"Hey, here's this foreign-language only piece of software that sorta does what I said... so all these Farsi-speaking guys on slashdot are Teh EEEEVIL GUBERMINT!"
You're an idiot. Plain and simple. The fact that the government has sorta finally caught up to the idiotic claims that people like you have been making for the last decade is kinda irrelevant. Even if there was no evidence of any such program existing, you'd still go around accusing anyone who disagrees with you of being a shill, a sock-puppet, or what have ya. You're unable to have a legitimate rational discussion, so you attack peoples motives instead. That strategy predates the internet, it predates print media, hell it probably predates modern language. So I'll just call you a dick, and move on.
Everyone else kinda jumped on you and decimated most of your comment (cbhacking did a particularly good job), so I'll just take the bit that's left:
And again, since you're reading comprehension is obviously weak, I never said that the the lack of this evidence is proof that evolution is false. I said that this is a pretty big fucking piece of evidence that we have not found YET and if I even bring it up, I'm instantly ridiculed. It's almost as if I walked into a %place-of-worship% and started saying that %Deity% doesn't exist.
You're being ridiculed because you clearly don't understand how evolution works, and instead of trying to learn you're going around complaining that there's missing evidence. The fact that you're making comparisons to religion only makes you more worthy of derision.
If you start saying things like "you know, we have no direct evidence that any Jews were gassed in WW2", what do you think the implication would be there? If you say "We have no hard evidence that Osama Bin Laden was involved with 9/11", what's the implication there? If you go around claiming "You know, nobody on the Earth could ACTUALLY see Apollo 8 on it's way to the Moon", what do you suppose might be the implication there?
You don't get to make idiotic statements with ominous implications, and then pretend that you're "just asking question". It's dishonest, it's cowardly, and it's fucking annoying. Yes, I know all the conspiracy theorists do it all the time; if they're your role-model, you've got serious issues.
For example we keep finding primate fossils that are very close relatives to man. Unfortunately, we have never found a fossil that is a direct ancestor of man. All we can say is that man and whatever fossil shared a common ancestor.
It's rather irrelevant, anyway. Let me rephrase your complaint:
"You've shown me two of your cousins, five of your brothers, three of your sisters, two uncles, and a niece. But you can't show me your mother or father, so clearly you were miracled into existence."
Yes in a way we CAN blame it on the government, because it ultimately comes down to "can you baby proof the world?". Because as someone who cleans these things for a living I can tell you a good 90% of infections are from users being dumbasses and NOTHING else.
Frankly, so what? The question isn't "whose fault is it", the question is "how do we stop it". If you answer is "stop people from being stupid", then you obviously don't live in the real world.
It's equally valid to say that 90% of people who fall for pyramid schemes or various other types of fraud are also being stupid. We still do our best to stop fraudsters from victimizing people, or punish them when they do. Whether you like it or not, we as a society have decided that pursuing criminals is a worthwhile endeavor. If you can't live with that, I hear Somalia is much more lax about such things...
Yes, I know that buying the game and then downloading the non-DRM version is technically still "pirating", but I somehow can't make myself feel bad about doing it.
This is why you should just set up shop in an abandoned aquarium. Kick Shamoo out of the tank, fill it with mineral oil, pitch your server racks into it, and you're off and running!
Of course, all your techs would have to be qualified scuba-divers, but you'd save a fortune on cooling!
I expected Mac users to pay a lot more than either, since they're used to paying far more for something than it's actually worth.
Yeah, but the word "humble" is anathema to Mac users. Now, if you called it the I'mTheBestBundle! and stuck an apple sticker on it, they'd pay more than the linux and windows users combined.
I know you're being sarcastic, but I think any impartial observer would agree that it in fact was an elevation of the discussion.
Are they stupid anti-nuclear scare-mongering idiots too?
Apparently so, yes. Imagine that - a newspaper publishing misleading, scaremongering articles. Unthinkable!
Calling me a stupid pedant for using words as they are defined is rather ridiculous.
No, it's not. If someone said "I'm Gay!" and you said "Really? What are you so happy about?" you'd still be a fucking pedant. Maybe you need to look up the meaning of that word.
Likewise, I'm not stupid just because the definition I use happens to agree with definition in the dictionary.
That's true. I think you're a silly little man who's scared shitless of anything nuclear, and determined to see a disaster where there isn't one. But "stupid"? No, probably not.
By the way... that tinfoil hat I sold you last month... turns out they're not quite as effective as we thought. But for another 4 payments of $99.99, I can get you a graphite-infused aluminum foil beanie that's 133% more effective.
If you listen to the press conference given by Japan's Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) you will hear them repeatedly comparing Fukushima with Chernobyl.
Yo mamma is like a while, because they're both big and blubbery. Ergo yo mamma is comparable to a whale.
Commenters treated me like a troll, or chicken-little.
That's because you are a troll, and a chicken-little. Even if you had turned out to be 100% correct, you would STILL have been a troll and a chicken-little. There are millions of scaremongering morons commenting on the internet every day - it's inevitable that one of them will eventually be right about something. That doesn't mean they're rational, or intelligent, or well educated; it means one of them got lucky.
Of course, the fact that you're actually still wrong is just the icing on the cake.
All of your points are bullshit. It's been shown time and again that modern farming methods are far more efficient, and far less harmful, than at any other time in history. Gullible people like you are why big corporations can use an "Organic" label to triple their profits without really doing anything different.
But the point is, TFA is bull, the curricula is irrelevant, we are not smarter or stupider today than 142 years ago.
Actually, the data seems to show that the average IQ has increased quite a bit since then. Of course, this is probably due to the increase in abstract thinking abilities amongst the populace on the lower end of the scale, but it certainly does suggest that, as a people, we are more intelligent today than 142 years ago.
That's not a rebuttal--knowledge of things developed since 1869 doesn't show anything about the level of education of an individual, it only tells you that individuals are working from a different set of knowledge.
I think that was his point, except in reverse. The fact that we no longer bother with Latin or Greek doesn't tell us anything about the level of education, it only tells us that we place different emphasis on what we consider critical knowledge for an educated individual. As a simple thought experiment, how many of those 1869 applicants do you suppose could make a flint arrowhead, start a fire without a lighter or matches, skin and disembowel an animal, and create a useful garment using raw leather, bone needles, and sinew? Does their inability to do these things make them less educated than our stone-age ancestors?
Colleges have gotten a lot better in the past century, but they still spend a lot of time making sure you think how they want you to think, or at least can pretend to.
That's pretty much the purpose of schooling as a whole, at least in theory. Why would you seek an education, if not to learn how to think? I can dig up facts and figures any time I want, as long as I know how to research; what schools should be teaching is the ability to put those facts together into a cohesive model, and apply them to the real world. If anything, I think schools should put more emphasis on teaching students how to think and research, and less time focusing on rote memorization.
As an aside, I have no idea why you got modded "troll". I hope some people with mod points will correct that.
Slashdot Mirror
I might actually be an idiot, but that doesn't mean I'm wrong.
You're not even wrong.
Thank you. This is the only intelligent thing I've read in the entire thread.
"Hey, here's this foreign-language only piece of software that sorta does what I said ... so all these Farsi-speaking guys on slashdot are Teh EEEEVIL GUBERMINT!"
You're an idiot. Plain and simple. The fact that the government has sorta finally caught up to the idiotic claims that people like you have been making for the last decade is kinda irrelevant. Even if there was no evidence of any such program existing, you'd still go around accusing anyone who disagrees with you of being a shill, a sock-puppet, or what have ya. You're unable to have a legitimate rational discussion, so you attack peoples motives instead. That strategy predates the internet, it predates print media, hell it probably predates modern language. So I'll just call you a dick, and move on.
Everyone else kinda jumped on you and decimated most of your comment (cbhacking did a particularly good job), so I'll just take the bit that's left:
And again, since you're reading comprehension is obviously weak, I never said that the the lack of this evidence is proof that evolution is false. I said that this is a pretty big fucking piece of evidence that we have not found YET and if I even bring it up, I'm instantly ridiculed. It's almost as if I walked into a %place-of-worship% and started saying that %Deity% doesn't exist.
You're being ridiculed because you clearly don't understand how evolution works, and instead of trying to learn you're going around complaining that there's missing evidence. The fact that you're making comparisons to religion only makes you more worthy of derision.
If you start saying things like "you know, we have no direct evidence that any Jews were gassed in WW2", what do you think the implication would be there? If you say "We have no hard evidence that Osama Bin Laden was involved with 9/11", what's the implication there? If you go around claiming "You know, nobody on the Earth could ACTUALLY see Apollo 8 on it's way to the Moon", what do you suppose might be the implication there?
You don't get to make idiotic statements with ominous implications, and then pretend that you're "just asking question". It's dishonest, it's cowardly, and it's fucking annoying. Yes, I know all the conspiracy theorists do it all the time; if they're your role-model, you've got serious issues.
For example we keep finding primate fossils that are very close relatives to man. Unfortunately, we have never found a fossil that is a direct ancestor of man. All we can say is that man and whatever fossil shared a common ancestor.
Homo Heidelbergensis
Homo Antecessor
Homo Erectus
Australopithecus Afarensis
Ardipithecus
How far back do you want to go?
It's rather irrelevant, anyway. Let me rephrase your complaint:
"You've shown me two of your cousins, five of your brothers, three of your sisters, two uncles, and a niece. But you can't show me your mother or father, so clearly you were miracled into existence."
Yep. Makes perfect sense.
Yes in a way we CAN blame it on the government, because it ultimately comes down to "can you baby proof the world?". Because as someone who cleans these things for a living I can tell you a good 90% of infections are from users being dumbasses and NOTHING else.
Frankly, so what? The question isn't "whose fault is it", the question is "how do we stop it". If you answer is "stop people from being stupid", then you obviously don't live in the real world.
It's equally valid to say that 90% of people who fall for pyramid schemes or various other types of fraud are also being stupid. We still do our best to stop fraudsters from victimizing people, or punish them when they do. Whether you like it or not, we as a society have decided that pursuing criminals is a worthwhile endeavor. If you can't live with that, I hear Somalia is much more lax about such things ...
Yes, I know that buying the game and then downloading the non-DRM version is technically still "pirating", but I somehow can't make myself feel bad about doing it.
This is why you should just set up shop in an abandoned aquarium. Kick Shamoo out of the tank, fill it with mineral oil, pitch your server racks into it, and you're off and running!
Of course, all your techs would have to be qualified scuba-divers, but you'd save a fortune on cooling!
You world is a strange and terrible place. You have my sympathy.
I believe his name was Bryan.
I expected Mac users to pay a lot more than either, since they're used to paying far more for something than it's actually worth.
Yeah, but the word "humble" is anathema to Mac users. Now, if you called it the I'mTheBestBundle! and stuck an apple sticker on it, they'd pay more than the linux and windows users combined.
Still has draconian DRM though? Or have they done away with it. That's been the only thing holding me back from Mass Effect 1 and 2.
Pirate Bay has a DRM-free bundle.
My homeopath says it's true ...
Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious
Thank you for elevating the level of discussion.
I know you're being sarcastic, but I think any impartial observer would agree that it in fact was an elevation of the discussion.
Are they stupid anti-nuclear scare-mongering idiots too?
Apparently so, yes. Imagine that - a newspaper publishing misleading, scaremongering articles. Unthinkable!
Calling me a stupid pedant for using words as they are defined is rather ridiculous.
No, it's not. If someone said "I'm Gay!" and you said "Really? What are you so happy about?" you'd still be a fucking pedant. Maybe you need to look up the meaning of that word.
Likewise, I'm not stupid just because the definition I use happens to agree with definition in the dictionary.
That's true. I think you're a silly little man who's scared shitless of anything nuclear, and determined to see a disaster where there isn't one. But "stupid"? No, probably not.
I like you better, when you post under your OTHER other account.
But you know, there are agencies that now pay people 'turf the way you do, for big industry and finance.
I think you may be interested in this offer.
EXACTLY!
By the way ... that tinfoil hat I sold you last month ... turns out they're not quite as effective as we thought. But for another 4 payments of $99.99, I can get you a graphite-infused aluminum foil beanie that's 133% more effective.
Tell that to the people that live around Florida's phosphate mines
Buy me a ticket, and you've got a deal.
Consequences include radioactive blah blah blah ...
Sure they do. The death rate in florida must be astronomical!
The Earth as a system is far more complex and interdependent that you seem to imagine.
This coming from the guy who thinks that phosphate mines wouldn't exist if it wasn't for modern famrming. Funny!
If you listen to the press conference given by Japan's Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) you will hear them repeatedly comparing Fukushima with Chernobyl.
Yo mamma is like a while, because they're both big and blubbery. Ergo yo mamma is comparable to a whale.
Stupid pedant is stupid.
A month ago, I told you so.
Commenters treated me like a troll, or chicken-little.
That's because you are a troll, and a chicken-little. Even if you had turned out to be 100% correct, you would STILL have been a troll and a chicken-little. There are millions of scaremongering morons commenting on the internet every day - it's inevitable that one of them will eventually be right about something. That doesn't mean they're rational, or intelligent, or well educated; it means one of them got lucky.
Of course, the fact that you're actually still wrong is just the icing on the cake.
All of your points are bullshit. It's been shown time and again that modern farming methods are far more efficient, and far less harmful, than at any other time in history. Gullible people like you are why big corporations can use an "Organic" label to triple their profits without really doing anything different.
Does it really matter? Either way it's hilarious.
But the point is, TFA is bull, the curricula is irrelevant, we are not smarter or stupider today than 142 years ago.
Actually, the data seems to show that the average IQ has increased quite a bit since then. Of course, this is probably due to the increase in abstract thinking abilities amongst the populace on the lower end of the scale, but it certainly does suggest that, as a people, we are more intelligent today than 142 years ago.
That's not a rebuttal--knowledge of things developed since 1869 doesn't show anything about the level of education of an individual, it only tells you that individuals are working from a different set of knowledge.
I think that was his point, except in reverse. The fact that we no longer bother with Latin or Greek doesn't tell us anything about the level of education, it only tells us that we place different emphasis on what we consider critical knowledge for an educated individual. As a simple thought experiment, how many of those 1869 applicants do you suppose could make a flint arrowhead, start a fire without a lighter or matches, skin and disembowel an animal, and create a useful garment using raw leather, bone needles, and sinew? Does their inability to do these things make them less educated than our stone-age ancestors?
Colleges have gotten a lot better in the past century, but they still spend a lot of time making sure you think how they want you to think, or at least can pretend to.
That's pretty much the purpose of schooling as a whole, at least in theory. Why would you seek an education, if not to learn how to think? I can dig up facts and figures any time I want, as long as I know how to research; what schools should be teaching is the ability to put those facts together into a cohesive model, and apply them to the real world. If anything, I think schools should put more emphasis on teaching students how to think and research, and less time focusing on rote memorization.
As an aside, I have no idea why you got modded "troll". I hope some people with mod points will correct that.