While I agree Windows could be made more secure (and I don't doubt Microsoft has the capability to do so), I question how much some of the suggestions you brought up would really protect the average user and how much they would hinder usability for very little actual tangible benefit.
Sandboxing for example puts major limits on program interoperability without an overly complex system of sandboxing, which is probably why Microsoft choose to stick with a simple low permission/high permission user setup (similar to what linux does to the best of my knowledge though I am no linux expert).
Installs handled by the OS is a good concept, but is potentially limiting in terms of how software can be configured, making life more difficult for legitimate developers. Also, it still doesn't do anything to prevent a malicious application from being legitimately installed. This really only works if you could make the installer powerful enough to not ever require root permissions for an average user and I have never seen that really be feasible on any system.
Granular permissions is also a nice idea, but puts a lot of additional constraint on the system. Also, if people can't understand the idea that an unsigned program asking for installation is a bad idea, how much less are they going to understand when they are presented with a giant list of permissions that are being requested by an application? Most users that have a problem with Windows the way it is now, would still click yes for these messages, Android and Facebook apps are proof of that. It would be more secure for those of us who do understand, but I'm not convinced it is worth the restrictions that means the OS has to put on interfaces that would run faster without the overhead.
Allowing for knowledgeable users to track and display exactly what an application is doing is great, but already pretty strongly available if you know the tools to use. (Such as procexp, fiddler, a garden variety packet monitor, etc). Monitoring what a modern process does is a complex process though and would be easy to hide stuff if you were to try and simplify the reams of information that get produced in some standardized, simplified form.
So in short, yes, Windows could be made more secure, but Windows is successful not for being the most secure, but being what people feel is the best balance of usability, availability and security. Usability and security almost always fight each other and Microsoft simply sets the balance point where they feel it will have the greatest acceptance from users.
Agreed on that, I had historically always gotten cheap polarized sunglasses and had them die on me annually from the frame breaking and the lenses being all scratched to hell even with their "scratch-proof" coating. I finally got tired of it and got a nice pair of Native sunglasses. They ran me $150 but I've never had a pair of sunglasses that was as comfortable, durable and the scratch-proof coating really works. I have had them over a year now and if I wipe them off, I can't tell they aren't brand new. (And I treated them exactly the same as the old pairs I used to get.)
Or perhaps because the users are more educated in general and less viruses target them as they are not the lions share of systems out there. Unless you make it impossible for a user to run programs on their system, a virus will always be able to ask nicely on any system and get a user to run it because users are idiots. (In general principal) when it comes to technology. One system may be more difficult to exploit than another, but a large percentage of virus infections really are not even based on exploits, but rather simply making users do stupid things.
They have started doing this but it still doesn't matter. I watched my brother in law launch a virus directly before I could say anything. The dialog popped up explaining the risk quite clearly and he just clicked yes without even reading it.
Yeah, for out of school I can agree with you in principal. I think the intent was probably to try and provide a sub-legal means of dealing with what is either already or very nearly a legal issue, which is a good goal, but not sure it is the right way to do it or if there is really a way to handle it. A better requirement might be to make school administrators responsible to act as a mediator between parents of a bully and the bullied. I do think administrators should investigate the full measure of a problem going on in school, and that same problem continue out of school. I think that is relevant to the in school issue, but it really isn't the authority of the school to punish someone for what they do out of school.
No I'm saying that if it qualifies as harassment, it is already at least a civil if not a criminal offense. Your argument was that it is unconstitutional for people to be censored due to required participation, but it is also impossible for the people that are being victimized to leave. What is your answer for someone to be able to get away from an abusive situation, in any other aspect of society, you have an ability to get away. In the case of forced attendance at school, they can't. (Also note that I did question the validity of continuing it outside of school unless it met the legal definition of harassment and then it isn't a school issue, but a civil or criminal one.)
Nothing in the article actually points to the US authorities as being the cause of this breach. Everything in the article seems to be European agencies not getting the ball rolling. I don't see any evidence of anything nefarious or dishonest by the US government in this article. Does anyone have any article that indicates any wrong doing at all by the US as the title of the/. post suggests?
While I do agree with you that harassment is not free speech and should be prevented, I would challenge that it is possible (at least for some people) to ignore the views of others as irrelevant. I know from personal experience that I was extensively picked on as a kid and while I didn't like it (primarily due to making it hard to make friends that were pressured away), I didn't think anything of what people said. That said, everything that people said about me was false and I knew it to be false. I can't speak to situations where someone is picked on for something that is an actual trait they posses. I'm not saying that every person has the self confidence to avoid being torn down by words, but I do challenge that it is possible.
To flip that notion around on you, students don't have the option to get away from the bullying which I think is the real key here since attendance is mandatory. If it was possible for children being bullied to escape the situation then I would have much less sympathy, but since they are a captive victim, they should be protected. Free speech is one thing, harassment of someone who can not escape the situation, particularly when a child, is something else entirely. The whole outside of school thing might be taking it a bit far, but it is hard to judge where the line is. If anything it should be a legal harassment issue rather than the school administrator's problem.
Keep in mind it was also the fact that it was doubly hit that caused the problem. If it hadn't been for the tsunami taking out the diesel generators, they wouldn't be having this problem. Hind sight is 20/20 but having the generators in the lowest point so it could flood was not a good idea and without that over site much if not all of this problem could have been averted.
Ok, I'll admit my example was poor, but I think you are missing the distinction between having a belief that something will occur versus having a desire to inflict it. If I believe that if you jump off a building you will be injured when you hit the ground, I am not pushing you off said building. If I believe that both your and my actions have a natural consequence and that I have simply found a way to be spared that consequence, it is not damning someone to hell. I can truthfully say I have no desire to see anyone condemned to suffering or even to be harmed (outside of what is normal to all people regardless of religion at least (ie, I do feel good when the guy that just cut me off gets pulled over by the cop he didn't see.))
What you are describing is a general human trait of wanting to feel superior rather than something that is an inherent part of religion. Religion is frequently used by people to justify this behavior, but so is popularity, money, power, whit, creativity, or any other thing that people assign value to. Again, it is not a specific fault of religion but rather an inherent flaw of human nature.
Christianity states that everyone deserves to go to hell, but Jesus took care of the bill if you choose to accept his payment. Saying that that (or any other religion that doesn't hold forcing itself on others or abusing those that don't follow as a tenant for that matter) is a hindrance to peaceful co-existence is like saying that it is impossible to disagree with anyone and still have peace. The very notion of that statement is silly. There is no reason that believing that you will end up in eternal destruction if you don't try to follow God prevents me from existing perfectly peacefully with you. Show me the causality here. I think the burden of proof is on your claim since I'm not currently trying to find where you live to hunt you down.:) (Again, keep in mind I'm not saying that religion has not been used as "justification" for horrible things in the past, I'll be the first to agree to that. I'm just challenging that it is no more a causal relationship than any other form of power.)
I have to challenge you on the idea of religion flying in the face of harmonious coexistence. Perhaps the way in which some people practice religion does, but I don't see how the concept at its core does as long as the religion does not see itself as responsible for forcing others to convert to that religion or having any ill will towards those who do not. I'm a very strong and conservative (in the Biblical sense, not the dogmatic sense) Christian, and I have absolutely no problem with anyone having any other viewpoint and don't feel I have a responsibility other than to let people know why I believe what I do if they are interested, beyond that, it is their choice what they do with it.
I may occasionally be politically active or try to push for certain things I see as core values to be maintained, but even that is limited to a point of being civil based rather than religious based. (I feel that a fetus has rights therefore I seek to see those rights defended, this is no different than someone who feels we pay too much/not enough tax seeking to get less/more taxes.) I will agree that the fact that people have differing ideals results in issues that have to be addressed, but to give religion a blanket claim to being an issue causer is not justified any more than saying any power system creates problems. (Such as politics and big business as you mentioned.) The core problem is that anyone with power will tend to abuse it, big religion institutions are just one of the oldest systems of power, not religion itself.
You assume that the government doesn't have efficient means of detecting stenography. I know some people that were doing doctoral work on the subject and suddenly they were working for the government and most of their research became classified.
Oh yes, and as an aside comment related to your comment about how frustrating it is to try to talk with people who have are directly interested in not hearing what you are saying, I completely understand. I've seen people like that on both sides of the divide that really shouldn't exist in the first place, and they both bug me. Whether it is the people who blindly ignore reason out of fear it may challenge their belief or those who cling to the work of others and claim to be more scientific or rational without questioning the views they can't defend for themselves (even if simply to find the answers to legitimate questions). At the end of the day, many people unfortunately seem to want to be set in their views and unopen to change, whether due to an interpretation of a religious view they believe to be inerrant (the fact that individuals within a religion have disagreements should be evidence enough that the specific view probably is not an inerrant interpretation even if it is based on an inerrant truth) or similarly, the view that simply being aware of a view that others say is scientific somehow removes the responsibility to constantly ask questions, remain open minded and keep challenging your own views if you are going to also challenge the views of others and yet not see that their failure to do so makes them no more scientifically minded than the very people they attack as unscientific. (Also note, this is not an accusation against those who refuse to accept personal experience as scientific evidence, but rather those who hold a view they defend simply because it was presented to them. Certainly not everyone or even the majority but they are out there.)
Wow, that's another great write up with some more things I will have to do some more digging on (particularly the oil drill cores sounds really fascinating). Just to share a little more with you, I am in fact a software developer and am quite familiar with evolutionary algorithms and the concept of how evolution works at a micro level as well as how it could introduce major changes over the long term. My point was more that certain specific characteristics seem to make unguided evolution more improbable (though not impossible). (For example organisms that have two characteristics that are not beneficial to an organism unless both are present.)
To let you know a little more about my views, I am strongly Christian, but also consider myself strongly rational and strongly scientific (though not a scientist). A core to my world view is to avoid settling on any certainty and questioning everything. As such, my exact views tend to be fluid but pointed in a particular direction. The strongest being that I believe strongly in the existence of the Christian God, but also key to that, I believe it is very clear that the Bible claims that God makes himself apparent through the physical world and does not conceal himself, therefore, if that belief is true, it MUST match up with what is observable and therefore I must also trust scientific observation. I also believe fairly strongly that God would not setup such a complex system just to work outside of it, so it would seem that anything Biblical should be feasibly possible under physical law given a sufficient understanding of it and ability to assert influence in the correct places. I do feel quite strongly that the origin of the physical properties of life could and most likely did occur "naturally" and that there is a high degree of possibility that evolution (macro) and definitely (micro) are the mechanisms by which life was diversified. Even under the most literally readings of the Bible, the rough order of evolutionary development very nearly matches that outlined in Genesis and there is no reason to believe that God didn't use the mechanisms I believe he designed. (Also worth pointing out, while I do hold that Genesis, read properly, could potentially be an actual accurate account of creation, I feel that way due to the wealth of information which is not present or defined in the book. There are large time gaps and no reason to interpret the timescale as literal. The only real sticky point comes from the creation of man, but even that gets weird because according to Genesis only one man and woman are created directly, yet it makes reference to people who are not their descendants. Consequently, even humans descending from other animals could easily be a legitimate reading of Genesis even in a truly literal sense. (Also, please note, this is only one of many possible views I look for support or contradiction on, not one I strictly hold to. I deal much more in what ifs and constantly try to weigh them.)
So you can see, under my views, I am very open and supportive of science, but I will admit I am not free of some degree of bias in my lens through which I view observations, since I'm always trying to see how the observation forces my views to change and/or supports them (though I would argue that the same can be said of many who view science as a method to "prove" that God doesn't have to exist and "therefore" doesn't. True science would be agnostic to the existence or non-existence of a God as it is not a scientific question.) Although, given conclusive proof of a fallacy I would be willing to change my view, but it is also very difficult to disprove something that is by nature unprovable. (A catch 22 that I am sure drives people nuts on both the atheist and religious sides of the coin.:) ) I use both my personal experience as well as scientific observation to try and refine my views. Since I am not a scientist I don't have the level of awareness of what information is out there, but I do have enough background to read scientific papers (possibly with some quick goggling of some terms) and I do intend to read the papers you linked. I might have my wife take a look at them too since she was a biology major and might get details out of it that I'd miss.
They do last a long time though (performance wise). I just recently (less than a month ago) had a 4870x2 die in my wife's PC and had to replace it (it died because her fan got clogged and it overheated). I got the current top end ATI card (the 6970 which is basically a single GPU variant of the 6990) and the performance of the 6970 that I got a month ago is barely higher than the 4870x2 that I got over two years ago and at the time I think the 4870x2 was only about $550. The thing about modern graphics cards is that they are effectively computers on a chip. Most people really don't have the need for them as you mentioned, but I do 3d graphics and photo/video work and they have started writing that software to utilize the GPU so for me it is worth the price tag. (If my wife's old card had died a month later, I would have been getting a 6990 and whenever the other 4870x2 dies, it will be replaced with a 6990 unless something better has come out.)
Did you bother to read my post or do you prefer to just throw around unsupported accusations? I pointed out that if it only impacts the woman, then I agree that the state has no business telling her what she can or can't do. My point is that that logic does not match up with a pro-life view point which holds that the fetus is a separate entity than the woman and is entitled to protection. IF and I emphasize the term if here, the fetus is deserving of rights separate from the woman, then it is not being a busy body to advocate that it be protected, but rather trying to prevent harm being done by one entity to another entity that has rights. The key issue is not if the woman should be stopped, but if the fetus has rights. If the fetus has rights, then it is the government's business to stop the woman or doctor from harming it and if it is not, then it is none of the governments business.
Given someone who feels that the fetus is a separate living entity that is entitled to rights, then it is fully justifiable to seek to protect that innocent entity, the same as it would be justifiable for you to attempt to prevent harm being caused to another individual.
Wow, thanks for that wonderful response. It was very informative and well written. Very helpful information that is much more useful than the examples I've typically been given of things like Down Syndrome and such that don't result in viable reproduction. I still have some issues with the probabilities of some characteristic's evolving completely unguided, even over super long time frames (not to mention that even if the odds work, I don't really find the current theories on the origin of life itself to seem all that likely), but the mechanics of speciation over time now make perfect sense, particularly since the two populations once started have a substantial bias to cause splitting of the gene pools (when offspring of two of the odd number have 50% lower fertility, which may not have much impact in modern society, but in animals that give multiple births and mate with multiple partners, it would seem to be a huge bias). If you can find the links, I'm sure it would be a cool read, but I think you answered my question beautifully so don't give it too much effort. I can probably google it myself to find it now that I know what to search for.
Also, another thought worth noting, it could be said that in the example about shooting a governor, yes it would be my responsibility to report it as it would be to prevent wrong without undue hardship to myself. That said, it could be said that the wrong in IVF was fertilizing zygotes that could not be supported. Therefore the wrong would have already been done and there is nothing someone could do to reverse that. While it would be valiant for someone to take on some of those cells that don't have a chance, I think it exceeds the moral imperative to try and prevent harm to innocents. (Another example, if I realized that my coworker was about to shoot another coworker, it is not my responsibility to jump in front of the bullet.)
Ok, thanks for clarifying. Is it ok that I let people die in Libya that are fighting for their freedom from an oppressive government because I don't go over and join the cause? It is simply not possible to right all the world's wrongs nor do I think we are responsible to do so. There is a limit to what a person is reasonably expected to do under civil society to prevent wrongdoing. Giving an outlandish example and calling hypocrite for not killing yourself trying to stop all the world's ills single handedly does not make a point. To be consistent all I have to do is feel that it causes harm to someone other than the participants and is not something I would do or support. That said, striving for a government which best tries to protect the innocent is a civic responsibility in a democratic country. (Also, please keep in mind I am playing devils advocate here, I don't have a particularly strong opinion either way on IVF and I'm probably closest to thinking as long as you implant the cells you fertilize and give them a chance then all is fair in love and war and nature runs it's natural, if slightly aided course.)
As for your claim that God kills more humans, that isn't strictly speaking any more accurate than saying God kills everyone (which isn't accurate). God may not prevent death, but death is part of living. That doesn't make it right for us to inflict it on others for no reason other than convenience and it doesn't make it God's fault. Also, personally I don't know that I believe a soul is given at birth, but I do think in a scientific sense it is a separate organism which given the chance may well develop in to a human and that we don't have the right to simply strip that chance away for no substantial reason.
I wouldn't make an exception for consensual incest as I do believe this would be an abortion of convenience. On rape, I think the key is exactly what you said about it being unfair for a woman to have to carry a baby that it was not her choice to take a chance at having. I would encourage them to keep the baby and give it up for adoption, but I don't think they should be legally required as it is not trying to get get out of their own bad gamble. I do think your way of looking at it from a social perspective is good. I guess I would just challenge that it is highly improbable that the contributions of the child to society will be less than the inconvenience to the mother to carry a child which she willingly engaged in the activity leading to it's creation. If it was not her choice then I feel that the logic probably still holds true, but I feel that it is also inviolable to force something like that on an individual who was not consenting. (Hence why I would still encourage, but not require keeping the child.) Also, if the mother's life is in danger, it similarly alters the balance since it is now weighing the contributions of two separate people against each other and since the mother can live without the child, but not the other way around, it is the best interest of society to choose the mother.
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Sandboxing for example puts major limits on program interoperability without an overly complex system of sandboxing, which is probably why Microsoft choose to stick with a simple low permission/high permission user setup (similar to what linux does to the best of my knowledge though I am no linux expert).
Installs handled by the OS is a good concept, but is potentially limiting in terms of how software can be configured, making life more difficult for legitimate developers. Also, it still doesn't do anything to prevent a malicious application from being legitimately installed. This really only works if you could make the installer powerful enough to not ever require root permissions for an average user and I have never seen that really be feasible on any system.
Granular permissions is also a nice idea, but puts a lot of additional constraint on the system. Also, if people can't understand the idea that an unsigned program asking for installation is a bad idea, how much less are they going to understand when they are presented with a giant list of permissions that are being requested by an application? Most users that have a problem with Windows the way it is now, would still click yes for these messages, Android and Facebook apps are proof of that. It would be more secure for those of us who do understand, but I'm not convinced it is worth the restrictions that means the OS has to put on interfaces that would run faster without the overhead.
Allowing for knowledgeable users to track and display exactly what an application is doing is great, but already pretty strongly available if you know the tools to use. (Such as procexp, fiddler, a garden variety packet monitor, etc). Monitoring what a modern process does is a complex process though and would be easy to hide stuff if you were to try and simplify the reams of information that get produced in some standardized, simplified form.
So in short, yes, Windows could be made more secure, but Windows is successful not for being the most secure, but being what people feel is the best balance of usability, availability and security. Usability and security almost always fight each other and Microsoft simply sets the balance point where they feel it will have the greatest acceptance from users.
Agreed on that, I had historically always gotten cheap polarized sunglasses and had them die on me annually from the frame breaking and the lenses being all scratched to hell even with their "scratch-proof" coating. I finally got tired of it and got a nice pair of Native sunglasses. They ran me $150 but I've never had a pair of sunglasses that was as comfortable, durable and the scratch-proof coating really works. I have had them over a year now and if I wipe them off, I can't tell they aren't brand new. (And I treated them exactly the same as the old pairs I used to get.)
Or perhaps because the users are more educated in general and less viruses target them as they are not the lions share of systems out there. Unless you make it impossible for a user to run programs on their system, a virus will always be able to ask nicely on any system and get a user to run it because users are idiots. (In general principal) when it comes to technology. One system may be more difficult to exploit than another, but a large percentage of virus infections really are not even based on exploits, but rather simply making users do stupid things.
They have started doing this but it still doesn't matter. I watched my brother in law launch a virus directly before I could say anything. The dialog popped up explaining the risk quite clearly and he just clicked yes without even reading it.
Yeah, for out of school I can agree with you in principal. I think the intent was probably to try and provide a sub-legal means of dealing with what is either already or very nearly a legal issue, which is a good goal, but not sure it is the right way to do it or if there is really a way to handle it. A better requirement might be to make school administrators responsible to act as a mediator between parents of a bully and the bullied. I do think administrators should investigate the full measure of a problem going on in school, and that same problem continue out of school. I think that is relevant to the in school issue, but it really isn't the authority of the school to punish someone for what they do out of school.
No I'm saying that if it qualifies as harassment, it is already at least a civil if not a criminal offense. Your argument was that it is unconstitutional for people to be censored due to required participation, but it is also impossible for the people that are being victimized to leave. What is your answer for someone to be able to get away from an abusive situation, in any other aspect of society, you have an ability to get away. In the case of forced attendance at school, they can't. (Also note that I did question the validity of continuing it outside of school unless it met the legal definition of harassment and then it isn't a school issue, but a civil or criminal one.)
Nothing in the article actually points to the US authorities as being the cause of this breach. Everything in the article seems to be European agencies not getting the ball rolling. I don't see any evidence of anything nefarious or dishonest by the US government in this article. Does anyone have any article that indicates any wrong doing at all by the US as the title of the /. post suggests?
While I do agree with you that harassment is not free speech and should be prevented, I would challenge that it is possible (at least for some people) to ignore the views of others as irrelevant. I know from personal experience that I was extensively picked on as a kid and while I didn't like it (primarily due to making it hard to make friends that were pressured away), I didn't think anything of what people said. That said, everything that people said about me was false and I knew it to be false. I can't speak to situations where someone is picked on for something that is an actual trait they posses. I'm not saying that every person has the self confidence to avoid being torn down by words, but I do challenge that it is possible.
Agreed that parents are not held nearly responsible enough for the behavior of their children.
To flip that notion around on you, students don't have the option to get away from the bullying which I think is the real key here since attendance is mandatory. If it was possible for children being bullied to escape the situation then I would have much less sympathy, but since they are a captive victim, they should be protected. Free speech is one thing, harassment of someone who can not escape the situation, particularly when a child, is something else entirely. The whole outside of school thing might be taking it a bit far, but it is hard to judge where the line is. If anything it should be a legal harassment issue rather than the school administrator's problem.
Keep in mind it was also the fact that it was doubly hit that caused the problem. If it hadn't been for the tsunami taking out the diesel generators, they wouldn't be having this problem. Hind sight is 20/20 but having the generators in the lowest point so it could flood was not a good idea and without that over site much if not all of this problem could have been averted.
Ok, I'll admit my example was poor, but I think you are missing the distinction between having a belief that something will occur versus having a desire to inflict it. If I believe that if you jump off a building you will be injured when you hit the ground, I am not pushing you off said building. If I believe that both your and my actions have a natural consequence and that I have simply found a way to be spared that consequence, it is not damning someone to hell. I can truthfully say I have no desire to see anyone condemned to suffering or even to be harmed (outside of what is normal to all people regardless of religion at least (ie, I do feel good when the guy that just cut me off gets pulled over by the cop he didn't see.)) What you are describing is a general human trait of wanting to feel superior rather than something that is an inherent part of religion. Religion is frequently used by people to justify this behavior, but so is popularity, money, power, whit, creativity, or any other thing that people assign value to. Again, it is not a specific fault of religion but rather an inherent flaw of human nature.
Christianity states that everyone deserves to go to hell, but Jesus took care of the bill if you choose to accept his payment. Saying that that (or any other religion that doesn't hold forcing itself on others or abusing those that don't follow as a tenant for that matter) is a hindrance to peaceful co-existence is like saying that it is impossible to disagree with anyone and still have peace. The very notion of that statement is silly. There is no reason that believing that you will end up in eternal destruction if you don't try to follow God prevents me from existing perfectly peacefully with you. Show me the causality here. I think the burden of proof is on your claim since I'm not currently trying to find where you live to hunt you down. :) (Again, keep in mind I'm not saying that religion has not been used as "justification" for horrible things in the past, I'll be the first to agree to that. I'm just challenging that it is no more a causal relationship than any other form of power.)
I have to challenge you on the idea of religion flying in the face of harmonious coexistence. Perhaps the way in which some people practice religion does, but I don't see how the concept at its core does as long as the religion does not see itself as responsible for forcing others to convert to that religion or having any ill will towards those who do not. I'm a very strong and conservative (in the Biblical sense, not the dogmatic sense) Christian, and I have absolutely no problem with anyone having any other viewpoint and don't feel I have a responsibility other than to let people know why I believe what I do if they are interested, beyond that, it is their choice what they do with it. I may occasionally be politically active or try to push for certain things I see as core values to be maintained, but even that is limited to a point of being civil based rather than religious based. (I feel that a fetus has rights therefore I seek to see those rights defended, this is no different than someone who feels we pay too much/not enough tax seeking to get less/more taxes.) I will agree that the fact that people have differing ideals results in issues that have to be addressed, but to give religion a blanket claim to being an issue causer is not justified any more than saying any power system creates problems. (Such as politics and big business as you mentioned.) The core problem is that anyone with power will tend to abuse it, big religion institutions are just one of the oldest systems of power, not religion itself.
And I thought I just had to switch to GEICO...
You assume that the government doesn't have efficient means of detecting stenography. I know some people that were doing doctoral work on the subject and suddenly they were working for the government and most of their research became classified.
Oh yes, and as an aside comment related to your comment about how frustrating it is to try to talk with people who have are directly interested in not hearing what you are saying, I completely understand. I've seen people like that on both sides of the divide that really shouldn't exist in the first place, and they both bug me. Whether it is the people who blindly ignore reason out of fear it may challenge their belief or those who cling to the work of others and claim to be more scientific or rational without questioning the views they can't defend for themselves (even if simply to find the answers to legitimate questions). At the end of the day, many people unfortunately seem to want to be set in their views and unopen to change, whether due to an interpretation of a religious view they believe to be inerrant (the fact that individuals within a religion have disagreements should be evidence enough that the specific view probably is not an inerrant interpretation even if it is based on an inerrant truth) or similarly, the view that simply being aware of a view that others say is scientific somehow removes the responsibility to constantly ask questions, remain open minded and keep challenging your own views if you are going to also challenge the views of others and yet not see that their failure to do so makes them no more scientifically minded than the very people they attack as unscientific. (Also note, this is not an accusation against those who refuse to accept personal experience as scientific evidence, but rather those who hold a view they defend simply because it was presented to them. Certainly not everyone or even the majority but they are out there.)
Wow, that's another great write up with some more things I will have to do some more digging on (particularly the oil drill cores sounds really fascinating). Just to share a little more with you, I am in fact a software developer and am quite familiar with evolutionary algorithms and the concept of how evolution works at a micro level as well as how it could introduce major changes over the long term. My point was more that certain specific characteristics seem to make unguided evolution more improbable (though not impossible). (For example organisms that have two characteristics that are not beneficial to an organism unless both are present.) To let you know a little more about my views, I am strongly Christian, but also consider myself strongly rational and strongly scientific (though not a scientist). A core to my world view is to avoid settling on any certainty and questioning everything. As such, my exact views tend to be fluid but pointed in a particular direction. The strongest being that I believe strongly in the existence of the Christian God, but also key to that, I believe it is very clear that the Bible claims that God makes himself apparent through the physical world and does not conceal himself, therefore, if that belief is true, it MUST match up with what is observable and therefore I must also trust scientific observation. I also believe fairly strongly that God would not setup such a complex system just to work outside of it, so it would seem that anything Biblical should be feasibly possible under physical law given a sufficient understanding of it and ability to assert influence in the correct places. I do feel quite strongly that the origin of the physical properties of life could and most likely did occur "naturally" and that there is a high degree of possibility that evolution (macro) and definitely (micro) are the mechanisms by which life was diversified. Even under the most literally readings of the Bible, the rough order of evolutionary development very nearly matches that outlined in Genesis and there is no reason to believe that God didn't use the mechanisms I believe he designed. (Also worth pointing out, while I do hold that Genesis, read properly, could potentially be an actual accurate account of creation, I feel that way due to the wealth of information which is not present or defined in the book. There are large time gaps and no reason to interpret the timescale as literal. The only real sticky point comes from the creation of man, but even that gets weird because according to Genesis only one man and woman are created directly, yet it makes reference to people who are not their descendants. Consequently, even humans descending from other animals could easily be a legitimate reading of Genesis even in a truly literal sense. (Also, please note, this is only one of many possible views I look for support or contradiction on, not one I strictly hold to. I deal much more in what ifs and constantly try to weigh them.) So you can see, under my views, I am very open and supportive of science, but I will admit I am not free of some degree of bias in my lens through which I view observations, since I'm always trying to see how the observation forces my views to change and/or supports them (though I would argue that the same can be said of many who view science as a method to "prove" that God doesn't have to exist and "therefore" doesn't. True science would be agnostic to the existence or non-existence of a God as it is not a scientific question.) Although, given conclusive proof of a fallacy I would be willing to change my view, but it is also very difficult to disprove something that is by nature unprovable. (A catch 22 that I am sure drives people nuts on both the atheist and religious sides of the coin. :) ) I use both my personal experience as well as scientific observation to try and refine my views. Since I am not a scientist I don't have the level of awareness of what information is out there, but I do have enough background to read scientific papers (possibly with some quick goggling of some terms) and I do intend to read the papers you linked. I might have my wife take a look at them too since she was a biology major and might get details out of it that I'd miss.
Cool technology regardless of if the series is any good.
They do last a long time though (performance wise). I just recently (less than a month ago) had a 4870x2 die in my wife's PC and had to replace it (it died because her fan got clogged and it overheated). I got the current top end ATI card (the 6970 which is basically a single GPU variant of the 6990) and the performance of the 6970 that I got a month ago is barely higher than the 4870x2 that I got over two years ago and at the time I think the 4870x2 was only about $550. The thing about modern graphics cards is that they are effectively computers on a chip. Most people really don't have the need for them as you mentioned, but I do 3d graphics and photo/video work and they have started writing that software to utilize the GPU so for me it is worth the price tag. (If my wife's old card had died a month later, I would have been getting a 6990 and whenever the other 4870x2 dies, it will be replaced with a 6990 unless something better has come out.)
Given someone who feels that the fetus is a separate living entity that is entitled to rights, then it is fully justifiable to seek to protect that innocent entity, the same as it would be justifiable for you to attempt to prevent harm being caused to another individual.
Wow, thanks for that wonderful response. It was very informative and well written. Very helpful information that is much more useful than the examples I've typically been given of things like Down Syndrome and such that don't result in viable reproduction. I still have some issues with the probabilities of some characteristic's evolving completely unguided, even over super long time frames (not to mention that even if the odds work, I don't really find the current theories on the origin of life itself to seem all that likely), but the mechanics of speciation over time now make perfect sense, particularly since the two populations once started have a substantial bias to cause splitting of the gene pools (when offspring of two of the odd number have 50% lower fertility, which may not have much impact in modern society, but in animals that give multiple births and mate with multiple partners, it would seem to be a huge bias). If you can find the links, I'm sure it would be a cool read, but I think you answered my question beautifully so don't give it too much effort. I can probably google it myself to find it now that I know what to search for.
Also, another thought worth noting, it could be said that in the example about shooting a governor, yes it would be my responsibility to report it as it would be to prevent wrong without undue hardship to myself. That said, it could be said that the wrong in IVF was fertilizing zygotes that could not be supported. Therefore the wrong would have already been done and there is nothing someone could do to reverse that. While it would be valiant for someone to take on some of those cells that don't have a chance, I think it exceeds the moral imperative to try and prevent harm to innocents. (Another example, if I realized that my coworker was about to shoot another coworker, it is not my responsibility to jump in front of the bullet.)
Ok, thanks for clarifying. Is it ok that I let people die in Libya that are fighting for their freedom from an oppressive government because I don't go over and join the cause? It is simply not possible to right all the world's wrongs nor do I think we are responsible to do so. There is a limit to what a person is reasonably expected to do under civil society to prevent wrongdoing. Giving an outlandish example and calling hypocrite for not killing yourself trying to stop all the world's ills single handedly does not make a point. To be consistent all I have to do is feel that it causes harm to someone other than the participants and is not something I would do or support. That said, striving for a government which best tries to protect the innocent is a civic responsibility in a democratic country. (Also, please keep in mind I am playing devils advocate here, I don't have a particularly strong opinion either way on IVF and I'm probably closest to thinking as long as you implant the cells you fertilize and give them a chance then all is fair in love and war and nature runs it's natural, if slightly aided course.) As for your claim that God kills more humans, that isn't strictly speaking any more accurate than saying God kills everyone (which isn't accurate). God may not prevent death, but death is part of living. That doesn't make it right for us to inflict it on others for no reason other than convenience and it doesn't make it God's fault. Also, personally I don't know that I believe a soul is given at birth, but I do think in a scientific sense it is a separate organism which given the chance may well develop in to a human and that we don't have the right to simply strip that chance away for no substantial reason.
I wouldn't make an exception for consensual incest as I do believe this would be an abortion of convenience. On rape, I think the key is exactly what you said about it being unfair for a woman to have to carry a baby that it was not her choice to take a chance at having. I would encourage them to keep the baby and give it up for adoption, but I don't think they should be legally required as it is not trying to get get out of their own bad gamble. I do think your way of looking at it from a social perspective is good. I guess I would just challenge that it is highly improbable that the contributions of the child to society will be less than the inconvenience to the mother to carry a child which she willingly engaged in the activity leading to it's creation. If it was not her choice then I feel that the logic probably still holds true, but I feel that it is also inviolable to force something like that on an individual who was not consenting. (Hence why I would still encourage, but not require keeping the child.) Also, if the mother's life is in danger, it similarly alters the balance since it is now weighing the contributions of two separate people against each other and since the mother can live without the child, but not the other way around, it is the best interest of society to choose the mother.