Actually I've had real good experiences with the LJ 4000 line. Sure, they need some maintenance, but I've never had one just die in probably 8-9 years of seeing'em around.
Damn straight. People who decide that they've somehow reached some higher plane of awareness because they're fighting the good fight against the consumer/media world provide my life with more amusement than they probably deserve.
It's a bizarre thing but true. When in college our IT dept went from public access beige-box Windows machines for basic web surfing and email checking, so Sunray 1 thin-clients. Man-o-man did the shit hit the fan (keep in mind that these users all paid the same bare minimum tech fee, the people who needed more software and more powerful hardware had larger tech fees included in their tuition amounts, and got all the other stuff). In spite of the fact that the Sun clients had access to OO, the same recommended email client as when the Windows machines were there, web browser *and* full access to their shell accounts (amazingly, all full time students still had shell accounts to use if they wanted to). Nonetheless, it "didn't look like Windows", and in spite of a semesters worth of 20-minute free "learn to use a sunray" tutorials offered multiple times a month, the bitching didn't die down until the next flock of freshmen came in, eager to learn this new college stuff.
(interestingly enough, the CS/ECE students loved the things, since the software development lab was only open til like 10pm and the public access labs were sometimes open until 2-3am, or 24/7, they could telnet into their accounts and continue working on projects)
Not only that, they *thrived* on it. Relied on it, even.
Whether or not our modern, slavery-free, system will result in a more stable long-term society is yet to be seen.
You are correct. Realize we're talking historically here. The modern prohibition against any sort of slavery at all is 2 centuries old if we're generous. By contrast societies that lasted many centuries accomplished this via slavery (or other similar forms such as serfdom).
I'm not buying the argument that Greek society was more sophisticated in the areas of adult/child sexuality and enslaving their neigboors.
Sophisticated in what sense? Certainly their societal systems were complex. I think you're trying to say "better", which is, of course, subjective. Correct me if I am mistaken.
When an adult has sex with a child, they have a much greater chance to mentally out-manoever the child and control them. It is not an equal relationship.
Indeed, however placing the age at which someone magically becomes able to "mentally out-maneuver" a sexual predator seems to be rather arbitrary. While a 18 year old is certainly more able to perform such emotional self-defense than a 7 year old, it's debatable whether a 22 year old can do it (consistently) any better than a 16 year old. That's really the issue here, asserting that from birth to 18 years old (variably), humans have a consistent inability to make rational decisions for themselves, and then one day suddenly they can.
I was sexually abused as a child and so I disagree that "It's an interesting intellectual question to ponder."
That is unfortunate. It is also unfortunate that such incidents people from examining concepts rationally, as opposed to purely emotionally.
Sounds almost like the USA "safe highways" speedtrap profit centers. Where you can have a local resident blaze by who doesn't get stopped, but you will for 1mph over if you don't have the proper plates.
The reality is that there are plenty of sexual predators out there.
Indeed
The pictures they are seeking are taken by other predators of children they have abused
Routinely the case, though see the above posts about how subjective the definition of "abuse" can be. Our society defines this as illegal, immortal, undesirable, etc, and I tend to agree that in our society the damage to the child's psyche is outweighed by the desire of the adult. In other past societies, this has not been the case.
It's an interesting intellectual question to ponder, whether or not a society which condones sexual contact between adults and children would result in non-traumatic and non-predatory behavior. After all, there's definitely predatory behavior displayed by adult men on adult women in perfectly legal manners (I think we call them "players") and vice versa. If the behavior was condoned socially in a similar matter, what would be the psychological effect on the child?
Oh woe is the plight of the individual man vs. the masses? Please.
The point is that simply because people and societies have different opinions on when people stop being children and become adults does not mean that child abuse does not exist.
Well, that's the crux of the argument, is it not? It seems that again you are proposing that a complex topic is actually a simple one. Since various societies define adulthood differently, as you say, then sexual abuse (as limited in this argument to underaged sexual contact/etc) is also subjective. As a matter of fact, children in many historical cultures have not been as sheltered as those in first-world countries of the present, and various practices relating to sexuality, labor, and such we regard as abusive today were if not commonplace, then at least tolerated. Whether or not our modern (and relatively young) system of an ideally prolonged and sheltered childhood will result in a more stable long-term society is yet to be seen.
It is rather inconsistent to state you realize there is no universal, objective value system, but then state that "child abuse exists". Certainly in the sense that "there are societies in which the value systems are such that child abuse exists" is true, however your statement has an obvious implication that there's some consistent, cross-cultural definition of child abuse which is universally applicable. That, my friend, is not borne out by history.
In other words, silly debates about defining and quantifying the margins of something have no bearing on its actual existence.
Indeed, therefore we should have sided with the Catholic church on geocentrism? Hey, regardless of the debate, it is what it is, right?
Obviously, that is silliness. We debate things in order to understand how they work in the real world. The ability of an individual to have an opinion counter to that of the majority (and indeed, provide reasonable justification for those opinions) is the cornerstone of things like philosophy and science. You and I find sexual conduct with children as undesirable in our society, this is not in debate. However, that applies only to our society. There have been socities in the past where sexual contact between adults and children (take ancient greece, for example) was tolerated (or even encouraged, mostly between men and boys, if I recall, but perhaps other varieties). This *somehow* changed, and I'm willing to bet that it wasn't everyone woke up one morning and decided to revamp the sexuality of their culture. It always starts with one or a few people, and then spreads to the rest of society (or dies out, depending on a variety of factors).
As for the braincell comment. It was a general statement promoting the idea of debate and critical thinking. That you took it personally or as a slight is something you read into it on your own.
The ame applies to your attempt at historical analysis. The legal age for marriage has always varied, and still varied, from one society to the next. This is because the "legal age" for marriage is not, and should not be, synonymous with the age at which we come to sexual maturity.
This is an interesting point, but I don't think it is objectively as cut-and-dry as you seem to make it.
After all, what definition of sexual maturity should we use? Physical? Do we go by onset of puberty, some span of time after onset, some general guess as to the end of puberty? Somewhere in-between? If we want to get even more ridiculous, we can talk about mental maturity with regards to sexuality (which some people never achieve in their entire life).
Additionally, your example of speed limits isn't entirely appropriate. Some States (and I use that term to mean soverign governmental entities, not just US states) have no speed limits at all, for example. Apparently they need not exist at all. For that matter, child pornography laws have a very young history. The original intent, no doubt, was to prevent exploitation and abuse of children. A laudable goal to preserve the continuance of society. However, it is rather obvious that applying the same laws to 8 year olds as compared to 17 year olds, based on the idea they they have the same mental capacity and sexual maturity (as if the latter is consistent from person to person) is dubiously supportable and the assignment of ages has been arbitrary (in fact, the original reasoning for age-of-consent laws was not to protect children, but rather to protect the virginity -- and value -- of female children; it had little, if anything, to do with protecting kids for emotional or psychological reasons).
What it really boils down to is that human development, criminality, and sexuality are complex topics. Sexual crimes, in particular, while easy to think of in black-and-white terms, frequently result from complex mental problems in the offender. It's not as simple as someone waking up one day and deciding to start up a child porn ring for shits and giggles. Human adults are geared biologically to be sexually attracted to other human adults. I'd be interested to find out what exact intentional thought process you think people voluntarily engage in that results in the pre-empting of a biological imperative, to the detriment of the individual involved (similarly, people satisfied with their existence and with sound mental capacities don't tend to go out and become crack dealers, prostitutes, or rapists of the adult variety; yet none of those even approach the scorn that crimes against children offenders receive).
Our society (and similar ones) choose to make sexuality between a person above one age and a person below another age a legal anathema, this is true. In fact, there are sociological arguments to be made in favor of such prohibitions. However, don't fool yourself into thinking that its always been that way, or that there's an independant value system that every society eventually syncs up with. Keep those brain cells moving, it'll do us all a lot of good.
I don't think that's really addiction to computers, more like addiction to a constant stream of new, often unrelated data to your sensory perceptions. (addiction to unique information, perhaps?) Granted, a computer facilitates it, but it in itself isn't what you're addicted to, I suspect.
So, instead of being engineers of software, we're reduced to being IT monkeys?
A dramatic oversimplification. Even in IT there are interesting and dare I say "geeky" jobs to be had. If you step into a room full of people talking about computers, it doesn't take long to understand from their verbage which ones really enjoy doing systems engineering (figuring out the best and most efficient way to assemble systems and systems of systems, be it hardware or software), and which are the MCSE's (not that there's anything objectively wrong with having an MCSE if you truely do know what you're talking about in the first place) that got the cert so they could "cash in".
Now, if you wanted to be a software engineer, and end up in IT, that sucks, but it's not necessarily a "step down".
Why is this considered an acceptable thing to do? I mean, not like First Contact didn't blow established timelines all to hell, but why write it off as a trivial thing?
I think since most geniuses don't hit their peak of invention until nearing the ends of their lives, extending it will either push it much further back or... make huge leaps in technology.
I dunno, seems to me that most geniuses make their greatest progress in their relative youth, then spend the rest of their lives either promoting and expanding on that first development, or they start off on some other incredulous project that they never quite finish.
While I can't say anything authoritatively, you make the assumption that the stories have common authors, places of origin, and the like. Since the OT is a conglomeration of different books written at different times by different authors for varying purposes, "they" could easily have used different units (hell, genesis has two creation stories that differ in the order things were made).
They're all chemical compounds that have physical effects. When does something chemical become a "drug", exactly? Especially considering how many "drugs", in the medical sense, are rooted (or entirely composed of ) non-human synthesized materials?
Slashdot Mirror
Actually I've had real good experiences with the LJ 4000 line. Sure, they need some maintenance, but I've never had one just die in probably 8-9 years of seeing'em around.
Damn straight. People who decide that they've somehow reached some higher plane of awareness because they're fighting the good fight against the consumer/media world provide my life with more amusement than they probably deserve.
(interestingly enough, the CS/ECE students loved the things, since the software development lab was only open til like 10pm and the public access labs were sometimes open until 2-3am, or 24/7, they could telnet into their accounts and continue working on projects)
Over the head like a led zepplin.
Not only that, they *thrived* on it. Relied on it, even.
Whether or not our modern, slavery-free, system will result in a more stable long-term society is yet to be seen.
You are correct. Realize we're talking historically here. The modern prohibition against any sort of slavery at all is 2 centuries old if we're generous. By contrast societies that lasted many centuries accomplished this via slavery (or other similar forms such as serfdom).
I'm not buying the argument that Greek society was more sophisticated in the areas of adult/child sexuality and enslaving their neigboors.
Sophisticated in what sense? Certainly their societal systems were complex. I think you're trying to say "better", which is, of course, subjective. Correct me if I am mistaken.
Indeed, however placing the age at which someone magically becomes able to "mentally out-maneuver" a sexual predator seems to be rather arbitrary. While a 18 year old is certainly more able to perform such emotional self-defense than a 7 year old, it's debatable whether a 22 year old can do it (consistently) any better than a 16 year old. That's really the issue here, asserting that from birth to 18 years old (variably), humans have a consistent inability to make rational decisions for themselves, and then one day suddenly they can.
I was sexually abused as a child and so I disagree that "It's an interesting intellectual question to ponder."
That is unfortunate. It is also unfortunate that such incidents people from examining concepts rationally, as opposed to purely emotionally.
So, how long have you lived in Wisconsin? ;)
Indeed
The pictures they are seeking are taken by other predators of children they have abused
Routinely the case, though see the above posts about how subjective the definition of "abuse" can be. Our society defines this as illegal, immortal, undesirable, etc, and I tend to agree that in our society the damage to the child's psyche is outweighed by the desire of the adult. In other past societies, this has not been the case.
It's an interesting intellectual question to ponder, whether or not a society which condones sexual contact between adults and children would result in non-traumatic and non-predatory behavior. After all, there's definitely predatory behavior displayed by adult men on adult women in perfectly legal manners (I think we call them "players") and vice versa. If the behavior was condoned socially in a similar matter, what would be the psychological effect on the child?
The point is that simply because people and societies have different opinions on when people stop being children and become adults does not mean that child abuse does not exist.
Well, that's the crux of the argument, is it not? It seems that again you are proposing that a complex topic is actually a simple one. Since various societies define adulthood differently, as you say, then sexual abuse (as limited in this argument to underaged sexual contact/etc) is also subjective. As a matter of fact, children in many historical cultures have not been as sheltered as those in first-world countries of the present, and various practices relating to sexuality, labor, and such we regard as abusive today were if not commonplace, then at least tolerated. Whether or not our modern (and relatively young) system of an ideally prolonged and sheltered childhood will result in a more stable long-term society is yet to be seen.
It is rather inconsistent to state you realize there is no universal, objective value system, but then state that "child abuse exists". Certainly in the sense that "there are societies in which the value systems are such that child abuse exists" is true, however your statement has an obvious implication that there's some consistent, cross-cultural definition of child abuse which is universally applicable. That, my friend, is not borne out by history.
In other words, silly debates about defining and quantifying the margins of something have no bearing on its actual existence.
Indeed, therefore we should have sided with the Catholic church on geocentrism? Hey, regardless of the debate, it is what it is, right?
Obviously, that is silliness. We debate things in order to understand how they work in the real world. The ability of an individual to have an opinion counter to that of the majority (and indeed, provide reasonable justification for those opinions) is the cornerstone of things like philosophy and science. You and I find sexual conduct with children as undesirable in our society, this is not in debate. However, that applies only to our society. There have been socities in the past where sexual contact between adults and children (take ancient greece, for example) was tolerated (or even encouraged, mostly between men and boys, if I recall, but perhaps other varieties). This *somehow* changed, and I'm willing to bet that it wasn't everyone woke up one morning and decided to revamp the sexuality of their culture. It always starts with one or a few people, and then spreads to the rest of society (or dies out, depending on a variety of factors).
As for the braincell comment. It was a general statement promoting the idea of debate and critical thinking. That you took it personally or as a slight is something you read into it on your own.
Really. Seriously.
This is an interesting point, but I don't think it is objectively as cut-and-dry as you seem to make it.
After all, what definition of sexual maturity should we use? Physical? Do we go by onset of puberty, some span of time after onset, some general guess as to the end of puberty? Somewhere in-between? If we want to get even more ridiculous, we can talk about mental maturity with regards to sexuality (which some people never achieve in their entire life).
Additionally, your example of speed limits isn't entirely appropriate. Some States (and I use that term to mean soverign governmental entities, not just US states) have no speed limits at all, for example. Apparently they need not exist at all. For that matter, child pornography laws have a very young history. The original intent, no doubt, was to prevent exploitation and abuse of children. A laudable goal to preserve the continuance of society. However, it is rather obvious that applying the same laws to 8 year olds as compared to 17 year olds, based on the idea they they have the same mental capacity and sexual maturity (as if the latter is consistent from person to person) is dubiously supportable and the assignment of ages has been arbitrary (in fact, the original reasoning for age-of-consent laws was not to protect children, but rather to protect the virginity -- and value -- of female children; it had little, if anything, to do with protecting kids for emotional or psychological reasons).
What it really boils down to is that human development, criminality, and sexuality are complex topics. Sexual crimes, in particular, while easy to think of in black-and-white terms, frequently result from complex mental problems in the offender. It's not as simple as someone waking up one day and deciding to start up a child porn ring for shits and giggles. Human adults are geared biologically to be sexually attracted to other human adults. I'd be interested to find out what exact intentional thought process you think people voluntarily engage in that results in the pre-empting of a biological imperative, to the detriment of the individual involved (similarly, people satisfied with their existence and with sound mental capacities don't tend to go out and become crack dealers, prostitutes, or rapists of the adult variety; yet none of those even approach the scorn that crimes against children offenders receive).
Our society (and similar ones) choose to make sexuality between a person above one age and a person below another age a legal anathema, this is true. In fact, there are sociological arguments to be made in favor of such prohibitions. However, don't fool yourself into thinking that its always been that way, or that there's an independant value system that every society eventually syncs up with. Keep those brain cells moving, it'll do us all a lot of good.
I don't think that's really addiction to computers, more like addiction to a constant stream of new, often unrelated data to your sensory perceptions. (addiction to unique information, perhaps?) Granted, a computer facilitates it, but it in itself isn't what you're addicted to, I suspect.
Or was that Mechassault. Eh, same difference.
Coincidentally, a new Mechwarrior was just released, so maybe in a short-circuited way, you're right!
A dramatic oversimplification. Even in IT there are interesting and dare I say "geeky" jobs to be had. If you step into a room full of people talking about computers, it doesn't take long to understand from their verbage which ones really enjoy doing systems engineering (figuring out the best and most efficient way to assemble systems and systems of systems, be it hardware or software), and which are the MCSE's (not that there's anything objectively wrong with having an MCSE if you truely do know what you're talking about in the first place) that got the cert so they could "cash in".
Now, if you wanted to be a software engineer, and end up in IT, that sucks, but it's not necessarily a "step down".
But what can we expect from an AC.
Why is this considered an acceptable thing to do? I mean, not like First Contact didn't blow established timelines all to hell, but why write it off as a trivial thing?
You mean like the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation?
Legally, corporations are people.
What the other guy said. There's a difference between sex and making love.
Galen is a techno-mage. They're these guys who are mostly a solitary group who use technology in ritualistic fashion in a way that appears as magic.
I dunno, seems to me that most geniuses make their greatest progress in their relative youth, then spend the rest of their lives either promoting and expanding on that first development, or they start off on some other incredulous project that they never quite finish.
While I can't say anything authoritatively, you make the assumption that the stories have common authors, places of origin, and the like. Since the OT is a conglomeration of different books written at different times by different authors for varying purposes, "they" could easily have used different units (hell, genesis has two creation stories that differ in the order things were made).
MN has something to brag about (me being a MN'er for 25 years or so) if only in that they're one of the few perrenially blue states ever four years ;)
They're all chemical compounds that have physical effects. When does something chemical become a "drug", exactly? Especially considering how many "drugs", in the medical sense, are rooted (or entirely composed of ) non-human synthesized materials?
Flour.
F-L-O-U-R
Now see what you've done? It looks funny to me after typing it more than once on its own.