I don't necessarily agree or disagree with you, but you might want to avoid claiming that it "all boils down to business" while keeping your core argument.
Otherwise it sounds like you're advocating/defending an attitude of "I hope you realize our marriage isn't personal, it's just business" to misquote whichever mobster movie said that first.
Company XYZ: People don't like to come here and work for us because of Law FooBar (e.g. taxes to high, speed limit to low, handguns illegal, etc.), therefore the law is unconstitutional and the State Supreme Court should overturn it.
Would anyone buy that line of reasoning about any other topic?
It is to the advantage the extremists on both sides to keep calling it marriage. For those against gay marriage, it calls up the religious connection. For those in favor of gay marriage, calling it "marriage" rather than just "civil union" calls up emotional responses (e.g. "the right to marry" draws more emotion than "the right to civilly unite"). It also gives it more credibility, avoids the second class overtones of "civil union", makes it harder for other people to claim they are "not really" married.
Regretfully I don't know what the theological response to that might be. As a pure thought experiment, I could offer some conjectures, but I don't want to misrepresent what answer various theological schools might give.
Free will does not at all imply uncertainty. It merely implies control over a choice. For example, I ask my friend where he wants to eat, even though I know him well enough to know what his answer will be. It is his free choice even though I know what he will choose.
which implies no knowledge of the outcome beforehand.
"Before" and "after" don't apply if god/God is outside time. The statement becomes nonsensical in that case. It is perfectly possible for entities inside time to exercise their free will by choosing how the story of time evolves, but an entity outside time sees the entire story in one instant.
This is a topic that is actually well hashed over and tackled head-on within theological/philosophical writings under the topics of predestination (as a consequence of omniscience) and free will.
The concept of 'Purgatory' was developed later by the Roman Catholic church.
The GP is right that the word 'Purgatory' isn't in the Bible but neither is the word 'Trinity'. However, it is debatable whether the concept was developed later or was there from the start. 1 Cor 3:12-15 make a fairly clear reference to those who will be saved on the day of reckoning but only after passing through "fire". The concept of a purgatory like place was also a Jewish tradition before Christianity (See 2 Macc 12:44-45).
Yes, he is omnipotent, but in most theologies that word doesn't mean what you probably think it means. Few if any theologies claim god/God can do even the logically contradictory.
(I think you meant "not omnipotent" instead of "impotent" (i.e. powerless) since the there are plenty of powerful non-impotent people out there who want to stop evil but are not able to.)
Is He able but not willing?
No, he is not willing.
Then is He malevolent?
He does not act because to do so would be a greater evil. Namely the violation of our free will. (The choice between either "no freedom and no evil" or "freedom and evil from abuse of that freedom" has been explored in a non-supernatural context in several science-fiction works, but curiously once you bring god/God into the question people start to switch from preferring the freedom to preferring no-evil.)
Now if you want evil to include things like natural disasters and not just evil that people directly inflict on others, theologies start to diverge. Some say that all evil is an indirect consequence of a direct personal evil (e.g. Genesis and the Fall of Man). Some say that evil as a moral aspect can only be present when there is a moral agent involved (e.g. a tree falling on a person is not evil but purposely making a tree fall on a person is evil). Some say that bad things happen to allow a greater good. Some say that, like with free will, the laws of nature that would have to be violated and that would be an evil. Others give other answers, but if you restrict yourself to evil actions committed directly by persons, the free-will argument is a widely accepted answer.
Note there are two very important theological points here. The first is that god/God can't do "anything". That is to say many (most?) faiths at least restrict god/God to being able to do "anything that is not a logical contradiction". Some restrict god/God's abilities even further.
The second point is that free will or the products that can only come from free will (love?) are valued as a very high good, high enough in value to balance all the other evil in the world.
(*) Though some might argue that he/He is not able since they restrict omnipotence to doing "anything not contrary to god/God's nature" and that nature may include not interfering with our free will
(The above is only my reasonably well informed understanding of the theological teachings of certain faiths. Apologies if I got anything wrong.)
Maybe you are thinking of another Jack because this Jack was born in New Mexico, raised in California and now is a representative of California's 43rd district.
And putting a warning label on something is not "just [wanting] you to make an informed decision". An informed decision requires hearing evidence and arguments from many sides and angles. A warning label only give you one side and it doesn't even give evidence or arguments; it just asserts a position as fact. If that position is widely acknowledged or accepted by those informed about the subject, then it is fine (e.g. "WARNING: this paint contains traces of lead which has been connected with birth defects"), but that is clearly not the case here.
anonymous Internet access, which is illegal in India.
Thank you, that explains a lot. But now I wonder how on earth they made anonymous Internet access illegal. I mean really; are they also going to make snail-mail with no return address illegal?
Imagine that Metriod Prime 3 had had an auto-play feature. It would get you past the grinds, but it would also get you past the puzzles (after all what you call a grind might be the part someone else loves). The only thing keeping you from using it on the puzzle parts is your own judgment. This puts you in the situation of always having to choose whether a part or puzzle is "too hard" and to use the auto-player. But at the same time conquering something that is "too hard" is an important aspect of fun. Even putting the player in the position of having to make that call can spoil the fun. (I have observed a similar phenomenon with single player cheats and walkthroughs.)
I'm not saying an auto-player couldn't be done well. I'm just making the observation that it would be hard to get right without destroying the fun of the game.
(*) I have no ethical objection to single player "cheats" or walkthroughs because the objective is to have fun
Maybe you have a reason you want a router but if you can live with a switch it should be compatible since switches operate at a lower level and are oblivious to the IP protocol being used.
If you look at the technology we use today for environmental measures (e.g. CFL, solar power, nuclear fusion, nuclear fission (we hope soon)), none of these would be even possible without the last century of non-environmentally-motivated technological development. Even just the development of the computer has lead to more efficient car designs, steam turbine shapes and more. So, yes, better economy doesn't directly lead to better environmental technology, but it does lead to better general technology which in turn makes it easier to get better environmental technology.
I'll grant that these effects tend to be very long term, but when the alternative is adopting a measure that will save such a small amount as to be lost in the noise (123.6kwh/yr/household), I'll take the technological development.
(P.S. Thank you for the discussion. You're forcing me to spell out my reasons in great detail which I find quite stimulating.)
If there were a genuine contention for resources then you'd have a point but the only one I can see is largely theoretical.
Ah, I think you've revealed to me one more assumption I have but failed to mention. Namely that a stronger economy (as a whole) leads to faster technological development and better technology means we will be better able to responsibly manage our environment. From this perspective there most definitely is a contention for resources.
Of course there is a balance here (as I'm sure RTS fans know(*)). Plunder the planet and invest in technology too much and there will be nothing left to conserve. Or try to conserve too much and the technology doesn't develop quickly enough to allow better conservation. Where this balance lies will depend on the details and we may disagree on those, but I hope you will agree that there is a balance and below a certain rate of return it is better to invest in economy (and thus technology).
Certainly decisions should be evidence based but at the end of the day you need to choose a set of things look like they'll have a reasonable effect and get moving on them.
Where we differ is on whether this will have a reasonable effect. After a few back-of-the-envelope calculations, I've come to the conclusion that this measure will not. Any effect it would have is so small compared to other actions that we can do now (e.g. CFL, solar power, even just getting your home properly insulated) that it gets lost in the statistical noise. By my calculations, we would need to be talking about a hundred times larger improvement before it would start to have a reasonable impact. It was only after these calculations that I came to the conclusion that this measure is such a bad idea. I would encourage you to do your own calculations and compare the energy savings to other initiatives that could be implemented.
(*) Though don't hold me to that analogy because most RTS are balanced for an end-game with all the resources consumed and don't model the renewing of resources.
If it were a choice between doing something and doing nothing, I would agree. But I do not believe that is the case. Maybe it's my engineering background, but I believe it's always a choice between doing something and doing something else. Even doing "nothing" is doing something.
Now, each of those somethings we could do has a cost in terms of resource, human labor, time, etc. and these are in limited supply. Each something also has a benefit (let's stick to environmental benefits for now). Assuming that we want to optimize the environmental benefit the best(*) strategy is to choose those actions with maximum the benefit at minimal cost and not do those things with a small benefit even if that benefit is positive (this is basic optimization theory).
That is how I view the world generally, not just with regard to environmental issues. It is really based on the realization that we can't do every thing that would be "good to do" because there isn't enough time/resources/whatever, so we should really only do what is "great to do".
That is part of my world view, and I think it is a rational one.
Given that world view I hope you see how this pans out when applied to this specific case. Saving 123.6kwh per residence per year is a minuscule environmental benefit compared to other things that could be done and it diverts resources from other efforts could have a far greater environmental benefit.
I don't dispute the goals, but from an optimization perspective I think the method being used here is counterproductive. Now if you could save 100 times that amount (up in the CFL range) by improving television efficiency, I would be much happier. It would no longer be just a "good thing" but a "great thing" to do. I would be satisfied even if that were implemented incrementally. But as long as it stays such a small amount, doing a little may in the grand scheme of things do more harm than doing nothing (because you really wouldn't be doing nothing, you would be doing something else).
(*) Well, not exactly best. It gets more complicated, but I don't want to elaborate a complete theory of systems engineering here, and it provides a good first approximation.
In your blind troll rage, you have read into my post things that are not there. Reread it. I raise not a question of goals (I bike to work you insensitive clod) but of efficacy. Ineffective conservation hurts the environment because the energy could be better spent more effective measures.
Multiplying savings by 1 million households also multiplies the baseline by 1 million households.
To put this in perspective, replacing one incandescent with a CFL would save over a 100 times the energy. It doesn't matter whether it is one household or 1 million households the ratio stays the same. A single CFL per household would still do two orders of magnitude more benefit.
An ant pushing the two ton boulder might be "at least doing something", but it is far better to leave the ant alone and just bring out the bulldozers. (And if you decide to bring out 1 million ants, then those ants will have to move a million boulders so you really haven't gained any leverage on the problem.)
This will not save the earth. It will hurt the earth. The energy savings are marginal, really marginal as in replacing a single incandescent with a CFL will save two orders of magnitude more energy(*). The energy costs due to less efficient processes to make these TVs will far outweigh any benefit.
Fundamentalist environmentalism is irrational and doesn't help the earth. Just because someone says they are "saving energy" doesn't mean in the grand scheme of things that they really are.
Saving $18.48 of energy isn't all that much energy saved doesn't help the environment that much. If anything, it may hurt the environment more due to more resources being consumed in producing the TV using a less efficient production method.
To put this in perspective, in 2008 the average price of residential electricity was 14.45 cents/kwh. So saving $18.48 in energy means you saved 123.6kwh over the year. You could save that much by turning off one 100W bulb on only one day out of the week.
While it is our duty to take care of our environment, it is crazy laws like these (and people who push for these kinds of laws) that give environmentalism a bad name.
Someone in another post said that India's constitution protects porn as a form of free speech so I'm not sure how that could be an extension of an existing law IRL. (That is just what someone else said. I know nothing about India's legal system.)
Except that at least as phrased it is an invalid proof. I.e. it is circular on the assumption that it doesn't actually work, where as the Halting Problem proof is not circular; it is proof by contradiction.
Even 99% accuracy is useless when the thing you are attempting to detect occurs only 0.000...001% of the time. See False Positive Paradox and Procutor's Fallacy.
Wouldn't anti-trust laws be able to take care of that(*)? It seems here that someone is using one service as competitive leverage on completely unrelated service which IIUC is the essence of what anti-trust laws try to stop.
(*) By "that" I mean if Viacom chooses to block TWC customers; I don't want to start a general NN debate.
Would anyone care to make an audio book out of this?
I'm curious about the content (I like learning how things work), but don't want to wade through that many pages. On the other hand, if I could listen to it in the background while I'm doing something else...
Slashdot Mirror
I don't necessarily agree or disagree with you, but you might want to avoid claiming that it "all boils down to business" while keeping your core argument.
Otherwise it sounds like you're advocating/defending an attitude of "I hope you realize our marriage isn't personal, it's just business" to misquote whichever mobster movie said that first.
Company XYZ: People don't like to come here and work for us because of Law FooBar (e.g. taxes to high, speed limit to low, handguns illegal, etc.), therefore the law is unconstitutional and the State Supreme Court should overturn it.
Would anyone buy that line of reasoning about any other topic?
It is to the advantage the extremists on both sides to keep calling it marriage. For those against gay marriage, it calls up the religious connection. For those in favor of gay marriage, calling it "marriage" rather than just "civil union" calls up emotional responses (e.g. "the right to marry" draws more emotion than "the right to civilly unite"). It also gives it more credibility, avoids the second class overtones of "civil union", makes it harder for other people to claim they are "not really" married.
Both sides are using it as a rhetorical trick.
Regretfully I don't know what the theological response to that might be. As a pure thought experiment, I could offer some conjectures, but I don't want to misrepresent what answer various theological schools might give.
free will implies uncertain outcome.
Free will does not at all imply uncertainty. It merely implies control over a choice. For example, I ask my friend where he wants to eat, even though I know him well enough to know what his answer will be. It is his free choice even though I know what he will choose.
which implies no knowledge of the outcome beforehand.
"Before" and "after" don't apply if god/God is outside time. The statement becomes nonsensical in that case. It is perfectly possible for entities inside time to exercise their free will by choosing how the story of time evolves, but an entity outside time sees the entire story in one instant.
This is a topic that is actually well hashed over and tackled head-on within theological/philosophical writings under the topics of predestination (as a consequence of omniscience) and free will.
The concept of 'Purgatory' was developed later by the Roman Catholic church.
The GP is right that the word 'Purgatory' isn't in the Bible but neither is the word 'Trinity'. However, it is debatable whether the concept was developed later or was there from the start. 1 Cor 3:12-15 make a fairly clear reference to those who will be saved on the day of reckoning but only after passing through "fire". The concept of a purgatory like place was also a Jewish tradition before Christianity (See 2 Macc 12:44-45).
Is He willing to prevent evil but not able?
Yes, he/He is able. (*)
Then is he impotent?
Yes, he is omnipotent, but in most theologies that word doesn't mean what you probably think it means. Few if any theologies claim god/God can do even the logically contradictory.
(I think you meant "not omnipotent" instead of "impotent" (i.e. powerless) since the there are plenty of powerful non-impotent people out there who want to stop evil but are not able to.)
Is He able but not willing?
No, he is not willing.
Then is He malevolent?
He does not act because to do so would be a greater evil. Namely the violation of our free will. (The choice between either "no freedom and no evil" or "freedom and evil from abuse of that freedom" has been explored in a non-supernatural context in several science-fiction works, but curiously once you bring god/God into the question people start to switch from preferring the freedom to preferring no-evil.)
Now if you want evil to include things like natural disasters and not just evil that people directly inflict on others, theologies start to diverge. Some say that all evil is an indirect consequence of a direct personal evil (e.g. Genesis and the Fall of Man). Some say that evil as a moral aspect can only be present when there is a moral agent involved (e.g. a tree falling on a person is not evil but purposely making a tree fall on a person is evil). Some say that bad things happen to allow a greater good. Some say that, like with free will, the laws of nature that would have to be violated and that would be an evil. Others give other answers, but if you restrict yourself to evil actions committed directly by persons, the free-will argument is a widely accepted answer.
Note there are two very important theological points here. The first is that god/God can't do "anything". That is to say many (most?) faiths at least restrict god/God to being able to do "anything that is not a logical contradiction". Some restrict god/God's abilities even further.
The second point is that free will or the products that can only come from free will (love?) are valued as a very high good, high enough in value to balance all the other evil in the world.
(*) Though some might argue that he/He is not able since they restrict omnipotence to doing "anything not contrary to god/God's nature" and that nature may include not interfering with our free will
(The above is only my reasonably well informed understanding of the theological teachings of certain faiths. Apologies if I got anything wrong.)
Jack is from Florida
Maybe you are thinking of another Jack because this Jack was born in New Mexico, raised in California and now is a representative of California's 43rd district.
And putting a warning label on something is not "just [wanting] you to make an informed decision". An informed decision requires hearing evidence and arguments from many sides and angles. A warning label only give you one side and it doesn't even give evidence or arguments; it just asserts a position as fact. If that position is widely acknowledged or accepted by those informed about the subject, then it is fine (e.g. "WARNING: this paint contains traces of lead which has been connected with birth defects"), but that is clearly not the case here.
anonymous Internet access, which is illegal in India.
Thank you, that explains a lot. But now I wonder how on earth they made anonymous Internet access illegal. I mean really; are they also going to make snail-mail with no return address illegal?
Read "A Theory of Fun for Game Design".
Imagine that Metriod Prime 3 had had an auto-play feature. It would get you past the grinds, but it would also get you past the puzzles (after all what you call a grind might be the part someone else loves). The only thing keeping you from using it on the puzzle parts is your own judgment. This puts you in the situation of always having to choose whether a part or puzzle is "too hard" and to use the auto-player. But at the same time conquering something that is "too hard" is an important aspect of fun. Even putting the player in the position of having to make that call can spoil the fun. (I have observed a similar phenomenon with single player cheats and walkthroughs.)
I'm not saying an auto-player couldn't be done well. I'm just making the observation that it would be hard to get right without destroying the fun of the game.
(*) I have no ethical objection to single player "cheats" or walkthroughs because the objective is to have fun
Maybe you have a reason you want a router but if you can live with a switch it should be compatible since switches operate at a lower level and are oblivious to the IP protocol being used.
If you look at the technology we use today for environmental measures (e.g. CFL, solar power, nuclear fusion, nuclear fission (we hope soon)), none of these would be even possible without the last century of non-environmentally-motivated technological development. Even just the development of the computer has lead to more efficient car designs, steam turbine shapes and more. So, yes, better economy doesn't directly lead to better environmental technology, but it does lead to better general technology which in turn makes it easier to get better environmental technology.
I'll grant that these effects tend to be very long term, but when the alternative is adopting a measure that will save such a small amount as to be lost in the noise (123.6kwh/yr/household), I'll take the technological development.
(P.S. Thank you for the discussion. You're forcing me to spell out my reasons in great detail which I find quite stimulating.)
If there were a genuine contention for resources then you'd have a point but the only one I can see is largely theoretical.
Ah, I think you've revealed to me one more assumption I have but failed to mention. Namely that a stronger economy (as a whole) leads to faster technological development and better technology means we will be better able to responsibly manage our environment. From this perspective there most definitely is a contention for resources.
Of course there is a balance here (as I'm sure RTS fans know(*)). Plunder the planet and invest in technology too much and there will be nothing left to conserve. Or try to conserve too much and the technology doesn't develop quickly enough to allow better conservation. Where this balance lies will depend on the details and we may disagree on those, but I hope you will agree that there is a balance and below a certain rate of return it is better to invest in economy (and thus technology).
Certainly decisions should be evidence based but at the end of the day you need to choose a set of things look like they'll have a reasonable effect and get moving on them.
Where we differ is on whether this will have a reasonable effect. After a few back-of-the-envelope calculations, I've come to the conclusion that this measure will not. Any effect it would have is so small compared to other actions that we can do now (e.g. CFL, solar power, even just getting your home properly insulated) that it gets lost in the statistical noise. By my calculations, we would need to be talking about a hundred times larger improvement before it would start to have a reasonable impact. It was only after these calculations that I came to the conclusion that this measure is such a bad idea. I would encourage you to do your own calculations and compare the energy savings to other initiatives that could be implemented.
(*) Though don't hold me to that analogy because most RTS are balanced for an end-game with all the resources consumed and don't model the renewing of resources.
If it were a choice between doing something and doing nothing, I would agree. But I do not believe that is the case. Maybe it's my engineering background, but I believe it's always a choice between doing something and doing something else. Even doing "nothing" is doing something.
Now, each of those somethings we could do has a cost in terms of resource, human labor, time, etc. and these are in limited supply. Each something also has a benefit (let's stick to environmental benefits for now). Assuming that we want to optimize the environmental benefit the best(*) strategy is to choose those actions with maximum the benefit at minimal cost and not do those things with a small benefit even if that benefit is positive (this is basic optimization theory).
That is how I view the world generally, not just with regard to environmental issues. It is really based on the realization that we can't do every thing that would be "good to do" because there isn't enough time/resources/whatever, so we should really only do what is "great to do".
That is part of my world view, and I think it is a rational one.
Given that world view I hope you see how this pans out when applied to this specific case. Saving 123.6kwh per residence per year is a minuscule environmental benefit compared to other things that could be done and it diverts resources from other efforts could have a far greater environmental benefit.
I don't dispute the goals, but from an optimization perspective I think the method being used here is counterproductive. Now if you could save 100 times that amount (up in the CFL range) by improving television efficiency, I would be much happier. It would no longer be just a "good thing" but a "great thing" to do. I would be satisfied even if that were implemented incrementally. But as long as it stays such a small amount, doing a little may in the grand scheme of things do more harm than doing nothing (because you really wouldn't be doing nothing, you would be doing something else).
(*) Well, not exactly best. It gets more complicated, but I don't want to elaborate a complete theory of systems engineering here, and it provides a good first approximation.
In your blind troll rage, you have read into my post things that are not there. Reread it. I raise not a question of goals (I bike to work you insensitive clod) but of efficacy. Ineffective conservation hurts the environment because the energy could be better spent more effective measures.
Multiplying savings by 1 million households also multiplies the baseline by 1 million households.
To put this in perspective, replacing one incandescent with a CFL would save over a 100 times the energy. It doesn't matter whether it is one household or 1 million households the ratio stays the same. A single CFL per household would still do two orders of magnitude more benefit.
An ant pushing the two ton boulder might be "at least doing something", but it is far better to leave the ant alone and just bring out the bulldozers. (And if you decide to bring out 1 million ants, then those ants will have to move a million boulders so you really haven't gained any leverage on the problem.)
This will not save the earth. It will hurt the earth. The energy savings are marginal, really marginal as in replacing a single incandescent with a CFL will save two orders of magnitude more energy(*). The energy costs due to less efficient processes to make these TVs will far outweigh any benefit.
Fundamentalist environmentalism is irrational and doesn't help the earth. Just because someone says they are "saving energy" doesn't mean in the grand scheme of things that they really are.
(*) Assuming 5 hours use each day, a 100W incandescent , an equivalent CFL (23-30W), and the average price of residential electricity in California 2008.
Saving $18.48 of energy isn't all that much energy saved doesn't help the environment that much. If anything, it may hurt the environment more due to more resources being consumed in producing the TV using a less efficient production method.
To put this in perspective, in 2008 the average price of residential electricity was 14.45 cents/kwh. So saving $18.48 in energy means you saved 123.6kwh over the year. You could save that much by turning off one 100W bulb on only one day out of the week.
While it is our duty to take care of our environment, it is crazy laws like these (and people who push for these kinds of laws) that give environmentalism a bad name.
Someone in another post said that India's constitution protects porn as a form of free speech so I'm not sure how that could be an extension of an existing law IRL. (That is just what someone else said. I know nothing about India's legal system.)
Except that at least as phrased it is an invalid proof. I.e. it is circular on the assumption that it doesn't actually work, where as the Halting Problem proof is not circular; it is proof by contradiction.
Even 99% accuracy is useless when the thing you are attempting to detect occurs only 0.000...001% of the time. See False Positive Paradox and Procutor's Fallacy.
Both that "cat" and "butterfly" programmers do that.
Wouldn't anti-trust laws be able to take care of that(*)? It seems here that someone is using one service as competitive leverage on completely unrelated service which IIUC is the essence of what anti-trust laws try to stop.
(*) By "that" I mean if Viacom chooses to block TWC customers; I don't want to start a general NN debate.
Would anyone care to make an audio book out of this?
I'm curious about the content (I like learning how things work), but don't want to wade through that many pages. On the other hand, if I could listen to it in the background while I'm doing something else ...