Except for the fact that the percentage of suicide bombers vs the number of passenger miles flown is so ridiculously small it shouldn't warrant such a heavy handed response.
I agree completely. Proactive responses are pointless, everyone knows that! That's why I've been working hard over the last year to convince my city that we don't need a fire department, smoke alarms, or all those silly building-codes designed to prevent fires. We have so few people die in fires that there's clearly no way to justify such over-the-top policies.
Is autonomous tech really that difficult now? At the very least couldn't it fall back to remote control? I could swear the Sovs did some work like this back in the 70s.
Strictly speaking, an artillery shell is autonomous. How impressive the automation is depends on how adaptive it is.
One of the perks of being powerful is you don't have to go to psychiatric counseling and you don't get labeled a sociopath even if you are one.
Cute. "The fact that there's no studies only PROVES that they're evil!". You'd make a great 9/11 conspiracy theorist.
As for the article you link to, it's interesting, but does nothing to support your claim, and isn't exactly scientific-paper material. It's opinion and conjuncture, influenced by a clear personal bias. The fact that it comes from someone other than you is irrelevant.
No, obviously people shouldn't get anything they want. But everyone should get the bare minimum: food, shelter, clean water, and access to medical care.
That,s right, controlled experiments! You've got the right idea, but you'll need to find other volunteers.
It's irrelevant anyway, since the video clearly shows that his claim was wrong. It's just another "miracle" being reported by an idiot - a phenomenon which we've seen countless times throughout history.
Hrm... should I believe the video... or... the witnesses? Gee. That's a tough one!
Go watch it yourself, it's on youtube. As seen in the video "a while" is maybe 5-6 seconds. That certainly paints a different picture than your idealistic prose. Why, I wonder, might people want to pretty-up such a horrible display?
Hah! I'll have you know that the Canadian dollar is now worth MORE than the US dollar, so you can take that "proper dollar" and shove it;)
I had a feeling you might have been referring to the RAF Lanc - it's the better known of the two. The Canadian one was grounded for quite a while - it only resumed flying about a year ago.
Sorry, you don't get to use the Klan. Their cause was/is racial purity. They didn't go out to hang Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, or Muslims; they set out specifically to kill BLACKS. The fact that they also hate anyone different than them is pretty much irrelevant, since the vast majority of their actions which you could reasonably consider terrorism were carried out on racial grounds and not religious ones.
As for the rest, I would like to introduce you to stdarg. He can educate you about the prevalance of Muslim extremism/terrorism around the world. His Pakistan example is just the tip of the iceberg. If, after talking to him, you're still convinced that the KKK was worse.... well, in that case you're probably a lost cause.
No, you got it all wrong. Microsoft keeps thousands of children from starving, while simultaneously keeping them from joining gangs and causing trouble by providing them with gainful employment. I can't see how anyone could possibly see them in a bad light after that wonderful revelation.
you should be familiar with the post-slavery situation in brasil, and other countries who practiced slavery, in order to be able to this freely declare that something that is near slavery is ok. i advise you to take up on some history research. you wont regret it.
By the same logic, you should be familiar with where every electron in your computer is going before you log on and post a message to slashdot. Do some computer research, you ignorant bastard.
there is the problem. if you move from ZERO chance to 1% chance of some opportunity, that doesnt make the new condition any different.
Also, while you're at it, do some math research.
As for the rest of your comment, I didn't read it. The above told me all I needed to hear. This farce has gone on long enough. You take care now.
Well, there are religious/spiritual practices and traditions that have been around for a very long time whose goal it is to bring people to states like this.
Yeah, brought to you by the same people as acupuncture!
Just because something is ancient doesn't mean it's true. In fact, most of the time it means that it's false.
but to assume that the man was on serious drugs is an ignorant statement
If by "ignorant" you mean "most plausible", then yeah, you're absolutely right.
By the way, the video disagrees with the wiki article, and the video definitely disproves the idea that he "sat peacefully in the lotus pose with a beatific smile on his face while he burned". In fact, he toppled over and was probably screaming his head off, but I can't find any videos with sound in order to verify the latter assumption. Either way, the myth that he just sat there and smiled is complete bullshit.
Thanks for nothing. Not only does that article not provide the toxicology report, but it doesn't even have a link to the video. You're about as useful as tits on a nun.
I'm not familiar with the case in Brazil, but if it's anything like what happened with black slaves in America after the abolition, then no, it wasn't slavery. I think the farmers who took advantage of the situation of their former-slaves were douchebags, but then again, if they hadn't been douchebags they wouldn't have had slaves in the first place.
The important thing is that while some (many?) farmers/plantation-owners decided to take advantage of the situation, that situation only persisted for the period which it took the freed slaves to create new options for themselves. And the difference between THAT and actual slavery is that slaves have ZERO chance of creating ANY new options for themselves. They have no rights. They can never leave. They can never chose to work for a better employer, or save enough money to buy a small piece of land. They have no right to refuse to be beaten or raped. All they can do is toil until they die.
No matter what your opinion, though, you're making a false comparison. Microsoft never owned any slaves. These people voluntarily came to work at a business which offers them decent pay and relatively safe working conditions. No amount of blabbing about plantations and slaves is going to change that. Instead of going off on tangents, why not just admit you've lost the argument?
You're saying that if Exxon-Mobil (for example) makes 2 Billion dollars profit instead of 30 than there will be severe repercussions in the world?
Yes. If they suddenly made less than a tenth of what they normally do, their stocks would plummet. That, in turn, would lower the value of hundreds of thousands of 401k's and similar savings plans. It would also lead to an increase in spending on R&D, making them less competitive in the future with other businesses in their field. It would make them less capable to adapt to changing oil prices, thereby, again, limiting their competitiveness in the global marketplace. The reduction in competitiveness would guarantee further drops in future earning, thereby setting in motion a cycle which would eventually end in bankruptcy.
Only complete ignoramuses think that companies can shell out massive portions of their earnings on a whim, without harming tens if not hundreds of thousands of people.
Your ideas are only based on the fact that you live a comfortable life, because if you were a poor person in, say, China you would not be so greedy.
Now THAT is "such a HUGE bullshit". If I were a poor person in China, I'd be more greedy. There's nothing quite as good for encouraging the accumulation of wealth as the lack of it.
Yours are not ideas everyone can agree on because they are extreme.
Yes, we live in an age where being informed and thoughtful really can be considered "extreme". It's a sorry state of affairs.
there being 'criticism' about something does not negate the validity of that thing
It does in this case, as the criticism amply demonstrates. The term "wage slavery" was invented precisely in order to draw a false equivalence between employment and slavery. It is utterly meaningless for anyone other than self-deluded ideologues.
if, some humanely inacceptable condition/practice is just changed a little to be different in its former condition only with some measure, and then a seeming but impracticle 'choice' is put in to the equation, and the same thing is named just differently, does this make that thing acceptably humane.
I've already answered the general gist of that, and your attempt to couch it in hypotheticals just confuses the issue. Your phrasing would allow for absurd comparisons, such as a situation in which I force you to pick between the murder of your wife or the murder of your child. So no, I won't let you draw me in to that type of debate.
Stick to the facts. We're discussing a Chinese shop which pays minimum wage, has an 8 hour work day, and offers overtime. They employ people who seem to think that working there is better than any other alternative. The bitching quoted in the article is no different than what you'd hear from some zero-education drone working at a Dairy Queen. If you think that's slavery, then you're an idiot. Period, full stop. If you truly believe that, I see nothing left for us to discuss.
The Vietnamese Buddhist who torched himself sat peacefully in the lotus pose with a beatific smile on his face while he burned.
Assuming that's actually true (which I doubt) I would LOVE to have seen the toxicology report from his autopsy. I'm betting large doses of morphine, possibly mixed with some sort of mild hallucinogens. Anyone got the link?
There are many more words, but just assume I can rattle off at a dozen Christian terrorist attacks against abortion clinics and Planned Parenthood offices without resorting to Wikipedia.
Not to downplay the harm that Christianity causes.... but for every one of your dozen Christian terrorist attacks, I can point to a hundred that were conducted by Muslims. The casualty count is even more disproportionate than that. And then there's little things like... oh, I dunno... how about the fact that the Saudis just recently sentenced a man to death for the crime of SORCERY, because he was "predicting the future" on his television show. Yep, you read that right. Sending magical beams through the air to a box that displays your image... that's fine... but pretending to predict the future, now that's going too far! And the fact that this is happening in the year 2010.... it really makes you want to cry.
So yeah, pick on the Christians all you like, I really don't give a damn. But let's not draw any stupid equivalences. The Christians may be stuck a hundred years in the past, but the Muslims insist on beating that record by an order of magnitude.
It's not just the US. Happens here in Canada, too. Just because you've never experienced it, don't make the mistake of assuming that it's not a way of life for many others in your country.
No, that isn't what you said. Reread your post if you've forgotten.
Uh. Wha?
You were the one who first stated that 'idealistic fools' will always run a corporation into the ground, how is responding with a counter example not germane to the discussion?
Because it's not a counter example?
If I make a statement about "idealistic fools", how is it a counter-example to talk about someone who, by your own claim, is NOT an idealistic fool?
However, I do blame the fat cats, who tend to be sociopathic or narcissistic tyrants.
That's just flat-out ignorant. How many have you known? How many studies can you link to which show a positive correlation between running successful corporations and being a sociopath?
I don't mind you pulling opinions out of your ass, but at least provide a disclaimer.
No one should have power over others, except to some extent, parents over their children.
So no bosses? No teachers? No judges? No religious leaders? No celebrities?
Being wealthy should give you comfort, and a cushion against hard times, but it should not allow you to dictate terms to the poor and desperate.
So, anything that the poor and desperate ask for, they should get?
"I want a 4 hour work week and $100,000 per year"
"I'm sorry, but you'll have to come in for at least 20 hours, and your pay will be $50,000"
"YOU CAN'T DICTATE TERMS TO ME!!! WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE??? Mr. Spun says you're an evil sociopath!"
That's not a requirement. The vast majority of our improvements were made without bothering with such regulation. It's something that can lead to further improvement, if done correctly, but it's not a requirement for raising human society out of the kind of misery and poverty that exist in the majority of the world.
You'll notice that I specifically stated that I was listing the basics. If we let every numbnut with an opinion add to my list, we'll shortly end up with a document that's about as thick as Atlas Shrugged, and at least twice as pointless.
That's a tough one. I guess I'd have to say that the tone is intentionally sarcastic, but the general message is quite serious.
Tell ya what, I'll just rephrase it so it's easier for you to understand:
Your point was stupid, and your wording dishonest. People who consent to work for a wage are by definition not slaves. All human endeavors require trade-offs, and it's up to the individual to decide whether a particular trade is worthwhile. Likewise, human welfare is relative - work conditions which might seem barbaric to, say, Paris Hilton, would seem quite normal to you and me. Any employment which is voluntary and provides a higher standard of living than would exist in the ABSENCE of such employment is, therefore, a Good Thing.
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What about rescue disks?
What about them? I started using CD's for that in 1998. These days, it's all USB.
Except for the fact that the percentage of suicide bombers vs the number of passenger miles flown is so ridiculously small it shouldn't warrant such a heavy handed response.
I agree completely. Proactive responses are pointless, everyone knows that! That's why I've been working hard over the last year to convince my city that we don't need a fire department, smoke alarms, or all those silly building-codes designed to prevent fires. We have so few people die in fires that there's clearly no way to justify such over-the-top policies.
Your mom collapses with no damage.
Is autonomous tech really that difficult now? At the very least couldn't it fall back to remote control? I could swear the Sovs did some work like this back in the 70s.
Strictly speaking, an artillery shell is autonomous. How impressive the automation is depends on how adaptive it is.
One of the perks of being powerful is you don't have to go to psychiatric counseling and you don't get labeled a sociopath even if you are one.
Cute. "The fact that there's no studies only PROVES that they're evil!". You'd make a great 9/11 conspiracy theorist.
As for the article you link to, it's interesting, but does nothing to support your claim, and isn't exactly scientific-paper material. It's opinion and conjuncture, influenced by a clear personal bias. The fact that it comes from someone other than you is irrelevant.
No, obviously people shouldn't get anything they want. But everyone should get the bare minimum: food, shelter, clean water, and access to medical care.
I disagree.
That,s right, controlled experiments! You've got the right idea, but you'll need to find other volunteers.
It's irrelevant anyway, since the video clearly shows that his claim was wrong. It's just another "miracle" being reported by an idiot - a phenomenon which we've seen countless times throughout history.
Hrm ... should I believe the video ... or ... the witnesses? Gee. That's a tough one!
Go watch it yourself, it's on youtube. As seen in the video "a while" is maybe 5-6 seconds. That certainly paints a different picture than your idealistic prose. Why, I wonder, might people want to pretty-up such a horrible display?
Hah! I'll have you know that the Canadian dollar is now worth MORE than the US dollar, so you can take that "proper dollar" and shove it ;)
I had a feeling you might have been referring to the RAF Lanc - it's the better known of the two. The Canadian one was grounded for quite a while - it only resumed flying about a year ago.
Sorry, you don't get to use the Klan. Their cause was/is racial purity. They didn't go out to hang Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, or Muslims; they set out specifically to kill BLACKS. The fact that they also hate anyone different than them is pretty much irrelevant, since the vast majority of their actions which you could reasonably consider terrorism were carried out on racial grounds and not religious ones.
As for the rest, I would like to introduce you to stdarg. He can educate you about the prevalance of Muslim extremism/terrorism around the world. His Pakistan example is just the tip of the iceberg. If, after talking to him, you're still convinced that the KKK was worse .... well, in that case you're probably a lost cause.
No, you got it all wrong. Microsoft keeps thousands of children from starving, while simultaneously keeping them from joining gangs and causing trouble by providing them with gainful employment. I can't see how anyone could possibly see them in a bad light after that wonderful revelation.
you should be familiar with the post-slavery situation in brasil, and other countries who practiced slavery, in order to be able to this freely declare that something that is near slavery is ok. i advise you to take up on some history research. you wont regret it.
By the same logic, you should be familiar with where every electron in your computer is going before you log on and post a message to slashdot. Do some computer research, you ignorant bastard.
there is the problem. if you move from ZERO chance to 1% chance of some opportunity, that doesnt make the new condition any different.
Also, while you're at it, do some math research.
As for the rest of your comment, I didn't read it. The above told me all I needed to hear. This farce has gone on long enough. You take care now.
Well, there are religious/spiritual practices and traditions that have been around for a very long time whose goal it is to bring people to states like this.
Yeah, brought to you by the same people as acupuncture!
Just because something is ancient doesn't mean it's true. In fact, most of the time it means that it's false.
but to assume that the man was on serious drugs is an ignorant statement
If by "ignorant" you mean "most plausible", then yeah, you're absolutely right.
By the way, the video disagrees with the wiki article, and the video definitely disproves the idea that he "sat peacefully in the lotus pose with a beatific smile on his face while he burned". In fact, he toppled over and was probably screaming his head off, but I can't find any videos with sound in order to verify the latter assumption. Either way, the myth that he just sat there and smiled is complete bullshit.
Thanks for nothing. Not only does that article not provide the toxicology report, but it doesn't even have a link to the video. You're about as useful as tits on a nun.
I'm not familiar with the case in Brazil, but if it's anything like what happened with black slaves in America after the abolition, then no, it wasn't slavery. I think the farmers who took advantage of the situation of their former-slaves were douchebags, but then again, if they hadn't been douchebags they wouldn't have had slaves in the first place.
The important thing is that while some (many?) farmers/plantation-owners decided to take advantage of the situation, that situation only persisted for the period which it took the freed slaves to create new options for themselves. And the difference between THAT and actual slavery is that slaves have ZERO chance of creating ANY new options for themselves. They have no rights. They can never leave. They can never chose to work for a better employer, or save enough money to buy a small piece of land. They have no right to refuse to be beaten or raped. All they can do is toil until they die.
No matter what your opinion, though, you're making a false comparison. Microsoft never owned any slaves. These people voluntarily came to work at a business which offers them decent pay and relatively safe working conditions. No amount of blabbing about plantations and slaves is going to change that. Instead of going off on tangents, why not just admit you've lost the argument?
You're saying that if Exxon-Mobil (for example) makes 2 Billion dollars profit instead of 30 than there will be severe repercussions in the world?
Yes. If they suddenly made less than a tenth of what they normally do, their stocks would plummet. That, in turn, would lower the value of hundreds of thousands of 401k's and similar savings plans. It would also lead to an increase in spending on R&D, making them less competitive in the future with other businesses in their field. It would make them less capable to adapt to changing oil prices, thereby, again, limiting their competitiveness in the global marketplace. The reduction in competitiveness would guarantee further drops in future earning, thereby setting in motion a cycle which would eventually end in bankruptcy.
Only complete ignoramuses think that companies can shell out massive portions of their earnings on a whim, without harming tens if not hundreds of thousands of people.
Your ideas are only based on the fact that you live a comfortable life, because if you were a poor person in, say, China you would not be so greedy.
Now THAT is "such a HUGE bullshit". If I were a poor person in China, I'd be more greedy. There's nothing quite as good for encouraging the accumulation of wealth as the lack of it.
Yours are not ideas everyone can agree on because they are extreme.
Yes, we live in an age where being informed and thoughtful really can be considered "extreme". It's a sorry state of affairs.
Just wait until your country legalizes gay marriage!
there being 'criticism' about something does not negate the validity of that thing
It does in this case, as the criticism amply demonstrates. The term "wage slavery" was invented precisely in order to draw a false equivalence between employment and slavery. It is utterly meaningless for anyone other than self-deluded ideologues.
if, some humanely inacceptable condition/practice is just changed a little to be different in its former condition only with some measure, and then a seeming but impracticle 'choice' is put in to the equation, and the same thing is named just differently, does this make that thing acceptably humane.
I've already answered the general gist of that, and your attempt to couch it in hypotheticals just confuses the issue. Your phrasing would allow for absurd comparisons, such as a situation in which I force you to pick between the murder of your wife or the murder of your child. So no, I won't let you draw me in to that type of debate.
Stick to the facts. We're discussing a Chinese shop which pays minimum wage, has an 8 hour work day, and offers overtime. They employ people who seem to think that working there is better than any other alternative. The bitching quoted in the article is no different than what you'd hear from some zero-education drone working at a Dairy Queen. If you think that's slavery, then you're an idiot. Period, full stop. If you truly believe that, I see nothing left for us to discuss.
The Vietnamese Buddhist who torched himself sat peacefully in the lotus pose with a beatific smile on his face while he burned.
Assuming that's actually true (which I doubt) I would LOVE to have seen the toxicology report from his autopsy. I'm betting large doses of morphine, possibly mixed with some sort of mild hallucinogens. Anyone got the link?
There are many more words, but just assume I can rattle off at a dozen Christian terrorist attacks against abortion clinics and Planned Parenthood offices without resorting to Wikipedia.
Not to downplay the harm that Christianity causes .... but for every one of your dozen Christian terrorist attacks, I can point to a hundred that were conducted by Muslims. The casualty count is even more disproportionate than that. And then there's little things like ... oh, I dunno ... how about the fact that the Saudis just recently sentenced a man to death for the crime of SORCERY, because he was "predicting the future" on his television show. Yep, you read that right. Sending magical beams through the air to a box that displays your image ... that's fine ... but pretending to predict the future, now that's going too far! And the fact that this is happening in the year 2010 .... it really makes you want to cry.
So yeah, pick on the Christians all you like, I really don't give a damn. But let's not draw any stupid equivalences. The Christians may be stuck a hundred years in the past, but the Muslims insist on beating that record by an order of magnitude.
It's not just the US. Happens here in Canada, too. Just because you've never experienced it, don't make the mistake of assuming that it's not a way of life for many others in your country.
Thank you. That was epic. I don't think I could ever have explained it half as well.
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No, that isn't what you said. Reread your post if you've forgotten.
Uh. Wha?
You were the one who first stated that 'idealistic fools' will always run a corporation into the ground, how is responding with a counter example not germane to the discussion?
Because it's not a counter example?
If I make a statement about "idealistic fools", how is it a counter-example to talk about someone who, by your own claim, is NOT an idealistic fool?
However, I do blame the fat cats, who tend to be sociopathic or narcissistic tyrants.
That's just flat-out ignorant. How many have you known? How many studies can you link to which show a positive correlation between running successful corporations and being a sociopath?
I don't mind you pulling opinions out of your ass, but at least provide a disclaimer.
No one should have power over others, except to some extent, parents over their children.
So no bosses? No teachers? No judges? No religious leaders? No celebrities?
Being wealthy should give you comfort, and a cushion against hard times, but it should not allow you to dictate terms to the poor and desperate.
So, anything that the poor and desperate ask for, they should get?
"I want a 4 hour work week and $100,000 per year"
"I'm sorry, but you'll have to come in for at least 20 hours, and your pay will be $50,000"
"YOU CAN'T DICTATE TERMS TO ME!!! WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE??? Mr. Spun says you're an evil sociopath!"
That's not a requirement. The vast majority of our improvements were made without bothering with such regulation. It's something that can lead to further improvement, if done correctly, but it's not a requirement for raising human society out of the kind of misery and poverty that exist in the majority of the world.
You'll notice that I specifically stated that I was listing the basics. If we let every numbnut with an opinion add to my list, we'll shortly end up with a document that's about as thick as Atlas Shrugged, and at least twice as pointless.
That's a tough one. I guess I'd have to say that the tone is intentionally sarcastic, but the general message is quite serious.
Tell ya what, I'll just rephrase it so it's easier for you to understand:
Your point was stupid, and your wording dishonest. People who consent to work for a wage are by definition not slaves. All human endeavors require trade-offs, and it's up to the individual to decide whether a particular trade is worthwhile. Likewise, human welfare is relative - work conditions which might seem barbaric to, say, Paris Hilton, would seem quite normal to you and me. Any employment which is voluntary and provides a higher standard of living than would exist in the ABSENCE of such employment is, therefore, a Good Thing.
Hope that helps!