You could - maybe - make an argument for abolishing patents on creative work. Even there I would say it's a bad idea, but let's pretend for a second that it's not. Your argument is still ludicrous when we consider patents on technology that requires hundreds of millions in development costs. If your goal was to bring the industrial world to a screeching halt, you couldn't have designed a better plan.
My general comparison was similar to the patriot act, but instead of dismantling checks and balance within the government some tenuous terrorism issues, it's dismantling checks on certain abusive businesses over piracy
Good job. By whining/lying about the Patriot Act, you immediately loose a sizeable chunk of the population which might otherwise oppose SOPA. That's a winning strategy.
No prob, since you're so certain that you're right, put your money where your mouth is. Nice small bet, say $5k. You give me a timeline for when we'll have unambiguous commercial use of nuclear fusion - if it happens, you get $5k, if not, you pay up. Deal?
You do realize it is impossible to reach this situation if everyone had your mindset... You have to have people "crazy enough" to remotely believe in the possibility of LENR to study it and eventually prove it or disprove it.
They're never going to disprove it. It's an unsinkable rubber ducky. Just like any other pseudoscience. The more negative evidence accumulates, the more they'll cling to their "anomalies" and the more they'll whine about the eeeevil establishment not taking them seriously and trying to suppress their work. The semi-rational ones who are only doing it out of curiosity will eventually move on to greener pastures, but the crazy core will always be there. Hell, we've still got people claiming they can build perpetual motion machines by throwing together a bunch of wires and magnets; evidence doesn't faze crazy people and/or scam artists.
Your behavior is exactly what has been holding back LENR research for 20 years. Instead of bluntly rejecting it, you should be open-minded and support the current research, even if you currently don't believe in it.
Uhuh. I'll get on that, just as soon as you throw your full support behind my project to find Santa. I need help raising funds for my expedition to the north pole. I've got lots of pictures of Reindeer. And back in '98 I was able to see his workshop from my back yard for a whole 200 days (atmospheric phenomena). My neighbor Bob saw it too, so it was repeatable. And we have LOTS of anomalous reports of Santa being spotted at local malls. Yet for some reason, despite all that evidence, none of those silly scienticians will take me seriously. So whaddaya say? Us Alternative Science guys gotta stick together, right???
So, technically speaking, I agree with you, no one can unambiguously prove LENR today. I am just pointing out research and experiments that indicate there are datapoints that current theories cannot explain, and that we may be at the verge of finally proving LENR.
Yes, I know, I hear the same thing from creationists, ESP fans, "UFOlogists", "cryptozoologists", HIV deniers, and so on and so forth.
"Well, science can't explain this, so you have to keep an open mind! We just need more money, and then we'll get you LOTS of evidence!"
In a word, NO. First you have to show there's actually something that needs explaining. You have to do so in a clear, unambiguous, well documented and reliably replicable way. Even once you've done that, it doesn't mean you get to run the old god-of-the-gaps argument and insist that your explanation is true. Just because I can't explain a glint of light in the sky doesn't mean I have to accept your claim that it's a massive spaceship transporting kidnapped humans for consumption by our reptilian overlords. Cold fusion "research" hasn't even met the first requirement, yet you're already throwing in your "explanation" and demanding that others take it seriously and throw funding at it. In two words, FUCK NO. You're no better than any of the other pseudosciences I've listed off; you provide the same quality of "research", make the same damn excuses, and use the same tired old complaints when everyone calls you nuts. It's pathetic. If I were to take your arguments seriously, I may as well start popping homeopathic pills while a gypsy reads my palm.
You really ought to read my blog post. It is not biased because it merely quotes and links to other trusted external resources (such as NASA) referencing similar successful experiments.
Nice. You link to "ecatnews", and, as if that weren't bad enough, you skip right over the bit where the NASA guy says "While I do work for NASA, I do not speak for them". This is the exactly the kind of jackassery that leads rational people to dismiss "cold fusion" nutters out of hand - you can't even be trusted to quote others, let alone perform real experiments of your own.
As for this nonsense:
The single experiment I quoted (900 extra MJ) was run over 278 days. That corresponds to 37W of heat produced continuously, in addition to the heat produced by the input power which varied from 149.6W to 94.3W. All this info is in the PDF I linked to.
That's exactly the kind of garbage that Rossi is claiming. I reject these claims for the same reason I reject his claims - no legitimate confirmation, a dearth of third-party observations, and no reproduction. It's just another quack pumping electricity into an gizmo he slapped together, and claiming he's getting energy back out. Sorry, no. That's exactly the kind of nonsense I was referring to in my original comment. As long as that's the only kind of "evidence" you can present, expect to be ridiculed. Come back with some quality studies published in reputable journals and reproduced by numerous credible scientists, and we'll talk.
Not that I expect any of these words to mean anything to you or the other Believers; no matter how obviously fake something is, there will always be people willing to defend it with stories and anecdotes. But if we don't keep ridiculing you, you'll suck in more and more of the unsuspecting credulous public, so I'll speak up for their benefit, if nothing else.
*shrug* it's interesting how your preconceptions can shape what you read. I'd love to see you post one of the lines which advocates the kind of exploitation you're referring to. I have a feeling it would tell me quite a lot about your beliefs and biases.
Ayn Rand would disapprove - if you have some economic means to rape somebody and bleed them dry, it is not only your right but your moral obligation to do so. ~
Naw. A sophomoric understanding of her works based on reading reviews written by her opponents might lead you to believe that. Though I'm not exactly a huge fan of Rand, I still have to object to such a ridiculous caricaturization of her ideology. All of her work is based on the idea of "rational self-interest". Only a deranged mind would equate "rape somebody and bleed them dry" with "rational self-interest". It's akin to the theistic nitwits who constantly claim that without god we'd have no compassion or cooperation; it demonstrates a complete ignorance of subjects like games theory and the evolutionary advantages of cooperative behavior. I don't think it's possible to read Atlas Shrugged and come away with the impression that she's advocating exploitation.
This is why discussions about economics and social ideologies are rarely productive - too many people are intent on demonizing the opposition rather than having a frank exchange of ideas. Sometimes it's deliberate, but more often it's a simple lack of understanding caused by only listening to the talking-heads that share your own political bubble.
Yeah, that about sums it up. Limitless clean energy would be a complete game-changer. "Voyage from Yesteryear" does an excellent job of exploring some of the possible ramifications, though I thought it was far too idealistic in many ways. Either way, Rossi's attitude about the whole thing makes him look like a ego-maniacal paranoid douche at best, and most likely a quack or an outright fraud.
I never said securing funding would be an issue. I have no idea where you got that from.
Look, no offense, but I'm starting to wonder about your mental health. There is something seriously wrong with anyone who would turn down billions of dollars over the next couple years, and a chance to incalculably improve the lives of pretty much the entire human race, in favor of making trillions of dollars over the next few decades.
It reminds me of the idiots who claim that "Big Pharma" is withholding the cure for cancer because it's more lucrative to "manage" a disease than to cure it. That kind of conspiracy-mongering is absurd on the face of it for many reasons, not least of which is the fact that most people simply don't think that way. Given the choice between making a billion dollars while helping people, or five billion while hurting people, the vast majority of us will choose the former. But judging by what I'm reading here, you seem to be saying you'd go with the latter. Rational, mentally-balanced individuals don't engage in that kind of behavior. If you honestly see that course of action as the logical choice, you need to get some help.
It's best not to patent it and not to tell anybody how it's done but instead to keep it a trade secret and protect technologically and build the generators, but not sell them yet in the beginning, but instead rent them out to companies.
If your goal is world-domination, sure. In that case you'll need a moon-base and a giant freakin' laser to go with it.
On the other hand, if you're looking to help the human race improve it's condition, while at the same time making yourself ridiculously rich, it's best to patent it and just license the technology to whoever want to use it. There's only so much you as an individual can do at any one time. If you're keeping it a secret, it'll be decades before you manage to develop and market all the products which you've just described. Whereas if you license it, you'll be an overnight billionaire, you'll be seen as a hero to billions of people, and you'll have a revenue stream that makes Bill Gates look like a pauper in comparison. There's absolutely no advantage to keeping it a secret, unless you're a control freak and/or a sociopath.
There is vastly more published evidence *for* those reactions happening than against them, no matter what the theories might say.
Nonsense. After 20 years of research, they still only have measurements that are barely statistically significant, occurring irregularly, primarily amongst "researchers" who already believe there's an effect. If you're going to call that evidence, then you have to conclude that "psychic powers" are real, also, because we've been getting the same kind of "evidence" from the "psi-researchers" for a couple decades now. It's nonsense. It's a perversion of the scientific method - sifting through noise until you find something that looks like a pattern, then using publication bias to reinforce your presuppositions, and sticking them in your conclusion. It's a waste of time and money, and it's a shame that so many people can't see that kind of "research" for the scam it is.
The problem with that approach is that after you have released all your plans for free, you get to go back to your job and try to stay ahead of inflation, cope with dumbass bosses and backstabbing co-workers, and probably have your job shipped to China anyway.
Buds, if you discovered a viable method of cold fusion, I can guarantee you wouldn't go back to your cubicle to wallow in obscurity. The million-dollar Nobel Prize alone would keep you humming along trouble-free for a few years. You'd be getting honorary doctorates shoved at you from every side, along with requests for appearances, book deals, job offers, etc, et al. You couldn't go back to your old life if you wanted to.
Except nobody is going to advocate blood donations from children.
Why not? First of all "young" doesn't necessarily mean "preteen" and, second, where's the harm? Other than the instinctive "think of the children!" emotional bullshit, what's the problem?
Did you ask a girl, or it's your own opinion how girls should feel about a major haircut?
Well I asked them how they feel about starvation and/or going into the prostitution business, and they weren't too keen on either of those...
Seriously, who gives a damn? If people want to sell their hair, or their blood, let 'em. If it's a case of parents forcing their children to do it... well, we might want to look into putting some controls in place to ensure it doesn't get overly abusive, but for many of them it's still better than the alternative.
You could have made the same arguments for slavery a couple hundred years ago.
We still have slavery, so you can leave out the "couple hundred years ago" part.
Criminalizing slavery allows people the freedom to chose who they wanted to work for, and what kind of work they wanted to do; criminalizing prostitution takes away that same right. I think your comparison is completely spurious. Slavery is the imposition of the will of a person or a group of people on another person or group. We didn't evolve to have subsets of the species which want to be slaves. If we had, I wouldn't object to slavery, either. I certainly wouldn't pass moral judgment on those who chose to work as slaves, nor would I express disgust with a society which gives them that option.
The difference is that our "homeless" aren't put on the fucking street because local government is too lazy to implement proper shelters and soup kitchens.
If you think that's "different", then you're even more ignorant than I thought. You're commenting on an article which talks about a girl whose family is living in a shelter, while suggesting the US doesn't implement shelters? Are you retarded?
Compare to the US where your rate of homelessness is hovering around 1.7% (3.5 million) of your population.
You know when people start saying stuff that is... not just stupid, but as utterly absurd as what you just said... I have to wonder... are you really that stupid? Or do you think that everyone else is?
This is like Ahmadinejad standing up in front of the audience at Columbia, and, with a straight face, telling them there are no homosexuals in Iran. "We don't have that phenomenon, like you do in the US. I don't know who told you we have". Your statements are on that level of absurdity. The immediate response of any rational individual is uncontrollable laughter. Why would you say something like that?
Not sure what you mean about curb stomping puppies.
It was a sarcastic/humorous shot at your tendency to pretend that I'm saying things which you've apparently pulled out of your ass. You can imagine a "whooosh" sound at this point, if you'd like.
Suffice it to say that I do not recognize any of my opinions, let alone any argument I may have made recently, in the words and labels which you're attributing to me. So I'll bow out now, and give you and your strawmen some privacy.
Their situation is the result of a pattern of behavior, and a type of lifestyle. Other people would not end up destitute due to an accident; intelligent, responsible people have contingencies to mitigate disasters. You're creating an artificial split between "in the past" and "this time", when the two are intrinsically linked.
I'd imagine that most of us (trolls aside) would prefer to live in a world where all women find a fulfilling and challenging career in, say, science or the arts rather than thinly veiled prostitution, but the fact that the career path you describe even exists is a pretty damning view of western society.
Er, no, it's a natural part of humanity. There has never been a society without prostitution. There will never be a society without prostitution. If you're appalled by the facts of life,it generally means there's something wrong with you, rather than the species. Women have been guided into their role/behavior through millions of years of natural selection (as have men, for that matter) - the moralistic musings of a handful of half-civilized primates isn't going to change that.
Canadian speaking here.... Our society and economy, laws and culture are not that different from the US on most issues, but when I hear about homeless children and families in USA, that's where I truly grasp how vastly different our countries are.
Canadian speaking here... if you think we don't have homeless families of our own, you're delusional, eh? Where do you live? An igloo in Nunavut? Maybe there's no homelessness up there.. but there sure as hell is in the rest of the country.
Look at her family - father a sporadic alcoholic with a crappy job. Mother injured and unable to work. And you wonder why they ended up temporarily homeless? Please. Show me a country where their situation would have been different.
Slashdot Mirror
How do you manage to be wrong on EVERY subject?
You could - maybe - make an argument for abolishing patents on creative work. Even there I would say it's a bad idea, but let's pretend for a second that it's not. Your argument is still ludicrous when we consider patents on technology that requires hundreds of millions in development costs. If your goal was to bring the industrial world to a screeching halt, you couldn't have designed a better plan.
My general comparison was similar to the patriot act, but instead of dismantling checks and balance within the government some tenuous terrorism issues, it's dismantling checks on certain abusive businesses over piracy
Good job. By whining/lying about the Patriot Act, you immediately loose a sizeable chunk of the population which might otherwise oppose SOPA. That's a winning strategy.
No prob, since you're so certain that you're right, put your money where your mouth is. Nice small bet, say $5k. You give me a timeline for when we'll have unambiguous commercial use of nuclear fusion - if it happens, you get $5k, if not, you pay up. Deal?
Wassat? More excuses?
Thought so.
You do realize it is impossible to reach this situation if everyone had your mindset... You have to have people "crazy enough" to remotely believe in the possibility of LENR to study it and eventually prove it or disprove it.
They're never going to disprove it. It's an unsinkable rubber ducky. Just like any other pseudoscience. The more negative evidence accumulates, the more they'll cling to their "anomalies" and the more they'll whine about the eeeevil establishment not taking them seriously and trying to suppress their work. The semi-rational ones who are only doing it out of curiosity will eventually move on to greener pastures, but the crazy core will always be there. Hell, we've still got people claiming they can build perpetual motion machines by throwing together a bunch of wires and magnets; evidence doesn't faze crazy people and/or scam artists.
Your behavior is exactly what has been holding back LENR research for 20 years. Instead of bluntly rejecting it, you should be open-minded and support the current research, even if you currently don't believe in it.
Uhuh. I'll get on that, just as soon as you throw your full support behind my project to find Santa. I need help raising funds for my expedition to the north pole. I've got lots of pictures of Reindeer. And back in '98 I was able to see his workshop from my back yard for a whole 200 days (atmospheric phenomena). My neighbor Bob saw it too, so it was repeatable. And we have LOTS of anomalous reports of Santa being spotted at local malls. Yet for some reason, despite all that evidence, none of those silly scienticians will take me seriously. So whaddaya say? Us Alternative Science guys gotta stick together, right???
So, technically speaking, I agree with you, no one can unambiguously prove LENR today. I am just pointing out research and experiments that indicate there are datapoints that current theories cannot explain, and that we may be at the verge of finally proving LENR.
Yes, I know, I hear the same thing from creationists, ESP fans, "UFOlogists", "cryptozoologists", HIV deniers, and so on and so forth.
"Well, science can't explain this, so you have to keep an open mind! We just need more money, and then we'll get you LOTS of evidence!"
In a word, NO . First you have to show there's actually something that needs explaining. You have to do so in a clear, unambiguous, well documented and reliably replicable way. Even once you've done that, it doesn't mean you get to run the old god-of-the-gaps argument and insist that your explanation is true. Just because I can't explain a glint of light in the sky doesn't mean I have to accept your claim that it's a massive spaceship transporting kidnapped humans for consumption by our reptilian overlords. Cold fusion "research" hasn't even met the first requirement, yet you're already throwing in your "explanation" and demanding that others take it seriously and throw funding at it. In two words, FUCK NO . You're no better than any of the other pseudosciences I've listed off; you provide the same quality of "research", make the same damn excuses, and use the same tired old complaints when everyone calls you nuts. It's pathetic. If I were to take your arguments seriously, I may as well start popping homeopathic pills while a gypsy reads my palm.
That is all.
You really ought to read my blog post. It is not biased because it merely quotes and links to other trusted external resources (such as NASA) referencing similar successful experiments.
Nice. You link to "ecatnews", and, as if that weren't bad enough, you skip right over the bit where the NASA guy says "While I do work for NASA, I do not speak for them". This is the exactly the kind of jackassery that leads rational people to dismiss "cold fusion" nutters out of hand - you can't even be trusted to quote others, let alone perform real experiments of your own.
As for this nonsense:
The single experiment I quoted (900 extra MJ) was run over 278 days. That corresponds to 37W of heat produced continuously, in addition to the heat produced by the input power which varied from 149.6W to 94.3W. All this info is in the PDF I linked to.
That's exactly the kind of garbage that Rossi is claiming. I reject these claims for the same reason I reject his claims - no legitimate confirmation, a dearth of third-party observations, and no reproduction. It's just another quack pumping electricity into an gizmo he slapped together, and claiming he's getting energy back out. Sorry, no. That's exactly the kind of nonsense I was referring to in my original comment. As long as that's the only kind of "evidence" you can present, expect to be ridiculed. Come back with some quality studies published in reputable journals and reproduced by numerous credible scientists, and we'll talk.
Not that I expect any of these words to mean anything to you or the other Believers; no matter how obviously fake something is, there will always be people willing to defend it with stories and anecdotes. But if we don't keep ridiculing you, you'll suck in more and more of the unsuspecting credulous public, so I'll speak up for their benefit, if nothing else.
*shrug* it's interesting how your preconceptions can shape what you read. I'd love to see you post one of the lines which advocates the kind of exploitation you're referring to. I have a feeling it would tell me quite a lot about your beliefs and biases.
Ayn Rand would disapprove - if you have some economic means to rape somebody and bleed them dry, it is not only your right but your moral obligation to do so. ~
Naw. A sophomoric understanding of her works based on reading reviews written by her opponents might lead you to believe that. Though I'm not exactly a huge fan of Rand, I still have to object to such a ridiculous caricaturization of her ideology. All of her work is based on the idea of "rational self-interest". Only a deranged mind would equate "rape somebody and bleed them dry" with "rational self-interest". It's akin to the theistic nitwits who constantly claim that without god we'd have no compassion or cooperation; it demonstrates a complete ignorance of subjects like games theory and the evolutionary advantages of cooperative behavior. I don't think it's possible to read Atlas Shrugged and come away with the impression that she's advocating exploitation.
This is why discussions about economics and social ideologies are rarely productive - too many people are intent on demonizing the opposition rather than having a frank exchange of ideas. Sometimes it's deliberate, but more often it's a simple lack of understanding caused by only listening to the talking-heads that share your own political bubble.
Yeah, that about sums it up. Limitless clean energy would be a complete game-changer. "Voyage from Yesteryear" does an excellent job of exploring some of the possible ramifications, though I thought it was far too idealistic in many ways. Either way, Rossi's attitude about the whole thing makes him look like a ego-maniacal paranoid douche at best, and most likely a quack or an outright fraud.
I never said securing funding would be an issue. I have no idea where you got that from.
Look, no offense, but I'm starting to wonder about your mental health. There is something seriously wrong with anyone who would turn down billions of dollars over the next couple years, and a chance to incalculably improve the lives of pretty much the entire human race, in favor of making trillions of dollars over the next few decades.
It reminds me of the idiots who claim that "Big Pharma" is withholding the cure for cancer because it's more lucrative to "manage" a disease than to cure it. That kind of conspiracy-mongering is absurd on the face of it for many reasons, not least of which is the fact that most people simply don't think that way. Given the choice between making a billion dollars while helping people, or five billion while hurting people, the vast majority of us will choose the former. But judging by what I'm reading here, you seem to be saying you'd go with the latter. Rational, mentally-balanced individuals don't engage in that kind of behavior. If you honestly see that course of action as the logical choice, you need to get some help.
It's best not to patent it and not to tell anybody how it's done but instead to keep it a trade secret and protect technologically and build the generators, but not sell them yet in the beginning, but instead rent them out to companies.
If your goal is world-domination, sure. In that case you'll need a moon-base and a giant freakin' laser to go with it.
On the other hand, if you're looking to help the human race improve it's condition, while at the same time making yourself ridiculously rich, it's best to patent it and just license the technology to whoever want to use it. There's only so much you as an individual can do at any one time. If you're keeping it a secret, it'll be decades before you manage to develop and market all the products which you've just described. Whereas if you license it, you'll be an overnight billionaire, you'll be seen as a hero to billions of people, and you'll have a revenue stream that makes Bill Gates look like a pauper in comparison. There's absolutely no advantage to keeping it a secret, unless you're a control freak and/or a sociopath.
There is vastly more published evidence *for* those reactions happening than against them, no matter what the theories might say.
Nonsense. After 20 years of research, they still only have measurements that are barely statistically significant, occurring irregularly, primarily amongst "researchers" who already believe there's an effect. If you're going to call that evidence, then you have to conclude that "psychic powers" are real, also, because we've been getting the same kind of "evidence" from the "psi-researchers" for a couple decades now. It's nonsense. It's a perversion of the scientific method - sifting through noise until you find something that looks like a pattern, then using publication bias to reinforce your presuppositions, and sticking them in your conclusion. It's a waste of time and money, and it's a shame that so many people can't see that kind of "research" for the scam it is.
The problem with that approach is that after you have released all your plans for free, you get to go back to your job and try to stay ahead of inflation, cope with dumbass bosses and backstabbing co-workers, and probably have your job shipped to China anyway.
Buds, if you discovered a viable method of cold fusion, I can guarantee you wouldn't go back to your cubicle to wallow in obscurity. The million-dollar Nobel Prize alone would keep you humming along trouble-free for a few years. You'd be getting honorary doctorates shoved at you from every side, along with requests for appearances, book deals, job offers, etc, et al. You couldn't go back to your old life if you wanted to.
Except nobody is going to advocate blood donations from children.
Why not? First of all "young" doesn't necessarily mean "preteen" and, second, where's the harm? Other than the instinctive "think of the children!" emotional bullshit, what's the problem?
Did you ask a girl, or it's your own opinion how girls should feel about a major haircut?
Well I asked them how they feel about starvation and/or going into the prostitution business, and they weren't too keen on either of those ...
Seriously, who gives a damn? If people want to sell their hair, or their blood, let 'em. If it's a case of parents forcing their children to do it ... well, we might want to look into putting some controls in place to ensure it doesn't get overly abusive, but for many of them it's still better than the alternative.
You could have made the same arguments for slavery a couple hundred years ago.
We still have slavery, so you can leave out the "couple hundred years ago" part.
Criminalizing slavery allows people the freedom to chose who they wanted to work for, and what kind of work they wanted to do; criminalizing prostitution takes away that same right. I think your comparison is completely spurious. Slavery is the imposition of the will of a person or a group of people on another person or group. We didn't evolve to have subsets of the species which want to be slaves. If we had, I wouldn't object to slavery, either. I certainly wouldn't pass moral judgment on those who chose to work as slaves, nor would I express disgust with a society which gives them that option.
The difference is that our "homeless" aren't put on the fucking street because local government is too lazy to implement proper shelters and soup kitchens.
If you think that's "different", then you're even more ignorant than I thought. You're commenting on an article which talks about a girl whose family is living in a shelter, while suggesting the US doesn't implement shelters? Are you retarded?
Compare to the US where your rate of homelessness is hovering around 1.7% (3.5 million) of your population.
I'm not American, jackass. Learn to fucking read.
At least you asked nicely. Here you go:
http://www.canadianfamily.ca/slideshows/away-home-stories-survival/away-home-stories-survival_77332/
Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Germany, The Netherlands, just to mention a few.
Bullshit, bullshit, and more bullshit, just to name a few.
We take care of our people here, no matter how desperate their situations.
You sure do.
You know when people start saying stuff that is ... not just stupid, but as utterly absurd as what you just said... I have to wonder ... are you really that stupid? Or do you think that everyone else is?
This is like Ahmadinejad standing up in front of the audience at Columbia, and, with a straight face, telling them there are no homosexuals in Iran. "We don't have that phenomenon, like you do in the US. I don't know who told you we have". Your statements are on that level of absurdity. The immediate response of any rational individual is uncontrollable laughter. Why would you say something like that?
Not sure what you mean about curb stomping puppies.
It was a sarcastic/humorous shot at your tendency to pretend that I'm saying things which you've apparently pulled out of your ass. You can imagine a "whooosh" sound at this point, if you'd like.
Suffice it to say that I do not recognize any of my opinions, let alone any argument I may have made recently, in the words and labels which you're attributing to me. So I'll bow out now, and give you and your strawmen some privacy.
So - the six to seven years that they held on to the house was meaningless? Remember, they lost it due to a traffic accident.
They didn't hold on to a house - they were renting.
Or, to put it another way - you don't think that people can change, can grow, can adapt and overcome their weaknesses?
It's rare, but it does happen on occasion.
That there is no redemption possible; that all is predestined?
.....
Wait ... let me get this straight .... you believe that curb-stomping puppies cures cancer?
Their situation is the result of a pattern of behavior, and a type of lifestyle. Other people would not end up destitute due to an accident; intelligent, responsible people have contingencies to mitigate disasters. You're creating an artificial split between "in the past" and "this time", when the two are intrinsically linked.
I'd imagine that most of us (trolls aside) would prefer to live in a world where all women find a fulfilling and challenging career in, say, science or the arts rather than thinly veiled prostitution, but the fact that the career path you describe even exists is a pretty damning view of western society.
Er, no, it's a natural part of humanity. There has never been a society without prostitution. There will never be a society without prostitution. If you're appalled by the facts of life,it generally means there's something wrong with you, rather than the species. Women have been guided into their role/behavior through millions of years of natural selection (as have men, for that matter) - the moralistic musings of a handful of half-civilized primates isn't going to change that.
Canadian speaking here .... Our society and economy, laws and culture are not that different from the US on most issues, but when I hear about homeless children and families in USA, that's where I truly grasp how vastly different our countries are.
Canadian speaking here ... if you think we don't have homeless families of our own, you're delusional, eh? Where do you live? An igloo in Nunavut? Maybe there's no homelessness up there .. but there sure as hell is in the rest of the country.
Look at her family - father a sporadic alcoholic with a crappy job. Mother injured and unable to work. And you wonder why they ended up temporarily homeless? Please. Show me a country where their situation would have been different.
And, as usual, linked to substance abuse.
There is definitely something wrong with you.
You have my answer. I can't do anything to help you at this point. Feel free to look me up when you get your head straight. Meanwhile, take care.