Ask any veteran of WWII submarines, and they'll be surprised that you need to ask. CO2 is pollution.
That's silly. By the same reasoning, nitrogen is pollution. Oxygen is pollution. Every element in existence is pollution.
Currently the world is producing more CO2 than is being consumed, and over time this means that the world is going to be like a WWII submarine that's hiding from a destroyer.
Eh, no. CO2 makes up less than one tenth of one percent of our atmosphere (0.03% by volume). In order for it to be toxic, it would have to hit 5% or more. In other words, we would have to increase the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere to a level that's more than 150 times higher than the current levels. Even if we burned every single bit of oil, coal, and natural gas we can get our hands on, we wouldn't get anywhere near that level. The issue with CO2 is that it contributes to the greenhouse effect - it's toxicity is irrelevant when discussing the Earth as a whole.
The US BY ITSELF is right now responsible for half of the worlds pollution...yet it accounts for only 1/22th of global population.
This is, of course, complete bullshit. The number is nowhere near what you quote. Moreover, most of those figures include CO2 output as "pollution". If we just stick with actual pollution, the picture looks a lot different.
What the hell are you smoking? Or more aptly, what planet are you living on?
I think it's more a question of what he's NOT smoking. Only hippies and potheads would look at GHG output as a measurement of how "clean" a country is. Not to mention the foolishness of comparing per-capita emissions between two nations of such wildly different industrial capability. It's like claiming that the homeless guy who keeps shitting in the middle of the street is more "clean" than me because he doesn't have a car.
Great, we have a totally non-baised commenter here!
Right. All the "DIE PIGS DIE!!" commenters are completely unbiased; it's only the guys with the badge who are biased.
You are right those folks are not the ones to ask either, but it is far less of a problem of conflict of interest.
You have GOT to be joking.
For evidence of that, I point to the various real life cases including a recent one near me where they shot a little girl in the head, for sitting on the couch.
Ah, yes. I can see that you're completely unbiased.
The part where stars in the sky make you crazy and cause you to destroy your civilization? If I'm remembering the quote properly, there was a line where a character said "we tried to simulate it in a dark room with lots of holes in the roof, but they were just dots. The stars aren't anything like that."
Yeah, I can see why that might seem less-than-plausible, but really... anyone who was raised in a major city and then went out into the middle of nowhere and saw the night sky should be able to understand what he's talking about. I never get tired of it but, the first time I saw it, it was more than a little humbling. The darkness scared them, sure, but it was the realization of the vastness of space - and the insignificance of what they thought to be their entire universe - that lead to madness. Douglas Adams touches on a similar theme in one of his books, although it's just something he mentions in passing.
Imagine raising a child in a small room, where all he ever know is the 4 walls and ceiling that surround him, and then, on his 20th birthday, opening the door and shoving him outside. I can very easily see it leading to madness. I don't think he's making much of a stretch there.
While in uniform or while otherwise on duty you need the cameras for your protection and ours.
See, that sounds great and wonderful, if you assume that cameras are an unerring way of knowing exactly what happened. They're not. While cameras "don't lie", they certainly can and do present an incorrect impression of the circumstances, and lead to incorrect beliefs amongst the general public even when context is later provided to explain the situation. You only need to look at this comment to see that effect in action. So no, cameras certainly don't protect cops, nor are they particularly helpful to the general public.
Police frequently abuse their lack of accountability
[citation needed]
Again, with additional rights there must come additional responsibilities.
This is already the case. You're not arguing for extra responsibilities - you're arguing for the infringement of their rights. Your statement would be better stated as "with additional power there must come a reduction in rights". Which I do not believe is justified. Should CEO's have cameras installed in their offices? How about the president? Congressmen? Judges? Parole officers? Parking enforcement personnel? Firefighters? Where do you stop, exactly, and how do you make the distinction?
I was talking about taking the word of one person vs. another at the time, sorry I didn't specify other than via quoting.
That's fair, but then "benefit of the doubt" is the wrong phrase. Also, good luck convicting any criminals if the sworn testimony and evidence presented by a cop is considered no better than the word of the suspect. Under such a system, I agree, cameras would be necessary. I just don't agree that such a system would be either fair, necessary, or even useful.
This is just another reason why cops should be festooned with cameras
I agree, with the provisio that ALL citizens be festooned with cameras. If police don't get any privacy, neither should anyone else. I don't like double standards.
The simple truth is that we MUST NOT give police the benefit of the doubt because cops are just people.
Agreed: the guilty-until-proven innocent model has always worked so well in the past. It was foolish of our ancestors to abandon it.
Most of the time when I tune into a few minutes of "Cops", I see them use their authority in ways that are within the status quo that you mention, but that I think are excessive.
Well, yeah, that's probably a fair assessment, but there are two separate issues here:
1. Any job these days which allows for the controlled use of force has so many hoops associated with it that, when the Person-In-Authority finally gets to the point where force is justified, he tends to be a little... "exuberant" in it's application. That's human nature, and I don't think you're going to "fix it" until you can replace human cops with androids. It's why I always laugh when a "protester" who has just spent the last three hours heckling a bunch of riot cops acts completely shocked when he gets pummelled into a bloody mess the moment he does anything that justifies arrest. Sure, in an ideal world it wouldn't happen, but cops are human too. The good ones will stay within the letter of the law, but if you piss them off even they will push it right to the limit.
2. Resolving a violent situation with the least amount of harm to both sides usually requires quick, decisive, and extremely aggressive action. It's counter-intuitive, but trying to take the approach which looks less aggressive quite often results in greater harm to the suspect, AND it places the officer at greater risk. That's why all personnel who are expected to use force as part of their duties are trained to end the situation as quickly and efficiently as possible, without escalating to deadly force. If you think the stuff you see on "cops" is excessive, you should see what police and military personnel do to each other in training.
In most cases, it's not really an issue - a jackass who was resisting arrest ends up with 3 or 4 extra bruises. In some cases it does result in excessive harm to the belligerent, and that's where outside agencies need to get involved.
I don't think they have anything resembling an easy job, but the second they start seeing their job as anything other than a responsibility, things have gone wrong.
Again - you seem to think they should be machines. If you honestly think this expectation is realistic, you're incredebly naive.
No the rational person should ask what is happening here. They should not assume either side is correct off the bat.
No, that's not what "rational" means.
By the same logic, when you're presented with a scientist saying "the earth is roughly 4 billion years old" and a bearded hobo with a sandwich board claiming that the great Zeebelbub created the earth yesterday, you should ask each for their evidence while not assuming that either side is correct. While this is technically the approach which is most likely to lead you to the truth, it's not the way people approach life in general, and it's not really practical in most cases. The rational person uses rule-of-thumb reasoning and logical and statistical generalizations in order to arrive at the most-likely-to-be-correct conclusion, while remaining open to new data.
Don't confuse "rational" with "indiscriminate". It's ok to use your head in order to reach a preliminary conclusion, as long as you're objective enough to be able to change your mind when the observed data doesn't match the theory.
The problem is your statistics on use of force are biased.
They are? How so?
It seems a little strange that you can call my statistics biased without me having presented any statistics in the first place.
Surely you see the problem with only asking the potential force user if force was used?
Of course. I see a much larger problem with asking the person on whom it was used. Every person I've ever detained or arrested will swear to you that they were innocent. Half of them will probably tell you I curb-stomped a puppy and ate an infant right before I arrested them.
"Losers weepers; finders keepers." "Posession is nine-tenths of the laws," and so on. Balls thrown into my yard become my property - same applies with GPS devices found in my driveway.
IANAL, but last time I tried that line of defense Mrs. Krabappel made me stay in the clasroom while the rest of the kids got to go to the playground.
The sad thing is that you don't even realize how paranoid and ignorant your comment makes you look.
We know that on any given day, police officers in a major city will be involved with dozens if not hundreds of use-of-force incidents. We know that, as a general rule, the vast majority of those will be completely justified. Therefore, any time you're presented with a video clip which shows cops using force, the rational person should be asking "what is the context that justifies this action". Whereas the irrational fool will immediately go off on a rant about the damn fascist pigs oppressing the poor innocent citizen something something something FIGHT DA POWA and pass the joint...
It's not a question of beliefs - it's a question of statistics. I understand them, and you're blind to them because of your hateful ideology. You're no different than the bigot who thinks that every muslim he sees is probably a terrorist plotting the demise of western civilization. You need to pull your head out of your ass if you want to actually see the world as it is; otherwise, don't complain when everything you see looks like shit.
It kinda makes me wonder why they just never pushed the enemy Klingon ship into a decaying orbit or something rather than waste all those torpedoes...
I don't think a tractor beam is much of an impediment when you've got insanely powerful engines. I'd imagine the whole thing would be akin to pushing a cat down the garbage disposal, using a plastic straw.
If you take those movies seriously, you're either credulous, delusional, or an idiot. Most of the fans fall into the first category - they're naive and ignorant, and tend to believe anyone with an authoritative voice and a movie camera. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, and assume you fall into the same category. Please let me know if I'm mistaken.
It's always "their (cyber) terrorist" and "our (cyber) freedom fighters/freedom watchdogs." Whenever it's not serving the agenda of those in power, it's always "theirs." When it does, it's always "ours."
No shit? You mean, when something isn't ours, it's theirs? And when something isn't theirs, it's ours? Wow. Whoda thunk it! I hope you get modded +5 Informative; you've definitely earned it!
Exactly. Individuals make stupid decisions, and hold stupid beliefs, on a regular basis. But when they become a giant mob, I'm supposed to believe that they're acting rationally and doing the right thing? Good luck with that. There's a reason most modern republics aren't direct-democracies. Constitutions don't just exist to protect "the people" from "the government" - they exist to protect the people from themselves.
You thought Nightfall was far-fetched? Really?? I think it's one of my all-time-favourite Sci-Fi stories exactly because it's completely plausible.
Most science fiction these days is full of implausible assumptions and "physics" which may as well be complete magic. Even good science fiction usually has at least one far-fetched premise in order to set up an interesting storyline. But Nightfall didn't really do any of that. We know that there are solar systems with multiple suns, and we know they can stay stable for a long time, so the only thing he needed to assume was that a planet exists in such a system where at least one sun is always visible, and that intelligent life arose on that planet. What's far-fetched about that?
Slashdot Mirror
Now, the only question is, did you completely miss the point due to a legitimate problem, or are you just intentionally ignoring it?
Only an ignoramus would think that "clean" is the most important environmental indicator.
Only a twit would ignore the context of the discussion.
Ask any veteran of WWII submarines, and they'll be surprised that you need to ask. CO2 is pollution.
That's silly. By the same reasoning, nitrogen is pollution. Oxygen is pollution. Every element in existence is pollution.
Currently the world is producing more CO2 than is being consumed, and over time this means that the world is going to be like a WWII submarine that's hiding from a destroyer.
Eh, no. CO2 makes up less than one tenth of one percent of our atmosphere (0.03% by volume). In order for it to be toxic, it would have to hit 5% or more. In other words, we would have to increase the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere to a level that's more than 150 times higher than the current levels. Even if we burned every single bit of oil, coal, and natural gas we can get our hands on, we wouldn't get anywhere near that level. The issue with CO2 is that it contributes to the greenhouse effect - it's toxicity is irrelevant when discussing the Earth as a whole.
The US BY ITSELF is right now responsible for half of the worlds pollution...yet it accounts for only 1/22th of global population.
This is, of course, complete bullshit. The number is nowhere near what you quote. Moreover, most of those figures include CO2 output as "pollution". If we just stick with actual pollution, the picture looks a lot different.
What the hell are you smoking? Or more aptly, what planet are you living on?
I think it's more a question of what he's NOT smoking. Only hippies and potheads would look at GHG output as a measurement of how "clean" a country is. Not to mention the foolishness of comparing per-capita emissions between two nations of such wildly different industrial capability. It's like claiming that the homeless guy who keeps shitting in the middle of the street is more "clean" than me because he doesn't have a car.
So on top of this you are a cop?
Nope.
Great, we have a totally non-baised commenter here!
Right. All the "DIE PIGS DIE!!" commenters are completely unbiased; it's only the guys with the badge who are biased.
You are right those folks are not the ones to ask either, but it is far less of a problem of conflict of interest.
You have GOT to be joking.
For evidence of that, I point to the various real life cases including a recent one near me where they shot a little girl in the head, for sitting on the couch.
Ah, yes. I can see that you're completely unbiased.
You, sir, are my favorite chemist!
The part where stars in the sky make you crazy and cause you to destroy your civilization? If I'm remembering the quote properly, there was a line where a character said "we tried to simulate it in a dark room with lots of holes in the roof, but they were just dots. The stars aren't anything like that."
Yeah, I can see why that might seem less-than-plausible, but really ... anyone who was raised in a major city and then went out into the middle of nowhere and saw the night sky should be able to understand what he's talking about. I never get tired of it but, the first time I saw it, it was more than a little humbling. The darkness scared them, sure, but it was the realization of the vastness of space - and the insignificance of what they thought to be their entire universe - that lead to madness. Douglas Adams touches on a similar theme in one of his books, although it's just something he mentions in passing.
Imagine raising a child in a small room, where all he ever know is the 4 walls and ceiling that surround him, and then, on his 20th birthday, opening the door and shoving him outside. I can very easily see it leading to madness. I don't think he's making much of a stretch there.
I agree with you 100%. If you were objecting to something I said, I must have missed it.
While in uniform or while otherwise on duty you need the cameras for your protection and ours.
See, that sounds great and wonderful, if you assume that cameras are an unerring way of knowing exactly what happened. They're not. While cameras "don't lie", they certainly can and do present an incorrect impression of the circumstances, and lead to incorrect beliefs amongst the general public even when context is later provided to explain the situation. You only need to look at this comment to see that effect in action. So no, cameras certainly don't protect cops, nor are they particularly helpful to the general public.
Police frequently abuse their lack of accountability
[citation needed]
Again, with additional rights there must come additional responsibilities.
This is already the case. You're not arguing for extra responsibilities - you're arguing for the infringement of their rights. Your statement would be better stated as "with additional power there must come a reduction in rights". Which I do not believe is justified. Should CEO's have cameras installed in their offices? How about the president? Congressmen? Judges? Parole officers? Parking enforcement personnel? Firefighters? Where do you stop, exactly, and how do you make the distinction?
I was talking about taking the word of one person vs. another at the time, sorry I didn't specify other than via quoting.
That's fair, but then "benefit of the doubt" is the wrong phrase. Also, good luck convicting any criminals if the sworn testimony and evidence presented by a cop is considered no better than the word of the suspect. Under such a system, I agree, cameras would be necessary. I just don't agree that such a system would be either fair, necessary, or even useful.
This is just another reason why cops should be festooned with cameras
I agree, with the provisio that ALL citizens be festooned with cameras. If police don't get any privacy, neither should anyone else. I don't like double standards.
The simple truth is that we MUST NOT give police the benefit of the doubt because cops are just people.
Agreed: the guilty-until-proven innocent model has always worked so well in the past. It was foolish of our ancestors to abandon it.
It isn't naive to talk about how things would be if men were better men, it's how things get better.
It's naive to talk about changing human nature on a large scale. Mr. Spock is not a realistic role model.
Most of the time when I tune into a few minutes of "Cops", I see them use their authority in ways that are within the status quo that you mention, but that I think are excessive.
Well, yeah, that's probably a fair assessment, but there are two separate issues here:
1. Any job these days which allows for the controlled use of force has so many hoops associated with it that, when the Person-In-Authority finally gets to the point where force is justified, he tends to be a little ... "exuberant" in it's application. That's human nature, and I don't think you're going to "fix it" until you can replace human cops with androids. It's why I always laugh when a "protester" who has just spent the last three hours heckling a bunch of riot cops acts completely shocked when he gets pummelled into a bloody mess the moment he does anything that justifies arrest. Sure, in an ideal world it wouldn't happen, but cops are human too. The good ones will stay within the letter of the law, but if you piss them off even they will push it right to the limit.
2. Resolving a violent situation with the least amount of harm to both sides usually requires quick, decisive, and extremely aggressive action. It's counter-intuitive, but trying to take the approach which looks less aggressive quite often results in greater harm to the suspect, AND it places the officer at greater risk. That's why all personnel who are expected to use force as part of their duties are trained to end the situation as quickly and efficiently as possible, without escalating to deadly force. If you think the stuff you see on "cops" is excessive, you should see what police and military personnel do to each other in training.
In most cases, it's not really an issue - a jackass who was resisting arrest ends up with 3 or 4 extra bruises. In some cases it does result in excessive harm to the belligerent, and that's where outside agencies need to get involved.
I don't think they have anything resembling an easy job, but the second they start seeing their job as anything other than a responsibility, things have gone wrong.
Again - you seem to think they should be machines. If you honestly think this expectation is realistic, you're incredebly naive.
No the rational person should ask what is happening here. They should not assume either side is correct off the bat.
No, that's not what "rational" means.
By the same logic, when you're presented with a scientist saying "the earth is roughly 4 billion years old" and a bearded hobo with a sandwich board claiming that the great Zeebelbub created the earth yesterday, you should ask each for their evidence while not assuming that either side is correct. While this is technically the approach which is most likely to lead you to the truth, it's not the way people approach life in general, and it's not really practical in most cases. The rational person uses rule-of-thumb reasoning and logical and statistical generalizations in order to arrive at the most-likely-to-be-correct conclusion, while remaining open to new data.
Don't confuse "rational" with "indiscriminate". It's ok to use your head in order to reach a preliminary conclusion, as long as you're objective enough to be able to change your mind when the observed data doesn't match the theory.
The problem is your statistics on use of force are biased.
They are? How so?
It seems a little strange that you can call my statistics biased without me having presented any statistics in the first place.
Surely you see the problem with only asking the potential force user if force was used?
Of course. I see a much larger problem with asking the person on whom it was used. Every person I've ever detained or arrested will swear to you that they were innocent. Half of them will probably tell you I curb-stomped a puppy and ate an infant right before I arrested them.
"Losers weepers; finders keepers." "Posession is nine-tenths of the laws," and so on. Balls thrown into my yard become my property - same applies with GPS devices found in my driveway.
IANAL, but last time I tried that line of defense Mrs. Krabappel made me stay in the clasroom while the rest of the kids got to go to the playground.
The sad thing is that you don't even realize how paranoid and ignorant your comment makes you look.
We know that on any given day, police officers in a major city will be involved with dozens if not hundreds of use-of-force incidents. We know that, as a general rule, the vast majority of those will be completely justified. Therefore, any time you're presented with a video clip which shows cops using force, the rational person should be asking "what is the context that justifies this action". Whereas the irrational fool will immediately go off on a rant about the damn fascist pigs oppressing the poor innocent citizen something something something FIGHT DA POWA and pass the joint ...
It's not a question of beliefs - it's a question of statistics. I understand them, and you're blind to them because of your hateful ideology. You're no different than the bigot who thinks that every muslim he sees is probably a terrorist plotting the demise of western civilization. You need to pull your head out of your ass if you want to actually see the world as it is; otherwise, don't complain when everything you see looks like shit.
Do yourself a favor: read the linked article.
Thanks for telling me about this film, I'll go watch it now. I'll watch anything with Bill Murray in.
Check out Zombieland. Best Bill Muray film EVAR!
It kinda makes me wonder why they just never pushed the enemy Klingon ship into a decaying orbit or something rather than waste all those torpedoes...
I don't think a tractor beam is much of an impediment when you've got insanely powerful engines. I'd imagine the whole thing would be akin to pushing a cat down the garbage disposal, using a plastic straw.
If you take those movies seriously, you're either credulous, delusional, or an idiot. Most of the fans fall into the first category - they're naive and ignorant, and tend to believe anyone with an authoritative voice and a movie camera. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, and assume you fall into the same category. Please let me know if I'm mistaken.
Because they've studied some history?
Doubtful. The average person I see beaking off on the topic tends to be they type who thinks that Caesar was a famous Italian cook.
As you say, there's no legitimate need for a 'national ID' system and there are a bazillion ways to abuse it to harm people.
Yeah. Paper-cuts really suck. A bazillion of them would really REALLY suck.
If your government plans to oppress you, they're going to do it with guns, not with cards.
It's always "their (cyber) terrorist" and "our (cyber) freedom fighters/freedom watchdogs." Whenever it's not serving the agenda of those in power, it's always "theirs." When it does, it's always "ours."
No shit? You mean, when something isn't ours, it's theirs? And when something isn't theirs, it's ours? Wow. Whoda thunk it! I hope you get modded +5 Informative; you've definitely earned it!
Exactly. Individuals make stupid decisions, and hold stupid beliefs, on a regular basis. But when they become a giant mob, I'm supposed to believe that they're acting rationally and doing the right thing? Good luck with that. There's a reason most modern republics aren't direct-democracies. Constitutions don't just exist to protect "the people" from "the government" - they exist to protect the people from themselves.
I'm waiting for the rack mount version, then I expect to see them racked at least 8 high.
It's called a stapler. Or duct-tape, if you're on a budget.
You thought Nightfall was far-fetched? Really?? I think it's one of my all-time-favourite Sci-Fi stories exactly because it's completely plausible.
Most science fiction these days is full of implausible assumptions and "physics" which may as well be complete magic. Even good science fiction usually has at least one far-fetched premise in order to set up an interesting storyline. But Nightfall didn't really do any of that. We know that there are solar systems with multiple suns, and we know they can stay stable for a long time, so the only thing he needed to assume was that a planet exists in such a system where at least one sun is always visible, and that intelligent life arose on that planet. What's far-fetched about that?