Okay, first of all, let's establish something: the burden of proof is on you, not me. I am not the one claiming that statistical data backs me up, or that your assertions are wrong because "the facts do not support you." You made that claim, so YOU back it up. I'm not going to go digging for evidence to support your theses. If you want me to take any of your supposed evidence as credible, give me citations or shut up. Show me articles that prove these things that you claim are patently true, and we'll go from there.
The second was that theft mitigates poverty. I doubt anyone has bothered to perform such a study as it is logically obvious. Poverty is lack of money and goods. Theft is a means of acquiring money or goods. Thus, theft directly mitigates poverty, even if not on a long-term basis. But people don't necessarily think in the long-term and since we were talking about motivation it is the thought that counts.
Explain to me how this is logically obvious. If theft were an actual way of mitigating poverty, then those who stole would no longer be poor. So either all poor people are complete idiots, or theft does not actually mitigate poverty at all. But it's convenient that you equate the acquisition of material goods or money with a mitigation of poverty. It almost rounds out your tautology, but not quite.
It was a qualitative argument, not quantitative. In principal the concept is wrong as demonstrated by my example. After that it is merely relative levels of stressors which are relative to individuals and situations, none of which is within the scope of the general argument. I take it you did not bother to learn the rhetorical method?
First, this doesn't make any sense. And I mean that literally: I have absolutely no idea what you are trying to say here. As far as the rhetorical method is concerned, it only works when the question you ask is functionally equivalent to the point you are trying to make. Claiming on one hand that people are ultimately responsible for their crimes, and then on the other that if you're subjected to (overly) extreme circumstances that your method of decision-making will be altered, does not somehow disprove the idea that people are ultimately responsible for their crimes. All you've shown is yes, there is a point when someone's character is no longer the sole determining factor in how they act. That is not in question. What is in question is how many criminals are actually at that point, and how many commit crimes for other reasons? And given that, how effective will "reducing poverty" actually be in reducing theft?
You have no conception. They had food to eat and a job. They were not penniless, hated, hunted by the police, and suffering horrible physical and mental pain as the result of withdrawal from a drug. It can always be a lot worse.
They were immigrants from Iran, with Islamic names. They were penniless. They had no family here to help them. How do you think they got jobs? You think it fell into their laps? My father could have easily decided to start stealing to supplement his income. He did not. Neither did my mother. The fact that they weren't addicted to drugs or that the situation "can always be a lot worse" does nothing to change the situation--they were POOR and they dealt with it. Simply because you have a romanticized view of every poor person in the world and their struggle against overwhelming circumstances does not mean you know actual poor people or the things they must deal with. My mother mopped the floors at Burger King for a year while she struggled to learn English. She could have easily spent that time mugging people and not bothered to try and educate herself. Poverty is not a f*cking carte blanche to start stealing. Stop acting like it is.
People are victims of circumstances. If a piano falls on my brother, he was a victim of circumstance. That does not mean he was not respon
Poverty leads to crime does not mean stealing an iPod is the direct result of poverty. Later you call out the fact that correlation is not causation, yet you base your argument upon that assumption here.
There is no way you can possibly be this thick-headed, so I'm going to introduce you to the concept of "natural conclusion." If the discussion at hand is about iPod theft, and one person then says: "Well, poverty leads to desperation, and desperate people do desperate things," it is a logical step to then say: "So, you're saying someone steals because they are poor, and therefore desperate?" It is clear that Stormin does not believe this at all, and he's making the point to show how flawed the assumption is. He uses the iPod situation as an example, to show that a large number of the crimes that we see daily seem to have very little to do with "desperation." I very rarely hear of a poor man robbing a grocery store for the food. The next time I see a beggar run in with a gun, nab a loaf of bread, and run off, then yeah, I'll say he's desperate. But you try telling just one convenience store owner that the people who steal money and liquor from them are "desperate" and they will laugh in your face.
Poverty correlates with lack of education and stressful situations that can be mitigated by theft.
Really? Prove it. Show me one study that shows that poverty is "mitigated" by theft, or even that "stressful situations" can be so mitigated. Because I think you're making that up.
So assuming you are poor and poorly educated and have few prospects and contacts that might get you a good job and your uncle is a carjacker and he has told you since you were young stealing from the rich is not wrong and you need money to pay the rent so your mother is not evicted you're a lot more likely to rob a store to get that money.
That's a wonderful story, despite the fact that it's patently false. People are not the victims of their circumstances, and the fact that you continue to operate under the assumption that they are means that you missed Stormin's point entirely. My family was dirt poor when they moved to America. My mother did not speak English, my father was still finishing college, and for ten years they eked out a living until my father could open his own restaurant. They were as desperate as it could ever get. I did not see my father for the first year of my life but on weekends, because the only place he could find work was three hours away. So I am taking personal offense to your presumption that acts of theft can be noble in nature. You make a conscious decision whether or not to stick to your principles, period. If you decide to steal, it can be justified, but to then try and assume that most acts of theft by the poor are such is grossly naive.
This is another mistake. Ethical/moral motivations are the strongest ones here. Ignoring that aspect is not likely to result in accurate predictions or models.
Wrong. You and I have very different morals. We are unlikely to come to an agreement based on moral principle. But on grounds of practicality, we can probably see eye-to-eye. Stormin made a practical argument, one that clearly stated that theft benefits those vested in society less than those who are not. This is not for moral, but practical reasons--someone who has a job, a wife, kids, and a house, has a lot more to lose if they get caught stealing, than someone who is poor, living in government-subsidized housing, and no dependants. The risk associated with stealing rises exponentially. There are no moral arguments here. But it is a valid, logical point--one that apparently you failed to recognize.
Most criminals do not believe they will be caught, thus this incentive has much less weight.
I realize you're trying to be witty here, but the sentence isn't necessarily gramatically incorrect. Since "Love and good will" could be construed as a phrase, and therefore a singular entity (as opposed to a plural), using "is" would be the correct course of action. This probably isn't the case, but it bears mentioning.
It is not a bloody straw man.
It is a fact. By focusing your efforts on the abortion issue other people are dying of cancer, starvation, genocide.
It's an irrelevant fact. Simply because there are other evils present and ongoing in the world does not mean I shouldn't fight another evil at home. What are you getting at? That it's all pointless?
You have made the personal decision that that is worse than the other ways of dying so it gets your attention, money, posts, and volunteer time first. You have made the decision that occasionally going to a movie, having a steak dinner, and driving a new car is more important than the lives of several thousand humans around the globe that you could donate food to.
I make the judgment that it is worse to deliberately kill someone who is completely innocent than to, by inaction, possibly prevent the death of another through indirect means. And further, until you can prove that my abstinence of movie-going, steak-dinners, and a new car directly translates into lives saved, you're not proving anything. From where I'm standing, a great deal of the money we donate to charities or to foreign countries in need of aid gets funneled right into the hands of corrupt politicians. Does this mean we shouldn't keep trying to help? Of course not; it's our duty to try to prevent suffering when we can. But it does shed quite a bit of doubt on your idea that my simple lifestyle is somehow directly contributing to the deaths of innocents.
What I don't do is pick a particular subset of dying people and use it as a pretext to try to control other people's lives.
This doesn't make any sense at all. I am not attempting to control someone's life. A rational human being should be held accountable for their actions, end of story. If you think forcing someone to accept the consequences of having sex is "controlling their life," then the argument is essentially over. You're no longer operating rationally. All I am attempting to do is show that we have legalized a form of murder (which we have) and change it.
My point is that many more humans could be saved with the money and time that are spent fighting abortion.
This is true only if you consider that lives saved through education are irrelevant, and that any money and time we give to another cause directly translates into lives saved. I'd be willing to say that you're probably right, but I don't measure it only along number of lives saved. I see a terrible precedent set in American culture by allowing on-demand abortion, and I can think of no worse loss of life than the murder of an innocent child. Our government currently does not protect our children's right to life. This needs to change, and requires our most immediate attention.
The abortion fight causes the religious conservatives to close their eyes and keep voting for evil people who are selling the country away to soulless multi national corporations who exploit children, run sweatshops, and engage in completely amoral behavior while destroying people's lives and poisoning our land. In the past the religious types would have been fighting these things- but as long as the republicans *promise* to fight against abortion, they get the votes without regard to all the other damage being done. Hell, I don't even think the republicans *want* to win the issue. The second they do, they lose their base.
I share your disgust of the current Republican party and of the religious conservative voting bloc, but just because both are moronic about it doesn't mean the cause isn't good. I wish the religious conservatives in this country would actually follow their religion for a change, and that the Republicans would stop being bold-faced hypocrites, but that doesn't mean I won't continue to voice my opinion against abortion. It takes a lot more than pro-life to win my vote, though.
There's more to it than "inconvenience" and there is certainally more to it than nine months. Unwanted children will not be cared for. If the mother is irresponsible to get pregnant by accident in the first place, what kind of child would she bring up? I've always argued that many of the problems in our society are directly linked to bad parenting. Many parents would rather watch TV than to rear their children into responsible adults.
This isn't a debate I enter often, so this may be wrong but I remember reading once about how crime statistics were linked to abortion. In places where it was outlawed, unwanted children were dropped out one after the other. Crime rates shot up as did unemployement and all the other issues associated with lazy-as-fuck parenting.
You're making a lot of leaps without much ground to stand on. First, there isn't more to it than nine months. If the mother is determined to not take care of the child, make it a ward of the state. We have a system in place for this very purpose. And to counter an argument that is often brought up against that point, we can't proactively judge the quality of anyone's life. It's unethical to say: "Well, their life would have sucked anyway, so let's just kill them." We do not have the right or the ability to say, with any modicum of certainty, whether someone else's life would be worth living. We should not punish an innocent child for the acts of his/her parents.
I don't know where those statistics are from but they sound extremely circumstantial. I'll just say that correlation does not imply causation, and leave it at that for now. I happen to share your disdain of bad parenting, but this is probably where my view differs from what pro-abortionists commonly believe: I don't care about the parents. My only concern is to make sure an innocent life is not taken. If they are going to be idiots or irresponsible (and I honestly do not believe that most people who get abortions are), then that's unfortunate, but their child has the right to live, just like anyone else. And I will defend that right to the death.
That's bad logic. If it's wrong, it's wrong. The old adage here "two wrongs do not make a right". Potential death is of course different (as the fetus would die anyway), but I don't really understand the "rape only" clause. It's either murder or it's not.
Explain how the logic is bad? I am in favor of outlawing an act that, by my proposed points, is immoral. You haven't refuted any of the underlying logic; you're just trying to tell me it's impractical because you don't want stupid parents raising kids. That's besides the point. Abortion is the murder of a human being. We should endeavor to prevent murder wherever possible. It seems pretty straightforward.
As far as the rape-only clause, let me make a quick analogy. We both agree that murder means "to kill intentionally," right? If I shoot someone in the head because they looked at me funny, I am murdering them. If I shoot someone in the head because they broke into my house and shot at my family and me, I am also murdering them. The difference there is the intent, though. In my eyes, an abortion because of rape is still murder, but it should be an option, because the rape victim didn't have a choice in getting herself pregnant. The state does not have the legal right to force someone into action, especially not the victim of a crime. However, the amount of abortions performed because of rape is exceedingly small. (I do not have an official statistic on-hand, because Planned Parenthood has fought tooth-and-nail to make sure that very little data regarding the rationale behind abortions remains anonymous. However, the few studies I have read all concluded that it was less than 10%.) Therefore, the majority of abortions are for "elective" reasons, and I don't believe there's any elective reason that could possibly justify murder. The state has the legal right to force someone to accept the consequences o
Please point out, at your earliest convenience, where either Stormin or myself, or any of the pro-life people in this thread, have attempted to justify our logic by means of religion? Every point we've made has been either philosophical or scientific in nature. The only time God has come up is when one of you f*cking morons decides: "ZOMG, TEHY"RE PRO LIFE, THEY MJUST LOV E JESUSSSBS1!!!!!!111111000!!!"
I know this may tax your severely underpowered brain, but try and consider for a moment that there are perfectly ethical and moral reasons to oppose abortion that have nothing to do with religion. This is not about scripture. A fetus is a human life. We should not kill humans without extremely good cause. Inconvenience for nine months on the part of a mother who engaged in consensual sex is not extremely good cause. An abortion ends the life of a fetus. Therefore, abortion is wrong, and should be illegal, except in cases of rape or potential death of the mother. Show we where the fuck that involves prescribing my religious beliefs on someone. Really, I'm fascinated. Please do.
Yes and millions of people die stupid, useless, horrible deaths every day- but for some reason we only seem to care about the ones inside women who had, definately had, consensual sex. I see it as a punishment for them for breaking the the anti-abortionists moral code.
While you read this, several living, young human beings probably died of starvation. Why are their lives so much less important than a tiny cell mass that is months from being viable? As the ads say, you could save one for 50 cents a month. You could save 1600 for 800 a month. How can you have a soda each day when that would save a human life for an entire month? You can't unless you are engaging in the same calculus as a young female who says her life is more important than another life.
That's a straw man and you know it. Yes, millions of people die every year (not day). Do I do my best to lessen the impact of those deaths? Of course. If we had a law mandating the killing of anyone on a day-to-day basis, in a similar fashion to abortion, then I would be opposed to that as well. You can't accuse me of hypocrisy because it's not like I'm saying "abortion is bad" and then killing other innocents wantonly. This is a moral issue, one that involves the legal ability to slaughter innocents. I am against allowing the death of innocents, as a principle, in almost all cases. My hands do nothing to encourage the deaths of innocent by starvation; I can effectively do nothing because I am not governing their countries. I do, however, have a voice in the US, and can directly affect abortion legislation, so I will. I'm not saying the lives lost to abortions are more important than those lost to other tragedies; I wish there was something more that could be done about other tragedies, but I am either ill-informed about them or disgusted at the ways in which we've decided to fight them. I am, however, well informed about abortion, and believe I can effect change in this arena. To try and tell me then that my desire to do so is somehow hypocritical or otherwise ill-founded is to criticize any person who attempts to participate in one good cause without participating in every other. What are you trying to prove?
And you can't have it both ways on the rape issue.
Either *some* rape victims will not be believed and forced to bear the child or *some* innocent men will go to prison for raping someone they had consensual sex with so the girl can have an abortion. It is one of those very messy edges of the issue that won't resolve cleanly.
No, I didn't say a rape victim should ever be denied an abortion. Quite frankly, I'd be comfortable with American laws simply stating that abortions are illegal except in cases of rape or possible death to the mother. If women want to lie about it, fine. That's something I can't avoid. But I wholeheartedly believe that the simple fact that the Supreme Court says it's "ok" to abort a baby has more influence on the number of abortions than anything else in the US right now. If a woman is so desperate to not face the consequences of her actions that she'll falsely claim rape, then it's unavoidable. She'll find some way to kill that child. But that distinction, on a philosophical level, is very important. And it's one we should make.
If the fetus is a human being with all rights from conception and women should have all babies which are voluntarily conceived then why is it okay to kill an innocent human being simply because the father was a rapist?
I never said it's ok; I said I would make a provision for it. That is a political firebomb, mostly because it would literally be forcing someone who had no say in the matter to live with the consequences. It's a difficult moral question, and one I do not think the state is in a position to answer--thus, we leave it up to the woman in question, as she'd had the decision forced upon her. An innocent life is still being taken, but in that particular case, the entire situation is a tragedy, and there's no way around that anyway. I don't believe the state has the legal power to force a victim of any crime into action, which is essentially what banning abortions due to rape would be. Do I think abortion is the right decision to make in this case? Honestly, no--but I understand why someone would make that decision, and I'm not going to tell them otherwise.
Likewise, if the only way to get an abortion was because of rape- you would see rape accusations go way up. So we are killing innocents there so the only way to close that door is to not allow a rape exception.
Not necessarily. Yes, a lot of rape accusation in this country is false (I don't know if the statistic is 50%), but qualifying for a "rape abortion" would necessitate the filing of a police report. If someone is willing to lie through their teeth, wrongfully indict someone, just to abort a child, then there's not much I can do about it--but I think a lot of eyebrows would raise if these laws were passed and magically the abortion rate didn't go down, when an overwhelming majority of abortions now are not the result of rape.
Maybe... just maybe... we should stay the hell out of it until the fetus is viable outside the mother. And maybe we should force people against abortion to pay for the upbringing of such forced births. You know "Are you against abortion? If so check "YES" to authorize $50 extra taxes to help cover the costs of raising the children". Increasingly, we are at the same time telling other people how to live, and making them pay for the costs of having to live that way.
We are telling them to live with the consequences of their actions because there is a human life at stake. And if our society is unwilling to financially support an institution whose sole mission is to protect innocent life, then what the hell is the point? It's not like someone is holding a gun to a woman's head, sticking a fetus into her, and then the big bad govt is coming along and saying: "Sorry honey, that one's a keeper." She had sex, almost definitely consensual sex, and got pregnant as a result, and now has a human life inside of her. That's a very serious deal, and we shouldn't, under any circumstances, allow the wanton slaughtering of innocents. It's just wrong, and I don't want to live in any society that just accepts it outright. (Which is why I will never live in Western Europe.) And on the flip side, the father of the child should be legally obligated to support that child for eighteen years, period--he is just as accountable as she is. I think it would be incredibly sexist to hold a woman accountable for her pregnancy, but to let the man off scot-free.
There are like six of us posting ahead of you; you're gonna have to specify which one of us is the walking argument. I'm hoping you mean the AC, but if you mean me, that's ok too.
Normally killing is a bad thing, but when a person is growing inside your body, you should be able to do what you please about it.
I don't really think you mean to say what it is you're saying, because that has huge moral implications. If you're going to concede that it is a life growing inside of the pregnant woman, then you have essentially granted the unborn child all rights that any other human being is given: most importantly, the right to live. Just because it is infirmed and therefore unable to live outside of the mother does not immediately mean the mother has the right to eliminate the child. If you believe this, then you must by proxy also agree with infanticide (the dependence is no less severe once the baby leaves the womb) and euthenasia. (Should people with respirators or other life-support machines be at the whim of the hospital?) So what this means is that the mother is going to be terribly inconvenienced by the child's growth and subsequent birth, but no amount of inconvenience and/or physical pain can ever reasonably justify the ending of another's life.
Really, if you want to make a stand in favor of abortion, the only place that's logically consistent and doesn't imply a whole host of other evils is to maintain that the fetus is not really a human being. And that, in my opinion, is not true; therefore, abortion is murder. Can abortion be justifiable? I think, in certain cases, yes--if the mother is going to die, or if she was raped, then obviously it should be her choice: NOT because of some "woman's rights" argument, but because (in the case of the former) it's her life at stake, and in the latter because she was an unwilling participant. Both of these are rights I would extend to anyone. But after that, I think no one's "rights" (man or woman) eclipse those of the unborn child.
Besides, pregnancy is so easily avoidable. It's not rocket science. Don't have sex if you don't want to risk having a baby. If you're going to have sex, (even protected sex, with birth control as well), you have to accept the fact that a baby could be conceived. Accept the consequences of your actions. And if you are poor/uneducated/whatever, why is that an excuse to kill an innocent life? Is it the baby's fault that you couldn't control your sexual desires?
"Hi, my name is scientific fact. I'm sure we haven't met, but you just called me bullshit, so I feel the need to interject here. You see, I'm formed by a series of rigorous studies that are repeatable--basically, when someone quotes me, they can't lie, otherwise they're not me. So, you see, when someone says: '11 weeks into the pregnancy, all body systems are functional,' and it's scientific fact (me) then you can't really call it bullshit, you know, because it's been proven. You may want to check out wikipedia for more on me with regards to pregnancy."
Now that my friend scientific fact has chimed in, I'll also note that you're a complete moron who's too much of a chickenshit to post under a real account. And I wasn't aware that something too weak to support itself, and yet created by the host (in the overwhelming majority through consensual sex), was immediately deserving of death. And don't try and pull the rape card; no one here is going to posit that a woman who's had a pregnancy forced on her is obligated to have the child.
Define "broader." Last time I checked, the three Abrahamic religions formed the majority of the world's population. Or are you just saying: "find a base of support that I approve of, namely people who think like me, because clearly I am right?"
Being that a.) I live in the US, b.) slashdot is hosted in the US, c.) the US is the most influential nation in the world, I would say that the debate is fairly far from being "closed." Besides, when did "Western Europe" become representative of the world? As I recall, that leaves out the Eastern half of Europe (a fairly large chunk) and the other five populated continents. It's certainly not a foregone conclusion in Asia, Africa, South America, and Australia. I could really care less what Europe has decided about abortion. I've seen what an aborted fetus looks like, and no one, anywhere, who looks at the same pictures will be able to sit there and tell me that they aren't staring at a desecrated human body.
Further, this has nothing to do with "women's rights." I am so sick and tired of that asinine point of logic. Ask any medical doctor whose life takes priority when a pregnant woman is at risk, and they will tell you neither. The two lives are always held as equally important until it becomes clear that carrying the pregnancy to term will result, unquestionably, in the death of the mother and the child. If there's a chance one or the other will survive, the options are weighed. The medical field doesn't just consider the fetus to be a random assortment of cells until it pops out of the woman, and neither should we. I fail to see how telling a woman: "if you get an abortion you are killing your child" somehow infringes on her 'rights.' It's a simple fact. I never said that I thought abortions should be illegal. I just know what they are and I'm sick and tired of people acting like it's some clean, innocent procedure that handles an "unexpected pregnancy." They cut the baby into pieces, suck it out of the womb, and reassemble it.
Yay for the civilized "West." We'd rather lie to ourselves about the things we do, and dress them up in euphemisms, than deal with the decisions we make.
A dumbass is allowed to post on slashdot? I didn't know that. Did anyone else here know that?
Next time, before you regurgitate more three-decade old propaganda, why don't you do a little research on abortion? Do you have any idea what an aborted fetus looks like? Do you know that most abortions require re-assembly of the "clump of cells" to assure that no pieces remain in the womb? If you don't want to start an argument about abortion, don't come onto these forums spitting complete bullsh*t acting like it's a commonly accepted fact that abortion isn't a legalized form of murder. There happens to be a very heated and ongoing debate about that very issue; treating it as a foregone conclusion only makes you look like an ass.
That's not really the case, though. It's not that I like to steal music, or software--I freely admit that I did it when I was younger and did not have much money. Now that I'm employed, I buy my software legally (although I try to go open-source whenever I can) and I do the same with my music. My issue is not with the RIAA protecting their copyrighted property--I'm all for it. I just think they're doing it ass-backwards. If they really wanted to fight piracy they would fight tooth and nail to get all record sales online, secure, and easily accessible. Piracy is a matter of convenience for 3/4ths of those that engage in it. Instead of getting up, going to a store, finding the CD, waiting in line, etc., you just open up KaZaa or Limewire and download an album. Look at how successful iTunes, as an alternative way of retrieving music, has been--they continue to make giant leaps in profitability. There very clearly is a market for legally obtained online music. But the RIAA doesn't care about pouring its resources into modernizing its business model; it would rather kick and scream and throw lawsuits around. They sued someone who doesn't have a computer, and then they sued a 12 year-old. You're really going to try and tell me these guys are just trying to protect their property? They're f*cking morons. I hope the entire industry goes belly-up, so maybe recording artists, instead of their labels, can decide how they want their music to reach the masses.
That's an excellent point, and one I had not considered at all. But in my mind I equate record labels with the RIAA, though--I don't make distinctions for individual companies; because of the RIAA, I just automatically assume that all record labels (such as Sony BMG or EMI) are all dishonest, money-grubbing assholes. Still, though, your point's very valid.
The lawsuits are and will continue to be an essential part of a larger effort to encourage fans to enjoy music legally.
Yes, the threat of legislation and consistent bullying tactics are a surefire way to get me to "enjoy" my music legally. Basically all they want to do is make it look like they are catching people every day (and I'm sure they are) and then publicize that in local papers. I don't care if Robert Vaughn in Washington D.C. gets caught for file-sharing, but if Jimmy across the street gets a fine, well then I'd better be scared.
I wonder if the RIAA has done any public image surveys since they decided to start terrorizing their consumers? It's one thing to try to protect your intellectual property; it's another thing entirely to shake down every person with an internet connection. I can't think of one person nowadays who thinks the record industry is anything but a pack of devils; I just wish there was some way of translating that revulsion into serious market reform. They're just jackals, plain and simple.
A person should be paid for how much work they do, but they should of course only do work they're competent at. The notion that some jobs contribute more than others is nonesense when nothing gets done unless all jobs are done.
No, I didn't say that. I am saying a person's worth, in material wealth, is directly correlated to what they produce. If I try really hard at being a math teacher, but ultimately suck at it, and do not educate the children I am supposed to teach, I do not deserve to be compensated well for my work. I am not producing results. Therefore, a career in mathematics education is a bad choice for me. If you can't produce results, don't expect ample compensation. However, it's a fortunate aspect of humanity that the things we are passionate about, we also tend to be capable at. Most people have a far greater capacity for learning than they immediately suspect, and if they love something, they endeavor to learn as much about it as possible. It is in these fields that they would most likely excel. This is the one problem I have with the modern world in general: it is full of people working shit jobs because they think that's the best way to make a living. They'd be much better off finding what they love and working towards that, because if you love your work, you will do it well, and if you do it well, you will be well-compensated. Some people work well enough or are capable enough that they can still do a job well even if they hate it, but it's a sad way to go through life.
That statement isn't very nice. You're saying nothing more than that you deserve a better life because you're more intelligent. In fact, that's repulsive. That's the logic of a pack of animals, not a civilized human being.
I deserve a better life because I am more intelligent and am willing to put that intelligence to work. I don't think people should throw money at me just because I'm smart; I think they should throw money at me because I am smart and I take pride in my work. There is a lot of wasted genius in the world. I don't consider myself a genius, but my intelligence is not wasted, and I routinely use my intelligence to produce results. In my mind, results are all that matter. If someone dumber and less capable than me makes more money than me, I find it offensive, because they are not producing results and yet are being compensated as if they were. You can think it's repulsive if you like, but I'd much rather live in a world where one's intrinsic worth is determined by what one does, rather than some abstract notion of egalitarianism where no one is allowed to distinguish themselves.
Ah, the mythical obsession with free agency. Choosing to enter into an exploitative contract doesn't make it not exploitative. Or does it, because they could try and enter a better exploitative relationship? I don't think that hurts my position any. Or because they can go off and start their OWN enterprise? An absurd capitalist fantasy: a world where everyone is a capitalist, no one is a worker.
Ok, we need to establish some ground rules. First, since when does any contract for work entail exploitation? If I hire someone to do a job for me, I am somehow magically exploiting them? You'll have to explain this one to me, because from where I'm standing, that doesn't make any sense at all. You're operating under Marx's fundamentally flawed theory that trading is a zero-sum game: that somehow, if after I pay all my workers whatever I determine they're worth, I can still turn a profit from the good I produce, that someone in the chain is getting ripped off. This is not true; the value of my goods do not come from any inherent value in them, but instead from their subjective worth. If I pay $20 for steel because steel is plentiful where I am, and then sell it to someone else for whom steel is a rarity for $30, I am not exploiting them. They value the steel enough to pay $30 for it. Even neo-Marxists agree on this point, so you need to re-evaluate your idea of exploitation. And you can be a "capitalist" and a "worker" at the same time, compadre. Being a "capitalist" does not mean you don't do any work, it means you embrace the idea of being rewarded on the basis of your merits. Socialism and communism don't make provisions for merit: you do a job, you get paid for it, everyone is the same. Capitalism allows someone with ambition to ultimately determine how much they make: maybe not at first (my salary is still determined by my employer) but within reasonable time. (And I do mean reasonable--I fully intend to be a millionaire by thirty.)
It's amazing how out of touch programmers can be with the rest of the world. But you're not totally wrong. But again, that does nothing to change the nature of exploitation.
I completely agree. It's a good thing I'm not a programmer.
The value of what their "work merits" is defined in capitalist ideology as whatever needs to be paid to hire them to do that work. By that definition, the above is redundant.
And who determines that amount? Where does that price point come from? I can say that work is "worth" $10/hr, and I might even be able to hire someone to do it for that, but if the work is intensive that salary point has to rise, or people will stop entering that field. This is why fast food restaurants have such high rates of turnover--the work is menial, so the salary remains low, and people stop putting up with it. Likewise, programming salaries have consistently risen, because programmers have shown over and over that what they do is worth more money than the market originally dictated. Price controlling is a socialist idea, not a capitalistic one. If someone does an excellent job and I don't compensate them well for it, they will stop doing the work for me. It's really that simple.
Because it's hard to find a job there, unlike here? Not a free market? Have you been to China recently (which I mean sarcastically)? And the exact role capitalism is made for is industrialization. That's why China's economy is booming under capitalism today.
So I guess now is a bad time to mention that I studied in Japan for half a year, underwent a month-and-a-half Buddhist pilgrimage on foot around the island of Shikoku, and studied with Chinese, Taiwanese, Vietnamese, and Korean students? Or maybe that I've been to Iran four times now? Don't assume you have any idea of where I've been or what I've seen; I am not the monkey you seem so determined to make me out to be.
I'm very happy for you, but surely you don't think that's how is normally works for people. It cannot be denied: there are a certain number of really hard workers in any income bracket.
Yes, there's always a number of really hard workers in any income bracket, but if they continue working hard they do not stay in that income bracket for long. This has been the case with everyone I have known, including both of my parents, who are first-generation immigrants. My mother has had it worse, as she got into retail, which is a notoriously cutthroat industry, and she has had her fair share of troubles. But I don't see this as an indictment of capitalism; my mother is very capable, but I am sad to say she often lets herself be taken advantage of. My father, on the other hand, has been in the food service industry for almost forty years now, and has done very well for himself. He started out as a bartender, then became a manager, and then he got sick of working for other people and opened his own business. He worked very hard and as a result rose through the income brackets. I firmly believe this is how it works for everyone, but it's contigent on the idea that there's actually a free market in place. If he hadn't had anywhere else to go for employment, or the ability to start his own business, then there would have been a serious problem. But if there's no free market, there's no capitalism, so again it's not capitalism's fault.
You deserve an ammount of the profits proportionally to the effort involved on your end, and the same goes for me. Or will people getting paid for the work they do slow down the economy?
First, rewarding "effort" is meaningless--I can try as hard as I want, but if I can't add 2 and 2 together, I shouldn't be a math teacher. It's an unfortunate fact of life that effort, while noteworthy, is ultimately inconsequential--results are what matter. So I'll assume, then, that you want to reward someone proportional to their results. That is a wonderful sentiment but unfortunately impossible to implement. There's no way of telling what exact proportion anyone contributes to the profitability of a company; there are just too many factors to track. All you can do is try and watch the general trends, and if you see one person's name consistently be associated with good things, then you move that person up. This isn't fool-proof, but it has to be working most of the time, otherwise we'd look like Europe's economy. I'm all for paying people what they're worth; I'm personally offended when someone dumber than me, or less capable than me, makes more money than I do. I see it as an unfortunate consequence of any establishment: some people slip their way into middle and upper management without having the associated merits. (Any state system is ample evidence of this, as my time in the state was a huge exercise in frustration.) But people are their own masters: if you don't like what you're getting paid, change it. You have that option. If someone refuses to take the steps to secure greater reward, how could that be capitalism's fault?
You'll note that a division of pay based on the level of eduction involved has been part of every socialist economy.
Since when does education determine ability? I know plenty of Ph.D's that couldn't manuever their way out of a box. I am purely concerned with results; if a person's education directly translates into ability to perform, then great, pay them more. But if some jackass is sitting on his Ph.D doing nothing, while the high school grad under him continues to innovate, then the high school grad is the one who deserves more.
Oh, and working to attain a position where you can exploit others does not mean you've earned it - because you can't.
You operate under the fundamentally flawed assumption that any supervisory role entails exploiting others. It does not. I am not exploiting someone if they agree to do a particular job for me for a salary. If they do not believe they are being amply compensated, then they can either a.) come back to me and argue why they deserve more money, or b.) leave and get paid more for what they do elsewhere. If I, as a supervisor, am unwilling or incapable of rewarding talent, then my business will fail. Any employer who refuses to pay his employees what their work merits will find himself without capable employees. That's how business works. It shocks me that you seem unable to grasp this concept, and instead assume that every worker is at the mercy of whatever "evil corporation" snatches him up. The only time this does not hold true is in an undeveloped economy. If Nike goes in and establishes a sweat shop in rural China, that is worker exploitation and it is wrong, because they have nowhere else to go. But then there's not a free market, and the basis of capitalism rests on the idea of a free market. You can't denounce capitalism when it's employed outside of its own necessary conditions; that's like getting pissed at sodium for exploding on contact with water.
By the way, being smugly arrogant is also obnoxious. At least I did the favor of calling your assumption idiotic, and not you. But way to go; I'm sure your mother would be proud.
An argument I've never really understood on a moral basis, but let's put that aside. Does the lowly programmer at Microsoft get paid a tiny fraction of the top few at the company because his work is less valuable? Is their work more valuable, or is it just work that doesn't need masses of workers? I mean, we all hate beurocracy, right? If some genius programmer invented something that made the company huge profits, would he then be intitled to Gates' share of the money?
If some genius programmer invents something that makes the company huge profits, and he doesn't get paid millions of dollars for his efforts, then he quits Microsoft and GASP! ANOTHER COMPANY PAYS MILLIONS OF DOLLARS FOR HIM. That's how the market works, genius. If you do great things, you are amply rewarded--and if you are not, you go elsewhere and another company will pay you amply to try and get you to do great things for them. That is how I doubled my salary in nine months--I worked my ass off, my company didn't pay me well enough, so I found another job for twice as much. I will continue to work in this fashion until a.) I run someone else's company and thereby make it mine, or b.) I get tired of working for someone else and start my own company. My family is not wealthy, and I am not particularly well-connected, so the idea that capital is responsible for my success is asinine. I am creating my own means of production.
Your communist references are ill-placed. America is not Europe. Marx was not looking at America when he wrote the Communist Manifesto, nor was Engels thinking of Carnegie when he wrote Das Kapital. (And yes, I have read both of them.) Their beef with an aristocracy and the distribution of wealth was primarily with a system that relied on bloodlines, not merit. America has largely been free of this problem; American wealth is far more liquid than its European counterpart. We rarely have families that stay rich for more than a few generations: just look at the Ford family. It's not been 90 years since the first T-model rolled off the shelf and they are in danger of losing their business, and with it the basis of their wealth. There is no American aristocracy, not since the fall of the South.
I , finally, think that people who achieve better results in creating wealth deserve more of that wealth than those who create less.
An argument I've never really understood on a moral basis, but let's put that aside.
So if I go out, invent a fantastic product, market it, and I hire you to schedule shipments, I don't deserve more of the profits than you do? Please tell me you're not serious.
Slashdot Mirror
Okay, first of all, let's establish something: the burden of proof is on you, not me. I am not the one claiming that statistical data backs me up, or that your assertions are wrong because "the facts do not support you." You made that claim, so YOU back it up. I'm not going to go digging for evidence to support your theses. If you want me to take any of your supposed evidence as credible, give me citations or shut up. Show me articles that prove these things that you claim are patently true, and we'll go from there.
Explain to me how this is logically obvious. If theft were an actual way of mitigating poverty, then those who stole would no longer be poor. So either all poor people are complete idiots, or theft does not actually mitigate poverty at all. But it's convenient that you equate the acquisition of material goods or money with a mitigation of poverty. It almost rounds out your tautology, but not quite.
First, this doesn't make any sense. And I mean that literally: I have absolutely no idea what you are trying to say here. As far as the rhetorical method is concerned, it only works when the question you ask is functionally equivalent to the point you are trying to make. Claiming on one hand that people are ultimately responsible for their crimes, and then on the other that if you're subjected to (overly) extreme circumstances that your method of decision-making will be altered, does not somehow disprove the idea that people are ultimately responsible for their crimes. All you've shown is yes, there is a point when someone's character is no longer the sole determining factor in how they act. That is not in question. What is in question is how many criminals are actually at that point, and how many commit crimes for other reasons? And given that, how effective will "reducing poverty" actually be in reducing theft?
They were immigrants from Iran, with Islamic names. They were penniless. They had no family here to help them. How do you think they got jobs? You think it fell into their laps? My father could have easily decided to start stealing to supplement his income. He did not. Neither did my mother. The fact that they weren't addicted to drugs or that the situation "can always be a lot worse" does nothing to change the situation--they were POOR and they dealt with it. Simply because you have a romanticized view of every poor person in the world and their struggle against overwhelming circumstances does not mean you know actual poor people or the things they must deal with. My mother mopped the floors at Burger King for a year while she struggled to learn English. She could have easily spent that time mugging people and not bothered to try and educate herself. Poverty is not a f*cking carte blanche to start stealing. Stop acting like it is.
There is no way you can possibly be this thick-headed, so I'm going to introduce you to the concept of "natural conclusion." If the discussion at hand is about iPod theft, and one person then says: "Well, poverty leads to desperation, and desperate people do desperate things," it is a logical step to then say: "So, you're saying someone steals because they are poor, and therefore desperate?" It is clear that Stormin does not believe this at all, and he's making the point to show how flawed the assumption is. He uses the iPod situation as an example, to show that a large number of the crimes that we see daily seem to have very little to do with "desperation." I very rarely hear of a poor man robbing a grocery store for the food. The next time I see a beggar run in with a gun, nab a loaf of bread, and run off, then yeah, I'll say he's desperate. But you try telling just one convenience store owner that the people who steal money and liquor from them are "desperate" and they will laugh in your face.
Really? Prove it. Show me one study that shows that poverty is "mitigated" by theft, or even that "stressful situations" can be so mitigated. Because I think you're making that up.
That's a wonderful story, despite the fact that it's patently false. People are not the victims of their circumstances, and the fact that you continue to operate under the assumption that they are means that you missed Stormin's point entirely. My family was dirt poor when they moved to America. My mother did not speak English, my father was still finishing college, and for ten years they eked out a living until my father could open his own restaurant. They were as desperate as it could ever get. I did not see my father for the first year of my life but on weekends, because the only place he could find work was three hours away. So I am taking personal offense to your presumption that acts of theft can be noble in nature. You make a conscious decision whether or not to stick to your principles, period. If you decide to steal, it can be justified, but to then try and assume that most acts of theft by the poor are such is grossly naive.
Wrong. You and I have very different morals. We are unlikely to come to an agreement based on moral principle. But on grounds of practicality, we can probably see eye-to-eye. Stormin made a practical argument, one that clearly stated that theft benefits those vested in society less than those who are not. This is not for moral, but practical reasons--someone who has a job, a wife, kids, and a house, has a lot more to lose if they get caught stealing, than someone who is poor, living in government-subsidized housing, and no dependants. The risk associated with stealing rises exponentially. There are no moral arguments here. But it is a valid, logical point--one that apparently you failed to recognize.
Completely irrelevant to the discussion at hand.
I realize you're trying to be witty here, but the sentence isn't necessarily gramatically incorrect. Since "Love and good will" could be construed as a phrase, and therefore a singular entity (as opposed to a plural), using "is" would be the correct course of action. This probably isn't the case, but it bears mentioning.
It's an irrelevant fact. Simply because there are other evils present and ongoing in the world does not mean I shouldn't fight another evil at home. What are you getting at? That it's all pointless?
I make the judgment that it is worse to deliberately kill someone who is completely innocent than to, by inaction, possibly prevent the death of another through indirect means. And further, until you can prove that my abstinence of movie-going, steak-dinners, and a new car directly translates into lives saved, you're not proving anything. From where I'm standing, a great deal of the money we donate to charities or to foreign countries in need of aid gets funneled right into the hands of corrupt politicians. Does this mean we shouldn't keep trying to help? Of course not; it's our duty to try to prevent suffering when we can. But it does shed quite a bit of doubt on your idea that my simple lifestyle is somehow directly contributing to the deaths of innocents.
This doesn't make any sense at all. I am not attempting to control someone's life. A rational human being should be held accountable for their actions, end of story. If you think forcing someone to accept the consequences of having sex is "controlling their life," then the argument is essentially over. You're no longer operating rationally. All I am attempting to do is show that we have legalized a form of murder (which we have) and change it.
This is true only if you consider that lives saved through education are irrelevant, and that any money and time we give to another cause directly translates into lives saved. I'd be willing to say that you're probably right, but I don't measure it only along number of lives saved. I see a terrible precedent set in American culture by allowing on-demand abortion, and I can think of no worse loss of life than the murder of an innocent child. Our government currently does not protect our children's right to life. This needs to change, and requires our most immediate attention.
I share your disgust of the current Republican party and of the religious conservative voting bloc, but just because both are moronic about it doesn't mean the cause isn't good. I wish the religious conservatives in this country would actually follow their religion for a change, and that the Republicans would stop being bold-faced hypocrites, but that doesn't mean I won't continue to voice my opinion against abortion. It takes a lot more than pro-life to win my vote, though.
You're making a lot of leaps without much ground to stand on. First, there isn't more to it than nine months. If the mother is determined to not take care of the child, make it a ward of the state. We have a system in place for this very purpose. And to counter an argument that is often brought up against that point, we can't proactively judge the quality of anyone's life. It's unethical to say: "Well, their life would have sucked anyway, so let's just kill them." We do not have the right or the ability to say, with any modicum of certainty, whether someone else's life would be worth living. We should not punish an innocent child for the acts of his/her parents.
I don't know where those statistics are from but they sound extremely circumstantial. I'll just say that correlation does not imply causation, and leave it at that for now. I happen to share your disdain of bad parenting, but this is probably where my view differs from what pro-abortionists commonly believe: I don't care about the parents. My only concern is to make sure an innocent life is not taken. If they are going to be idiots or irresponsible (and I honestly do not believe that most people who get abortions are), then that's unfortunate, but their child has the right to live, just like anyone else. And I will defend that right to the death.
Explain how the logic is bad? I am in favor of outlawing an act that, by my proposed points, is immoral. You haven't refuted any of the underlying logic; you're just trying to tell me it's impractical because you don't want stupid parents raising kids. That's besides the point. Abortion is the murder of a human being. We should endeavor to prevent murder wherever possible. It seems pretty straightforward.
As far as the rape-only clause, let me make a quick analogy. We both agree that murder means "to kill intentionally," right? If I shoot someone in the head because they looked at me funny, I am murdering them. If I shoot someone in the head because they broke into my house and shot at my family and me, I am also murdering them. The difference there is the intent, though. In my eyes, an abortion because of rape is still murder, but it should be an option, because the rape victim didn't have a choice in getting herself pregnant. The state does not have the legal right to force someone into action, especially not the victim of a crime. However, the amount of abortions performed because of rape is exceedingly small. (I do not have an official statistic on-hand, because Planned Parenthood has fought tooth-and-nail to make sure that very little data regarding the rationale behind abortions remains anonymous. However, the few studies I have read all concluded that it was less than 10%.) Therefore, the majority of abortions are for "elective" reasons, and I don't believe there's any elective reason that could possibly justify murder. The state has the legal right to force someone to accept the consequences o
Please point out, at your earliest convenience, where either Stormin or myself, or any of the pro-life people in this thread, have attempted to justify our logic by means of religion? Every point we've made has been either philosophical or scientific in nature. The only time God has come up is when one of you f*cking morons decides: "ZOMG, TEHY"RE PRO LIFE, THEY MJUST LOV E JESUSSSBS1!!!!!!111111000!!!"
I know this may tax your severely underpowered brain, but try and consider for a moment that there are perfectly ethical and moral reasons to oppose abortion that have nothing to do with religion. This is not about scripture. A fetus is a human life. We should not kill humans without extremely good cause. Inconvenience for nine months on the part of a mother who engaged in consensual sex is not extremely good cause. An abortion ends the life of a fetus. Therefore, abortion is wrong, and should be illegal, except in cases of rape or potential death of the mother. Show we where the fuck that involves prescribing my religious beliefs on someone. Really, I'm fascinated. Please do.
That's a straw man and you know it. Yes, millions of people die every year (not day). Do I do my best to lessen the impact of those deaths? Of course. If we had a law mandating the killing of anyone on a day-to-day basis, in a similar fashion to abortion, then I would be opposed to that as well. You can't accuse me of hypocrisy because it's not like I'm saying "abortion is bad" and then killing other innocents wantonly. This is a moral issue, one that involves the legal ability to slaughter innocents. I am against allowing the death of innocents, as a principle, in almost all cases. My hands do nothing to encourage the deaths of innocent by starvation; I can effectively do nothing because I am not governing their countries. I do, however, have a voice in the US, and can directly affect abortion legislation, so I will. I'm not saying the lives lost to abortions are more important than those lost to other tragedies; I wish there was something more that could be done about other tragedies, but I am either ill-informed about them or disgusted at the ways in which we've decided to fight them. I am, however, well informed about abortion, and believe I can effect change in this arena. To try and tell me then that my desire to do so is somehow hypocritical or otherwise ill-founded is to criticize any person who attempts to participate in one good cause without participating in every other. What are you trying to prove?
No, I didn't say a rape victim should ever be denied an abortion. Quite frankly, I'd be comfortable with American laws simply stating that abortions are illegal except in cases of rape or possible death to the mother. If women want to lie about it, fine. That's something I can't avoid. But I wholeheartedly believe that the simple fact that the Supreme Court says it's "ok" to abort a baby has more influence on the number of abortions than anything else in the US right now. If a woman is so desperate to not face the consequences of her actions that she'll falsely claim rape, then it's unavoidable. She'll find some way to kill that child. But that distinction, on a philosophical level, is very important. And it's one we should make.
I never said it's ok; I said I would make a provision for it. That is a political firebomb, mostly because it would literally be forcing someone who had no say in the matter to live with the consequences. It's a difficult moral question, and one I do not think the state is in a position to answer--thus, we leave it up to the woman in question, as she'd had the decision forced upon her. An innocent life is still being taken, but in that particular case, the entire situation is a tragedy, and there's no way around that anyway. I don't believe the state has the legal power to force a victim of any crime into action, which is essentially what banning abortions due to rape would be. Do I think abortion is the right decision to make in this case? Honestly, no--but I understand why someone would make that decision, and I'm not going to tell them otherwise.
Not necessarily. Yes, a lot of rape accusation in this country is false (I don't know if the statistic is 50%), but qualifying for a "rape abortion" would necessitate the filing of a police report. If someone is willing to lie through their teeth, wrongfully indict someone, just to abort a child, then there's not much I can do about it--but I think a lot of eyebrows would raise if these laws were passed and magically the abortion rate didn't go down, when an overwhelming majority of abortions now are not the result of rape.
We are telling them to live with the consequences of their actions because there is a human life at stake. And if our society is unwilling to financially support an institution whose sole mission is to protect innocent life, then what the hell is the point? It's not like someone is holding a gun to a woman's head, sticking a fetus into her, and then the big bad govt is coming along and saying: "Sorry honey, that one's a keeper." She had sex, almost definitely consensual sex, and got pregnant as a result, and now has a human life inside of her. That's a very serious deal, and we shouldn't, under any circumstances, allow the wanton slaughtering of innocents. It's just wrong, and I don't want to live in any society that just accepts it outright. (Which is why I will never live in Western Europe.) And on the flip side, the father of the child should be legally obligated to support that child for eighteen years, period--he is just as accountable as she is. I think it would be incredibly sexist to hold a woman accountable for her pregnancy, but to let the man off scot-free.
There are like six of us posting ahead of you; you're gonna have to specify which one of us is the walking argument. I'm hoping you mean the AC, but if you mean me, that's ok too.
I don't really think you mean to say what it is you're saying, because that has huge moral implications. If you're going to concede that it is a life growing inside of the pregnant woman, then you have essentially granted the unborn child all rights that any other human being is given: most importantly, the right to live. Just because it is infirmed and therefore unable to live outside of the mother does not immediately mean the mother has the right to eliminate the child. If you believe this, then you must by proxy also agree with infanticide (the dependence is no less severe once the baby leaves the womb) and euthenasia. (Should people with respirators or other life-support machines be at the whim of the hospital?) So what this means is that the mother is going to be terribly inconvenienced by the child's growth and subsequent birth, but no amount of inconvenience and/or physical pain can ever reasonably justify the ending of another's life.
Really, if you want to make a stand in favor of abortion, the only place that's logically consistent and doesn't imply a whole host of other evils is to maintain that the fetus is not really a human being. And that, in my opinion, is not true; therefore, abortion is murder. Can abortion be justifiable? I think, in certain cases, yes--if the mother is going to die, or if she was raped, then obviously it should be her choice: NOT because of some "woman's rights" argument, but because (in the case of the former) it's her life at stake, and in the latter because she was an unwilling participant. Both of these are rights I would extend to anyone. But after that, I think no one's "rights" (man or woman) eclipse those of the unborn child.
Besides, pregnancy is so easily avoidable. It's not rocket science. Don't have sex if you don't want to risk having a baby. If you're going to have sex, (even protected sex, with birth control as well), you have to accept the fact that a baby could be conceived. Accept the consequences of your actions. And if you are poor/uneducated/whatever, why is that an excuse to kill an innocent life? Is it the baby's fault that you couldn't control your sexual desires?
"Hi, my name is scientific fact. I'm sure we haven't met, but you just called me bullshit, so I feel the need to interject here. You see, I'm formed by a series of rigorous studies that are repeatable--basically, when someone quotes me, they can't lie, otherwise they're not me. So, you see, when someone says: '11 weeks into the pregnancy, all body systems are functional,' and it's scientific fact (me) then you can't really call it bullshit, you know, because it's been proven. You may want to check out wikipedia for more on me with regards to pregnancy."
Now that my friend scientific fact has chimed in, I'll also note that you're a complete moron who's too much of a chickenshit to post under a real account. And I wasn't aware that something too weak to support itself, and yet created by the host (in the overwhelming majority through consensual sex), was immediately deserving of death. And don't try and pull the rape card; no one here is going to posit that a woman who's had a pregnancy forced on her is obligated to have the child.
Here, have a cookie; it's ok to be wrong.
Define "broader." Last time I checked, the three Abrahamic religions formed the majority of the world's population. Or are you just saying: "find a base of support that I approve of, namely people who think like me, because clearly I am right?"
Being that a.) I live in the US, b.) slashdot is hosted in the US, c.) the US is the most influential nation in the world, I would say that the debate is fairly far from being "closed." Besides, when did "Western Europe" become representative of the world? As I recall, that leaves out the Eastern half of Europe (a fairly large chunk) and the other five populated continents. It's certainly not a foregone conclusion in Asia, Africa, South America, and Australia. I could really care less what Europe has decided about abortion. I've seen what an aborted fetus looks like, and no one, anywhere, who looks at the same pictures will be able to sit there and tell me that they aren't staring at a desecrated human body.
Further, this has nothing to do with "women's rights." I am so sick and tired of that asinine point of logic. Ask any medical doctor whose life takes priority when a pregnant woman is at risk, and they will tell you neither. The two lives are always held as equally important until it becomes clear that carrying the pregnancy to term will result, unquestionably, in the death of the mother and the child. If there's a chance one or the other will survive, the options are weighed. The medical field doesn't just consider the fetus to be a random assortment of cells until it pops out of the woman, and neither should we. I fail to see how telling a woman: "if you get an abortion you are killing your child" somehow infringes on her 'rights.' It's a simple fact. I never said that I thought abortions should be illegal. I just know what they are and I'm sick and tired of people acting like it's some clean, innocent procedure that handles an "unexpected pregnancy." They cut the baby into pieces, suck it out of the womb, and reassemble it.
Yay for the civilized "West." We'd rather lie to ourselves about the things we do, and dress them up in euphemisms, than deal with the decisions we make.
. . . Says the Anonymous Coward.
A dumbass is allowed to post on slashdot? I didn't know that. Did anyone else here know that?
Next time, before you regurgitate more three-decade old propaganda, why don't you do a little research on abortion? Do you have any idea what an aborted fetus looks like? Do you know that most abortions require re-assembly of the "clump of cells" to assure that no pieces remain in the womb? If you don't want to start an argument about abortion, don't come onto these forums spitting complete bullsh*t acting like it's a commonly accepted fact that abortion isn't a legalized form of murder. There happens to be a very heated and ongoing debate about that very issue; treating it as a foregone conclusion only makes you look like an ass.
Whew! Yeah man, I was worried for a bit. ;)
That's not really the case, though. It's not that I like to steal music, or software--I freely admit that I did it when I was younger and did not have much money. Now that I'm employed, I buy my software legally (although I try to go open-source whenever I can) and I do the same with my music. My issue is not with the RIAA protecting their copyrighted property--I'm all for it. I just think they're doing it ass-backwards. If they really wanted to fight piracy they would fight tooth and nail to get all record sales online, secure, and easily accessible. Piracy is a matter of convenience for 3/4ths of those that engage in it. Instead of getting up, going to a store, finding the CD, waiting in line, etc., you just open up KaZaa or Limewire and download an album. Look at how successful iTunes, as an alternative way of retrieving music, has been--they continue to make giant leaps in profitability. There very clearly is a market for legally obtained online music. But the RIAA doesn't care about pouring its resources into modernizing its business model; it would rather kick and scream and throw lawsuits around. They sued someone who doesn't have a computer, and then they sued a 12 year-old. You're really going to try and tell me these guys are just trying to protect their property? They're f*cking morons. I hope the entire industry goes belly-up, so maybe recording artists, instead of their labels, can decide how they want their music to reach the masses.
That's an excellent point, and one I had not considered at all. But in my mind I equate record labels with the RIAA, though--I don't make distinctions for individual companies; because of the RIAA, I just automatically assume that all record labels (such as Sony BMG or EMI) are all dishonest, money-grubbing assholes. Still, though, your point's very valid.
Yes, the threat of legislation and consistent bullying tactics are a surefire way to get me to "enjoy" my music legally. Basically all they want to do is make it look like they are catching people every day (and I'm sure they are) and then publicize that in local papers. I don't care if Robert Vaughn in Washington D.C. gets caught for file-sharing, but if Jimmy across the street gets a fine, well then I'd better be scared.
I wonder if the RIAA has done any public image surveys since they decided to start terrorizing their consumers? It's one thing to try to protect your intellectual property; it's another thing entirely to shake down every person with an internet connection. I can't think of one person nowadays who thinks the record industry is anything but a pack of devils; I just wish there was some way of translating that revulsion into serious market reform. They're just jackals, plain and simple.
Right here, man. FFIV for life. It's not the best Final Fantasy, but it's by far my favorite, and it always will be.
No, I didn't say that. I am saying a person's worth, in material wealth, is directly correlated to what they produce. If I try really hard at being a math teacher, but ultimately suck at it, and do not educate the children I am supposed to teach, I do not deserve to be compensated well for my work. I am not producing results. Therefore, a career in mathematics education is a bad choice for me. If you can't produce results, don't expect ample compensation. However, it's a fortunate aspect of humanity that the things we are passionate about, we also tend to be capable at. Most people have a far greater capacity for learning than they immediately suspect, and if they love something, they endeavor to learn as much about it as possible. It is in these fields that they would most likely excel. This is the one problem I have with the modern world in general: it is full of people working shit jobs because they think that's the best way to make a living. They'd be much better off finding what they love and working towards that, because if you love your work, you will do it well, and if you do it well, you will be well-compensated. Some people work well enough or are capable enough that they can still do a job well even if they hate it, but it's a sad way to go through life.
I deserve a better life because I am more intelligent and am willing to put that intelligence to work. I don't think people should throw money at me just because I'm smart; I think they should throw money at me because I am smart and I take pride in my work. There is a lot of wasted genius in the world. I don't consider myself a genius, but my intelligence is not wasted, and I routinely use my intelligence to produce results. In my mind, results are all that matter. If someone dumber and less capable than me makes more money than me, I find it offensive, because they are not producing results and yet are being compensated as if they were. You can think it's repulsive if you like, but I'd much rather live in a world where one's intrinsic worth is determined by what one does, rather than some abstract notion of egalitarianism where no one is allowed to distinguish themselves.
Ok, we need to establish some ground rules. First, since when does any contract for work entail exploitation? If I hire someone to do a job for me, I am somehow magically exploiting them? You'll have to explain this one to me, because from where I'm standing, that doesn't make any sense at all. You're operating under Marx's fundamentally flawed theory that trading is a zero-sum game: that somehow, if after I pay all my workers whatever I determine they're worth, I can still turn a profit from the good I produce, that someone in the chain is getting ripped off. This is not true; the value of my goods do not come from any inherent value in them, but instead from their subjective worth. If I pay $20 for steel because steel is plentiful where I am, and then sell it to someone else for whom steel is a rarity for $30, I am not exploiting them. They value the steel enough to pay $30 for it. Even neo-Marxists agree on this point, so you need to re-evaluate your idea of exploitation. And you can be a "capitalist" and a "worker" at the same time, compadre. Being a "capitalist" does not mean you don't do any work, it means you embrace the idea of being rewarded on the basis of your merits. Socialism and communism don't make provisions for merit: you do a job, you get paid for it, everyone is the same. Capitalism allows someone with ambition to ultimately determine how much they make: maybe not at first (my salary is still determined by my employer) but within reasonable time. (And I do mean reasonable--I fully intend to be a millionaire by thirty.)
I completely agree. It's a good thing I'm not a programmer.
And who determines that amount? Where does that price point come from? I can say that work is "worth" $10/hr, and I might even be able to hire someone to do it for that, but if the work is intensive that salary point has to rise, or people will stop entering that field. This is why fast food restaurants have such high rates of turnover--the work is menial, so the salary remains low, and people stop putting up with it. Likewise, programming salaries have consistently risen, because programmers have shown over and over that what they do is worth more money than the market originally dictated. Price controlling is a socialist idea, not a capitalistic one. If someone does an excellent job and I don't compensate them well for it, they will stop doing the work for me. It's really that simple.
So I guess now is a bad time to mention that I studied in Japan for half a year, underwent a month-and-a-half Buddhist pilgrimage on foot around the island of Shikoku, and studied with Chinese, Taiwanese, Vietnamese, and Korean students? Or maybe that I've been to Iran four times now? Don't assume you have any idea of where I've been or what I've seen; I am not the monkey you seem so determined to make me out to be.
And to say China is a capitalist economy
Yes, there's always a number of really hard workers in any income bracket, but if they continue working hard they do not stay in that income bracket for long. This has been the case with everyone I have known, including both of my parents, who are first-generation immigrants. My mother has had it worse, as she got into retail, which is a notoriously cutthroat industry, and she has had her fair share of troubles. But I don't see this as an indictment of capitalism; my mother is very capable, but I am sad to say she often lets herself be taken advantage of. My father, on the other hand, has been in the food service industry for almost forty years now, and has done very well for himself. He started out as a bartender, then became a manager, and then he got sick of working for other people and opened his own business. He worked very hard and as a result rose through the income brackets. I firmly believe this is how it works for everyone, but it's contigent on the idea that there's actually a free market in place. If he hadn't had anywhere else to go for employment, or the ability to start his own business, then there would have been a serious problem. But if there's no free market, there's no capitalism, so again it's not capitalism's fault.
First, rewarding "effort" is meaningless--I can try as hard as I want, but if I can't add 2 and 2 together, I shouldn't be a math teacher. It's an unfortunate fact of life that effort, while noteworthy, is ultimately inconsequential--results are what matter. So I'll assume, then, that you want to reward someone proportional to their results. That is a wonderful sentiment but unfortunately impossible to implement. There's no way of telling what exact proportion anyone contributes to the profitability of a company; there are just too many factors to track. All you can do is try and watch the general trends, and if you see one person's name consistently be associated with good things, then you move that person up. This isn't fool-proof, but it has to be working most of the time, otherwise we'd look like Europe's economy. I'm all for paying people what they're worth; I'm personally offended when someone dumber than me, or less capable than me, makes more money than I do. I see it as an unfortunate consequence of any establishment: some people slip their way into middle and upper management without having the associated merits. (Any state system is ample evidence of this, as my time in the state was a huge exercise in frustration.) But people are their own masters: if you don't like what you're getting paid, change it. You have that option. If someone refuses to take the steps to secure greater reward, how could that be capitalism's fault?
Since when does education determine ability? I know plenty of Ph.D's that couldn't manuever their way out of a box. I am purely concerned with results; if a person's education directly translates into ability to perform, then great, pay them more. But if some jackass is sitting on his Ph.D doing nothing, while the high school grad under him continues to innovate, then the high school grad is the one who deserves more.
You operate under the fundamentally flawed assumption that any supervisory role entails exploiting others. It does not. I am not exploiting someone if they agree to do a particular job for me for a salary. If they do not believe they are being amply compensated, then they can either a.) come back to me and argue why they deserve more money, or b.) leave and get paid more for what they do elsewhere. If I, as a supervisor, am unwilling or incapable of rewarding talent, then my business will fail. Any employer who refuses to pay his employees what their work merits will find himself without capable employees. That's how business works. It shocks me that you seem unable to grasp this concept, and instead assume that every worker is at the mercy of whatever "evil corporation" snatches him up. The only time this does not hold true is in an undeveloped economy. If Nike goes in and establishes a sweat shop in rural China, that is worker exploitation and it is wrong, because they have nowhere else to go. But then there's not a free market, and the basis of capitalism rests on the idea of a free market. You can't denounce capitalism when it's employed outside of its own necessary conditions; that's like getting pissed at sodium for exploding on contact with water.
By the way, being smugly arrogant is also obnoxious. At least I did the favor of calling your assumption idiotic, and not you. But way to go; I'm sure your mother would be proud.
If some genius programmer invents something that makes the company huge profits, and he doesn't get paid millions of dollars for his efforts, then he quits Microsoft and GASP! ANOTHER COMPANY PAYS MILLIONS OF DOLLARS FOR HIM. That's how the market works, genius. If you do great things, you are amply rewarded--and if you are not, you go elsewhere and another company will pay you amply to try and get you to do great things for them. That is how I doubled my salary in nine months--I worked my ass off, my company didn't pay me well enough, so I found another job for twice as much. I will continue to work in this fashion until a.) I run someone else's company and thereby make it mine, or b.) I get tired of working for someone else and start my own company. My family is not wealthy, and I am not particularly well-connected, so the idea that capital is responsible for my success is asinine. I am creating my own means of production.
Your communist references are ill-placed. America is not Europe. Marx was not looking at America when he wrote the Communist Manifesto, nor was Engels thinking of Carnegie when he wrote Das Kapital. (And yes, I have read both of them.) Their beef with an aristocracy and the distribution of wealth was primarily with a system that relied on bloodlines, not merit. America has largely been free of this problem; American wealth is far more liquid than its European counterpart. We rarely have families that stay rich for more than a few generations: just look at the Ford family. It's not been 90 years since the first T-model rolled off the shelf and they are in danger of losing their business, and with it the basis of their wealth. There is no American aristocracy, not since the fall of the South.
So if I go out, invent a fantastic product, market it, and I hire you to schedule shipments, I don't deserve more of the profits than you do? Please tell me you're not serious.