Yeah, I get so tired of companies who try to stick up for the rights of their employees. Damn them. Why can't they all just exploit their employees to the max like everyone else.
I'd mod you up if I had not already commented, here. This was exactly what I was thinking. If I were a bigot in Poland, I think I would be a bit incensed by Google telling me I have to treat LGBTs equally in my country when they aren't treated equally even in Google's own home country.
Yeah, it's like those companies that hired those black people, trying to make life easier for their employees by campaigning against racism. Stupid evil companies, trying to get rid of all that great benevolent bigotry we've fought so hard for.
Because the mind of a 7-year-old is not mature enough to know whether or not it really wants to marry anyone, let alone a 68-year old. I don't see why that's relevant.
Neither is 100% efficient. Running one harder or the other harder will make no significant difference. The compressor was partially my point. If you expose the fridge coils to the outdoors, the motor has to run harder, so it may even be less efficient. In addition to this, A/C units tend to use less power per unit of heat exchanged (i.e. are more energy efficient) so having them do the work is better, meaning that the GP's idea won't work (as I said).
Your refrigerator idea won't save energy in the summer. The efficiency of the fridge is related to the temperature difference between the coils and the air around them. If they are exposed to a hot outdoors, the fridge will simply work harder. If you expose them to the cool indoors, the fridge gets a break at the expense of the house's A/C which has to pump the extra heat away.
In other words, something has to overcome the temperature difference to push the heat outside. It's either the fridge or the fridge + A/C and in neither case are you going to see any savings.
You are ignoring the counter argument that it was patents which allowed the US companies to create medications in the first place. Medications that are cheap today now that patents have expired, only existed because the US made it profitable for companies to develop them in the first place.
(I'm not saying this is definitely true, just that you've acted as if the argument doesn't exist and "making drugs cheap" is an obvious solution)
Medicare running out of money has nothing to do with whether or not it was a good idea. It is running out of money because of the combination of a baby boom and a poor economy. Even if it single handedly made the baby boom possible, it didn't make it necessary, and so it still was not necessarily a bad idea. In fact, statistics suggest that more, not less, government aid results in better systems.
Another way of looking at it is that Medicare isn't designed to be profitable. The amount of money it can get is determined by law makers who decide how much goes to Medicare and how much goes elsewhere, like say, the military. If the military was running out of money, it wouldn't mean having a military is a bad idea, it would mean we're not funding it enough. It's the same with Medicare.
Although coordinated involvement by the government (Medicaid and Medicare) were the right thing to do and freed the population from the worst afflictions, it also freed the population to multiply at an unsustainable rate, and we haven't been able to stem the birth rate. So these were good, but only half of the solution to the problem. Without solving the other half, population multiplication will continue to outpace resource multiplication and although we've mitigated this with technology, our ability to keep doing so appears to be waning, and we won't be able to sustain the coordinated involvement. What we see is a boom followed by a bust. That's why Medicaid and Medicare are now out of money. It isn't because they were the wrong thing to do. It's because we tried to have our cake and eat it too, while other nations seemed to avoid doing the same thing.
The difference from humans to other humans can be 3 million base pairs, (0.1%), for perspective. 30 million (a factor of 10) doesn't seem like that much.
This is often said. But I think a citation is needed. The reason representatives vote on laws is because that is the only efficient way (or was when the system was invented) to represent the public. Representatives are elected by the majority. If they vote with the their electorate, then it's still mob rule. If they don't then they've betrayed them.
The U.S. solution to this problem was to grant rights in the constitution to reign in the majority's power. Interpretation of this is charged to the judicial branch, who are not directly elected.
There may be no ultimate solution to this problem, but the current system of large corporations purchasing representatives masked by lobbyist organizations is not good either.
Extreme cold, on the other hand, does reduce the odds of finding life. Not because things can't live in cold climate, but because evolution is ultimately a chemical process, and all chemical processes are retarded by cold. It took life on earth billions of years to evolve in a temperate climate. In a gigantic freezer, it could be expected to take much much longer.
Sorry to seem dismissive, but my point is that you did not cite Livestrong's sources, you cited Livestrong. There is an important difference. It's very easy to cite only sources that seem to corroborate your claim. "This causes cancer because this study said so... please ignore the ten other ones done later that found no link".
Regardless, sugar is a dangerous additive. In equivalent (by sweetness) doses, sugar is many times more likely to be a factor in deadly diseases (obesity, obesity induced heart disease, obesity induced diabetes, etc) than aspartame.
But critics charged that the investigators did not follow the guidelines for scientific study outlined by the NIEHS' own research group, the National Toxicology Program. They further noted that the NTP's own animal studies involving similar levels of aspartame exposure showed no link between the sweetener and an increase in cancers
In what world do most obese children "choose" to be fat? Most children are unaware of the nuances of dieting, the dangers of obesity, and the difficulty in losing weight once gained. They don't choose their parents or the culture they're born into either.
I understand the sentiment of not needing the government to tell us what to buy, but I am really tired of the myth that "artificial" sweeteners cause cancer and "natural" sugar is somehow safe. Consuming sugar is known to greatly increase your risk of obesity (and thereby a host of other health issues like heart disease and diabetes). Whereas the least safe of all of the no calorie or low calorie sweeteners in use, aspartame, has not been demonstrated to be a carcinogen at all.
Even if there is a clear line between "natural" and "artificial" it does not follow that the former is in any way safe. Much of nature is out to kill you.
I'm undoing all my mods to respond to this old canard.
Atheism is, by definition, provisional. If an atheist meets god, or religion makes a compelling case, then an atheist will change his mind. Atheism is just the claim that god still hasn't been detected and religions still haven't made their case.
This is not the same as religious who accept their claim in spite of the absence of any evidence. There is nothing provisional about the beliefs of a religious zealot.
An atheist is a person who admits that any god who is so undetectable that a world in which he exists is indistinguishable from a world in which he doesn't isn't much of a god at all, even if he does exist.
Atheism is a religion in the same way not collecting stamps is a hobby.
All atheists are only provisionally atheist. That is, the first time god stops hiding, or a religion actually makes a good case for his existence, they will immediately cease to be atheists (whether they like to or not).
I'm an atheist because no religion has made its case. If I see god after I die, well, I guess I won't be an atheist then, will I?
It's ironic that if you, yourself, understood how neurons worked, you would realize that you can't torture something that doesn't have the capacity to feel tortured. You have underestimated the difference between cockroaches and humans. Perhaps more time at the library or your local college could help.
If one shoots a tree, is that also unethical, full stop? No, because what matters is what it is like to be the one being experimented on. Since trees don't care if you shoot them, shooting them is not unethical. Cockroaches lack the circuitry require to "care", this wouldn't be torture any more than making computers do what we want would be slave labor. Incidentally they also lack the pain pathways humans have.
You could just think this through instead of assuming that everyone who doesn't conform to your intuitions is an asshat.
The difference between a cockroach nervous system and a human nervous system, especially with regards to pain pathways, is immense. Your intuition is just wrong. Cockroaches can't suffer like humans can because they have no higher order functions. They don't think, they don't remember, they don't have desires, or higher emotions because they lack the circuitry for it.
It is an insult to human torture victims to compare a cockroach's experience to that of a human's. You've inflicted more torture on this world by forcing us to read your drivel than any human has by poking a disembodied cockroach leg.
My point is that more is required to feel pain than "has neurons", or even "has a nervous system". A crucial part of the human experience of pain involves nociceptors which cockroaches do not have, for example. My point from the beginning is that revulsion from perceived cruelty in prodding cockroaches in this way is due to anthropomorphizing cockroaches and not any actual cruelty.
Based on the modding, here, it looks like actual scientific data still takes a back seat to intuition.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, I get so tired of companies who try to stick up for the rights of their employees. Damn them. Why can't they all just exploit their employees to the max like everyone else.
I'd mod you up if I had not already commented, here. This was exactly what I was thinking. If I were a bigot in Poland, I think I would be a bit incensed by Google telling me I have to treat LGBTs equally in my country when they aren't treated equally even in Google's own home country.
Yeah, it's like those companies that hired those black people, trying to make life easier for their employees by campaigning against racism. Stupid evil companies, trying to get rid of all that great benevolent bigotry we've fought so hard for.
Because the mind of a 7-year-old is not mature enough to know whether or not it really wants to marry anyone, let alone a 68-year old. I don't see why that's relevant.
Neither is 100% efficient. Running one harder or the other harder will make no significant difference. The compressor was partially my point. If you expose the fridge coils to the outdoors, the motor has to run harder, so it may even be less efficient. In addition to this, A/C units tend to use less power per unit of heat exchanged (i.e. are more energy efficient) so having them do the work is better, meaning that the GP's idea won't work (as I said).
Your refrigerator idea won't save energy in the summer. The efficiency of the fridge is related to the temperature difference between the coils and the air around them. If they are exposed to a hot outdoors, the fridge will simply work harder. If you expose them to the cool indoors, the fridge gets a break at the expense of the house's A/C which has to pump the extra heat away.
In other words, something has to overcome the temperature difference to push the heat outside. It's either the fridge or the fridge + A/C and in neither case are you going to see any savings.
You are ignoring the counter argument that it was patents which allowed the US companies to create medications in the first place. Medications that are cheap today now that patents have expired, only existed because the US made it profitable for companies to develop them in the first place.
(I'm not saying this is definitely true, just that you've acted as if the argument doesn't exist and "making drugs cheap" is an obvious solution)
Medicare running out of money has nothing to do with whether or not it was a good idea. It is running out of money because of the combination of a baby boom and a poor economy. Even if it single handedly made the baby boom possible, it didn't make it necessary, and so it still was not necessarily a bad idea. In fact, statistics suggest that more, not less, government aid results in better systems.
Another way of looking at it is that Medicare isn't designed to be profitable. The amount of money it can get is determined by law makers who decide how much goes to Medicare and how much goes elsewhere, like say, the military. If the military was running out of money, it wouldn't mean having a military is a bad idea, it would mean we're not funding it enough. It's the same with Medicare.
Although coordinated involvement by the government (Medicaid and Medicare) were the right thing to do and freed the population from the worst afflictions, it also freed the population to multiply at an unsustainable rate, and we haven't been able to stem the birth rate. So these were good, but only half of the solution to the problem. Without solving the other half, population multiplication will continue to outpace resource multiplication and although we've mitigated this with technology, our ability to keep doing so appears to be waning, and we won't be able to sustain the coordinated involvement. What we see is a boom followed by a bust. That's why Medicaid and Medicare are now out of money. It isn't because they were the wrong thing to do. It's because we tried to have our cake and eat it too, while other nations seemed to avoid doing the same thing.
I just noticed that where I live that apostrophes are now being censored.
The difference from humans to other humans can be 3 million base pairs, (0.1%), for perspective. 30 million (a factor of 10) doesn't seem like that much.
This is often said. But I think a citation is needed. The reason representatives vote on laws is because that is the only efficient way (or was when the system was invented) to represent the public. Representatives are elected by the majority. If they vote with the their electorate, then it's still mob rule. If they don't then they've betrayed them.
The U.S. solution to this problem was to grant rights in the constitution to reign in the majority's power. Interpretation of this is charged to the judicial branch, who are not directly elected.
There may be no ultimate solution to this problem, but the current system of large corporations purchasing representatives masked by lobbyist organizations is not good either.
Extreme cold, on the other hand, does reduce the odds of finding life. Not because things can't live in cold climate, but because evolution is ultimately a chemical process, and all chemical processes are retarded by cold. It took life on earth billions of years to evolve in a temperate climate. In a gigantic freezer, it could be expected to take much much longer.
Sorry to seem dismissive, but my point is that you did not cite Livestrong's sources, you cited Livestrong. There is an important difference. It's very easy to cite only sources that seem to corroborate your claim. "This causes cancer because this study said so... please ignore the ten other ones done later that found no link".
Livestrong is not a scientific publication.
Regardless, sugar is a dangerous additive. In equivalent (by sweetness) doses, sugar is many times more likely to be a factor in deadly diseases (obesity, obesity induced heart disease, obesity induced diabetes, etc) than aspartame.
From that link:
But critics charged that the investigators did not follow the guidelines for scientific study outlined by the NIEHS' own research group, the National Toxicology Program. They further noted that the NTP's own animal studies involving similar levels of aspartame exposure showed no link between the sweetener and an increase in cancers
In what world do most obese children "choose" to be fat? Most children are unaware of the nuances of dieting, the dangers of obesity, and the difficulty in losing weight once gained. They don't choose their parents or the culture they're born into either.
I understand the sentiment of not needing the government to tell us what to buy, but I am really tired of the myth that "artificial" sweeteners cause cancer and "natural" sugar is somehow safe. Consuming sugar is known to greatly increase your risk of obesity (and thereby a host of other health issues like heart disease and diabetes). Whereas the least safe of all of the no calorie or low calorie sweeteners in use, aspartame, has not been demonstrated to be a carcinogen at all.
Even if there is a clear line between "natural" and "artificial" it does not follow that the former is in any way safe. Much of nature is out to kill you.
I'm undoing all my mods to respond to this old canard.
Atheism is, by definition, provisional. If an atheist meets god, or religion makes a compelling case, then an atheist will change his mind. Atheism is just the claim that god still hasn't been detected and religions still haven't made their case.
This is not the same as religious who accept their claim in spite of the absence of any evidence. There is nothing provisional about the beliefs of a religious zealot.
An atheist is a person who admits that any god who is so undetectable that a world in which he exists is indistinguishable from a world in which he doesn't isn't much of a god at all, even if he does exist.
Atheism is a religion in the same way not collecting stamps is a hobby.
All atheists are only provisionally atheist. That is, the first time god stops hiding, or a religion actually makes a good case for his existence, they will immediately cease to be atheists (whether they like to or not).
I'm an atheist because no religion has made its case. If I see god after I die, well, I guess I won't be an atheist then, will I?
It's ironic that if you, yourself, understood how neurons worked, you would realize that you can't torture something that doesn't have the capacity to feel tortured. You have underestimated the difference between cockroaches and humans. Perhaps more time at the library or your local college could help.
If one shoots a tree, is that also unethical, full stop? No, because what matters is what it is like to be the one being experimented on. Since trees don't care if you shoot them, shooting them is not unethical. Cockroaches lack the circuitry require to "care", this wouldn't be torture any more than making computers do what we want would be slave labor. Incidentally they also lack the pain pathways humans have.
You could just think this through instead of assuming that everyone who doesn't conform to your intuitions is an asshat.
By this logic, mowing one's lawn is a virtual holocaust of cruelty.
The difference between a cockroach nervous system and a human nervous system, especially with regards to pain pathways, is immense. Your intuition is just wrong. Cockroaches can't suffer like humans can because they have no higher order functions. They don't think, they don't remember, they don't have desires, or higher emotions because they lack the circuitry for it.
It is an insult to human torture victims to compare a cockroach's experience to that of a human's. You've inflicted more torture on this world by forcing us to read your drivel than any human has by poking a disembodied cockroach leg.
My point is that more is required to feel pain than "has neurons", or even "has a nervous system". A crucial part of the human experience of pain involves nociceptors which cockroaches do not have, for example. My point from the beginning is that revulsion from perceived cruelty in prodding cockroaches in this way is due to anthropomorphizing cockroaches and not any actual cruelty.
Based on the modding, here, it looks like actual scientific data still takes a back seat to intuition.