Actually, many of us are pissed off about governments who fail to ratify the UN Declaration of Human Rights, among other things. And even if you're skeptical about the UN (or even the idea of world government in principle), citing a government's human rights abuses is still one of the best ways to drum up popular support for invading a sovereign nation.
I personally am approximately as cynical about national sovereignty (with respect to human rights in particular) as I am about states' rights.
Both parties are big spenders, but only the Republicans claim not to be. I think a Democratic president who had to deal with Ron Paul's constant complaining about the budget might end up governing with a liberal agenda (which is highly desirable to me) but in a way that's a little more palatable to Republican voters, who ostensibly still care about overspending even if most of their representatives don't.
Well, this could quickly turn into a novel. (And and Ayn Rand has shown us, a novel is the "perfect" vehicle for a political manifesto!)
I'm multitasking at work at the moment but I promise to come back to this thread tonight and give you something more substantial. My claim is not, as you've characterized it below, that supporting Ron Paul is completely untenable without self-deception, but that the Randian-Libertarian philosophy taken as a whole is.
There are certainly individual issues on which Paul is totally correct, and that's why I suggested downthread that under some circumstances he might make a great VP. But those individual issues, to me, don't nearly outweigh the issues he's wrong about - and more pertinently, I don't think those issues are the real reason for his 'underground' popularity - even among many of the people who cite them. You might conceivably disagree with me on whether the good outweighs the bad, and on that basis you might indeed be a perfectly intellectually honest Paul supporter. But the Randian Libertarian movement in the USA is not predominantly made up of that kind of supporter. The reasons why I think that, are what could turn this comment into a novel.
If I come back to this article in a week, will the moderation make sense, or will it just be a case of whichever group mods last and in force, wins?
I was responding in kind to a comment which characterized everyone who didn't vote for Ron Paul as averse to reality. If you'd actually like to have a discussion about the proliferation of Randian-Libertarian ideology in the US and the self-deception it most commonly engenders (and without which it is logically untenable), by all means let's get into specifics. But I gave Jeng's comment exactly the response it deserved.
And he achieved that shift not by making a policy decision (which his office does not empower him to make), but by speaking publicly on the issue. Which is pretty much precisely what I said.
Joe Biden's contribution to this presidency hasn't been in the form of policy decisions, it's been mainly as a public speaker and ideological mouthpiece. And in that capacity, he's arguably done a fantastic job - just look at how the gay-marriage thing played out last week.
I think Ron Paul would be terrible at the actual sport of governing if he were ever picked for the team. But he's a fine colour commentator.
I also completely agree with his States' Rights stance.
Is this strictly regarding issues of economics and commerce, or do you think human rights issues are best left to individual states to decide as well? Because, uh, that's kind of crazy.
DUH. Brains can already run on emacs, didn't you know Lisp was originally developed for AI research?
Just type ctrl-shift-R meta-K semicolon shift-Q-X, hit F13, and hold your occipital lobe against the SysRq key for 5 seconds. Voila - instant, permanent transfer of consciousness from the boring old physical world, into your third-favourite text editor! It couldn't be simpler.
The information contained in those two grammes of entangled matter, isn't information that you've encoded into it. It's information which begins "existing", so to speak, when an observation is made from one end or the other.
Hire a guy to randomly generate 65,536 sequential binary bits, written on paper, duplicated once, and then sealed in 2 envelopes. Shoot him in the face when you're done with him, to rule out information leaks. Now mail one envelope across the world to China, bearing a "don't open until x-mas" label.
Now wait until christmas eve, then go into your 4chan folder and find your favourite 8 kB jpeg of some anonymous boobs. Open up your envelope, take that image file and, bit by bit, XOR it with the bitstream on your sheaf of paper. The resulting ciphertext is indistinguishable from random data - that is, its Shannon entropy is approximately equal to its length. Now you can call up your new Chinese penpal on the phone, read them your ciphertext, and show them some boobs which only they can decode.
It's foolproof, except for the fact that it's pretty easy to open a postal envelope, read its contents, and re-seal it.
Essentially what's happened here is researchers have figured out how to use particles as envelopes, which have much better sealing properties.
We hope. Far too many geeks just assume what's drop dead obvious to them is drop dead obvious to users/regular mortals^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hjourneyman boilermakers and elevator engineers.
FTFY. The general public may be assumed to be idiots, but the aforementioned specialists should not.
And even if they are, why on earth would they have software-configurable speeds or pressures that can range outside of safe parameters? The safety limits should be hard-coded.
Slashdot Mirror
You are one of the good ones. :)
Actually, many of us are pissed off about governments who fail to ratify the UN Declaration of Human Rights, among other things. And even if you're skeptical about the UN (or even the idea of world government in principle), citing a government's human rights abuses is still one of the best ways to drum up popular support for invading a sovereign nation.
I personally am approximately as cynical about national sovereignty (with respect to human rights in particular) as I am about states' rights.
That's why I think he'd make such a good foil!
Both parties are big spenders, but only the Republicans claim not to be. I think a Democratic president who had to deal with Ron Paul's constant complaining about the budget might end up governing with a liberal agenda (which is highly desirable to me) but in a way that's a little more palatable to Republican voters, who ostensibly still care about overspending even if most of their representatives don't.
Well, this could quickly turn into a novel. (And and Ayn Rand has shown us, a novel is the "perfect" vehicle for a political manifesto!)
I'm multitasking at work at the moment but I promise to come back to this thread tonight and give you something more substantial. My claim is not, as you've characterized it below, that supporting Ron Paul is completely untenable without self-deception, but that the Randian-Libertarian philosophy taken as a whole is.
There are certainly individual issues on which Paul is totally correct, and that's why I suggested downthread that under some circumstances he might make a great VP. But those individual issues, to me, don't nearly outweigh the issues he's wrong about - and more pertinently, I don't think those issues are the real reason for his 'underground' popularity - even among many of the people who cite them. You might conceivably disagree with me on whether the good outweighs the bad, and on that basis you might indeed be a perfectly intellectually honest Paul supporter. But the Randian Libertarian movement in the USA is not predominantly made up of that kind of supporter. The reasons why I think that, are what could turn this comment into a novel.
Same as it ever was. :)
I was responding in kind to a comment which characterized everyone who didn't vote for Ron Paul as averse to reality. If you'd actually like to have a discussion about the proliferation of Randian-Libertarian ideology in the US and the self-deception it most commonly engenders (and without which it is logically untenable), by all means let's get into specifics. But I gave Jeng's comment exactly the response it deserved.
I would be interested to hear your opinion on what the reasons for the Civil War were, and whether they were good reasons.
And he achieved that shift not by making a policy decision (which his office does not empower him to make), but by speaking publicly on the issue. Which is pretty much precisely what I said.
Another word for it would be "antebellum".
Virtually none. Which was kind of my point. :)
Joe Biden's contribution to this presidency hasn't been in the form of policy decisions, it's been mainly as a public speaker and ideological mouthpiece. And in that capacity, he's arguably done a fantastic job - just look at how the gay-marriage thing played out last week.
I think Ron Paul would be terrible at the actual sport of governing if he were ever picked for the team. But he's a fine colour commentator.
That's pretty technical terminology
[condescending-wonka.jpg]
I bet you must have some serious medical credentials
Know what I'd like to see?
Ron Paul as a Democrat's VP.
He'd never do it but that might be the most productive position for him.
Is this strictly regarding issues of economics and commerce, or do you think human rights issues are best left to individual states to decide as well? Because, uh, that's kind of crazy.
Randians and reality are utterly unacquainted with each other.
DUH. Brains can already run on emacs, didn't you know Lisp was originally developed for AI research?
Just type ctrl-shift-R meta-K semicolon shift-Q-X, hit F13, and hold your occipital lobe against the SysRq key for 5 seconds. Voila - instant, permanent transfer of consciousness from the boring old physical world, into your third-favourite text editor! It couldn't be simpler.
The information contained in those two grammes of entangled matter, isn't information that you've encoded into it. It's information which begins "existing", so to speak, when an observation is made from one end or the other.
Hire a guy to randomly generate 65,536 sequential binary bits, written on paper, duplicated once, and then sealed in 2 envelopes. Shoot him in the face when you're done with him, to rule out information leaks. Now mail one envelope across the world to China, bearing a "don't open until x-mas" label.
Now wait until christmas eve, then go into your 4chan folder and find your favourite 8 kB jpeg of some anonymous boobs. Open up your envelope, take that image file and, bit by bit, XOR it with the bitstream on your sheaf of paper. The resulting ciphertext is indistinguishable from random data - that is, its Shannon entropy is approximately equal to its length. Now you can call up your new Chinese penpal on the phone, read them your ciphertext, and show them some boobs which only they can decode.
It's foolproof, except for the fact that it's pretty easy to open a postal envelope, read its contents, and re-seal it.
Essentially what's happened here is researchers have figured out how to use particles as envelopes, which have much better sealing properties.
Electricity does not travel at the speed of light.
Tautological tautology is tautological!
We hope. Far too many geeks just assume what's drop dead obvious to them is drop dead obvious to users/regular mortals^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hjourneyman boilermakers and elevator engineers.
FTFY. The general public may be assumed to be idiots, but the aforementioned specialists should not.
And even if they are, why on earth would they have software-configurable speeds or pressures that can range outside of safe parameters? The safety limits should be hard-coded.
insert the usual DATS RACIST caveat, but... excellent job in transliterating the accent. spot-on.
er, should read 10^24kg.
There is no proof of any future "end" of oil being available, or even any future net loss of oil production due to oil not being available.
^^^ Try and prove that statement incorrect
Ok. The Earth's mass is approximately 5.9722 × 1024 kg. The mass of petroleum on Earth is strictly below that. QED.
You really need to do a better job of placing your goalposts.
Mod parent up. Grandparent is just a bunch of handwaving if it doesn't provide citations. World oil supplies are not decided by fiat.
Why would anyone access 4chan through Tor except to upload child porn?
Not a day goes by when I don't think fondly of the Brown Rope guy.