No, it's when morons simply pull out the mantra that "government is evil" that people ask the logical follow-up question "So we should disband every government?"
Small government is fine. Arguing for reductions in budget by pointing out that said budget item is inefficient is fine. Chopping whole departments with the argument that government sucks, the free market will save you is retarded.
Ah yes, the argument that smokers are actually good for a country because they die young.
Wow. Can I just shoot you right now, so that I pay less for healthcare? I mean, I should be allowed to do it. After all, it lowers my health care bill.
What you - and all your conservative/libertarian friends as well - don't get is that a stable society is a prosperous one, and that a society where people can get old safely is one in which experience can be accumulated and put to good use. In short, your cost-benefit analysis is cute, but far too short-sighted.
Man, you'd think that we wouldn't have had this discussion 2000 years ago already.
And on the same topic, this kind of crap is exactly why there needs to be some sort of penalty for lobbying for laws that are so far away from any sort of humanitarian ideal, social contract or even basic free market concept. Want to propose a law in parliament that calls for the eating of babies? Fine, but if it doesn't pass, your baby is the only one that gets eaten. Want to propose draconian IP restrictions? Fine, but if it fails, your IP is permanently forfeited. Want to argue for some new taxes? Fine, but if it fails, your ass is the only one that gets taxed.
Yes, new laws will basically only get created if everyone KNOWS that they will pass with acclamation. That's the point. There are far too many laws on the books anyway.
At that age, I would suggest to show them what chemistry can do: blow things up (safely), make things turn different colors, make things smell bad, or burn things (again, safely!). Then go into why the stuff is doing what it is doing. Finally, once you explained why it is doing what it is doing, see if you can change things up to come up with different effects.
Leave the boring shit about valence electrons to later. Just show him what chemistry can do. If that doesn't hook him, move on.
Said one of the most freakishly gifted men in history. Kinda like Armstrong or Indurain saying that if everyone would just train like them, everyone could win 5+ Tour de France races in a row. There ARE limits - the trick is to have a realistic assessment of them.
Wow. I think this is one of those situations where everyone is actually thinking the same thing, but completely talking across each other. I guess we could call this a failure to communicate.
You're right, there's a huge difference between inductive logic and deductive logic. Deductive logic is easy to prove. Inductive logic is a total mess, and requires reliance on models and flawed data collection and gut feelings on what the data might actually mean.
So when we have to rely on experts to just progress in something as trivial as Commutation, what makes you think that we can just test everything out ourselves in natural sciences? You're completely making the parent's point. It's too bad you have no clue why it was modded +5 "Insightful".
You have no understanding of what a proof is in natural sciences. This isn't math, where everything is deductive. It is induction, and it is a numbers game. Furthermore, consensus is a good proxy for whether a scientific theory has been dissected and found valid, or whether it has been discarded for lack of predictive power. Or do you spend your life going over every scientific theory that your life depends on? Of course not. You use the experiences and work of others for that.
Yep. In order to access her yahoo mail, my girlfriend still brings up a browser with google as the home page, then types in Yahoo Mail. And she's not the only one. I die a little every time I see that.
The tech savvy people use bookmarks - or anything more complex than that. The tech illiterate people just punch in the site into a search engine, and then click on the first result. Both approaches make the approach of this company completely useless.
But they will gladly diver taxes to another county. Or another district. Or another city. Or another neighborhood. Or another house a street over. Or another neighbor. Living in a society is ALL about redistributing your wealth. At least, with a large country, you get to leverage network effects and economies of scale.
And, for the same reason that only upset people write letters to the editor, the voters in local elections are generally the ones with some serious ax to grind. In other words, the low turn-out in local elections is exactly what it is poisoning local school board elections.
I don't hate democracy. I hate low-voter turnout and the idiots who can't comprehend that democracy requires participation from everybody.
Not really. The only ones he is accountable to is the majority of the school board election voters. And there, you are a tiny fraction, if you vote at all. And statistics say you don't.
3) Local schoolboards know better what is needed for their locality than a politician living in Washington
This gets trotted out every time. What is much more likely is that local schoolboards are made up of people with too much time on their hands and have an axe to grind. Think your local Neighborhood Watch grandpa or your HOA president. And when they go off the deep-end, the only option is to hope that more people vote during the next election (fat chance), or to move.
2) One size fits all rarely fits anyone.
Actually, education is the one place where one size does fit all. Facts are facts. There is no need to tweak the teaching of facts to local customs.
1) When the Washington pols go off the deep end, they drag everybody down with them.
And just to complete the reverse dissection - Washington Pols are less likely to go off the deep end, because they need to worry about a broader voting base, which moves them to the center.
You mean, "local" schoolboards like the Texas one? See here for an example? I'll never understand why people think that local politicians are somehow better than Washington politicians. If anything, they can be worse, because there are far more possibilities for them to go completely off the deep end and be unchallenged.
If America is indeed a meritocracy, that means then that Americans are not as qualified to hold that job as the foreigners are. So now you are faced with a couple of decisions: * you make hiring decisions not based on merit, but based on whether a person is related to you. In other words, you turn the US from a meritocracy into an aristocracy. * you decide that the foreigners are getting too much of a leg up, because any bonus to immigrants gives them too much of a leg up over Americans. In which case, you are tacitly admitting that the US is really just the same as all other countries, and American exceptionalism is dead. * you decide that all economists are wrong, and that there really is just a static set of jobs available, that putting someone unqualified in a position has no impact on the overall economy, and by the way, isolationism works just splendidly. * you decided that the economists might be right, but that you just don't like foreigners. In which case, you just proved the old saw that nobody hates new immigrants like old immigrants.
In other words: get the fuck out of my country. Oh, and all you upmodders - the same goes for you.
I've got friends there that are worried about Californians coming to Texas for the jobs, and then trying to turn Texas into California.
You mean, a place with high-paying jobs that offer health-insurance, as well as some idea that just dumping crap into the environment might be a bad idea? That might actually be an improvement.
The nice thing about clamshell packaging is that it clearly displays the product itself, and usually so you can see most or all the sides of the product.
Oh, if that would just be so..... Most clear clamshells contain cardboard INSIDE the clamshell that does one hell of a job of obscuring the actual product. This is especially a problem for headsets, where the connections, connectors and various fiddly bits are key indicators of quality.... except that they are hidden behind cardboard props. Makes the entire thing useless for figuring out what is actually inside.
If you're right, it would be interesting that the Republicans thought that the federal bailout was a bad idea, but that the local bailout via earmarks was just fine and dandy.
Don't flatter yourself too much, as I mostly remember you from a few epic facepalm moments, generally in the AGW and small government threads. That said.... two things: the funding angle leads you nowhere, as it applies to every single person with any sort of expertise in any area. The only people completely unaffected by the funding angle are people who have never been exposed to it in any fashion - i.e. the totally clueless ones. And secondly, you ought to read Asimov's letter on wrongness. You are the prime example of what equating wholly different levels of wrongness does to your position.
Finally, do you know what would truly and completely provide eternal glory and funding to a scientist? Disproving AGW. Yes, those who have no shot at glory will pursue the safe avenues for funding. The hotshots will go for glory.
It is, however, a good paraphrase of how he characterized climate scientists, and specifically Hansen, in the past. A bit of hyperbole, sure, but close enough.
I find it kinda funny that you think James Hansen (who do you think the J Hansen is, there?) is an authority to be believed when he finds negative forcings, but a total eugenic crackpot who is paid off by the EcoMafia when he finds positive forcings.
All models are wrong. Some are more useful than others. Which ones are useful, and why? Show your work.
The same mechanism that prevents access to multiplayer can also be used to prevent access to anything in the game. Why do you think EA forces you through their Origin servers when you play on the Xbox?
Oh hey, look! Edge cases that appeal to emotion. Two can play that game. To wit: - I was raped, I can just have a child (or twins, or triplets) I don't have the money for or am ready to care for. Oh, and they'll go make some fine criminals. - I was fired from my job when the bankers decided it was more lucrative to just liquidate the company, my kids can now go play in the sewer - I'm an addict from medication received for an operation gone wrong, I can just go cold turkey and lose my job during the down period - I had some bad breaks in life, I should be thankful that I can squat underneath a bridge with 30 other losers - I have a 50k a year job and signed for a 100k year mortgage, but the bank that signed the loan is going under, so I'm going to lose everything - I'm a banker who made catastrophic investments, and I should be able to take down the entire economy while I retire on my bonuses
You're willfully ignoring the lessons of history just to fuel your little libertarian flame of faith.
You understand the difference between a philosophy of society, and a specific document delineating the views of specific people on how to achieve a certain set of social goals that somewhat match certain tenets of said philosophy, yes?
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No, it's when morons simply pull out the mantra that "government is evil" that people ask the logical follow-up question "So we should disband every government?"
Small government is fine. Arguing for reductions in budget by pointing out that said budget item is inefficient is fine. Chopping whole departments with the argument that government sucks, the free market will save you is retarded.
Ah yes, the argument that smokers are actually good for a country because they die young.
Wow. Can I just shoot you right now, so that I pay less for healthcare? I mean, I should be allowed to do it. After all, it lowers my health care bill.
What you - and all your conservative/libertarian friends as well - don't get is that a stable society is a prosperous one, and that a society where people can get old safely is one in which experience can be accumulated and put to good use. In short, your cost-benefit analysis is cute, but far too short-sighted.
Man, you'd think that we wouldn't have had this discussion 2000 years ago already.
Fucking moron.
Do NOT give them any new ideas. No, seriously.
And on the same topic, this kind of crap is exactly why there needs to be some sort of penalty for lobbying for laws that are so far away from any sort of humanitarian ideal, social contract or even basic free market concept. Want to propose a law in parliament that calls for the eating of babies? Fine, but if it doesn't pass, your baby is the only one that gets eaten. Want to propose draconian IP restrictions? Fine, but if it fails, your IP is permanently forfeited. Want to argue for some new taxes? Fine, but if it fails, your ass is the only one that gets taxed.
Yes, new laws will basically only get created if everyone KNOWS that they will pass with acclamation. That's the point. There are far too many laws on the books anyway.
At that age, I would suggest to show them what chemistry can do: blow things up (safely), make things turn different colors, make things smell bad, or burn things (again, safely!). Then go into why the stuff is doing what it is doing. Finally, once you explained why it is doing what it is doing, see if you can change things up to come up with different effects.
Leave the boring shit about valence electrons to later. Just show him what chemistry can do. If that doesn't hook him, move on.
Said one of the most freakishly gifted men in history. Kinda like Armstrong or Indurain saying that if everyone would just train like them, everyone could win 5+ Tour de France races in a row. There ARE limits - the trick is to have a realistic assessment of them.
Wow. I think this is one of those situations where everyone is actually thinking the same thing, but completely talking across each other. I guess we could call this a failure to communicate.
You're right, there's a huge difference between inductive logic and deductive logic. Deductive logic is easy to prove. Inductive logic is a total mess, and requires reliance on models and flawed data collection and gut feelings on what the data might actually mean.
So when we have to rely on experts to just progress in something as trivial as Commutation, what makes you think that we can just test everything out ourselves in natural sciences? You're completely making the parent's point. It's too bad you have no clue why it was modded +5 "Insightful".
You have no understanding of what a proof is in natural sciences. This isn't math, where everything is deductive. It is induction, and it is a numbers game. Furthermore, consensus is a good proxy for whether a scientific theory has been dissected and found valid, or whether it has been discarded for lack of predictive power. Or do you spend your life going over every scientific theory that your life depends on? Of course not. You use the experiences and work of others for that.
Yep. In order to access her yahoo mail, my girlfriend still brings up a browser with google as the home page, then types in Yahoo Mail. And she's not the only one. I die a little every time I see that.
The tech savvy people use bookmarks - or anything more complex than that. The tech illiterate people just punch in the site into a search engine, and then click on the first result. Both approaches make the approach of this company completely useless.
But they will gladly diver taxes to another county. Or another district. Or another city. Or another neighborhood. Or another house a street over. Or another neighbor. Living in a society is ALL about redistributing your wealth. At least, with a large country, you get to leverage network effects and economies of scale.
And, for the same reason that only upset people write letters to the editor, the voters in local elections are generally the ones with some serious ax to grind. In other words, the low turn-out in local elections is exactly what it is poisoning local school board elections.
I don't hate democracy. I hate low-voter turnout and the idiots who can't comprehend that democracy requires participation from everybody.
Not really. The only ones he is accountable to is the majority of the school board election voters. And there, you are a tiny fraction, if you vote at all. And statistics say you don't.
3) Local schoolboards know better what is needed for their locality than a politician living in Washington
This gets trotted out every time. What is much more likely is that local schoolboards are made up of people with too much time on their hands and have an axe to grind. Think your local Neighborhood Watch grandpa or your HOA president. And when they go off the deep-end, the only option is to hope that more people vote during the next election (fat chance), or to move.
2) One size fits all rarely fits anyone.
Actually, education is the one place where one size does fit all. Facts are facts. There is no need to tweak the teaching of facts to local customs.
1) When the Washington pols go off the deep end, they drag everybody down with them.
And just to complete the reverse dissection - Washington Pols are less likely to go off the deep end, because they need to worry about a broader voting base, which moves them to the center.
Eh - borked the link. http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/jun/21/how-texas-inflicts-bad-textbooks-on-us/
You mean, "local" schoolboards like the Texas one? See here for an example? I'll never understand why people think that local politicians are somehow better than Washington politicians. If anything, they can be worse, because there are far more possibilities for them to go completely off the deep end and be unchallenged.
If America is indeed a meritocracy, that means then that Americans are not as qualified to hold that job as the foreigners are. So now you are faced with a couple of decisions:
* you make hiring decisions not based on merit, but based on whether a person is related to you. In other words, you turn the US from a meritocracy into an aristocracy.
* you decide that the foreigners are getting too much of a leg up, because any bonus to immigrants gives them too much of a leg up over Americans. In which case, you are tacitly admitting that the US is really just the same as all other countries, and American exceptionalism is dead.
* you decide that all economists are wrong, and that there really is just a static set of jobs available, that putting someone unqualified in a position has no impact on the overall economy, and by the way, isolationism works just splendidly.
* you decided that the economists might be right, but that you just don't like foreigners. In which case, you just proved the old saw that nobody hates new immigrants like old immigrants.
In other words: get the fuck out of my country. Oh, and all you upmodders - the same goes for you.
I've got friends there that are worried about Californians coming to Texas for the jobs, and then trying to turn Texas into California.
You mean, a place with high-paying jobs that offer health-insurance, as well as some idea that just dumping crap into the environment might be a bad idea? That might actually be an improvement.
In the meantime, keep your paranoia to yourself.
The nice thing about clamshell packaging is that it clearly displays the product itself, and usually so you can see most or all the sides of the product.
Oh, if that would just be so..... Most clear clamshells contain cardboard INSIDE the clamshell that does one hell of a job of obscuring the actual product. This is especially a problem for headsets, where the connections, connectors and various fiddly bits are key indicators of quality.... except that they are hidden behind cardboard props. Makes the entire thing useless for figuring out what is actually inside.
If you're right, it would be interesting that the Republicans thought that the federal bailout was a bad idea, but that the local bailout via earmarks was just fine and dandy.
Don't flatter yourself too much, as I mostly remember you from a few epic facepalm moments, generally in the AGW and small government threads. That said.... two things: the funding angle leads you nowhere, as it applies to every single person with any sort of expertise in any area. The only people completely unaffected by the funding angle are people who have never been exposed to it in any fashion - i.e. the totally clueless ones. And secondly, you ought to read Asimov's letter on wrongness. You are the prime example of what equating wholly different levels of wrongness does to your position.
Finally, do you know what would truly and completely provide eternal glory and funding to a scientist? Disproving AGW. Yes, those who have no shot at glory will pursue the safe avenues for funding. The hotshots will go for glory.
It is, however, a good paraphrase of how he characterized climate scientists, and specifically Hansen, in the past. A bit of hyperbole, sure, but close enough.
I find it kinda funny that you think James Hansen (who do you think the J Hansen is, there?) is an authority to be believed when he finds negative forcings, but a total eugenic crackpot who is paid off by the EcoMafia when he finds positive forcings.
All models are wrong. Some are more useful than others. Which ones are useful, and why? Show your work.
The same mechanism that prevents access to multiplayer can also be used to prevent access to anything in the game. Why do you think EA forces you through their Origin servers when you play on the Xbox?
Oh hey, look! Edge cases that appeal to emotion. Two can play that game. To wit:
- I was raped, I can just have a child (or twins, or triplets) I don't have the money for or am ready to care for. Oh, and they'll go make some fine criminals.
- I was fired from my job when the bankers decided it was more lucrative to just liquidate the company, my kids can now go play in the sewer
- I'm an addict from medication received for an operation gone wrong, I can just go cold turkey and lose my job during the down period
- I had some bad breaks in life, I should be thankful that I can squat underneath a bridge with 30 other losers
- I have a 50k a year job and signed for a 100k year mortgage, but the bank that signed the loan is going under, so I'm going to lose everything
- I'm a banker who made catastrophic investments, and I should be able to take down the entire economy while I retire on my bonuses
You're willfully ignoring the lessons of history just to fuel your little libertarian flame of faith.
As they would say in Firefly: " Go suck it".
You understand the difference between a philosophy of society, and a specific document delineating the views of specific people on how to achieve a certain set of social goals that somewhat match certain tenets of said philosophy, yes?