1) Refusing to fulfil it's obligations as an NPT signatory. It is fairly unique in this regard.
2) Sponsorship of groups on US/European terrorism watch lists. This is something other nations do (including the US/Europe ironically).
But it is point 1) that would normally be used as the reason for separating Iran from other nations, though it may be worth reminding you that Syria and North Korea have also both been under sanctions for many years for these reasons also so it's not as if they're being applied to just Iran, though I will agree with you, they are still applied somewhat selectively - for example, Pakistan is also complicit in funding terrorist organisations, and has a nuclear programme (though like North Korea, is not an NPT signatory) but because it's a US ally, it gets away with these things.
Actually that's been a primary reason for Iran's economic collapse so far - both the US and Europe actually put their money where their mouth is for once and actually stopped buying Iranian oil. Whilst China has picked up some of the lost sales, it's not picked up even close to all of it, and worse, because China is no longer competing with the West for Iranian oil, and Iran desperately needs to sell that oil, China has been able to bargain for lower prices for it. Saudi Arabia has increased output to support the loss of Iranian oil to the US and Europe which is why they've been able to pull it off.
Europe (and presumably the US?) have also just this week now extended that to gas too, which will hurt Iran's economy even more.
"It is pretty douchy that Israel didn't have to sign the NPT but gets weapons and reactors."
No one has to sign it, it's entirely option. Note that Pakistan, India, and North Korea all have weapons and reactors but are not signatories either.
The treaty is based on the idea that if you sign up, then if you don't have nuclear weapons, then you don't seek to acquire them, and if you do have nuclear weapons, then you agree to reduce stockpiles with the aim of eventually disarming. In return for agreeing to this, you get access to global nuclear technology and information sharing agreements for peaceful nuclear power generation. The problem with Iran is that it wants access to this information, and the nuclear components market, but it's not fulfilling it's legal obligations to prove that it's not seeking to acquire nuclear weapons.
I hope this clarifies the difference between Israel, India, Pakistan, and North Korea vs. Iran. The former 4 have basically made the calculation that they'd rather have nuclear weapons and worry about sourcing nuclear enrichment and power technologies outside of international frameworks, or alternatively, simply developing it themselves internally. In contrast, Iran is basically saying they want all the benefits of the NPT, whilst fulfilling none of the obligations. You can't do that, you either sign up to all, or nothing.
One final point I'll make though is that action to prevent states becoming nuclear capable can happen whether the NPT is involved or not, so you shouldn't assume the NPT is a tool used to simply beat nations with, it's not. The reason I say this is because the pressure against North Korea (a non-NPT signatory) is as strong as against Iran (an NPT signatory). As you can see, rhetoric, proposed action, or actual action against a nation is simply to do with global politics as much as it is NPT compliance - in other words it doesn't matter if India/Pakistan/Israel are NPT signatories or not, any action against them will happen, or not happen, regardless of their NPT signatory status so Israel signing up to the NPT, or Iran dropping out of the NPT, would have absolutely no bearing on the pressure (or in Israel's case, lack of) against them.
"You claim it is selfish for me to try to get others to believe what I believe-- but you can only say that by assuming at the outset that my beliefs are false. But I dont believe them to be false, and what I believe is what determines whether something is selfish (done for self-serving reasons). Given what I believe, it is in fact selfish to avoid sharing what I believe because I fear other's reactions-- I am placing my own fears above what I believe to be their highest good."
Without meaning to Godwin the argument, this was exactly Hitler's justification for extermination of the jews though- that society was better off if they were to be terminated. The problem is this argument obviously has an unfair impact on those who disagree, particularly those who are the target of the viewpoint.
As such because what you believe is right, and what someone else believes is right are in conflict- whilst you believe you're doing the right thing by "saving" them, they think you're doing the wrong thing by pestering them. The only solution to the problem is the middle ground in that no matter how strongly you think you're doing them a favour, they disagree and so you should leave them be and keep that opinion to yourself. If you feel so strongly that you can't do this then that is why it is selfish - because you're effectively saying that your beliefs trump theirs - that your need to "save" them is more important than their wish to be left alone.
It's not hence an argument about whether your beliefs are right or wrong, but that the only way to ensure neutrality is for you to keep your beliefs to yourself- anything else has the implication that you believe your beliefs are more important, and that their beliefs are irrelevant to your goal of trying to convert them, and that is why it is selfish.
So sure from your point of view you may not see it as selfish, but that doesn't mean that it fundamentally, from an objective standpoint, isn't.
"You believe "the church" (as if it were one entity)"
I feel like you've led me into a trap here, I merely used the terminology "the church" as a follow on from your use of it earlier in the discussion in an attempt to try and keep things framed in your own language.
"Regarding your generalizations of church structure, you should know that there are a huge number of churches and denominations that have no central heirarchy."
I suspect that this is more due to cultural differences, in the US this is quite possibly true, and I suspect from having seen stories about them that this is indeed the case. Certainly in the "old world" though, especially the Middle East, and Europe, and to some extent Asia, things are still mostly much more hierachial- in fact, some countries of course build their entire political structure around it, hence Iran's Ayatollahs.
"You are trying to generalize things that simply cannot be generalized, and its leading you to believe things that are as a matter of fact (not opinion) false, such as your interpretation of church structure."
Again I suspect this is because of cultural differences, here in the UK the church of England is very much ingrained in everyday life. The House of Lords, which is the UK's institution that most closely mirrors the US Senate has a number of seats specifically reserved for non-elected religious leaders. Certainly here the whole Church of England hierarchy's primary focus is to maintain political power precisely because they have it and risk losing it if their institution is weakened. One example of something they vehemently defend is publicly funded schools that classify themselves as religious schools meaning they use state funded to subsidise schools that they then use to force children to prayer. Initially you might think that this is no big deal because it means parents of religious belief have somewhere to send their kids, but unfortunately what it means is you have schools that receive all the state funding of other schools, with extra cash on top from the church, meaning even atheist
Not sure where you live but that reasoning doesn't make any sense in Europe where you'd have every right to return the proudct for a full refund regardless of what the license agreement says because license agreements cannot overrule your statutory rights as a consumer.
I think that's what struck me most about this story, that the poor girl found no one to talk to who would listen. It's scary to think how many other kids might be in that situation. It's scary because I suspect all it would take is for her to find even one person like possibly even you or I who she could talk to.
"Revenge won't help her now."
This is true, but to be fair, it may help others. If even one other jackass doing this sort of bullying is given pause for thought and made to think twice and lay off someone they were on the verge of pushing to suicide, then I somewhat think that it's a net gain at the end of the day.
Maybe that's because they're smarter than you in recognising that population decline is doable without singling out any specific group for prevention of birth?
Improved living standards, access to contraception, and higher levels of education automatically result in reduced birth rates. Couple this with economic reform that discourages economies based on ever growing populations and instead rewards economies for sustainability and the problem solves itself with none of your genocidal mindset necessary.
"Your first claim of a "digital music monopoly" is an interesting one, but I find the claim more tenuous than you do. Apple hit 25% share of digital music sales in 2009, months after they started going DRM-free."
Where did you get this figure? The FTC focusses on the US market and every source I can find quotes a figure of around 70%.
As you've based the rest of your argument on that premise then you should be able to see where it hence falls down.
As an interesting aside though, regarding this point:
"and Apple is not preventing folks like Netflix/Kobo/Nook/Sony/etc from writing apps for those platforms (that would certainly fall under anti-competitive behavior, IMO)."
But it did do that with Flash, it has done that with web browsers, so you may have stumbled on another example here.
"But the flip side here is that you have lots of companies providing 3rd party access to a platform (game consoles for example), but pushing some pretty crazy restrictions on them. Should we be attacking those companies as well?"
I'd say it depends on marketshare, if one console manufacturer owned the vast majority of the market and was denying publishers access to their platform for anti-competitive reasons (i.e. Microsoft denying access to Sony's publishers, just because they are also a hardware competitor) then I think that would be absolutely warranted to investigate them.
I think the point is that if they produced 3.5" versions for desktops then they'd be able to use less fragile components, and have more room for handling heat dissipation etc. making the product that bit more durable. The problem is to miniturise you have to use a lot of cutting edge tech, and the potential issues that arise from that cutting edge tech in terms of degradation are often not known. This is the reason many consumer product defects arise.
I suspect the reason they don't is that it's cheaper to have one production line for all of it and just not give a shit about durability, but rest assured, if customers get fed up enough of that and make enough noise, return enough products, or file enough claims, it will change.
I think the problem is that if Google has a monopoly, or has abused it, it's still small fry compared to Apple's use of it's digital music monopoly to leverage entry into the tablet and cellphone markets from the portable music player market, especially when coupled with it's in-app purchase restrictions and anti-consumer deals with the eBook market after it's entry there also, and similarly small fry compared to Oracle's purchase and subsequent abuse of Java, or Facebook's clear breach of data protection laws and dodgy IPO float.
It's not so much whether or not Google has done wrong, they probably have, but in terms of doing wrong they're far from the highest priority relative to the amount of damage they've done to the markets and consumer choice, so it does beg the question as to why the FTC is prioritising Google when there are such more blatantly abusive and problematic targets out there.
So sure I disagree with the congressman, the FTC shouldn't necessarily leave Google alone per-se, but they should leave them the fuck alone until they've dealt with the much more pressing problem companies around unless they have the resources to deal with all of them in parallel, but in that case, why aren't they? why are they targetting just, or at least prioritising Google?
honestly, I think the issue is that the FTC just targets whoever lobbys them the strongest, or pays them the most, I think all we're seeing here is Google finally biting back and playing the same game it's competitors have to push the FTC to this point by putting their own lobbyists into action to counter it.
"Also, the costs probably are not only about upgrading the security system"
He got in because they used a blank password for some accounts.
I'd argue that no cost was caused the US in terms of fixing the security holes, because it's something their staff should be doing routinely as part of their job in the first place so effectively in this respect all Gary did was expose the fact that the government was paying staff who weren't doing what they were paid to do.
I agree there will have been some cost to doing an audit of what he accessed etc. but nothing close to the inflated figure the US provided, or if it was that high, then they should again thank him for making them aware of the fact they're paying their IT staff and/or contractors a good few orders of magnitude too much.
I'd agree if the idea he should be extradited to face the possible penalties he could face in America were in any way sane.
When the Americans were putting forward such absurdly inflated figures for damage and recommending such absurd levels of punishment, then I don't really blame him for the excuse he used.
It seems the only way to get sanity in the case was for them to bring their own extreme scenario into the equation, the Aspergers excuse did after all only enter the discussion after some years of them trying to just be reasonable and rational about things.
So honestly, if you think it's silly that people can use this excuse to avoid extradition then fine, but if you think he also deserved to face extradition and upto 60 years in prison for what frankly, was little more than a bit of vandalism and arguably not even really that, then I think you need to get a bit of a grip on reality.
Honestly, what he did was arguably more harmless than even getting a speeding ticket, at least speeding tickets are there to try and deter anyone driving in such a way they cause physical harm to someone else. All Gary's actions did was cause a bit of embarassment and result in a bit of their IT staff's time be spent sorting out the security issues they should've sorted out as part of their day to day employment so he couldn't have logged in to their systems using a blank password anyway.
I'm sure he doesn't mind, you deserve it for all the hate and vitriol you have towards others.
"Did it occur to you that you would not be here on this planet spewing your hate at me if not for your heterosexual parents?"
Hi, I hate to break it to you, but it's actually perfectly possible for his parents to be gay. They may have use any number of artifical insemination methods, or they may simply have had sex with a member of the opposite sex, but none of these things necessarily mean that they are straight.
You could ask any gay man on the planet right now to go and have sex with a woman tonight, and if he did, that would not magically mean he was suddenly straight.
"Marriage is about sacrifice and surrender. It is not about "your" rights and what "you" want. It is about wanting to share your life with someone and that is precisely what those gay activists don't get."
Erm, no, they get it. It seems you don't however. They're asking to be able to share their life with someone through marriage the same way straight couples can, yet it is you that seems to be trying to deny them that. You may want to check your arguments aren't ass-backwards before replying in future, you'll look far less stupid if you do.
"Shocking isn't it? Why do you think so many marriages fail? They fail because selfish pricks like you are never able to learn how to be selfless and care about the other person even when they are not at their best."
Actually, I'd wager it's more because some poor gullable girls wake up one more and realise they're married to someone so filled with hate, ignorance, and stupidity like you that they get the fuck out of dodge and wave goodbye.
"Love in a marriage is not just about those butterfly feelings people have for each other when they first meet but rather a mature love where you care about that other person even when it is hard to like them."
Right, and gay people should be denied this why exactly? Because that's what you're asking.
"Fuck both the anti-gay-marriage folks as well as the gay-marriage folks. Neither of these groups give a fuck about equality."
That's really not true, the issue is right now that this special class exists, but only if you're straight, not gay. All gay rights activists are saying is that "If this group must exist, then we deserve to have the option of entering into it too".
Honestly, I doubt most gay rights activists would disagree with you, I think they'd be just as happy to see any legal status or protection of marriage dissapear as they would be allowed to partake in it also, however as that's not on the cards, and as marriage does exist and have those benefits, then they just want equality.
For what it's worth, in other countries marriage doesn't grant any special benefits and yet has the same limitations on it, yet gay rights activists still campaign for it, precisely because it is about equality. Either remove protection for it, and make it a meaningless term that anyone can use as they see fit i.e. "LOL I MARRIED MY DOG LAST NIGHT!!!!11111" being just as much a true and reasonable statement someone could make as "I married my long term partner last week", or keep it's special status, but ensure it doesn't imply any discrimination based on sexuality, sex, race, religion, whatever.
""Congregations are told"? By whom? Does this include mine? Are you painting us all with the same brush as if all congregations are equal (despite believing WIDELY divergent things)?"
Look, I'm sorry you're taking personal offence to this, my point is about the general case that for the most part, religions are organised the way they are to sustain their own existence. To pretend there is no top down hierarchy in most religions is absurd - if you hadn't noticed the Catholic child abuse scandal in Europe was being managed and covered up all the way to the top. Just as if I say "Microsoft is a convicted monopolist" I'm not saying that some poor average Joe at Microsoft is a convicted monopolist, I'm saying the company is, and that it is the management of that company that is responsible. This is why in my original post, when I point out that actions of religions around the globe are what they are for the sake of self-preservation rather than inherent altruism because it's true. The Pope isn't in charge of the Catholic Church so he can inherently do good in the world, he's in charge of it because it means he gets to live like a king, and influence global politics the way he wants them to be influenced. He may believe he's doing good, he may not care, but his primary concern is maintaining the lifestyle him and his colleagues in Vatican City have. Why do you think Catholicism is so against Condoms? Most religion is like the world's biggest, longest running pyramid scheme in this respect- as long as you keep bringing more people into the fold it'll be okay, whether that's through indoctrination using tools such as adoption agencies, or whether that's by maximising children born to parents of that religion in the hope they will bring them up as members of that religion through telling people not to use contraception.
"All of that aside: If we truly believe that hearing the gospel is necessary for someone to avoid eternal judgement-- why would we NOT encourage them to come hear the message preached?"
Because it's selfish, because all you're doing is fulfilling your own selfish belief that you're somehow doing good, when in all likely hood you're often just getting on people's nerves. You're doing what you've been taught to do, you're maintaining your religion's existence because it suits those who have preached that message to you to have that religion maintained.
"Who is this "they" you keep talking of?"
Catholics, Protestants, Muslims, Jews? Take your pick. Or are you suggesting none of these religions run adoption agencies?
Look, you may well be one of those who has religious beliefs that does genuinely do good, but don't try and pretend that if you are that you're representative of likely your (or just about any other) religion as whole. Don't try and pretend that just because you yourself are a good individual, that you are representative of the hierarchy that manages their respective religions around the globe.
If the likes of Catholicism were genuinely about atruism then Vatican City wouldn't be the magnificent place it is, and The Pope wouldn't get the servants he does, nor the gold and gem encrusted ornaments and garments he does. He'd sell it all off, live in a very humble abode, and use the cash to help mitigate problems like AIDs in Africa. The fact he doesn't do any of this, and lives the life of a king, whilst exacerbating the problem through discouragement of contradiction though is testament to the fact that he's in it for himself and his colleagues and relies on people like you (not necessarily you though, especially if you're not even Catholic) to keep bringing people into the fold to keep funding his lifestyle with absurd stories about how you're saving someone from what is, frankly, just a fairy tale.
"That's about a thousand years late, dude. There is no one Christian church since Luther broke away. The church has no control over its members, they are free to break from the church whenever they want."
Just because it's fragmented doesn't mean those fragmented portions don't still follow the same ethos.
What you've seriously never heard of the Pope, Vatican City etc.? You've never ever heard of The Church of England?
Well, it means that in his eye it's not hypocrisy, but it doesn't mean it isn't hypocrisy, it of course, still is.
This said, he also complains about atheists trying to limit religions role in the state too, though I suppose he would probably argue religion isn't a choice either I guess.
It sounds like I was on the opposite side of the equation to you in that I was working for a borough's education IT division that farmed out support to the schools. Despite this I still completely agree with you, the whole situation really stank, but honestly it sums up my experience of local government altogether. Despite all the e-mails and courses and posters in local government about equality, anti-corruption and so forth I can safely say to this day that local government was the most corrupt, racism, homophobic, sexist, ageist place I've ever worked.
The tie ups with companies like RM always made me sick, because even the management would complain about them fucking us around, for example as a partner we were meant to have a priority contact number, but we always just ended up in the queue with everyone else so just had to tell the school well, yes, we are a partner, but they still don't give a shit about helping us deal with your problem. Year after year though, we ended back with them.
I got out of IT support altogether in the end when I moved to private sector and went into development (and now primarily software architecture) but if I hadn't done that I'd definitely have moved away from school support to get the hell away from RM and other educational software I got so utterly sick of dealing with. I think the final straw was moving to RM's school management software - RM G2. We moved 121 schools from their existing system over two it migrating the data one by one, and even after the first 10 schools it was clear the system couldn't cope, it just crashed, and froze over and over- obviously it hadn't been stress tested, or arguably even undergone any form of QA at all. That's why somewhat when I got the offer of a job working on a particular firms school management software the other week I was tempted, as I could take up the challenge and think I would've done well - it's pretty obvious how little effort is needed in that industry to produce a product that would destroy the competition, but as I say, they just weren't offering enough of a rise for me to justify it.
The thought has crossed my mind once or twice about just writing some software in my spare time in this sort of market, because such markets are crying out for good software and producing something that far outshines the competition would be easy, but I think the time commitment is a bit much, and honestly, there are other things I'd rather write if I'm going to code in my spare time anyway. Seeing news stories or reading about RM though does nearly make me angry enough to do it!:)
"My objection is that I am unaware of any evidence that the protestant church of the 1900s in germany was exercising control over the populace, hence the "spurious"."
What do you think the purpose of religious schools are other than to instill religion in kids to ensure another generation of follows exists to fund the church?
Why do you think so many congregations are told they need to try and bring people in to the church if they want to do their bit to ensure they are a good Christian?
Why do you think they run adoption agencies that prioritise religious adopting couples other than to ensure the child is brought up in a religious environment?
"Yes, I am religious. Is that supposed to be an ad hominem?"
No, but it at least goes to explain why you have a refusal to accept what is pretty obvious to everyone else that isn't blinkered by such beliefs - that the sort of organisation you follow doesn't exist for altruistic reasons but acts only to sustain it's own existence to ensure continued comfort and influence for it's leaders. That's why religious institutions have always existed, that's why they exist to this very day and that's why so much of what they do revolves around trying to bring others into the fold, not because they actually inherently care about the wellbeing of those people.
Honestly, this more than anything is what pisses me off about religious preachers.
Archbishop Sentamu in the UK was mouthing of about gay people a few months ago saying how they didn't deserve the same rights as others and generally being horrible about them.
Of course, in response to this public outburst, he then got e-mails saying that it was like saying that because he was black, he didn't deserve equal rights etc. either. So what does he do? He runs straight to the police and claims discrimination.
Honestly, there's no helping these people, they're quick to discriminate against and preach hate against certain other minorities, but if someone dares to point out the hypocrisy of that to them they're first to cry discrimination themselves.
The scary thing is, this guy is now in line to be the next Archbishop of Canterbury - arguably the most influential religious role in the UK.
It was a counter-response, I wasn't seeking to post a balancing essay on the current status of global geopolitics, merely expose the fact that the person I was responding to was clearly full of shit.
What I stated means exactly what it means, that the person I was responding to was full of shit, nothing more, nothing less. If you then take from that something I simply never said, such as some assumption that I'm standing up for America, then that's your problem for being so partisan and ignorant. God only knows I've been modded troll and flamebait enough times by American nationalists for calling out their nation's idiocy when it's deserved.
Honestly, if you keep reading from people's posts something that is not there nor even implied (the fact I pointed out my distaste for America nowdays would be clue enough for any half-intelligent person) then you're bound to keep coming up with such absurd nonsense that doesn't reflect my position at all, but again, that's really your problem, as you're the one that looks a fool for coming up with something that wasn't there and hence got it completely wrong.
Ensuring preservation of itself is one of the things the church has done since it's inception, why would you naively believe things were different in this case?
I'm not sure why you'd take offence to a practical observation of the history of the church (and all religions) and the way they've managed themselves over the years unless you have a vested interest in maintaining the myth that the church has at it's heart any real interest in altruism. Are you religious or something?
Slashdot Mirror
"why there are all these sanctions against Iran."
The two primary reasons are:
1) Refusing to fulfil it's obligations as an NPT signatory. It is fairly unique in this regard.
2) Sponsorship of groups on US/European terrorism watch lists. This is something other nations do (including the US/Europe ironically).
But it is point 1) that would normally be used as the reason for separating Iran from other nations, though it may be worth reminding you that Syria and North Korea have also both been under sanctions for many years for these reasons also so it's not as if they're being applied to just Iran, though I will agree with you, they are still applied somewhat selectively - for example, Pakistan is also complicit in funding terrorist organisations, and has a nuclear programme (though like North Korea, is not an NPT signatory) but because it's a US ally, it gets away with these things.
Actually that's been a primary reason for Iran's economic collapse so far - both the US and Europe actually put their money where their mouth is for once and actually stopped buying Iranian oil. Whilst China has picked up some of the lost sales, it's not picked up even close to all of it, and worse, because China is no longer competing with the West for Iranian oil, and Iran desperately needs to sell that oil, China has been able to bargain for lower prices for it. Saudi Arabia has increased output to support the loss of Iranian oil to the US and Europe which is why they've been able to pull it off.
Europe (and presumably the US?) have also just this week now extended that to gas too, which will hurt Iran's economy even more.
"It is pretty douchy that Israel didn't have to sign the NPT but gets weapons and reactors."
No one has to sign it, it's entirely option. Note that Pakistan, India, and North Korea all have weapons and reactors but are not signatories either.
The treaty is based on the idea that if you sign up, then if you don't have nuclear weapons, then you don't seek to acquire them, and if you do have nuclear weapons, then you agree to reduce stockpiles with the aim of eventually disarming. In return for agreeing to this, you get access to global nuclear technology and information sharing agreements for peaceful nuclear power generation. The problem with Iran is that it wants access to this information, and the nuclear components market, but it's not fulfilling it's legal obligations to prove that it's not seeking to acquire nuclear weapons.
I hope this clarifies the difference between Israel, India, Pakistan, and North Korea vs. Iran. The former 4 have basically made the calculation that they'd rather have nuclear weapons and worry about sourcing nuclear enrichment and power technologies outside of international frameworks, or alternatively, simply developing it themselves internally. In contrast, Iran is basically saying they want all the benefits of the NPT, whilst fulfilling none of the obligations. You can't do that, you either sign up to all, or nothing.
One final point I'll make though is that action to prevent states becoming nuclear capable can happen whether the NPT is involved or not, so you shouldn't assume the NPT is a tool used to simply beat nations with, it's not. The reason I say this is because the pressure against North Korea (a non-NPT signatory) is as strong as against Iran (an NPT signatory). As you can see, rhetoric, proposed action, or actual action against a nation is simply to do with global politics as much as it is NPT compliance - in other words it doesn't matter if India/Pakistan/Israel are NPT signatories or not, any action against them will happen, or not happen, regardless of their NPT signatory status so Israel signing up to the NPT, or Iran dropping out of the NPT, would have absolutely no bearing on the pressure (or in Israel's case, lack of) against them.
"You claim it is selfish for me to try to get others to believe what I believe-- but you can only say that by assuming at the outset that my beliefs are false. But I dont believe them to be false, and what I believe is what determines whether something is selfish (done for self-serving reasons). Given what I believe, it is in fact selfish to avoid sharing what I believe because I fear other's reactions-- I am placing my own fears above what I believe to be their highest good."
Without meaning to Godwin the argument, this was exactly Hitler's justification for extermination of the jews though- that society was better off if they were to be terminated. The problem is this argument obviously has an unfair impact on those who disagree, particularly those who are the target of the viewpoint.
As such because what you believe is right, and what someone else believes is right are in conflict- whilst you believe you're doing the right thing by "saving" them, they think you're doing the wrong thing by pestering them. The only solution to the problem is the middle ground in that no matter how strongly you think you're doing them a favour, they disagree and so you should leave them be and keep that opinion to yourself. If you feel so strongly that you can't do this then that is why it is selfish - because you're effectively saying that your beliefs trump theirs - that your need to "save" them is more important than their wish to be left alone.
It's not hence an argument about whether your beliefs are right or wrong, but that the only way to ensure neutrality is for you to keep your beliefs to yourself- anything else has the implication that you believe your beliefs are more important, and that their beliefs are irrelevant to your goal of trying to convert them, and that is why it is selfish.
So sure from your point of view you may not see it as selfish, but that doesn't mean that it fundamentally, from an objective standpoint, isn't.
"You believe "the church" (as if it were one entity)"
I feel like you've led me into a trap here, I merely used the terminology "the church" as a follow on from your use of it earlier in the discussion in an attempt to try and keep things framed in your own language.
"Regarding your generalizations of church structure, you should know that there are a huge number of churches and denominations that have no central heirarchy."
I suspect that this is more due to cultural differences, in the US this is quite possibly true, and I suspect from having seen stories about them that this is indeed the case. Certainly in the "old world" though, especially the Middle East, and Europe, and to some extent Asia, things are still mostly much more hierachial- in fact, some countries of course build their entire political structure around it, hence Iran's Ayatollahs.
"You are trying to generalize things that simply cannot be generalized, and its leading you to believe things that are as a matter of fact (not opinion) false, such as your interpretation of church structure."
Again I suspect this is because of cultural differences, here in the UK the church of England is very much ingrained in everyday life. The House of Lords, which is the UK's institution that most closely mirrors the US Senate has a number of seats specifically reserved for non-elected religious leaders. Certainly here the whole Church of England hierarchy's primary focus is to maintain political power precisely because they have it and risk losing it if their institution is weakened. One example of something they vehemently defend is publicly funded schools that classify themselves as religious schools meaning they use state funded to subsidise schools that they then use to force children to prayer. Initially you might think that this is no big deal because it means parents of religious belief have somewhere to send their kids, but unfortunately what it means is you have schools that receive all the state funding of other schools, with extra cash on top from the church, meaning even atheist
Not sure where you live but that reasoning doesn't make any sense in Europe where you'd have every right to return the proudct for a full refund regardless of what the license agreement says because license agreements cannot overrule your statutory rights as a consumer.
I think that's what struck me most about this story, that the poor girl found no one to talk to who would listen. It's scary to think how many other kids might be in that situation. It's scary because I suspect all it would take is for her to find even one person like possibly even you or I who she could talk to.
"Revenge won't help her now."
This is true, but to be fair, it may help others. If even one other jackass doing this sort of bullying is given pause for thought and made to think twice and lay off someone they were on the verge of pushing to suicide, then I somewhat think that it's a net gain at the end of the day.
Maybe that's because they're smarter than you in recognising that population decline is doable without singling out any specific group for prevention of birth?
Improved living standards, access to contraception, and higher levels of education automatically result in reduced birth rates. Couple this with economic reform that discourages economies based on ever growing populations and instead rewards economies for sustainability and the problem solves itself with none of your genocidal mindset necessary.
"Your first claim of a "digital music monopoly" is an interesting one, but I find the claim more tenuous than you do. Apple hit 25% share of digital music sales in 2009, months after they started going DRM-free."
Where did you get this figure? The FTC focusses on the US market and every source I can find quotes a figure of around 70%.
As you've based the rest of your argument on that premise then you should be able to see where it hence falls down.
As an interesting aside though, regarding this point:
"and Apple is not preventing folks like Netflix/Kobo/Nook/Sony/etc from writing apps for those platforms (that would certainly fall under anti-competitive behavior, IMO)."
But it did do that with Flash, it has done that with web browsers, so you may have stumbled on another example here.
"But the flip side here is that you have lots of companies providing 3rd party access to a platform (game consoles for example), but pushing some pretty crazy restrictions on them. Should we be attacking those companies as well?"
I'd say it depends on marketshare, if one console manufacturer owned the vast majority of the market and was denying publishers access to their platform for anti-competitive reasons (i.e. Microsoft denying access to Sony's publishers, just because they are also a hardware competitor) then I think that would be absolutely warranted to investigate them.
I think the point is that if they produced 3.5" versions for desktops then they'd be able to use less fragile components, and have more room for handling heat dissipation etc. making the product that bit more durable. The problem is to miniturise you have to use a lot of cutting edge tech, and the potential issues that arise from that cutting edge tech in terms of degradation are often not known. This is the reason many consumer product defects arise.
I suspect the reason they don't is that it's cheaper to have one production line for all of it and just not give a shit about durability, but rest assured, if customers get fed up enough of that and make enough noise, return enough products, or file enough claims, it will change.
I think the problem is that if Google has a monopoly, or has abused it, it's still small fry compared to Apple's use of it's digital music monopoly to leverage entry into the tablet and cellphone markets from the portable music player market, especially when coupled with it's in-app purchase restrictions and anti-consumer deals with the eBook market after it's entry there also, and similarly small fry compared to Oracle's purchase and subsequent abuse of Java, or Facebook's clear breach of data protection laws and dodgy IPO float.
It's not so much whether or not Google has done wrong, they probably have, but in terms of doing wrong they're far from the highest priority relative to the amount of damage they've done to the markets and consumer choice, so it does beg the question as to why the FTC is prioritising Google when there are such more blatantly abusive and problematic targets out there.
So sure I disagree with the congressman, the FTC shouldn't necessarily leave Google alone per-se, but they should leave them the fuck alone until they've dealt with the much more pressing problem companies around unless they have the resources to deal with all of them in parallel, but in that case, why aren't they? why are they targetting just, or at least prioritising Google?
honestly, I think the issue is that the FTC just targets whoever lobbys them the strongest, or pays them the most, I think all we're seeing here is Google finally biting back and playing the same game it's competitors have to push the FTC to this point by putting their own lobbyists into action to counter it.
"Also, the costs probably are not only about upgrading the security system"
He got in because they used a blank password for some accounts.
I'd argue that no cost was caused the US in terms of fixing the security holes, because it's something their staff should be doing routinely as part of their job in the first place so effectively in this respect all Gary did was expose the fact that the government was paying staff who weren't doing what they were paid to do.
I agree there will have been some cost to doing an audit of what he accessed etc. but nothing close to the inflated figure the US provided, or if it was that high, then they should again thank him for making them aware of the fact they're paying their IT staff and/or contractors a good few orders of magnitude too much.
I'd agree if the idea he should be extradited to face the possible penalties he could face in America were in any way sane.
When the Americans were putting forward such absurdly inflated figures for damage and recommending such absurd levels of punishment, then I don't really blame him for the excuse he used.
It seems the only way to get sanity in the case was for them to bring their own extreme scenario into the equation, the Aspergers excuse did after all only enter the discussion after some years of them trying to just be reasonable and rational about things.
So honestly, if you think it's silly that people can use this excuse to avoid extradition then fine, but if you think he also deserved to face extradition and upto 60 years in prison for what frankly, was little more than a bit of vandalism and arguably not even really that, then I think you need to get a bit of a grip on reality.
Honestly, what he did was arguably more harmless than even getting a speeding ticket, at least speeding tickets are there to try and deter anyone driving in such a way they cause physical harm to someone else. All Gary's actions did was cause a bit of embarassment and result in a bit of their IT staff's time be spent sorting out the security issues they should've sorted out as part of their day to day employment so he couldn't have logged in to their systems using a blank password anyway.
Their budgets have been cut so hard they probably can't afford the jet fuel anymore, I wouldn't worry about that :)
The obvious reason would be that there is any number of documented examples of people changing religion, or from religion to atheism, or vice versa.
If religion wasn't a choice, this wouldn't be possible, just as gay people can't simply choose not to be gay.
"Wow, thanks for all of the hate and vitriol."
I'm sure he doesn't mind, you deserve it for all the hate and vitriol you have towards others.
"Did it occur to you that you would not be here on this planet spewing your hate at me if not for your heterosexual parents?"
Hi, I hate to break it to you, but it's actually perfectly possible for his parents to be gay. They may have use any number of artifical insemination methods, or they may simply have had sex with a member of the opposite sex, but none of these things necessarily mean that they are straight.
You could ask any gay man on the planet right now to go and have sex with a woman tonight, and if he did, that would not magically mean he was suddenly straight.
"Marriage is about sacrifice and surrender. It is not about "your" rights and what "you" want. It is about wanting to share your life with someone and that is precisely what those gay activists don't get."
Erm, no, they get it. It seems you don't however. They're asking to be able to share their life with someone through marriage the same way straight couples can, yet it is you that seems to be trying to deny them that. You may want to check your arguments aren't ass-backwards before replying in future, you'll look far less stupid if you do.
"Shocking isn't it? Why do you think so many marriages fail? They fail because selfish pricks like you are never able to learn how to be selfless and care about the other person even when they are not at their best."
Actually, I'd wager it's more because some poor gullable girls wake up one more and realise they're married to someone so filled with hate, ignorance, and stupidity like you that they get the fuck out of dodge and wave goodbye.
"Love in a marriage is not just about those butterfly feelings people have for each other when they first meet but rather a mature love where you care about that other person even when it is hard to like them."
Right, and gay people should be denied this why exactly? Because that's what you're asking.
"Fuck both the anti-gay-marriage folks as well as the gay-marriage folks. Neither of these groups give a fuck about equality."
That's really not true, the issue is right now that this special class exists, but only if you're straight, not gay. All gay rights activists are saying is that "If this group must exist, then we deserve to have the option of entering into it too".
Honestly, I doubt most gay rights activists would disagree with you, I think they'd be just as happy to see any legal status or protection of marriage dissapear as they would be allowed to partake in it also, however as that's not on the cards, and as marriage does exist and have those benefits, then they just want equality.
For what it's worth, in other countries marriage doesn't grant any special benefits and yet has the same limitations on it, yet gay rights activists still campaign for it, precisely because it is about equality. Either remove protection for it, and make it a meaningless term that anyone can use as they see fit i.e. "LOL I MARRIED MY DOG LAST NIGHT!!!!11111" being just as much a true and reasonable statement someone could make as "I married my long term partner last week", or keep it's special status, but ensure it doesn't imply any discrimination based on sexuality, sex, race, religion, whatever.
Doesn't that imply that anyone can claim not to be a hypocrit by genuinely believing the conflicting claims they make are rational and coherent?
""Congregations are told"? By whom? Does this include mine? Are you painting us all with the same brush as if all congregations are equal (despite believing WIDELY divergent things)?"
Look, I'm sorry you're taking personal offence to this, my point is about the general case that for the most part, religions are organised the way they are to sustain their own existence. To pretend there is no top down hierarchy in most religions is absurd - if you hadn't noticed the Catholic child abuse scandal in Europe was being managed and covered up all the way to the top. Just as if I say "Microsoft is a convicted monopolist" I'm not saying that some poor average Joe at Microsoft is a convicted monopolist, I'm saying the company is, and that it is the management of that company that is responsible. This is why in my original post, when I point out that actions of religions around the globe are what they are for the sake of self-preservation rather than inherent altruism because it's true. The Pope isn't in charge of the Catholic Church so he can inherently do good in the world, he's in charge of it because it means he gets to live like a king, and influence global politics the way he wants them to be influenced. He may believe he's doing good, he may not care, but his primary concern is maintaining the lifestyle him and his colleagues in Vatican City have. Why do you think Catholicism is so against Condoms? Most religion is like the world's biggest, longest running pyramid scheme in this respect- as long as you keep bringing more people into the fold it'll be okay, whether that's through indoctrination using tools such as adoption agencies, or whether that's by maximising children born to parents of that religion in the hope they will bring them up as members of that religion through telling people not to use contraception.
"All of that aside: If we truly believe that hearing the gospel is necessary for someone to avoid eternal judgement-- why would we NOT encourage them to come hear the message preached?"
Because it's selfish, because all you're doing is fulfilling your own selfish belief that you're somehow doing good, when in all likely hood you're often just getting on people's nerves. You're doing what you've been taught to do, you're maintaining your religion's existence because it suits those who have preached that message to you to have that religion maintained.
"Who is this "they" you keep talking of?"
Catholics, Protestants, Muslims, Jews? Take your pick. Or are you suggesting none of these religions run adoption agencies?
Look, you may well be one of those who has religious beliefs that does genuinely do good, but don't try and pretend that if you are that you're representative of likely your (or just about any other) religion as whole. Don't try and pretend that just because you yourself are a good individual, that you are representative of the hierarchy that manages their respective religions around the globe.
If the likes of Catholicism were genuinely about atruism then Vatican City wouldn't be the magnificent place it is, and The Pope wouldn't get the servants he does, nor the gold and gem encrusted ornaments and garments he does. He'd sell it all off, live in a very humble abode, and use the cash to help mitigate problems like AIDs in Africa. The fact he doesn't do any of this, and lives the life of a king, whilst exacerbating the problem through discouragement of contradiction though is testament to the fact that he's in it for himself and his colleagues and relies on people like you (not necessarily you though, especially if you're not even Catholic) to keep bringing people into the fold to keep funding his lifestyle with absurd stories about how you're saving someone from what is, frankly, just a fairy tale.
"That's about a thousand years late, dude. There is no one Christian church since Luther broke away. The church has no control over its members, they are free to break from the church whenever they want."
Just because it's fragmented doesn't mean those fragmented portions don't still follow the same ethos.
What you've seriously never heard of the Pope, Vatican City etc.? You've never ever heard of The Church of England?
No wonder you have no idea what you're on about.
Well, it means that in his eye it's not hypocrisy, but it doesn't mean it isn't hypocrisy, it of course, still is.
This said, he also complains about atheists trying to limit religions role in the state too, though I suppose he would probably argue religion isn't a choice either I guess.
It sounds like I was on the opposite side of the equation to you in that I was working for a borough's education IT division that farmed out support to the schools. Despite this I still completely agree with you, the whole situation really stank, but honestly it sums up my experience of local government altogether. Despite all the e-mails and courses and posters in local government about equality, anti-corruption and so forth I can safely say to this day that local government was the most corrupt, racism, homophobic, sexist, ageist place I've ever worked.
The tie ups with companies like RM always made me sick, because even the management would complain about them fucking us around, for example as a partner we were meant to have a priority contact number, but we always just ended up in the queue with everyone else so just had to tell the school well, yes, we are a partner, but they still don't give a shit about helping us deal with your problem. Year after year though, we ended back with them.
I got out of IT support altogether in the end when I moved to private sector and went into development (and now primarily software architecture) but if I hadn't done that I'd definitely have moved away from school support to get the hell away from RM and other educational software I got so utterly sick of dealing with. I think the final straw was moving to RM's school management software - RM G2. We moved 121 schools from their existing system over two it migrating the data one by one, and even after the first 10 schools it was clear the system couldn't cope, it just crashed, and froze over and over- obviously it hadn't been stress tested, or arguably even undergone any form of QA at all. That's why somewhat when I got the offer of a job working on a particular firms school management software the other week I was tempted, as I could take up the challenge and think I would've done well - it's pretty obvious how little effort is needed in that industry to produce a product that would destroy the competition, but as I say, they just weren't offering enough of a rise for me to justify it.
The thought has crossed my mind once or twice about just writing some software in my spare time in this sort of market, because such markets are crying out for good software and producing something that far outshines the competition would be easy, but I think the time commitment is a bit much, and honestly, there are other things I'd rather write if I'm going to code in my spare time anyway. Seeing news stories or reading about RM though does nearly make me angry enough to do it! :)
"My objection is that I am unaware of any evidence that the protestant church of the 1900s in germany was exercising control over the populace, hence the "spurious"."
What do you think the purpose of religious schools are other than to instill religion in kids to ensure another generation of follows exists to fund the church?
Why do you think so many congregations are told they need to try and bring people in to the church if they want to do their bit to ensure they are a good Christian?
Why do you think they run adoption agencies that prioritise religious adopting couples other than to ensure the child is brought up in a religious environment?
"Yes, I am religious. Is that supposed to be an ad hominem?"
No, but it at least goes to explain why you have a refusal to accept what is pretty obvious to everyone else that isn't blinkered by such beliefs - that the sort of organisation you follow doesn't exist for altruistic reasons but acts only to sustain it's own existence to ensure continued comfort and influence for it's leaders. That's why religious institutions have always existed, that's why they exist to this very day and that's why so much of what they do revolves around trying to bring others into the fold, not because they actually inherently care about the wellbeing of those people.
Honestly, this more than anything is what pisses me off about religious preachers.
Archbishop Sentamu in the UK was mouthing of about gay people a few months ago saying how they didn't deserve the same rights as others and generally being horrible about them.
Of course, in response to this public outburst, he then got e-mails saying that it was like saying that because he was black, he didn't deserve equal rights etc. either. So what does he do? He runs straight to the police and claims discrimination.
Honestly, there's no helping these people, they're quick to discriminate against and preach hate against certain other minorities, but if someone dares to point out the hypocrisy of that to them they're first to cry discrimination themselves.
The scary thing is, this guy is now in line to be the next Archbishop of Canterbury - arguably the most influential religious role in the UK.
It was a counter-response, I wasn't seeking to post a balancing essay on the current status of global geopolitics, merely expose the fact that the person I was responding to was clearly full of shit.
What I stated means exactly what it means, that the person I was responding to was full of shit, nothing more, nothing less. If you then take from that something I simply never said, such as some assumption that I'm standing up for America, then that's your problem for being so partisan and ignorant. God only knows I've been modded troll and flamebait enough times by American nationalists for calling out their nation's idiocy when it's deserved.
Honestly, if you keep reading from people's posts something that is not there nor even implied (the fact I pointed out my distaste for America nowdays would be clue enough for any half-intelligent person) then you're bound to keep coming up with such absurd nonsense that doesn't reflect my position at all, but again, that's really your problem, as you're the one that looks a fool for coming up with something that wasn't there and hence got it completely wrong.
Ensuring preservation of itself is one of the things the church has done since it's inception, why would you naively believe things were different in this case?
I'm not sure why you'd take offence to a practical observation of the history of the church (and all religions) and the way they've managed themselves over the years unless you have a vested interest in maintaining the myth that the church has at it's heart any real interest in altruism. Are you religious or something?