> you can't really say anything about someone based on what invisible sky ghost they worship.
Now, regardless of whatever else you said, that is a *REALLY* stupid thing to say.
Your religious views will basically define your behaviour.
Of course, I'm assuming that you actually mean someone's overall religious views, rather than simply which god they claim to worship; there's a big difference between Presbyterians, Anglicans, and Roman Catholics today, for example.. and almost just as big a difference between each of those now, and what each of those was like 400 years ago. I'm also talking about the views they *actually* have, as opposed to what they publically claim, if there's a difference.
In other words, what I am saying is, not only *can* you say something about someone based on their religious philosiphy (which is heavily based on which "invisible ghost in the sky" they worship), but you can say a *WHOLE FRIGGING LOT* about them.
For example, if I told you I believed in a god who required that I sacrifice (kill) my firstborn son, then you could pretty obviously say that my views conflicted (violently) with your own. Well, I hope, anyway:)
The difficult part isn't in making statements (or deductions, if you like) about someone based on what (or even simply in whom) they believe; it's in *figuring out* what (or in whome) they believe.
P.S. Of course, being as I'm a protestant.. somewhere in between Presbyterian and Evengelical.. I don't hapen to agree that most Roman Catholics (or Anglicans, or Jehovah's Witnesses, or Orthodox, etc) are actually worshipping the same God I am. I say they're worshipping a made up god. In other words, as I said, it's not just which "invisible sky ghost" you *claim* to worship, it's which one you do.. because whoever you do worship (God, or any made up god, or nobody, to put it in my words) has a great impact on your whole outlook on life.. which of course has a great impact on your actions.
I think the same thing can be said about being an atheist, though to a lesser degree; there are various flavours of atheists (Stalin, Mao, to name a couple of bad ones.. I'm not saying there are only bad ones), but whatever you take as their overall outlook on life (which is impacted heavily by what they think about God, or the lack of existance of God) will to a great degree influence their actions (obviously). It's just that, with an atheist, your statement is more correct.. you can't tell nearly as much about their overall view of the world simply by who they claim to worship (namely, nobody). If someone claims to be a christian, you know right away that they probably have pretty conventional views on the wrongess of murder; if they're an atheist, you don't really know much one way or another. (No, I'm not insulting all atheists by that statement. Remember, I already said there's more than one kind of atheist. Stalin's variety is not the only kind.)
That's *much* better - now that you've actually specified which wolves-in-sheepdogs'-clothing you're talking about, you sound much more reasonable, and I agree with you.
Obviously, the best thing for a wolf is if the sheep think he's a sheepdog (Hitler, etc etc), which is why real life is always more complicated than any simple analogy (and also why analogies aren't there to explain everything, they're only there as, hopefully, an aide to understanding).
> Again, there's a reason that most of humanity's greatest spiritual leaders have advocated some kind of non-violence.
Yes, I agree, I just wanted to point out that, at least in the case of christianity, I don't believe Jesus was saying we should *never* defend ourselves. I believe it's a lot more complicated than just 'no violence' - which doesn't mean violence is ever the desirable solution; sometimes it's just the only choice besides being killed ourselves. It is not, however, something that ever should be taken lightly.
Yeah, because, I mean, everybody knows the last war (fill in the blank for whichever war that was) was the war to end all wars, and there will never be anoher one. I don't know about you, but to me, it seems that maybe part of the reason why the country *hasn't* been invaded is *because* you have a good army.
I mean, look at Canada.. in 1812 we didn't have an army, just militia. If we'd had a big army, would the US have thought twice about attacking us just because they were mad at England (and probably also because they didn't mind the idea of more land)? Umm, yes, they would have thought twice.
Would the USSR have thought twice about invading the US, in oh, say, 1950 or so, if the US hadn't had an army? Trust me, they wouldn't have; it would only take them however long the boats took to get there before the US was just another part of the USSR.
And what about Saddam Insane? In first gulf, he went up against the US *even though* they had a better army than he did. I doubt he'd have worried about taking them on if it had been his army that was twice their size.
You really think there isn't anyone out there today who would be quite happy to take advantage of a major decrease in the size of the US's armed forces? I can think of a few.
Live in reality: we *need* the sheepdogs. So if you have an idea about how the system can be better than it is, by all means, get out there and promote your idea. Otherwise, if you're not interested in doing anything about it, then sit back and hope someone else will, because that's about the only other option.
The sheepdogs *expect* a lot of the sheep to dislike them.
They go out there and do the job anyway.
And, by the way, if you're talking about corrupt military, police, etc, then you're talking about wolves, not sheedogs... but even though I'm Canadian, I find your hinting that the American Military and police are wolves to be quite insulting. Hitler's Germany? Oh, wolves. Stalin's Russia? Wolves, definitely. No, not all of them (in either case), but plenty enough to matter. The USA today? I completely disagree that any majority are more wolves than sheepdogs.
> We aren't sheep, sheepdogs, or wolves. We are human beings. If every human being on the planet refused to be subjugated, and was willing to die, not kill, for their beliefs, there would be little violence and no war.
Wow, you're exactly right! Because by then everybody would be dead.
Especially ever since the invention of nuclear weapons (something we hardly think about anymore, except as interesting fiction, even though we *still* have no defence against them if someone was crazy enough to use them), humans have had the ability to wipe each other out if they really wanted to. About the only thing stopping them is that they know whoever they attack will fight back (why do you think I'm not in favour of gun control? And to think, I'm Canadian).
Many people have been willing to die for their beliefs in the past, and did so.
Now, I'm not about to say they were complete idiots and should have fought back.. for one thing, I'm Presbyterian and happen to have a great deal of respect for the many people who were persecuted and killed by the Roman Catholics in scotland in the 1600s, just for one example (not to mention Christians in Rome, way back in the early days of Christianity, and on and on).
But I also don't have any condemnation for a man who's willing to take up arms and defend himself and his family from someone who's trying to kill them.
And even less for a man who'll take up arms to defend total strangers who share nothing but the same flag with him - and who also spend half their time talking behind his back about what an idiot he is, or worse, how he's exactly the same as the people who are trying to kill them. That is, until they day they need him.
And if you think I'm just another flunky who's glorifying the military, I have this excellent book you should read. It's called "Starship Trooprs" by I-suspect-you-know-who... (and NOT that horrible movie, either; it was nothing but an insult to the book, pure and simple). Oh, or another, more recent book, "The Road to Damascus", by John Ringo and Linda Evans. In fact, John Ringo has a few other excellent books, most in the sci fi genre so anybody on slashdot should at least be inclined towards liking them.
If you were talking about Hitler's Germany or Stalin's Russia, then yes, there were plenty of wolves to go around, and not many sheepdogs. But you're not. Stop insulting people who're ready and willing to die for you and your family if and when the time comes.
> What if my goal is to not be a sheepdog or a wolf, and be as far away from the sheepdogs and wolves as possible?
Then you're a good sheep, and to quote from the article:
"If you have no capacity for violence then you are a healthy productive citizen, a sheep."... "Still, the sheepdog disturbs the sheep. He is a constant reminder that there are wolves in the land."... "If you want to be a sheep, then you can be a sheep and that is okay, but you must understand the price you pay. When the wolf comes, you and your loved ones are going to die if there is not a sheepdog there to protect you."
And, finally:
"This business of being a sheep or a sheep dog is not a yes-no dichotomy. It is not an all-or-nothing, either-or choice. It is a matter of degrees, a continuum. On one end is an abject, head-in-the-sand-sheep and on the other end is the ultimate warrior. Few people exist completely on one end or the other. Most of us live somewhere in between."
> If you fight evil using the methods of evil, you become evil.
And is having sharp teeth evil? Is *killing* people evil? Some people seem to think it is, and that it always is, no matter what, but I think otherwise - I think it depends very much on the circumstances.
Wow, I find it interesting that there's only one tiny small eeenie weenie reference to this fact mentioned anywhere that I saw:
"The court was told that Mr Jones, 43, had posted personal details about himself online and used his real name when participating in a Yahoo! chatroom dedicated to Islam, where he met Gibbons." - from http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2409469, 00.html
What a surprise, an act of violence occurs after some people were in a chatroom about that peaceful religion we kep hearing about lately, Islam, and furthermore, the media barely even mentions the fact. They don't even say whether Gibbons, or Jones, or both, were muslims - I for one would actualy like to know whether it was the muslim getting beat up, or the muslim doing the beating (or both). Really, I would like to know. Does anyone have any other links giving more detail on the story?
Anyway, I don't mean to start a religious flame war here, but it makes it hard when this whole big 'first case in britain of web rage' headline comes along - and it's about an argument on an Islamic chat room.
(NOTE: This is a reply to two of the replies to the parent, not to the parent itself. I didn't feel like posting this twice, once for each of those replies, so here goes.)
Venerable Vegetable (1003177) said: > School is where you learn to interact with the real, big (sometimes painful) world, you don't learn that at home.
avatar4d (192234) said: > One thing to think about regarding home schooling is the lack of interactivity with other people. This can cause anti-social behavior later in life or just a lack in understanding how to interact and communicate with others.
Argh, I hate how many people buy his one (not to mention how old an argument it is - my parents heard it alot when they were talking about homeschooling their kids in the late 80s). Public school is *not* like anything else in the real world.
And furthermore, when you're a kid is not *supposed* to be when you learn all about the bad things that happen in the world. There's enough time to learn about all that later - and besides, what on earth makes you think they won't learn it at home? I mean, except maybe if they have no friends or siblings.
School is an artificial society; all the kids' friends are exactly the same age as them, and they hardly ever mix with anybody from a grade level lower or higher (Come on, I've never been in public school, but don't tel me all those sitcoms are wrong - it's uncool to mix with lower lifeforms, i.e. kids in a lower grade, correct?).
Where do you get that in the real world? Most of the time, you'll be interacting with a much broader group of people than in school, which sort of knocks out the 'public school is a broader experience than homeschool' idea - *neither* of them are representative of 'the real world', if you want to think of it that way.
And, what, being home schooled means they won't have friends (and/or relatives) to acquaint themselves with? Actually, it's much more likely (from my experience at least) that they'll learn how to interact with a lot of different people - kids who are younger and older than them, and adults of varying ages - when they make friends and meet people *outside* of school (extended family, neighbourhood kids, church, whatever) than when they meet people *in* school. Anyone ever thought that maybe the reason little Johnny is disrespectful to his grandad might actually be in part because he has no idea how to act towards him, because he never spends any time around anyone but his peers (who are all, let's face it, a bunch of dumb kids like himself;) )?
And here's a really good one for you. When are kids most likely to do really stupid things? Uhmm.. when they're with other kids around their age, without any supervision, right? So, I have a good idea! Let's put all the kids of the same age together, all day long, and of course they have some supervision, but the supervisor doesn't actually have any power (no abuse in our schools! *shocked look* how could you even *suggest* that teachers be allowed to spank kids? *Parents* shouldn't even spank kids, you brute!). *Then* see what happens!
*Sigh*.
Why do you expect an ignorant (by nature) kid to learn more by spending all day around a bunch of other ignorant kids than he will by spending all day (or at least, a larger portion of it) around his parents, who are, I hope, at least a little less ignorant than the kids at school?
Finally, if you can't get along with your siblings, how do you think you're going to ever get along with anyone *else* in the world? It logically follows that if you *can* get along with your siblings, you should at least have a good start at figuring out how to treat other people. So, yes, you can learn how to get along with people at home.
And.. by the way.. I know a lot of kids who were (and some still are being) homeschooled, and I haven't found many at all of them to be hard to get along with, nor have I found them to be at all anti-social. (Even the geek and semi-goth ones;) ) In fa
Argh! I meant to hit preview on that last post, and obviously it would have been a god idea. Let me try again:
> Too many parents use homeschool as a means to get their kids away from the "godless liberals and queers" in public school and teach them that Adam and Eve rode dinosaurs to church and little else outside of religious dogma.
Wow, talk about throwing around wild assertions and accusations. Where's the documentation for that? I'd really love to see it. No, really, I would.
I was homeschooled all through elementary and high school, and am now into my third year of Bach Sci in Computing from Athabasca University (4-year degree).. I didn't have any trouble at all adjusting to the difficulty level of university courses, so I can only assume that means I had a fairly good education in terms of math and language, at the very least.
Yes, my parents taught me about christianity [protestant/presbyterian, not Roman Catholic, by th way] (and furthermore, even now that I'm old enough and plenty well-educated enough to walk away from it if I so choose, I don't so choose), and yes, I happen to think the theory of evolution is claptrap (and furthermore, I can't understand why scientists support it - it's pure imagination and science fiction, from what I can see), but guess what?
I can still do Calculus, know where the Illium and Sphenoid are located, understand a binary search algorithm, and know three or so programming langues quite well.
All without being a member of the Church of Our Holy Order of St. Darwin, or ever having set foot in a public school except to visit its library or clean it (my sister worked as a janitor for awhile, and I helped out a few times).
If you want to make accusations about weird religious ideas influencing parents to homeschool merely to get their kids away from public schools (and by the way, I can think of a few good reasons to keep kids out of public schools that have *nothing* to do with religion - though many have already been mentioned), please, at least back it up with a little bit of data.
> Too many parents use homeschool as a means to get their kids away from the "godless liberals and queers" in public school and teach them that Adam and Eve rode dinosaurs to church and little else outside of religious dogma.
Wow, talk about throwing around wild assertions and accusations. Where's the documentation for that? I'd really love to see it.
I was homeschooled all through elementary and high school, and am now into my third year of Bach Sci in Computing from Athabasca University (4-year degree).. I didn't have any trouble at all adjusting to the difficulty level of university courses, so I can only assume that means I had a fairly good education in terms of math and language, at the very least.
Yes, my parents taught me about christianity (and furthermore, even now that I'm old enough and plenty well-educated enough to walk away from it if I so choose, I don't so choose), and yes, I happen to think the theory of evolution is claptrap (and furthermore, I can't understand why scientists support it - it's pure imagination and science fiction, from what I can see), but guess what?
I can still do Calculus, know where the Illium and Sphenoid are located, understand a binary search algorithm, and know three or so programming langues quite well.
All without being a member of the Church of Our Holy Order of St. Darwin, or ever having set foot in a public school except to visit its library or clean it (my sister worked as a janitor for awhile, and I helped out a few times).
If you want to make accusations about weird religious ideas influencing parents to homeschool merely to get their kids away from public schools (and by the way, I can think of a few good reasons to keep kids out of public schools that have nothing to do with religion - though many have already ben mentioned), please, at least back it up with a little bit of data.
Socializing? Pfft! I was homeschooled all my life, and now I'm halfway through a university degree (which I'm taking through distance-education from Athabasca University), and I've never had any problem with socializing. Besides, Canada is too socialistic as it is.
Wait a minute... I'm posting this on Slashdot. Maybe you're right.. I obviously *did* miss out on critical socialization when I was young! Thanks a lot, Mom and Dad.
> Linux is kinda like flossing. It keeps everything clean, but it's uncomfortable and no one really likes it.
lol.. that's hilarious, even though I disagree;)
I love using Linux.
Not just the GUI, either, I mean the filesystem, the way it works, the shell, everything; I love being able to type in a shell command or a perl one-liner on the spot and do something way cooler than you could do in windoze even with a complicated batch script.
I suppose it's also true that I'm a "power user" or whatever you want to call it (I'd say hacker, but, "It is better to be described as a hacker by others than to describe oneself that way." - The Jargon File, so I just say computer geek;) ).
But, it's *also* true that I got my sister (who is not totally computer illiterate, but also is definitely not a power user) using Linux like a year ago and she hasn't complained about it yet (except occasionally when she wants to do something on the web that requires a new version of flash which macromedia oh-so-helpfully doesn't seem to update as often as they could, or something like that).
I would be using Linux even if it wasn't just for the fact that I don't like Micro$oft - because I also *do* like Linux.
>"LOL" is a written - not spoken - word. Attempting to speak it is as rediculous as trying to spell a specific fart.
Actually, it's an acronym (laughing out loud), not a word. And by the way.. people have often tried (both successfully and unsuccessfully) to pronounce acronyms 'properly' before. Consider laser. or radar. Gnu. (How *do* you pronounce that, anyway? Is it "new" or "g-new"?) Emacs. (ee-macks? eh-macks?) GIF? JPEG? WAV? MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) (do you say "em ay dee dee" or just "mad"?)
Dude.. we live on them. And yes I have said "lol" out loud before instead of actually laughing:)
These are the same people who say that text consoles are ugly and GUIs are cool... Some programs just plain don't need a GUI. Some websites just plain don't need to be fancy.
As a bunch of people have already said, simple != ugly... now, in some cases, it wouldn't hurt the site to add some graphics to it, or maybe make the design a little more complex; if you do it right you can probably make it look nicer *and* retain all of the ease of use. But, again, mere simplicity is not the same thing as ugliness.
And personally, I far far prefer a well designed but simple layout to an overly complex layout. Like for instance, about 95% of the 'news' websites out there - that whole thing about cramming the article into the center 30% of the screen and then putting advertisements, links to the 'most popular' news stories, and whatever else all around it (or even worse, *in* the middle of the article), splitting the article into 150 3-sentence pages so that you have to keep clicking on 'next page' all the time, etc.. that's just plain not useful.
(And yes, I know that a lot of that, especially putting the ads in the middle of the article, is on purpose; but that doesn't change the fact that it's incredibly annoying)
Designs should enhance the site, not get in the way of the site. You can make a very pleasing design without making it override the function; in other words, you don't have to think of it as 'function over form' but rather as 'function *and* form'.
And of course, the whole subject of ads at all is a big one.. I haven't seen very many sites that have advertisements on them (except where the ad was designed specifically to go on the website in question, rather than being a generic google ad or something like that) that actually made the ad *fit* with the rest of the site. Almost invariably, the ads made the site uglier.
>if I thought that a third of the people out there were ripping me off, I'd freak too.
Okay.. first off, downloading it doesn't mean you're therefore not buying it. In other words, the fact that you *did* download doesn't mean you *would* have bought it but *didn't* since you downloaded it.
Three counter-examples from my own collection; I own 2 Dropkick Murphies CDs, about 4 DJ Tiesto CDs, and 6 Collective Soul CDs (I've also been to a CS concert); I heard of all three bands (err well.. Tiesto isn't a band but you know what I mean I hope) because I listened to their stuff after downloading it from P2P. (Yes, that's right, I heard them first from P2P, not on the radio.. I don't listen tot he radio all that much) So, right there you have 12 CDs (~$240 CDN) that I bought *BECAUSE* I had downloaded some of the music (and incidentally, I am planning on buying more of all three).
Second, this whole idea that copyright infringment is somehow 'stealing' from the guy whose copyright you're infringing is not right. *EVEN* the copyright law in the *US* doesn't say that (let alone Canada)... or it would be called 'stealing' not 'copyright infringment'. By copying a song you are *NOT* stealing from the owner of the song, even if he would have charged you money for it.
That's like the two little boys who were fighting with each other on that flintstones episode, and the mom breaks them up, and boy #1 says "He started it! Right after I hit him in the face..."
Ideas can't be owned. Not, at least, once you spread them around. It just doesn't work.
Hence the whole copyright and patent system.. the point isn't to make sure that the author 'owns' his work; the point is to give him a chance to make some money off it (if he so desires) so that he'll be able to go on making more cool things, instead of spending all his time worrying about what'll be on the plate for supper tonight.
Wow.. and I thought it was bad having all 11 of my home computers (hey, there are 9 people in the family, honest, not all 11 computers are mine!) hooked up to the same dialup connection:)
Well, my problem is that I'm out in the middle of nowhere, too far from anywhere for cable or DSL, but maddeningly, just close enough that I coukd probably get wireless... if only there weren't a few hills in the way.
I have already seriously considered looking into getting some kind of tower set up, but time and money have gotten in the way as usual, so nothing has come of it yet...
>Ironically, school probably is more damaging - would the disadvantages of home-schooling (i.e. lack of daily contact with peers) outweight the benefits of home-schooling (i.e. lack of daily contact with peers) with responsible and educated parents? Discuss.
Peer contact is overrated anyway... should a ten year old really *prefer* to spend all his time with ten year olds? No offense to ten year olds (having been one myself of course), but they really don't know all that much - so here's the choice; stick around with all the other ten year olds who *also* don't know much, or spend some time with adults who do know a lot more than you. (Note: I'm not saying there shouldn't be peer contact - I'm saying I don't think you need it all day long every day with that being your *main* social group) In public school the way it is currently set up, contact with adults is not encouraged - even in class it's 1 adult for however many kids, which means they don't have time to talk with only one kid at a time. Besides, how is being in contact with your peers all the time preparing you for life? When in the whole rest of your life will you be with a group of people exactly the same age as you? Err.. never. There really isn't any social circle that contains people all of the *SAME* age, except for public school.
Of course, I have no personal experience, since I have only ever been inside a public school in order to clean it:)
It is interesting to me that the two major arguments that my parents heard against homeschooling when they were thinking of doing it (and when they started, it was even less common than it is now) were a) there's not enough social contact and b) what about computers, or other kinds of education that require expensive equipment?
Well, I'm on slashdot, so that might tell you a bit about my social habits.. but then, it also tells you how wrong they were about us kids not getting a good education in computers:)
Re:Drugs is a misused word in the english language
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Games Are Not Drugs
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· Score: 1
>Drugs used to mean medication and it still does.
>But mostly people refer to drugs as a bad thing.
No. A "drug" is something which has a lethal dosage. (Let me repeat that: *all* drugs have a lethal dosage.) In other words, if you keep on increasing the dosage, it will eventually kill you. So yes, even the drugs that are used for good things are bad for you.. just not always. Sometimes they can help. If you don't overdose. Which is why we have something called a "prescription".
By the way, my dictionary says: drug n. 1 any substance used as or in a medicine 2 a narcotic, halucinogen, etc (Webster's New World Dictionary, Copyright date is 1996)
in other words, it is proper to use the word to refer to either one or the other, because the two are actually generally the same - just with different usages (i.e., narcotics and halucinogens are usually overused/abused rather than just used)
>This is a law brought to you by the people who want intelligent design taught in school.
Stop bunching people together, you're as bad as they are.
Here's what I say: Evolution is incorrect. I also say I have been playing computer games since I was 6 years old, starting with Hard Hat Mack and its contemporaries on an Apple IIe (it was a bit old when we got it) all the way up through GTA, Vice City, San Andreas, HalfLife 1/2, Diablo II, etc etc etc...
You don't have to be stupid or reactionary to disagree with evolution.
So the article is saying that english is declining because of how poorly so many people are using it, based at least in part on the fact that communication is so quick and easy with email, which makes people less likely to think about what they are writing before they write it.
However, I disagree. My theory is that what is happening is there have been a whole bunch of people who couldn't write very well, all along, and now they're on the internet, so anyone who *can* write well can see them. Sure, there are a lot of poorly written blogs floating around out there. And there are also a lot of well written blogs. The problem isn't that less people know how to write; it's that more of the people who don't know how to write are writing. I also happen to think that this problem will become less prevalent as more people spend time writing - because the more time people spend writing (and/or reading), the better they will become at it.
Of course, my theory is based entirely on personal observations, so there's nothing very scientific about it, but there ya go:)
>Like killing people, or walking around randomly pissing on folks. It's safer to do it in-game, and you also avoid running into petty quarrels with those law enforcement people.
That and you're not actually destroying people's property (or lives) by doing it in a game...
which is the whole reason why it's against the law in the real world...
Slashdot Mirror
> you can't really say anything about someone based on what invisible sky ghost they worship.
:)
Now, regardless of whatever else you said, that is a *REALLY* stupid thing to say.
Your religious views will basically define your behaviour.
Of course, I'm assuming that you actually mean someone's overall religious views, rather than simply which god they claim to worship; there's a big difference between Presbyterians, Anglicans, and Roman Catholics today, for example.. and almost just as big a difference between each of those now, and what each of those was like 400 years ago. I'm also talking about the views they *actually* have, as opposed to what they publically claim, if there's a difference.
In other words, what I am saying is, not only *can* you say something about someone based on their religious philosiphy (which is heavily based on which "invisible ghost in the sky" they worship), but you can say a *WHOLE FRIGGING LOT* about them.
For example, if I told you I believed in a god who required that I sacrifice (kill) my firstborn son, then you could pretty obviously say that my views conflicted (violently) with your own. Well, I hope, anyway
The difficult part isn't in making statements (or deductions, if you like) about someone based on what (or even simply in whom) they believe; it's in *figuring out* what (or in whome) they believe.
P.S. Of course, being as I'm a protestant.. somewhere in between Presbyterian and Evengelical.. I don't hapen to agree that most Roman Catholics (or Anglicans, or Jehovah's Witnesses, or Orthodox, etc) are actually worshipping the same God I am.
I say they're worshipping a made up god. In other words, as I said, it's not just which "invisible sky ghost" you *claim* to worship, it's which one you do.. because whoever you do worship (God, or any made up god, or nobody, to put it in my words) has a great impact on your whole outlook on life.. which of course has a great impact on your actions.
I think the same thing can be said about being an atheist, though to a lesser degree; there are various flavours of atheists (Stalin, Mao, to name a couple of bad ones.. I'm not saying there are only bad ones), but whatever you take as their overall outlook on life (which is impacted heavily by what they think about God, or the lack of existance of God) will to a great degree influence their actions (obviously).
It's just that, with an atheist, your statement is more correct.. you can't tell nearly as much about their overall view of the world simply by who they claim to worship (namely, nobody). If someone claims to be a christian, you know right away that they probably have pretty conventional views on the wrongess of murder; if they're an atheist, you don't really know much one way or another. (No, I'm not insulting all atheists by that statement. Remember, I already said there's more than one kind of atheist. Stalin's variety is not the only kind.)
That's *much* better - now that you've actually specified which wolves-in-sheepdogs'-clothing you're talking about, you sound much more reasonable, and I agree with you.
Obviously, the best thing for a wolf is if the sheep think he's a sheepdog (Hitler, etc etc), which is why real life is always more complicated than any simple analogy (and also why analogies aren't there to explain everything, they're only there as, hopefully, an aide to understanding).
> Again, there's a reason that most of humanity's greatest spiritual leaders have advocated some kind of non-violence.
Yes, I agree, I just wanted to point out that, at least in the case of christianity, I don't believe Jesus was saying we should *never* defend ourselves. I believe it's a lot more complicated than just 'no violence' - which doesn't mean violence is ever the desirable solution; sometimes it's just the only choice besides being killed ourselves.
It is not, however, something that ever should be taken lightly.
Yeah, because, I mean, everybody knows the last war (fill in the blank for whichever war that was) was the war to end all wars, and there will never be anoher one. I don't know about you, but to me, it seems that maybe part of the reason why the country *hasn't* been invaded is *because* you have a good army.
I mean, look at Canada.. in 1812 we didn't have an army, just militia. If we'd had a big army, would the US have thought twice about attacking us just because they were mad at England (and probably also because they didn't mind the idea of more land)? Umm, yes, they would have thought twice.
Would the USSR have thought twice about invading the US, in oh, say, 1950 or so, if the US hadn't had an army? Trust me, they wouldn't have; it would only take them however long the boats took to get there before the US was just another part of the USSR.
And what about Saddam Insane? In first gulf, he went up against the US *even though* they had a better army than he did. I doubt he'd have worried about taking them on if it had been his army that was twice their size.
You really think there isn't anyone out there today who would be quite happy to take advantage of a major decrease in the size of the US's armed forces? I can think of a few.
> Your parable is just thinly-veiled support for military power, written by a (surprise-surprise) squaddie.
I didn't notice it was veiled at all. It seemed pretty blunt and obvious.
>I would be able to kill in immediate self-defense, but I won't enter the slippery slope that finally sees me killing pre-emptively.
So you wouldn't kill someone who had a loaded gun pointed at your head, but hadn't pulled the trigger yet?
Self-defense is pre-emptive killing.
What a novel concept.
And your solution is?
No more sheepdogs?
Live in reality: we *need* the sheepdogs. So if you have an idea about how the system can be better than it is, by all means, get out there and promote your idea. Otherwise, if you're not interested in doing anything about it, then sit back and hope someone else will, because that's about the only other option.
The sheepdogs *expect* a lot of the sheep to dislike them.
They go out there and do the job anyway.
And, by the way, if you're talking about corrupt military, police, etc, then you're talking about wolves, not sheedogs... but even though I'm Canadian, I find your hinting that the American Military and police are wolves to be quite insulting. Hitler's Germany? Oh, wolves. Stalin's Russia? Wolves, definitely. No, not all of them (in either case), but plenty enough to matter. The USA today? I completely disagree that any majority are more wolves than sheepdogs.
> We aren't sheep, sheepdogs, or wolves. We are human beings. If every human being on the planet refused to be subjugated, and was willing to die, not kill, for their beliefs, there would be little violence and no war.
Wow, you're exactly right! Because by then everybody would be dead.
Especially ever since the invention of nuclear weapons (something we hardly think about anymore, except as interesting fiction, even though we *still* have no defence against them if someone was crazy enough to use them), humans have had the ability to wipe each other out if they really wanted to. About the only thing stopping them is that they know whoever they attack will fight back (why do you think I'm not in favour of gun control? And to think, I'm Canadian).
Many people have been willing to die for their beliefs in the past, and did so.
Now, I'm not about to say they were complete idiots and should have fought back.. for one thing, I'm Presbyterian and happen to have a great deal of respect for the many people who were persecuted and killed by the Roman Catholics in scotland in the 1600s, just for one example (not to mention Christians in Rome, way back in the early days of Christianity, and on and on).
But I also don't have any condemnation for a man who's willing to take up arms and defend himself and his family from someone who's trying to kill them.
And even less for a man who'll take up arms to defend total strangers who share nothing but the same flag with him - and who also spend half their time talking behind his back about what an idiot he is, or worse, how he's exactly the same as the people who are trying to kill them. That is, until they day they need him.
And if you think I'm just another flunky who's glorifying the military, I have this excellent book you should read. It's called "Starship Trooprs" by I-suspect-you-know-who... (and NOT that horrible movie, either; it was nothing but an insult to the book, pure and simple).
Oh, or another, more recent book, "The Road to Damascus", by John Ringo and Linda Evans.
In fact, John Ringo has a few other excellent books, most in the sci fi genre so anybody on slashdot should at least be inclined towards liking them.
If you were talking about Hitler's Germany or Stalin's Russia, then yes, there were plenty of wolves to go around, and not many sheepdogs. But you're not. Stop insulting people who're ready and willing to die for you and your family if and when the time comes.
> What if my goal is to not be a sheepdog or a wolf, and be as far away from the sheepdogs and wolves as possible?
... ...
Then you're a good sheep, and to quote from the article:
"If you have no capacity for violence then you are a healthy productive
citizen, a sheep."
"Still, the sheepdog disturbs the sheep. He is a constant reminder that
there are wolves in the land."
"If you want to be a sheep, then you can be a sheep and that is okay,
but you must understand the price you pay. When the wolf comes, you and your
loved ones are going to die if there is not a sheepdog there to protect you."
And, finally:
"This business of being a sheep or a sheep dog is not a yes-no
dichotomy. It is not an all-or-nothing, either-or choice. It is a matter of
degrees, a continuum. On one end is an abject, head-in-the-sand-sheep and
on the other end is the ultimate warrior. Few people exist completely on one
end or the other. Most of us live somewhere in between."
> If you fight evil using the methods of evil, you become evil.
And is having sharp teeth evil? Is *killing* people evil? Some people seem to think it is, and that it always is, no matter what, but I think otherwise - I think it depends very much on the circumstances.
Wow, I find it interesting that there's only one tiny small eeenie weenie reference to this fact mentioned anywhere that I saw:
, 00.html
"The court was told that Mr Jones, 43, had posted personal details about himself online and used his real name when participating in a Yahoo! chatroom dedicated to Islam, where he met Gibbons." - from http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2409469
What a surprise, an act of violence occurs after some people were in a chatroom about that peaceful religion we kep hearing about lately, Islam, and furthermore, the media barely even mentions the fact. They don't even say whether Gibbons, or Jones, or both, were muslims - I for one would actualy like to know whether it was the muslim getting beat up, or the muslim doing the beating (or both).
Really, I would like to know. Does anyone have any other links giving more detail on the story?
Anyway, I don't mean to start a religious flame war here, but it makes it hard when this whole big 'first case in britain of web rage' headline comes along - and it's about an argument on an Islamic chat room.
AND PEOPLE DON'T EVEN NOTICE.
pfft.. have you ever heard of neighbourhods? There are other kids out there, beyond your yard, waiting to be discovered...
;)
Anyway, you could always just have some more kids for the older ones to play with - that worked for my family
(NOTE: This is a reply to two of the replies to the parent, not to the parent itself. I didn't feel like posting this twice, once for each of those replies, so here goes.)
;) )?
;) ) In fa
Venerable Vegetable (1003177) said:
> School is where you learn to interact with the real, big (sometimes painful) world, you don't learn that at home.
avatar4d (192234) said:
> One thing to think about regarding home schooling is the lack of interactivity with other people. This can cause anti-social behavior later in life or just a lack in understanding how to interact and communicate with others.
Argh, I hate how many people buy his one (not to mention how old an argument it is - my parents heard it alot when they were talking about homeschooling their kids in the late 80s). Public school is *not* like anything else in the real world.
And furthermore, when you're a kid is not *supposed* to be when you learn all about the bad things that happen in the world. There's enough time to learn about all that later - and besides, what on earth makes you think they won't learn it at home? I mean, except maybe if they have no friends or siblings.
School is an artificial society; all the kids' friends are exactly the same age as them, and they hardly ever mix with anybody from a grade level lower or higher (Come on, I've never been in public school, but don't tel me all those sitcoms are wrong - it's uncool to mix with lower lifeforms, i.e. kids in a lower grade, correct?).
Where do you get that in the real world? Most of the time, you'll be interacting with a much broader group of people than in school, which sort of knocks out the 'public school is a broader experience than homeschool' idea - *neither* of them are representative of 'the real world', if you want to think of it that way.
And, what, being home schooled means they won't have friends (and/or relatives) to acquaint themselves with? Actually, it's much more likely (from my experience at least) that they'll learn how to interact with a lot of different people - kids who are younger and older than them, and adults of varying ages - when they make friends and meet people *outside* of school (extended family, neighbourhood kids, church, whatever) than when they meet people *in* school. Anyone ever thought that maybe the reason little Johnny is disrespectful to his grandad might actually be in part because he has no idea how to act towards him, because he never spends any time around anyone but his peers (who are all, let's face it, a bunch of dumb kids like himself
And here's a really good one for you. When are kids most likely to do really stupid things? Uhmm.. when they're with other kids around their age, without any supervision, right? So, I have a good idea! Let's put all the kids of the same age together, all day long, and of course they have some supervision, but the supervisor doesn't actually have any power (no abuse in our schools! *shocked look* how could you even *suggest* that teachers be allowed to spank kids? *Parents* shouldn't even spank kids, you brute!). *Then* see what happens!
*Sigh*.
Why do you expect an ignorant (by nature) kid to learn more by spending all day around a bunch of other ignorant kids than he will by spending all day (or at least, a larger portion of it) around his parents, who are, I hope, at least a little less ignorant than the kids at school?
Finally, if you can't get along with your siblings, how do you think you're going to ever get along with anyone *else* in the world? It logically follows that if you *can* get along with your siblings, you should at least have a good start at figuring out how to treat other people. So, yes, you can learn how to get along with people at home.
And.. by the way.. I know a lot of kids who were (and some still are being) homeschooled, and I haven't found many at all of them to be hard to get along with, nor have I found them to be at all anti-social. (Even the geek and semi-goth ones
Argh! I meant to hit preview on that last post, and obviously it would have been a god idea. Let me try again:
> Too many parents use homeschool as a means to get their kids away from the "godless liberals and queers" in public school and teach them that Adam and Eve rode dinosaurs to church and little else outside of religious dogma.
Wow, talk about throwing around wild assertions and accusations. Where's the documentation for that? I'd really love to see it. No, really, I would.
I was homeschooled all through elementary and high school, and am now into my third year of Bach Sci in Computing from Athabasca University (4-year degree).. I didn't have any trouble at all adjusting to the difficulty level of university courses, so I can only assume that means I had a fairly good education in terms of math and language, at the very least.
Yes, my parents taught me about christianity [protestant/presbyterian, not Roman Catholic, by th way] (and furthermore, even now that I'm old enough and plenty well-educated enough to walk away from it if I so choose, I don't so choose), and yes, I happen to think the theory of evolution is claptrap (and furthermore, I can't understand why scientists support it - it's pure imagination and science fiction, from what I can see), but guess what?
I can still do Calculus, know where the Illium and Sphenoid are located, understand a binary search algorithm, and know three or so programming langues quite well.
All without being a member of the Church of Our Holy Order of St. Darwin, or ever having set foot in a public school except to visit its library or clean it (my sister worked as a janitor for awhile, and I helped out a few times).
If you want to make accusations about weird religious ideas influencing parents to homeschool merely to get their kids away from public schools (and by the way, I can think of a few good reasons to keep kids out of public schools that have *nothing* to do with religion - though many have already been mentioned), please, at least back it up with a little bit of data.
> Too many parents use homeschool as a means to get their kids away from the "godless liberals and queers" in public school and teach them that Adam and Eve rode dinosaurs to church and little else outside of religious dogma. Wow, talk about throwing around wild assertions and accusations. Where's the documentation for that? I'd really love to see it. I was homeschooled all through elementary and high school, and am now into my third year of Bach Sci in Computing from Athabasca University (4-year degree).. I didn't have any trouble at all adjusting to the difficulty level of university courses, so I can only assume that means I had a fairly good education in terms of math and language, at the very least. Yes, my parents taught me about christianity (and furthermore, even now that I'm old enough and plenty well-educated enough to walk away from it if I so choose, I don't so choose), and yes, I happen to think the theory of evolution is claptrap (and furthermore, I can't understand why scientists support it - it's pure imagination and science fiction, from what I can see), but guess what? I can still do Calculus, know where the Illium and Sphenoid are located, understand a binary search algorithm, and know three or so programming langues quite well. All without being a member of the Church of Our Holy Order of St. Darwin, or ever having set foot in a public school except to visit its library or clean it (my sister worked as a janitor for awhile, and I helped out a few times). If you want to make accusations about weird religious ideas influencing parents to homeschool merely to get their kids away from public schools (and by the way, I can think of a few good reasons to keep kids out of public schools that have nothing to do with religion - though many have already ben mentioned), please, at least back it up with a little bit of data.
Socializing? Pfft! I was homeschooled all my life, and now I'm halfway through a university degree (which I'm taking through distance-education from Athabasca University), and I've never had any problem with socializing. Besides, Canada is too socialistic as it is.
Wait a minute... I'm posting this on Slashdot.
Maybe you're right.. I obviously *did* miss out on critical socialization when I was young!
Thanks a lot, Mom and Dad.
> Linux is kinda like flossing. It keeps everything clean, but it's uncomfortable and no one really likes it.
;)
;) ).
;)
lol.. that's hilarious, even though I disagree
I love using Linux.
Not just the GUI, either, I mean the filesystem, the way it works, the shell, everything; I love being able to type in a shell command or a perl one-liner on the spot and do something way cooler than you could do in windoze even with a complicated batch script.
I suppose it's also true that I'm a "power user" or whatever you want to call it (I'd say hacker, but, "It is better to be described as a hacker by others than to describe oneself that way." - The Jargon File, so I just say computer geek
But, it's *also* true that I got my sister (who is not totally computer illiterate, but also is definitely not a power user) using Linux like a year ago and she hasn't complained about it yet (except occasionally when she wants to do something on the web that requires a new version of flash which macromedia oh-so-helpfully doesn't seem to update as often as they could, or something like that).
I would be using Linux even if it wasn't just for the fact that I don't like Micro$oft - because I also *do* like Linux.
But still, my sides hurt from laughing at that
>"LOL" is a written - not spoken - word. Attempting to speak it is as rediculous as trying to spell a specific fart.
:)
Actually, it's an acronym (laughing out loud), not a word. And by the way.. people have often tried (both successfully and unsuccessfully) to pronounce acronyms 'properly' before.
Consider laser.
or radar.
Gnu. (How *do* you pronounce that, anyway? Is it "new" or "g-new"?)
Emacs. (ee-macks? eh-macks?)
GIF? JPEG? WAV? MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) (do you say "em ay dee dee" or just "mad"?)
Dude.. we live on them.
And yes I have said "lol" out loud before instead of actually laughing
These are the same people who say that text consoles are ugly and GUIs are cool...
Some programs just plain don't need a GUI.
Some websites just plain don't need to be fancy.
As a bunch of people have already said, simple != ugly... now, in some cases, it wouldn't hurt the site to add some graphics to it, or maybe make the design a little more complex; if you do it right you can probably make it look nicer *and* retain all of the ease of use. But, again, mere simplicity is not the same thing as ugliness.
And personally, I far far prefer a well designed but simple layout to an overly complex layout. Like for instance, about 95% of the 'news' websites out there - that whole thing about cramming the article into the center 30% of the screen and then putting advertisements, links to the 'most popular' news stories, and whatever else all around it (or even worse, *in* the middle of the article), splitting the article into 150 3-sentence pages so that you have to keep clicking on 'next page' all the time, etc.. that's just plain not useful.
(And yes, I know that a lot of that, especially putting the ads in the middle of the article, is on purpose; but that doesn't change the fact that it's incredibly annoying)
Designs should enhance the site, not get in the way of the site. You can make a very pleasing design without making it override the function; in other words, you don't have to think of it as 'function over form' but rather as 'function *and* form'.
And of course, the whole subject of ads at all is a big one.. I haven't seen very many sites that have advertisements on them (except where the ad was designed specifically to go on the website in question, rather than being a generic google ad or something like that) that actually made the ad *fit* with the rest of the site. Almost invariably, the ads made the site uglier.
>if I thought that a third of the people out there were ripping me off, I'd freak too.
Okay.. first off, downloading it doesn't mean you're therefore not buying it. In other words, the fact that you *did* download doesn't mean you *would* have bought it but *didn't* since you downloaded it.
Three counter-examples from my own collection; I own 2 Dropkick Murphies CDs, about 4 DJ Tiesto CDs, and 6 Collective Soul CDs (I've also been to a CS concert); I heard of all three bands (err well.. Tiesto isn't a band but you know what I mean I hope) because I listened to their stuff after downloading it from P2P. (Yes, that's right, I heard them first from P2P, not on the radio.. I don't listen tot he radio all that much)
So, right there you have 12 CDs (~$240 CDN) that I bought *BECAUSE* I had downloaded some of the music (and incidentally, I am planning on buying more of all three).
Second, this whole idea that copyright infringment is somehow 'stealing' from the guy whose copyright you're infringing is not right. *EVEN* the copyright law in the *US* doesn't say that (let alone Canada)... or it would be called 'stealing' not 'copyright infringment'. By copying a song you are *NOT* stealing from the owner of the song, even if he would have charged you money for it.
That's like the two little boys who were fighting with each other on that flintstones episode, and the mom breaks them up, and boy #1 says "He started it! Right after I hit him in the face..."
Ideas can't be owned. Not, at least, once you spread them around. It just doesn't work.
Hence the whole copyright and patent system.. the point isn't to make sure that the author 'owns' his work; the point is to give him a chance to make some money off it (if he so desires) so that he'll be able to go on making more cool things, instead of spending all his time worrying about what'll be on the plate for supper tonight.
Wow.. and I thought it was bad having all 11 of my home computers (hey, there are 9 people in the family, honest, not all 11 computers are mine!) hooked up to the same dialup connection :)
Well, my problem is that I'm out in the middle of nowhere, too far from anywhere for cable or DSL, but maddeningly, just close enough that I coukd probably get wireless... if only there weren't a few hills in the way.
I have already seriously considered looking into getting some kind of tower set up, but time and money have gotten in the way as usual, so nothing has come of it yet...
>Ironically, school probably is more damaging - would the disadvantages of home-schooling (i.e. lack of daily contact with peers) outweight the benefits of home-schooling (i.e. lack of daily contact with peers) with responsible and educated parents? Discuss.
:)
:)
Peer contact is overrated anyway... should a ten year old really *prefer* to spend all his time with ten year olds? No offense to ten year olds (having been one myself of course), but they really don't know all that much - so here's the choice; stick around with all the other ten year olds who *also* don't know much, or spend some time with adults who do know a lot more than you.
(Note: I'm not saying there shouldn't be peer contact - I'm saying I don't think you need it all day long every day with that being your *main* social group)
In public school the way it is currently set up, contact with adults is not encouraged - even in class it's 1 adult for however many kids, which means they don't have time to talk with only one kid at a time.
Besides, how is being in contact with your peers all the time preparing you for life? When in the whole rest of your life will you be with a group of people exactly the same age as you? Err.. never. There really isn't any social circle that contains people all of the *SAME* age, except for public school.
Of course, I have no personal experience, since I have only ever been inside a public school in order to clean it
It is interesting to me that the two major arguments that my parents heard against homeschooling when they were thinking of doing it (and when they started, it was even less common than it is now) were a) there's not enough social contact and b) what about computers, or other kinds of education that require expensive equipment?
Well, I'm on slashdot, so that might tell you a bit about my social habits.. but then, it also tells you how wrong they were about us kids not getting a good education in computers
>Drugs used to mean medication and it still does.
>But mostly people refer to drugs as a bad thing.
No. A "drug" is something which has a lethal dosage. (Let me repeat that: *all* drugs have a lethal dosage.) In other words, if you keep on increasing the dosage, it will eventually kill you. So yes, even the drugs that are used for good things are bad for you.. just not always. Sometimes they can help. If you don't overdose. Which is why we have something called a "prescription".
By the way, my dictionary says:
drug n.
1 any substance used as or in a medicine
2 a narcotic, halucinogen, etc
(Webster's New World Dictionary, Copyright date is 1996)
in other words, it is proper to use the word to refer to either one or the other, because the two are actually generally the same - just with different usages (i.e., narcotics and halucinogens are usually overused/abused rather than just used)
>This is a law brought to you by the people who want intelligent design taught in school.
Stop bunching people together, you're as bad as they are.
Here's what I say: Evolution is incorrect.
I also say I have been playing computer games since I was 6 years old, starting with Hard Hat Mack and its contemporaries on an Apple IIe (it was a bit old when we got it) all the way up through GTA, Vice City, San Andreas, HalfLife 1/2, Diablo II, etc etc etc...
You don't have to be stupid or reactionary to disagree with evolution.
So the article is saying that english is declining because of how poorly so many people are using it, based at least in part on the fact that communication is so quick and easy with email, which makes people less likely to think about what they are writing before they write it.
:)
However, I disagree. My theory is that what is happening is there have been a whole bunch of people who couldn't write very well, all along, and now they're on the internet, so anyone who *can* write well can see them.
Sure, there are a lot of poorly written blogs floating around out there.
And there are also a lot of well written blogs.
The problem isn't that less people know how to write; it's that more of the people who don't know how to write are writing.
I also happen to think that this problem will become less prevalent as more people spend time writing - because the more time people spend writing (and/or reading), the better they will become at it.
Of course, my theory is based entirely on personal observations, so there's nothing very scientific about it, but there ya go
>Like killing people, or walking around randomly pissing on folks. It's safer to do it in-game, and you also avoid running into petty quarrels with those law enforcement people.
That and you're not actually destroying people's property (or lives) by doing it in a game...
which is the whole reason why it's against the law in the real world...