for a major recession, and I have yet to see any logical reason why this should not be the case, so my pessimism is deepened further. Every case is different.
I suspect that this ability of critical thinking is what many of the people you describe from your job are lacking - indeed, nobody in my experience is anywhere near perfect in this regard (and I'm probably a bit below the average). I keep hoping that more and more folks will cultivate this ability, despite a culture and society that seems designed to discourage exactly that. Is that hope irrational? Sure, in the sense that I can't give it certainty through logic. Then again, the same applies to its opposite, so I'll stick with the irrational thought that isn't so damned depressing.
And now, signing off with a sig quote from the greatest pessimist of Western writing:
Mmm...I thought the rational analytic ability under discussion was that of individuals to apply rational thinking consistently, critically, and successfully to their conscious experiences, not the ability that physiology grants us to make inferences and deductions about our environment. The former is a function of personality or character; the latter is a direct function of the brain (and in a much more immediate way than the former, which may be explained as a higher function of the brain.) My contention is that a great number of people cannot see the point in the former as a consequence of their experiences, and I am not contending that they lack normal cognitive ability. I am contending that their character has been shaped in a way that makes it lacking either social-critical ability, appropriate motivation, or a combination thereof. My apologies - I believe the language in my post did not make this clear.
OTOH, I might be inclined to agree with you that the public school system - with coddling parents playing an equal or greater role - might cause many to "unlearn" many of the analytical skills that they build in childhood as they learn to navigate the world.
That's pretty close to my contention - I would say that it's a cultural phenomenon that has always been with civilization, and finds its expression in those forms today - so I suppose we're on the same page, at least.
Is this OK for everybody else ? I have to ask how is the average calculated to get this result ? Are we looking to compare the avarage intelligence of apes to that of modern day humanoids, perhaps ?
You're kidding, right?
"Average," or mean, is a statistic with a value that falls in the middle of the data set. By definition, 50% of any population will fall both above and below the average, for any data you choose to analyze with regard to that population - height, intelligence, dick size, whatever.
The people at my workplace didn't go to monasteries to learn their religion, they learned most of what they know about their God from televangelists' sound bites and a few vague stories about hell from their parents. (And I believe most of them vote.)
While that must be a crappy experience, I would hardly generalize their attitudes across a great number of the population. I've moved around a hell of lot across the South and Northern U.S. east of the Mississippi over the last few years, and have certainly met people who would be suited by your description, but most people have more sense than what you describe. I don't know where you live, but perhaps a move or change of jobs is in order if you find yourself feeling so different from those who surround you at work?
The problem is that most people DON'T try to figure out this world with their brain. They look around themselves and find the world is a confusing place, so they don't think about it - they refuse to think analytically about anything, they just develop through trial-and-error a set of reactions to various situations that gets them through almost anything.
Ooh, I was almost with you up until that part.
Most people don't refuse to think analytically. They've just never learned, and their life experiences have not yet shown them the value of acquiring that skill. (Public schools tend to do that.)
Assuming a condescending tone about the Great Unwashed shows, if anything, a lack of analytic thought about the factors that lead to an individual's ability for rational thought, or at least a lack of applying that thought to one's own life. While there are certainly some people (and, in my experience, a terribly small few) who have the ability for reasoned, analytic thought and actually refuse to use it when it would benefit themselves and others, they are vastly outnumbered by people who see no value in that ability which they lack, and may never have the experiences which lead individuals to see that value. Why condemn another based on the intelligence with which fate has bestowed them?
How in hell does a marketing press release from luxurylaunches.com count as "News for Nerds?" When this thing makes some sort of actual news ("SCO outfits conference rooms with ridiculous table coverings, raging inferno ensues"), then perhaps a spot on the front page is merited.
Not at all, I would imagine, since their courts hold that one has no legal expectation of privacy in a public place.
Sort of like ours in the U.S., actually. And having recently moved from one of the most heavily-surveilled cities per capita (thanks to these folks), I'm pretty familiar with the applicable laws, although your mileage may vary by state.
Of course, since the privacy law in question doesn't apply to surveillance cameras anyway, methinks you're just taking a cheap shot at our friends across the pond.
"Anonymity...merely serves to take all responsibility from the man who cannot stand by what he has said."
Anonymity - protection against the people who would kill or imprison you because they don't accept you have a right to disagree with them.
The two aren't contradictory or otherwise incompatible. Sometimes, a person cannot stand by what they have said because of the certainty of being knocked down by those with the authority (legitimate or not) to do so.
Much more often, however, one sees the sort of abuse of anonymity, practiced by cowards and enabled by those without the sense to distinguish between substantive and ungrounded criticisms, that Schopenhauer railed against in his polemic about literary criticism, Chapter 7 of "The Art of Literature." In that context, his quote seems perfectly fitting for a forum such as this.
With the license prohibiting use of the record if it was sold for less than original purchase price, I wonder if, even a hundred years ago, RCA was trying to shut down the resellers of used music. Anyone else remember the industry's outcry against used CD stores?
And the RIAA still hasn't been overthrown? We seriously need to get off our computers and do something if we want to give out grandchildren the music quality they deserve...
What, and not be able to hit F5 constantly throughout the day? You must be new here.
But now, it's time to realise that some dork posting comments about you is going to be seen for what e is, and it's not going to reflect on you
I agree. In the instance described in TFA, however, the suit alleges that such comments did negatively reflect on them - and materially, to boot. If this is the case (and I have no idea how they'll prove that these law firms were influenced in their decision by anonymous we postings), then the law already provides remedies for slander, and the fact that the slanderous idiots in this case thought they were completely anonymous is beside the point.
So do you suggest a global ban on anonymous web postings?
No, and I'm dismayed that many posters have hastily inferred such from my distaste for anonymity. I suggest that people who slander or defame others using something they mistakenly assume to be anonymous should be sanctioned in the same way as people who attach their own name to slander or defamation. The problem here is that the idiot law students somehow believe that Internet forums provide anonymity.
But how do you propose to stop anonymous postings on the internet?
You're not alone in mistakenly inferring this from my posts, but that's not what I propose. I propose that people who use a format they believe to be anonymous (not knowing, as I'll bet these law students didn't know, that there is little real anonymity on the net for the non-tech-savvy) to slander others should be open to the same sanction as people who do attach their own name to slander.
What you're getting at is the distinction between anonymity, in which you have no identity, and pseudonymity, in which you have a persistent identity that need not be traceable to your everyday identity, but which still allows you to build up a reputation and be recognized as an individual by others.
Pseudonymity - good word, that. Just goes to show that there is a descriptive word for every shade of grey.
More frustrating, to me, than other poster's facile assumption that being upset by abuses of anonymity is the same as calling for the end of anonymity, is the assumption in other threads on this article that anonymity=privacy. The whole reason we have separate words for some of these concepts is to highlight the differences, and I'm glad to know there's a word to describe a particular type of anonymity that can be cumbersome to define otherwise. Thanks!
[F]ollowing "that comment doesn't bother me at all" with a 500 word rant on why your opponent sucks... tends to undermine your assertion a bit.
Indeed. Still, something can always be learned from unpleasantness, and I think I'll take this fellow's suggestion,
it does not serve women's rights to empower juvenile retards on the internet. and you do understand you empower them by reacting to them rather than ignoring them, right?
and "serve women's rights" by ceasing to "empower" his retarded juvenilia.
Slashdot Mirror
Who, exactly, is telling you all of this? A moron President, pandering to the vocal minority that constitutes his base, has cut off the largest source of potential funding for a line of research that looks far more promising, at least to the large majority of professionals who study stem cell therapies. No wonder you aren't seeing "as many applications." You're putting the cart before the horse here; "post hoc ergo propter hoc" and all that.
Interesting. I would suggest that the withholding of research with lifesaving potential for actual people, for the sake of protecting potential people - all based on a disagreement of moral language over the use and connotations of "unborn" and "baby" vis a vis their application to a microscopic group of cells - "just seems wrong," and appears to place a sort of "bounty" on sufferers of degenerative diseases and nerve damage, by declaring the serious potential to save their lives to be worth less than a collection of tissue destined for disposal.
"Cannibalize," indeed. Save it for the Operation Rescue get-togethers.
The A.P.A. and M.L.A. manuals instruct the reader to use one space after the full stop. Perhaps the public schools have followed suit?
This practice is distasteful, true, but if successive generations want to remove helpful verbal timing cues from the language, then how is anyone to stop them? Usage changes over time in a multicultural environment, and this is not a bad thing, although we can all find personally annoying instances of this change.
In one hundred years, I am certain that a book shall be published, as many are today, that prompts the reader to laugh at the eccentricities of their own dialect's history - this book, no doubt, will be a reprint of such a book presently in existence, with such appended oddities as, "They used 2 use 2 periods after each sentence! Buncha fusking fangaks," with "fangaks" being some contemporary slang involving genetically-modified sex organs.
Or, perhaps, a tribe of hardy linguists will establish a haven in a remote New England valley - after the Oil Wars destroy the global economy - where they shall revel in the beauty of earlier dialects, all the while inventing new and sublime constructions and punctuation to enhance the beauty of English without forcing it into awkwardness. Their lives shall be filled with pastoral beauty, at least until the coming of the Wandering Mutants.
Oh yes, I can usually recognize a fellow pessimist.
I find that reason is often the best counteragent for instances of pessimism (and pessimism's close cousins, bitterness and resentment). When life finds me surrounded by folks I find unpleasant, pessimism makes it easy for me to project my impressions of those folks over American society at large, thus leading to further pessimism about the state of the country. As I've grown more accustomed to thinking critically about my ideas, however, it is easier to realize that while I may be right, I can't logically reach my conclusions based on my limited anecdotal experience, so reacting to them or perpetuating them is just as irrational as assuming that everyone is rationally looking after their own interests. (See Fallacies of Economics.)
Of course, reason may not always counteract pessimism: I believe the U.S. is headed for a major recession, and I have yet to see any logical reason why this should not be the case, so my pessimism is deepened further. Every case is different.
I suspect that this ability of critical thinking is what many of the people you describe from your job are lacking - indeed, nobody in my experience is anywhere near perfect in this regard (and I'm probably a bit below the average). I keep hoping that more and more folks will cultivate this ability, despite a culture and society that seems designed to discourage exactly that. Is that hope irrational? Sure, in the sense that I can't give it certainty through logic. Then again, the same applies to its opposite, so I'll stick with the irrational thought that isn't so damned depressing.
And now, signing off with a sig quote from the greatest pessimist of Western writing:
Mmm...I thought the rational analytic ability under discussion was that of individuals to apply rational thinking consistently, critically, and successfully to their conscious experiences, not the ability that physiology grants us to make inferences and deductions about our environment. The former is a function of personality or character; the latter is a direct function of the brain (and in a much more immediate way than the former, which may be explained as a higher function of the brain.) My contention is that a great number of people cannot see the point in the former as a consequence of their experiences, and I am not contending that they lack normal cognitive ability. I am contending that their character has been shaped in a way that makes it lacking either social-critical ability, appropriate motivation, or a combination thereof. My apologies - I believe the language in my post did not make this clear.
That's pretty close to my contention - I would say that it's a cultural phenomenon that has always been with civilization, and finds its expression in those forms today - so I suppose we're on the same page, at least.
You're kidding, right?
"Average," or mean, is a statistic with a value that falls in the middle of the data set. By definition, 50% of any population will fall both above and below the average, for any data you choose to analyze with regard to that population - height, intelligence, dick size, whatever.
While that must be a crappy experience, I would hardly generalize their attitudes across a great number of the population. I've moved around a hell of lot across the South and Northern U.S. east of the Mississippi over the last few years, and have certainly met people who would be suited by your description, but most people have more sense than what you describe. I don't know where you live, but perhaps a move or change of jobs is in order if you find yourself feeling so different from those who surround you at work?
Ooh, I was almost with you up until that part.
Most people don't refuse to think analytically. They've just never learned, and their life experiences have not yet shown them the value of acquiring that skill. (Public schools tend to do that.)
Assuming a condescending tone about the Great Unwashed shows, if anything, a lack of analytic thought about the factors that lead to an individual's ability for rational thought, or at least a lack of applying that thought to one's own life. While there are certainly some people (and, in my experience, a terribly small few) who have the ability for reasoned, analytic thought and actually refuse to use it when it would benefit themselves and others, they are vastly outnumbered by people who see no value in that ability which they lack, and may never have the experiences which lead individuals to see that value. Why condemn another based on the intelligence with which fate has bestowed them?
How in hell does a marketing press release from luxurylaunches.com count as "News for Nerds?" When this thing makes some sort of actual news ("SCO outfits conference rooms with ridiculous table coverings, raging inferno ensues"), then perhaps a spot on the front page is merited.
So's the person replying. Fnord.
Which will eventually turn out to contain poisonous compunds not declared on the customs form.
Indeed. The courts have been fucking idiots about this for some time now.
Not at all, I would imagine, since their courts hold that one has no legal expectation of privacy in a public place.
Sort of like ours in the U.S., actually. And having recently moved from one of the most heavily-surveilled cities per capita (thanks to these folks), I'm pretty familiar with the applicable laws, although your mileage may vary by state.
Of course, since the privacy law in question doesn't apply to surveillance cameras anyway, methinks you're just taking a cheap shot at our friends across the pond.
The two aren't contradictory or otherwise incompatible. Sometimes, a person cannot stand by what they have said because of the certainty of being knocked down by those with the authority (legitimate or not) to do so.
Much more often, however, one sees the sort of abuse of anonymity, practiced by cowards and enabled by those without the sense to distinguish between substantive and ungrounded criticisms, that Schopenhauer railed against in his polemic about literary criticism, Chapter 7 of "The Art of Literature." In that context, his quote seems perfectly fitting for a forum such as this.
What, and not be able to hit F5 constantly throughout the day? You must be new here.
I agree. In the instance described in TFA, however, the suit alleges that such comments did negatively reflect on them - and materially, to boot. If this is the case (and I have no idea how they'll prove that these law firms were influenced in their decision by anonymous we postings), then the law already provides remedies for slander, and the fact that the slanderous idiots in this case thought they were completely anonymous is beside the point.
No, and I'm dismayed that many posters have hastily inferred such from my distaste for anonymity. I suggest that people who slander or defame others using something they mistakenly assume to be anonymous should be sanctioned in the same way as people who attach their own name to slander or defamation. The problem here is that the idiot law students somehow believe that Internet forums provide anonymity.
You're not alone in mistakenly inferring this from my posts, but that's not what I propose. I propose that people who use a format they believe to be anonymous (not knowing, as I'll bet these law students didn't know, that there is little real anonymity on the net for the non-tech-savvy) to slander others should be open to the same sanction as people who do attach their own name to slander.
Pseudonymity - good word, that. Just goes to show that there is a descriptive word for every shade of grey.
More frustrating, to me, than other poster's facile assumption that being upset by abuses of anonymity is the same as calling for the end of anonymity, is the assumption in other threads on this article that anonymity=privacy. The whole reason we have separate words for some of these concepts is to highlight the differences, and I'm glad to know there's a word to describe a particular type of anonymity that can be cumbersome to define otherwise. Thanks!
Indeed. Still, something can always be learned from unpleasantness, and I think I'll take this fellow's suggestion,
and "serve women's rights" by ceasing to "empower" his retarded juvenilia.
Touché. My apologies to the editors for not seeing the correctness of their sentence.
Oh, no use hiding that one. They've already found us here.
A vivid metaphor, indeed. Unfortunately, ever since Dave Chappelle's show, I can't help but think of it more as an exceptionally shitty shopping mall.
Oh God, I suppose I must be accustomed to such glaring mistakes due to their overexposure in common use. Dammit.
Perhaps that's how language changes over time: eventually, we anal types just stop caring, and eventually stop noticing.