Lynch mobs are about as much "due process" as plea-bargains are. "Hey, let's threaten you with 35 years in jail, so you'll be willing to forfeit your right to a trial and go to jail without one!"
Really? No wrong committed? The same people who threatened with 35 years something that alternately could be convicted with only 6 months, if only he assuaded their pride by proclaiming himself guilty?
They threatened a man with 70 times the supposedly appropriate punishment -- he'd have to go to jail WITHOUT a trial, if he didn't want that threat against him.
So either they were willing to help a man escape 34.5 years of a just punishment, or they were willing to penalize a man with an additional 34.5 years that he didn't deserve. Which one is it?
FUCK your plea-bargaining system, and anyone who defends it. You put to jail people who never had a trial, by merely SCARING them with a hundredfold vengeance if they dare proclaim their innocence. Anyone who doesn't DEMAND that your horrid and villainous plea-bargain system changes is complicit to such crimes.
That what he did is called "felonies" is much more of an indictment against the system that prosecuted him than against him.
And that you feel entitled to call him a scumbag, despite the fact he harmed nobody, just because of that same "felonies" tag, is an indictment against you.
What you're saying is also nonsense. Many aspects of many religions overlap with science, and are thus disproven by it.
For example: Through science we know that the Sun isn't a god riding a chariot drawn under the sea every night. Through science we know that the constellation of Orion isn't a hunter that fell in love with Artemis. Through science we know that humankind does not descend from a single human pair that lived in Mesopotamia around 4000 BC. Through science we know that the sea isn't the blood of a giant, nor was there a global flood that lasted 40 days sometime in the 3rd millenium BC.
Those are aspects of religions that did very much overlap with science, and have been disproven by it.
"I don't consider fear much of an evocation. I can do that but jumping out at someone from behind, but I wouldn't call that act performance art.:)"
By jumping out at someone you scare them for real, on a physical level. But don't you think it requires some amount of artistry for someone to scare you merely by depicting happenings on fictional characters in a computer screen?
Other than that, I think my main disagreement with you is that you seem to limit your definition of art to good art or deep art.
For me however even someone whistling to himself is performing art - as he's satisfying an aesthetic sense which isn't related to purely physical gratification.
Their direction, editing, design is a piece of art. That doesn't mean that the *participants* are doing art. It means that the creators and editors of the show are doing such.
You say it's "chilling", and at the same time you claim it evokes no emotion?
If it's chilling at times, then it evokes more emotions than most the novels I've read or movies I've seen -- and yet nobody would argue that a novelist or moviewriter isn't doing art.
The whole argument about "videogames aren't be art" is merely an old elite claiming that *any* new and popular form of art isn't art. Theater wasn't true art for the first ancient Greeks, and movies weren't true art in the early 20th century, and some people argue nowadays that videogames and comics aren't true art.
Here's a bet: I'm guessing that most of the people objecting to videogames being called art also objects to comics being called art.
All they mean by it is "it's relatively new, and popular enough that there's lot of shitty samples of such as well, so I don't like using the same word to describe it as the pieces of art that have survived centuries and millenia"
Your problem is that you think that "art" automatically means "good art" or "deep art". You think that calling something art automatically makes it a compliment. No. There can exist shallow art, and there can exist bad art.
"Some films aren't art. Some music isn't art. Some books aren't art. Some plays aren't art. "
Sure, those few books and films that are designed without any thought whatsoever given to artistic criteria, aren't art.
But all music and all plays are art - I can't think of any example of such that's not designed with artistic criteria. Music indeed is probably the purest form of art there can be, and I doubt any example of it (even humming to oneself) can be considered non-art.
"Do you also believe that a pinball machine is art "
Yes. It's not *primarily* art (it's primarily a exercise for reflexes instead) and it's an extremely shallow kind of art (bright colors! loud sounds!), but to that limited extent it's still art.
"Heck, just as you claim that video games are art, some people also defend that football is art."
I don't see the rules of the game having been designed with artistic criteria in mind, so I'd disagree with that assessment.
Mascots and cheerleaders do perform art, however (comedy, dancing, etc).
"Just in case you did not notice, most slaves were not sent to school during the day, but to work. School benefits the child, not the parent."
Nobody is disputing that the motivation for the schooling system is different to slavery, and that so are its end results.
(Though the argument that school doesn't benefit the parent is weak - school provides a free babysitter, after all.)
But the model itself of mandatory unpaid labour is similar to slavery. It's similar to many other models as well of course -- e.g. my one-year mandatory service in the Greek army. Would you prefer a comparison to mandatory conscription instead of to slavery?
I think most Greek kids tend to group them together after all, they know they have to finish high school, then they have to finish the army, two mandatory steps, with university being an optional step either following or sandwiched in between.
Because people have a choice which job to apply for, and they have a choice how to use the money. If they're not paid sufficiently, they can also choose to quit.
(If none of these choices is practical, employment does of course transform to nothing more than wage-slavery)
Schoolkids don't get to have any of these choices. Because they're not paid, because someone else decides their education for them, because they can't decide to quit.
"my problem is with paying EXTRA to motivate children to receive it. " We constantly pay money to people to motivate them to work. And studying IS work - it often is very hard work and very time-consuming work.
"the free availability should be motivation enough. it was for me" It's not free, for getting a good education you must have paid in time and effort.
By your argument soldiers shouldn't get paid either, since love of country is motivation enough for some people. Or judges and lawyers, since love of justice is motivation enough for some people. You can always find *some* people willing to do volunteer work. That doesn't mean you will necessarily get the best results.
"someone else provides the children with food and a home. those providers have expectations of the children. no further motivation should be expected, let alone required."
You've just described slavery. The master provides food and a home to his slaves, and that provider has expectation of the slaves. No further motivation should be expected, let alone required.
Society has moved away from the slavery-model for our financial system. Perhaps we should move away from the slavery-model for our educational system as well.
How many black men or women actually stand for election as senators?
Which kinda indicates the underlying problem...
There were no non-white or female presidential candidates in either of the two major parties all the way up to 2004. Does that tell you *nothing* about racism or sexism in society in centuries past?
Or are you gonna say that since they didn't stand for election, it doesn't mean anything that they weren't elected either?
Employers can only employ the people who apply for jobs that they are qualified to do.
Of course. And people can only become "qualified" by getting educated. And the rich have a significant advantage in securing education for their children. And the rich are predominantly white.
Therefore in this self-reinforcing establishment black and Hispanic minorities will remain underqualified.
Another problem is that unqualified people will often get a job because they're a minority...
That's actually the least of the problem. Why don't you go a few steps further back and figure out *why* some minorities have fewer qualifications in the first place.
"Manhole clearly implies a covered maintenance shaft in the street."
To some it may clearly imply a male anus instead.
Your argument is bull. The singular "they" has a historical existence of centuries, going at least back to Shakespare. And yet you are seriously arguing that to describe a potentially female owner with "his" is more accurate? Sheer nonsense.
"When they are said in a more general form, eg: "All men are created equal", they are genderless."
And for you to claim that this sentence was genderless is also bullshit. Anyone remotely aware of history knows that it was NOT meant genderlessly.
Our so-called drive to "thwart" evolution is itself part of the evolution process.
By showing disdain towards the cold-hearted people that treat "evolution" as an end-goal, we encourage the evolution of more compassionated individuals - whether we seek to do so or not.
The people who would seek to "evolve" themselves right into a holocaust will find themselves outevolved by compassionate civilization.
Meritocracy is all fine and dandy, but without solidarity strengthening the "egalitarian" axis, it just means that all future competition tilts towards the already successful rather than awarding the more capable.
Solidarity has its own pitfalls ofcourse -- leaning leftwards, it may transform from "supporting the weak" into "group loyalty" instead, thus turning into a new privilege and a new aristocracy.
But meritocracy alone can't stand. If it's not supported by egalitarianism it *will* make itself into aristocracy.
"You're a part of the problem here in the great United States; where it's become acceptable to be a sexist, and racist against the majority of the country."
Yes, I guess that's why there are only 17 women and only 1 black person out of a 100 senators. Because it's "acceptable" to be sexist against men and racist against whites.
Please return to that argument when white men are actually underrepresented in politics or business, not while they remain grossly overrepresented.
No not really. The earth was empty. Then homo sapiens filtered out from Southern Africa and laid claim to all these empty spaces. Whoever arrived first claimed ownership, created farmland, and passed it down from father to son to grandson (or sold it to neighbors). The concept of "first to arrive, first to lay claim to the property" is an ancient concept that predates written history.
Have you considered the idea that what could be considered a natural right back when people *could* find still unused empty spaces, is no longer such when there is no more good land left unused, and when humanity has already spread all over the world?
Discovery of new territories is all fine and good -- and I can understand the argument "If you don't like your lot in life, go move further out and find new land".
But to believe the same applies now, where the above (finding unused land) is no longer practical means favoring the established owners over the new owners -- and the heirs over the self-created.
It fails criteria of both justice and equality.
No not really. My knowledge of that history is foggy, but it sounds like the Emperor violated the natural rights of whoever originally owned the land. He basically stole it from those farmers. He infringed upon their rights.
But by that argument there's hardly an square inch of soil in Europe (possibly the world) that wasn't once grabbed forcefully by their previous owners. Where does that leave modern ownership of property as a concept, except merely a human convention driven by democratically-written law, not a natural right at all?
Look -- I agree that you've earned it, in the sense that you deserve it and you ought have it.
But where does that "food" or those "goods" come from? They didn't magically appear from heaven, so the raw materials are at the end the result of someone toiling the earth (mining, farming, etc).
And possession of the earth is arbitrary. It preexisted anyone's birth, so there's no "natural" sense in which one person or another owns it. It's a *human convention*, not a natural law, to claim land as property -- as a result it's a human convention, not natural law that any raw materials can be property -- and therefore it's human convention, not natural law that ANY material good can be property.
It's a very *useful* human convention, I grant you. But that doesn't elevate it to the level of "natural right".
I live in Greece - must I accept the orders of some byzantine emperor who handed off acres of land to monasteries as not only "legitimate property" but actually a "natural right"?
You're playing with words, you're not communicating anything meaningful.
You may just as well say that if policemen are allowed to quit, then protection from burglars is an empty claim. Or if firemen are allowed to quit, then citizens' access to the fire department is an empty claim. That's just stupid.
The Lisbon Treaty is not a sentient organism therefore it can't "self" do anything. You probably mean something like "If the elected governments of the member-states unanimously agree with with the elected Members of the European Parliament, then certain more decisions will pass from unanimous voting to majority voting". That's not self-amendment ofcourse. That's amendment by elected officials.
The Lisbon Treaty's major improvement is that it now explicitly includes any state's right to secede from the European Union. Previously no such right explicitely existed.
So, the whiners will eventually have to quit with their whining and just convince their nations to depart from the Union. Nobody is anymore capable of truthfully saying that the European Union forced *anything* on them. If they don't like it, the member states now can simply leave it. They now will have the right - for the first time.
And yet you oppose the treaty that made this right explicit. How come?
Slashdot Mirror
Lynch mobs are about as much "due process" as plea-bargains are. "Hey, let's threaten you with 35 years in jail, so you'll be willing to forfeit your right to a trial and go to jail without one!"
Really? No wrong committed? The same people who threatened with 35 years something that alternately could be convicted with only 6 months, if only he assuaded their pride by proclaiming himself guilty?
They threatened a man with 70 times the supposedly appropriate punishment -- he'd have to go to jail WITHOUT a trial, if he didn't want that threat against him.
So either they were willing to help a man escape 34.5 years of a just punishment, or they were willing to penalize a man with an additional 34.5 years that he didn't deserve. Which one is it?
FUCK your plea-bargaining system, and anyone who defends it. You put to jail people who never had a trial, by merely SCARING them with a hundredfold vengeance if they dare proclaim their innocence. Anyone who doesn't DEMAND that your horrid and villainous plea-bargain system changes is complicit to such crimes.
Which person did he ever harm? No one.
That what he did is called "felonies" is much more of an indictment against the system that prosecuted him than against him.
And that you feel entitled to call him a scumbag, despite the fact he harmed nobody, just because of that same "felonies" tag, is an indictment against you.
What you're saying is also nonsense. Many aspects of many religions overlap with science, and are thus disproven by it.
For example: Through science we know that the Sun isn't a god riding a chariot drawn under the sea every night. Through science we know that the constellation of Orion isn't a hunter that fell in love with Artemis. Through science we know that humankind does not descend from a single human pair that lived in Mesopotamia around 4000 BC. Through science we know that the sea isn't the blood of a giant, nor was there a global flood that lasted 40 days sometime in the 3rd millenium BC.
Those are aspects of religions that did very much overlap with science, and have been disproven by it.
"I don't consider fear much of an evocation. I can do that but jumping out at someone from behind, but I wouldn't call that act performance art. :)"
By jumping out at someone you scare them for real, on a physical level. But don't you think it requires some amount of artistry for someone to scare you merely by depicting happenings on fictional characters in a computer screen?
Other than that, I think my main disagreement with you is that you seem to limit your definition of art to good art or deep art.
For me however even someone whistling to himself is performing art - as he's satisfying an aesthetic sense which isn't related to purely physical gratification.
Their direction, editing, design is a piece of art.
That doesn't mean that the *participants* are doing art. It means that the creators and editors of the show are doing such.
Lousy art, but art nonetheless.
You say it's "chilling", and at the same time you claim it evokes no emotion?
If it's chilling at times, then it evokes more emotions than most the novels I've read or movies I've seen -- and yet nobody would argue that a novelist or moviewriter isn't doing art.
The whole argument about "videogames aren't be art" is merely an old elite claiming that *any* new and popular form of art isn't art. Theater wasn't true art for the first ancient Greeks, and movies weren't true art in the early 20th century, and some people argue nowadays that videogames and comics aren't true art.
Here's a bet: I'm guessing that most of the people objecting to videogames being called art also objects to comics being called art.
All they mean by it is "it's relatively new, and popular enough that there's lot of shitty samples of such as well, so I don't like using the same word to describe it as the pieces of art that have survived centuries and millenia"
Your problem is that you think that "art" automatically means "good art" or "deep art". You think that calling something art automatically makes it a compliment. No. There can exist shallow art, and there can exist bad art.
"Some films aren't art. Some music isn't art. Some books aren't art. Some plays aren't art. "
Sure, those few books and films that are designed without any thought whatsoever given to artistic criteria, aren't art.
But all music and all plays are art - I can't think of any example of such that's not designed with artistic criteria. Music indeed is probably the purest form of art there can be, and I doubt any example of it (even humming to oneself) can be considered non-art.
"Do you also believe that a pinball machine is art "
Yes. It's not *primarily* art (it's primarily a exercise for reflexes instead) and it's an extremely shallow kind of art (bright colors! loud sounds!), but to that limited extent it's still art.
"Heck, just as you claim that video games are art, some people also defend that football is art."
I don't see the rules of the game having been designed with artistic criteria in mind, so I'd disagree with that assessment.
Mascots and cheerleaders do perform art, however (comedy, dancing, etc).
"Just in case you did not notice, most slaves were not sent to school during the day, but to work. School benefits the child, not the parent."
Nobody is disputing that the motivation for the schooling system is different to slavery, and that so are its end results.
(Though the argument that school doesn't benefit the parent is weak - school provides a free babysitter, after all.)
But the model itself of mandatory unpaid labour is similar to slavery. It's similar to many other models as well of course -- e.g. my one-year mandatory service in the Greek army. Would you prefer a comparison to mandatory conscription instead of to slavery?
I think most Greek kids tend to group them together after all, they know they have to finish high school, then they have to finish the army, two mandatory steps, with university being an optional step either following or sandwiched in between.
Because people have a choice which job to apply for, and they have a choice how to use the money. If they're not paid sufficiently, they can also choose to quit.
(If none of these choices is practical, employment does of course transform to nothing more than wage-slavery)
Schoolkids don't get to have any of these choices. Because they're not paid, because someone else decides their education for them, because they can't decide to quit.
It's hunger that motivates you to have breakfast.
Are you implying that we should starve those kids that do bad in school?
"my problem is with paying EXTRA to motivate children to receive it. "
We constantly pay money to people to motivate them to work. And studying IS work - it often is very hard work and very time-consuming work.
"the free availability should be motivation enough. it was for me"
It's not free, for getting a good education you must have paid in time and effort.
By your argument soldiers shouldn't get paid either, since love of country is motivation enough for some people. Or judges and lawyers, since love of justice is motivation enough for some people. You can always find *some* people willing to do volunteer work. That doesn't mean you will necessarily get the best results.
"someone else provides the children with food and a home. those providers have expectations of the children. no further motivation should be expected, let alone required."
You've just described slavery. The master provides food and a home to his slaves, and that provider has expectation of the slaves. No further motivation should be expected, let alone required.
Society has moved away from the slavery-model for our financial system. Perhaps we should move away from the slavery-model for our educational system as well.
One would assume that what's habitable for Species A, wouldn't be normally habitable for Species B.
Unfortunately I'm guessing that in most space battles it will be the case that A=B=Homo sapiens.
How many black men or women actually stand for election as senators?
Which kinda indicates the underlying problem...
There were no non-white or female presidential candidates in either of the two major parties all the way up to 2004. Does that tell you *nothing* about racism or sexism in society in centuries past?
Or are you gonna say that since they didn't stand for election, it doesn't mean anything that they weren't elected either?
Employers can only employ the people who apply for jobs that they are qualified to do.
Of course. And people can only become "qualified" by getting educated. And the rich have a significant advantage in securing education for their children. And the rich are predominantly white.
Therefore in this self-reinforcing establishment black and Hispanic minorities will remain underqualified.
Another problem is that unqualified people will often get a job because they're a minority...
That's actually the least of the problem. Why don't you go a few steps further back and figure out *why* some minorities have fewer qualifications in the first place.
"Manhole clearly implies a covered maintenance shaft in the street."
To some it may clearly imply a male anus instead.
Your argument is bull. The singular "they" has a historical existence of centuries, going at least back to Shakespare. And yet you are seriously arguing that to describe a potentially female owner with "his" is more accurate? Sheer nonsense.
"When they are said in a more general form, eg: "All men are created equal", they are genderless."
And for you to claim that this sentence was genderless is also bullshit. Anyone remotely aware of history knows that it was NOT meant genderlessly.
Our so-called drive to "thwart" evolution is itself part of the evolution process.
By showing disdain towards the cold-hearted people that treat "evolution" as an end-goal, we encourage the evolution of more compassionated individuals - whether we seek to do so or not.
The people who would seek to "evolve" themselves right into a holocaust will find themselves outevolved by compassionate civilization.
Please look at a grid I made at :
http://ariskatsaris.deviantart.com/art/Political-grid-143752221
(You can click on it for a bigger image)
Meritocracy is all fine and dandy, but without solidarity strengthening the "egalitarian" axis, it just means that all future competition tilts towards the already successful rather than awarding the more capable.
Solidarity has its own pitfalls ofcourse -- leaning leftwards, it may transform from "supporting the weak" into "group loyalty" instead, thus turning into a new privilege and a new aristocracy.
But meritocracy alone can't stand. If it's not supported by egalitarianism it *will* make itself into aristocracy.
"You're a part of the problem here in the great United States; where it's become acceptable to be a sexist, and racist against the majority of the country."
Yes, I guess that's why there are only 17 women and only 1 black person out of a 100 senators. Because it's "acceptable" to be sexist against men and racist against whites.
Please return to that argument when white men are actually underrepresented in politics or business, not while they remain grossly overrepresented.
No not really. The earth was empty. Then homo sapiens filtered out from Southern Africa and laid claim to all these empty spaces. Whoever arrived first claimed ownership, created farmland, and passed it down from father to son to grandson (or sold it to neighbors). The concept of "first to arrive, first to lay claim to the property" is an ancient concept that predates written history.
Have you considered the idea that what could be considered a natural right back when people *could* find still unused empty spaces, is no longer such when there is no more good land left unused, and when humanity has already spread all over the world?
Discovery of new territories is all fine and good -- and I can understand the argument "If you don't like your lot in life, go move further out and find new land".
But to believe the same applies now, where the above (finding unused land) is no longer practical means favoring the established owners over the new owners -- and the heirs over the self-created.
It fails criteria of both justice and equality.
No not really. My knowledge of that history is foggy, but it sounds like the Emperor violated the natural rights of whoever originally owned the land. He basically stole it from those farmers. He infringed upon their rights.
But by that argument there's hardly an square inch of soil in Europe (possibly the world) that wasn't once grabbed forcefully by their previous owners. Where does that leave modern ownership of property as a concept, except merely a human convention driven by democratically-written law, not a natural right at all?
Look -- I agree that you've earned it, in the sense that you deserve it and you ought have it.
But where does that "food" or those "goods" come from? They didn't magically appear from heaven, so the raw materials are at the end the result of someone toiling the earth (mining, farming, etc).
And possession of the earth is arbitrary. It preexisted anyone's birth, so there's no "natural" sense in which one person or another owns it. It's a *human convention*, not a natural law, to claim land as property -- as a result it's a human convention, not natural law that any raw materials can be property -- and therefore it's human convention, not natural law that ANY material good can be property.
It's a very *useful* human convention, I grant you. But that doesn't elevate it to the level of "natural right".
I live in Greece - must I accept the orders of some byzantine emperor who handed off acres of land to monasteries as not only "legitimate property" but actually a "natural right"?
You're playing with words, you're not communicating anything meaningful.
You may just as well say that if policemen are allowed to quit, then protection from burglars is an empty claim. Or if firemen are allowed to quit, then citizens' access to the fire department is an empty claim. That's just stupid.
"Life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, say I."
What if my happiness depends on the liberty to take over your property?
The Lisbon Treaty is not a sentient organism therefore it can't "self" do anything. You probably mean something like "If the elected governments of the member-states unanimously agree with with the elected Members of the European Parliament, then certain more decisions will pass from unanimous voting to majority voting".
That's not self-amendment ofcourse. That's amendment by elected officials.
The Lisbon Treaty's major improvement is that it now explicitly includes any state's right to secede from the European Union. Previously no such right explicitely existed.
So, the whiners will eventually have to quit with their whining and just convince their nations to depart from the Union. Nobody is anymore capable of truthfully saying that the European Union forced *anything* on them. If they don't like it, the member states now can simply leave it. They now will have the right - for the first time.
And yet you oppose the treaty that made this right explicit. How come?
Only if they're not allowed to quit.