freaky pagan stuff, stolen for a while by Christians, and now firmly entrenched as a coniferous altar of Mammon for youth of all ages and faiths
I think you hit the nail square on the head. Being a communist county, the mammon-worship is probably what they're most upset about, far more than the Christianity when they're athiests. Why should an athiest fear a god? It makes no sense. It does make sense that a communist country would fear commerce.
But couldn't this be a terrible thing? And it was effective even when people didn't know they were learning. Translation: It will eventually fall into the hands of someone not-so-nice (politician, corporation, etc.), and suddenly we will "learn" that they are good, or we should buy their product, or elect them to be our leader, etc.
They already do that, no fMri needed. Where do you think all the middle and low income tea partiers come from? These poor fools have been trained to vote against their own interests! Why do you think people actually believe the idiotic idea that voting for a losing candidate is a wasted vote (someone "on the street" in a Sunday news show just yestarday said he wasn't voting for Ron Paul because a losing vote was wasted). Why do people think McDonald's tastes good? Why do people continue to buy Sony products?
Also in the summary was this bit of silliness: "And it was effective even when people didn't know they were learning". People learn without realizing it all the time, no fMri needed.
it's one of the more overwhelmingly accepted notions, that placing food production in the public sector causes famines.
I've never even heard that notion, which is easily discounted by the fact that farming in the US is a business, and we haven't had a famine since the 1930s dust bowl (which was obviously weather related).
Yet people can't seem to wrap their heads around the fact that the same thing happens when we place product safety or healthcare, among other things, in the public sector.
And you can't seem to wrap your head around the idea that there are evil people out there with filthy food production facilities who don't care if you live or die. If everyone was loving and generous we'd need no police. Just as we need laws against burglary, we need laws against selling tainted food.
You realize the entire electronics industry isn't regulated for safety by the government? We have this little organization called Underwriters Laboratories instead
Every single piece of electronics sold has an FCC certification. Without it there wolud be chaos in electronic transmissions.
You're assuming that the EPA is the only way we can enforce property rights
What are you smoking, Rush's used oxycontin patches? Pollution has nothing whatever to do with property rights! Pollution has to do with my right ro breathe. Why are you standing up for Monsanto's "right" to poison my air? Companies wantonly spewed poisons in the air and water until the EPA came along. If clean air and water could have been accomplished without the federal government, then why didn't it?
you completely missed my point that a federal government executive agency is a completely inappropriate place to assign powers to and the very last place we should be creating these rules, in fact, it is one of the very reasons it's still allowed, by creating a tragedy of the commons!
The tragedy of the commons was industry poisoning our air and water with no curbs whatever. What "tragedy of the commons" are you talking about? How in the hell is pollution in any way a "private property" issue? You seriously think that property owners are the only ones who deserve clean air? WTF IS WRONG WITH YOUR BRAIN, SON???
As for the FDA, why are you complaining to the government? If you don't want to go on medication with nasty side-effects then don't buy the thing!
When you catch the clap and drugs aren't regulated, good luck getting rid of it with half a dose that's been marked as a full one. The FDA is there to protect YOU against unscrupulous drug dealers (and if you think everybody in Bayer or Merck are moral, I have a bridge in New York for sale.
You seem to hold the insane view that the rich are all philanthropists who would never purposely do anything to harm anyone. The fact is, 99% of the 1% would put a bullet in your brain if it made their pile grow.
Take off those rose colored glasses. We need the Federal Government to protect us against powerful sociopaths.
Perhaps you ARE one of those powerful sociopaths, that would explain your insanely naive opinions.
I didn't like Ribbon first either, but after getting used to it I like it much more than the previous Office UI's. It does take some adjustment if you've used the old ones, but that's true for every kind of change. And people don't like changes, but the truth is, Ribbon is much better interface.
The question is how is it better? I ask this as someone who hasn't used it. People like change when it brings a positive benefit. Nobody turns down a raise because they don't want change, but nobody wants to learn a whole new interface unless it's a demonstrably better interface. There's too much interesting useful things to do and learn than how to use a new interface.
If they did offer both, that would indeed be an improvement.
I'd like developers to know that I want apps and programs to be user-obedient. I don't care about how shiny or "friendly" it is.
Nixon didn't spearhead the EPA, people did. People like today's Occupy protester protesting against the war, among other things like unbreathable air and rivers and streams catching fire. People in general were fed up. Nixon signed because he had to. As to the war, its end was a done deal long before Nixon's resignation. The bombing ended on August 14, 1973 at 2:00 PM Thailand time; I'd been at Utapao 4 days. A B-52 took off every thirty seconds from when I got there until the 14th, and they just stopped.
Ford didn't do anything, neither good nor bad. He was also the only President never to have won a national election, not even Vice President, since Nixon appointed him when Agnew was indicted.
I'd bash stamp collectors as well if they actively worked to block the teaching of science in schools, denied funding for legitimate scientific research, and pushed their viewpoint through taxpayer funded faith-based initiatives.
Even if it was only a few of them doing these things, and the rest disliked it as much as you do?
Stamp collectors actually help subsidize the US mail since they boost profits with minimal cost to the post office. What's not to like about them?
Religious people generally keep their faith to themselves unless provoked, and give generously to the poor worldwide. What's not to like about them?
I don't know, I'd feel better if my book had a proofreader, that's one reason I put it on BitTorrent.
Meanwhile we suffered too long with the "print once and hold your peace" model of books. Sure, they shouldn't be as sloppy as some software we can name, but many books could benefit from new insights the author has a few years later.
Like having Greedo shoot first? That's one thing I like about physical media, it doesn't change.
The facts we have so far suggest otherwise. Life could be elsewhere (and I think it probably is), but to insist that life MUST exist elsewhere takes a huge leap of faith.
Odd, then, that I'm halfway through the page and yours is only the second comment to mention religion -- and both comments from atheists.
Not only do I not collect stamps, I mush bash stamp collectors every chance I get whether or not it's stupid and offtopic. You're not only offtopic, you're redundant.
Asimov (a biochemist) wrote a short story about an alien civilization in our own sun, where one of its interstellar ships crashes into the earth; these creatures had no concept of "planets".
However even if many planets out there are either like Venus (hot and dense atmosphere) or Mars (thin dry atmosphere) you may be able to see planets that are similar to earth from many aspects, even if they may have a more intense gravity or other differences. But they can probably sustain life.
It has to appear before it can be sustained. Are there any valid theories about how it started in the first place? The transpermian theory doesn't count, if life came here from somewhere else it had to have started somewhere else; how did it start there?
And yet again, another atheist insists on posting religious flamebait in a thread that has nothing whatever to do with religion. God damned fanatics. Your religious trolling would be much more effective on a religious site, you'd piss far more people off.
The two are fighting the charges; there's no city ordinance against writing on the sidewalk with water-soluble chalk or almost every child in town would be in jail.
Wrong. Thanks to the EPA it wouldn't burn even if there was still manufacturing. Dead Creek in Cahokia, IL used to catch fire, too. No more, even though Cerro Copper and Monsanto (where the filth came from) are still in operation.
Vegetation was withered and brown for miles around those factories. No longer.
Some start looking back with rose colored glasses.
Only the young, who don't realize how good it is now in comparison to then. You would NOT want to be operated on in a 1960 hospital; even a simple tonsillectomy was pure hell.
Oh, pshaw. I paid for a monitor connector on my notebook that I'll never use either. So what if it comes with Windows? I take glee in wiping Windows off of a computer. I'm not Microsoft's customer, Acer is. Acer could have sold me a naked notebook and pocketed an extra ten bucks profit. It's their loss, not mine.
For example, maybe Mississippi decides they want absolutely no environmental protections.
Indeed. Ron Paul is old enough to remember how filthy the air and water were before the EPA. Maybe he liked living in toxic filth, but I didn't.
The libertarians want the corporations to be free to screw you over. I'd like to see a Social Libertarian Party that realizes that governments aren't the only entities that can trample your freedom.
Slashdot Mirror
freaky pagan stuff, stolen for a while by Christians, and now firmly entrenched as a coniferous altar of Mammon for youth of all ages and faiths
I think you hit the nail square on the head. Being a communist county, the mammon-worship is probably what they're most upset about, far more than the Christianity when they're athiests. Why should an athiest fear a god? It makes no sense. It does make sense that a communist country would fear commerce.
But couldn't this be a terrible thing? And it was effective even when people didn't know they were learning. Translation: It will eventually fall into the hands of someone not-so-nice (politician, corporation, etc.), and suddenly we will "learn" that they are good, or we should buy their product, or elect them to be our leader, etc.
They already do that, no fMri needed. Where do you think all the middle and low income tea partiers come from? These poor fools have been trained to vote against their own interests! Why do you think people actually believe the idiotic idea that voting for a losing candidate is a wasted vote (someone "on the street" in a Sunday news show just yestarday said he wasn't voting for Ron Paul because a losing vote was wasted). Why do people think McDonald's tastes good? Why do people continue to buy Sony products?
Brainwashing has been around a long, long time.
Also in the summary was this bit of silliness: "And it was effective even when people didn't know they were learning". People learn without realizing it all the time, no fMri needed.
it's one of the more overwhelmingly accepted notions, that placing food production in the public sector causes famines.
I've never even heard that notion, which is easily discounted by the fact that farming in the US is a business, and we haven't had a famine since the 1930s dust bowl (which was obviously weather related).
Yet people can't seem to wrap their heads around the fact that the same thing happens when we place product safety or healthcare, among other things, in the public sector.
And you can't seem to wrap your head around the idea that there are evil people out there with filthy food production facilities who don't care if you live or die. If everyone was loving and generous we'd need no police. Just as we need laws against burglary, we need laws against selling tainted food.
You realize the entire electronics industry isn't regulated for safety by the government? We have this little organization called Underwriters Laboratories instead
Every single piece of electronics sold has an FCC certification. Without it there wolud be chaos in electronic transmissions.
You're assuming that the EPA is the only way we can enforce property rights
What are you smoking, Rush's used oxycontin patches? Pollution has nothing whatever to do with property rights! Pollution has to do with my right ro breathe. Why are you standing up for Monsanto's "right" to poison my air? Companies wantonly spewed poisons in the air and water until the EPA came along. If clean air and water could have been accomplished without the federal government, then why didn't it?
you completely missed my point that a federal government executive agency is a completely inappropriate place to assign powers to and the very last place we should be creating these rules, in fact, it is one of the very reasons it's still allowed, by creating a tragedy of the commons!
The tragedy of the commons was industry poisoning our air and water with no curbs whatever. What "tragedy of the commons" are you talking about? How in the hell is pollution in any way a "private property" issue? You seriously think that property owners are the only ones who deserve clean air? WTF IS WRONG WITH YOUR BRAIN, SON???
As for the FDA, why are you complaining to the government? If you don't want to go on medication with nasty side-effects then don't buy the thing!
When you catch the clap and drugs aren't regulated, good luck getting rid of it with half a dose that's been marked as a full one. The FDA is there to protect YOU against unscrupulous drug dealers (and if you think everybody in Bayer or Merck are moral, I have a bridge in New York for sale.
You seem to hold the insane view that the rich are all philanthropists who would never purposely do anything to harm anyone. The fact is, 99% of the 1% would put a bullet in your brain if it made their pile grow.
Take off those rose colored glasses. We need the Federal Government to protect us against powerful sociopaths.
Perhaps you ARE one of those powerful sociopaths, that would explain your insanely naive opinions.
It's not the "not believing" but the wanton disrespect. Some athiests are worse than Jehova's Witnesses. Personally, I don't hate them, I pity them.
Users disagree with him
[citation needed]
I didn't like Ribbon first either, but after getting used to it I like it much more than the previous Office UI's. It does take some adjustment if you've used the old ones, but that's true for every kind of change. And people don't like changes, but the truth is, Ribbon is much better interface.
The question is how is it better? I ask this as someone who hasn't used it. People like change when it brings a positive benefit. Nobody turns down a raise because they don't want change, but nobody wants to learn a whole new interface unless it's a demonstrably better interface. There's too much interesting useful things to do and learn than how to use a new interface.
If they did offer both, that would indeed be an improvement.
I'd like developers to know that I want apps and programs to be user-obedient. I don't care about how shiny or "friendly" it is.
Nixon didn't spearhead the EPA, people did. People like today's Occupy protester protesting against the war, among other things like unbreathable air and rivers and streams catching fire. People in general were fed up. Nixon signed because he had to. As to the war, its end was a done deal long before Nixon's resignation. The bombing ended on August 14, 1973 at 2:00 PM Thailand time; I'd been at Utapao 4 days. A B-52 took off every thirty seconds from when I got there until the 14th, and they just stopped.
Ford didn't do anything, neither good nor bad. He was also the only President never to have won a national election, not even Vice President, since Nixon appointed him when Agnew was indicted.
I ran across this while metamoderating, someone modded you "offtopic. I don't see it.
But I do see a glaring mistake on your argument -- the average income is much higher than the median income.
I'd bash stamp collectors as well if they actively worked to block the teaching of science in schools, denied funding for legitimate scientific research, and pushed their viewpoint through taxpayer funded faith-based initiatives.
Even if it was only a few of them doing these things, and the rest disliked it as much as you do?
Stamp collectors actually help subsidize the US mail since they boost profits with minimal cost to the post office. What's not to like about them?
Religious people generally keep their faith to themselves unless provoked, and give generously to the poor worldwide. What's not to like about them?
You'd have to read the story, Asimov had a plausible reason but I don't remember what it was.
I don't know, I'd feel better if my book had a proofreader, that's one reason I put it on BitTorrent.
Meanwhile we suffered too long with the "print once and hold your peace" model of books. Sure, they shouldn't be as sloppy as some software we can name, but many books could benefit from new insights the author has a few years later.
Like having Greedo shoot first? That's one thing I like about physical media, it doesn't change.
We're not that special.
The facts we have so far suggest otherwise. Life could be elsewhere (and I think it probably is), but to insist that life MUST exist elsewhere takes a huge leap of faith.
In a universe, nothing is unique. Except for snowflakes.
Each human being is unique. I'm not so sure about snowflakes.
But for me, intelligent design let's science do it's work. I don't fight it or try and prove the unprovable. Let them be.
Well said. Science answers "how", religions answer "why". Neither belongs in the other's realm.
Odd, then, that I'm halfway through the page and yours is only the second comment to mention religion -- and both comments from atheists.
Not only do I not collect stamps, I mush bash stamp collectors every chance I get whether or not it's stupid and offtopic. You're not only offtopic, you're redundant.
Why can't life evolve inside a star?
Asimov (a biochemist) wrote a short story about an alien civilization in our own sun, where one of its interstellar ships crashes into the earth; these creatures had no concept of "planets".
I wish I could remember the name of the story.
However even if many planets out there are either like Venus (hot and dense atmosphere) or Mars (thin dry atmosphere) you may be able to see planets that are similar to earth from many aspects, even if they may have a more intense gravity or other differences. But they can probably sustain life.
It has to appear before it can be sustained. Are there any valid theories about how it started in the first place? The transpermian theory doesn't count, if life came here from somewhere else it had to have started somewhere else; how did it start there?
"Life -- don't talk to ME about life!" -- Marvin
And yet again, another atheist insists on posting religious flamebait in a thread that has nothing whatever to do with religion. God damned fanatics. Your religious trolling would be much more effective on a religious site, you'd piss far more people off.
Well, in the Asimov Foundation universe, the moon made Earth special. It seems to me that you would need something to stir chemicals for life to begin.
Yesterday.
The two are fighting the charges; there's no city ordinance against writing on the sidewalk with water-soluble chalk or almost every child in town would be in jail.
At least they didn't beat or taze them.
Eisenhower started the Interstate Highway system. Nixon instituted the EPA. Clinton (and yes, congress) ended generational welfare.
Clinton, Reagan, and both Bushes harmed the country greatly (at least for normal, non-1%ers).
Wrong. Thanks to the EPA it wouldn't burn even if there was still manufacturing. Dead Creek in Cahokia, IL used to catch fire, too. No more, even though Cerro Copper and Monsanto (where the filth came from) are still in operation.
Vegetation was withered and brown for miles around those factories. No longer.
Some start looking back with rose colored glasses.
Only the young, who don't realize how good it is now in comparison to then. You would NOT want to be operated on in a 1960 hospital; even a simple tonsillectomy was pure hell.
Oh, pshaw. I paid for a monitor connector on my notebook that I'll never use either. So what if it comes with Windows? I take glee in wiping Windows off of a computer. I'm not Microsoft's customer, Acer is. Acer could have sold me a naked notebook and pocketed an extra ten bucks profit. It's their loss, not mine.
For example, maybe Mississippi decides they want absolutely no environmental protections.
Indeed. Ron Paul is old enough to remember how filthy the air and water were before the EPA. Maybe he liked living in toxic filth, but I didn't.
The libertarians want the corporations to be free to screw you over. I'd like to see a Social Libertarian Party that realizes that governments aren't the only entities that can trample your freedom.