You apparently don't realize that there are differences between the actions of an adult and those of a minor. In a sane environment, you would try to teach the latter so they grow out of whatever problem.
Looking at the news over recent years, it seems there is an explosion in the number of pedophiles - I'm not too sure about that, various historical traces show that it isn't anything new, but it has recently been fount as a very efficient tool to get quite unsavoury laws passed. However, if indeed there is a growth in those numbers, I can't help but think that your kind of attitude fuels it. After all, if you think that, whatever their age, children should be subject to criminal laws intended for adults, why couldn't they be perfectly valid sexual partners?
That's exactly what I'm saying: you're relying a lot on mathematical projections with the kind of reasoning you describe. However, you need hard data to make valid assumption, and enough of it. I haven't read the actual scientific article, but the one reporting on it makes it quite clear that the conclusions they've arrived at were based on the observation of actual planetary systems: i.e. an extremely small sample to draw conclusions from.
Maths are a tool to be used in astronomy. When you get to the point they become the main observation device (and it amounts to that in this case), you've gone astray.
I would say there is a problem with the size of the sample (it does need to be above a threshold to draw valid conclusions).
Right now, the number of systems we've detected is somewhat above a thousand. There are around 100 billions stars in our galaxy alone. So, in other words, the people who wrote that article have decided that a 0.000001% sample is enough to draw conclusions.
On top of that, what a surprise, said conclusion is that the Solar System is a (very?) rare occurrence. I haven't taken the time to look it up, but I'd bet that the same scientists, a decade or two ago, would have said that there probably were no other planets in the universe, or at least that they were incredibly rare.
I wonder whether such an attitude stems from fear of being seen as a lunatic in the scientific community, or if many among those harbouring those views are influenced from a religious point of view of the "uniqueness" of humanity and its planet.
You know, I wasn't really serious when I answered...
That said, if I were to imagine a reason linked to jedi for the blasters (assuming they are overall less efficient that standard, nowadays firearms), I would probably see it along the following lines:
- Standard weaponry is actually easy to directly defend against with the Force (bullets are simply small lumps of metal, albeit extremely fast), no lightsaber needed.
- As an answer, energy weapons such as blasters have been developed.
- When the jedi died out, nobody remembered that there actually were more efficient weaponry, and so they kept using the blasters
I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be so hard to imagine some other idea that sounds at least as valid as this one. Of course, it is all predicated on the fact that the stormtroopers are lousy against the heroes for the simple reason of plot convenience, which so many seem to forget here.
Taking into account the rate of fire an the speed of the ordnance itself, it appears that it would be significantly harder on the jedi if everyone was using conventional weaponry. I posit that both jedi and sith have manipulate the minds of everyone in the galaxy into using blasters so that they still have a fighting chance while using lightsabers.
That's part of Japan's problem : they don't want to have more immigration. In fact, they're doing all they can so that they won't need it (why do you think Japan's robotics are so advanced?)
Of course, that's probably a pipe dream, and they will have to accept more immigration as time goes on (they already have a rising problem with the number of old houses that belonged to people who died and that nobody wants). At the current rate, the population is going to drop from its current 120 millions to a mere 80 millions.
That said, you do raise a good point, which begs the question : how much of UK's (and other's) natality problem is actually because of the push toward an ever longer workweek (for an ever shittier paycheck)? I don't believe Japan has the exclusivity on this one, unfortunately.
Without being as aggressive fakekuck39, I do think you're losing sight of the "slight" problem Japan has : overworking.
The reality is that, except when there are hard laws that prevent it (such as for people working in factories), the average Japanese worker does something like 4-7 hours overwork per day (and quite often they'll have to come on weekends too, if they have any kind of management position). At the heart of that is a combination of conservatism (let's keep this way of checking up for mistakes, never mind the fact it's been obsolete for at least 20 years and there are another two in use at the same time, one of which is also obsolete, albeit not quite as much), social pressure (you better be there to work late, and if you finish early, find someone who hasn't to give them a hand, don't ever think of going home because you're actually know how to do your job within a reasonable amount of time) and sheer inability of knowing what to do with yourself if have free time. About that last, from primary school onward, everything is done so that people do not learn to have and enjoy long amount of free time.
The end result ? Japan is the first wealthy country to see its population numbers go down (it started in 2007, if I'm not mistaken). It's come to the point where the utra-conservative, very pro-business Prime Minister Abe urges people to stop with the long hours and go home (because sex : after 15 hour days going on forever, you do tend to lose interest in favor of a simple pillow).
Because, of course, both the IAEA and George Johnson are completely unbiased when it comes to nuclear power...
I honestly don't know about Johnson, but I've often seen guys of his age involved in science such as him to be quite pro-nuclear: quite enough for most to not be particularly thorough when it comes to researching positive outlooks. That brings me to the IAEA which is the source cited and has been criticised a lot for its very positive stance about nuclear power.
Last of all, when talking about Fukushima workers, let's not dig too deep, it could lead to taking a look at the sub-sub-contracting (often through the yakuza) of people and the way their eventual issues may get handled afterward :
Those are a few among all the various scandals surrounding the Fukushima disaster (still ongoing, by the way). But please, do keep downplaying what the risks are in using nuclear power. In any case, most of the vocal crowd on./ will cheer on.
The first few comments from IDs numbers between 50387607 and 50387627, all shooting down the review (most with : "let's avoid shopping chores" and one with "it's great for imaginative geeks").
Yeah, I don't really believe there's anything genuine there...
Slight problem with your argument : you assume the employees are 100% productive when seated at their desk during the workday.
Yeah, right, like this is even remotely true
The reality is that most people working in offices spend a large part of their day pissing the time away (I see to remember reading somewhere that the average real work time in offices in modern countries was about 15H a week). If not, why so many people updating their facebook page during working hours.
So that 15 mns argument really sounds like a poorly thought out excuse.
Come on! Remember your classics. Despite whatever disinformation later propaganda agent/writers may have claimed, Lovecraft himself revealed that Pluto is actually Yuggoth.
You really don't want to anger those living there now. Those NASA engineers knew what they were doing...
Oil is paid in dollars (and the US are ready to go to war over that)
That's the reason why the US dollar is the international currency to this day. Being such, it means that, essentially, the US government prints money(well, the Fed, but there's not much of a difference), and it's up to the rest of the world to pick up the tab.
Equating 'Democrats' (as in "the" party and its members) with the left shows you are, at best, not really aware of the history of that party.
To begin with, until the 50's, there was no such thing as an united Democratic party, the biggest divide being between North and South : ever since the late XIX century, the US statu-quo was to leave the nation as a whole to, mostly, the Republicans, and the South to the pro-segregation Southern Democrats.
Considering their reactions and the way they acted under Roosevelt's presidency, it is quite clear that you should be seen as firmly conservatives.
The diesel problem isn't a combustion one: diesel is more efficient than petrrol. In case you wonder what "more efficient", that is that the combustion rate is higher than that of petrol.
The problem lies with particle emissions / N compounds emissions. That's where diesel pollutes much more than petrol.
Actually, in the case of email, what happened with French is a case-study of how a living language works:
- A new thing appears (electronic mail), and through common shortening ends up being named email for English speakers.
- Among many new users of internet are the French who start taking advantage of this new tool. Most of them not being pedant linguist, they don't particularly care about how they name it, they just need to use a word that's both meaningful and non-confusing. Hence, at the start, 'email' works fine.
- Very quickly, again for the sake of simplicity, 'email' gets shortened into 'mail'. People understand what email is (and the word itself), but since the word 'mail' is English and in no way close to its French equivalent (courrier), there is no risk of confusion.
- Enter the linguists invoking the need to stay within the parameters of French, and so to create a specific word that arises from French roots : 'courriel' (the exact counterpart to email : Electromic mail ; Courrier Electronique). That's something that worked in the past, and I actually think the word "ordinateur" (the thing that puts into and rearranges order) is actually a better description of what the machine is than the English 'computer'. However, contrary to what happened 20 years before, global communication interferes with the attempt, and the word 'courriel' has never really caught on (except in some official writings) in France. I don't know about Quebec.
- A last ditch attempt has been made, following the idea that there are no diphtongues in French, the Academie has tried to make people write mail 'mel'. Of course, the reality is that, although it may be true of the official standard French (supposed to be that of the Versaille area), there many regional variations of accent where diphtongues do appear, and I hear as many 'mel' as I do 'mail' in everyday conversations (I won't bother with phonology symbols)
- End of story, 'lo and behold, there is a new word in French, which describes something very specific (electronic mail), and that word is Mail. It may be a while yet before the final official spelling is accepted as such.
The difference is that in the latter case, you most probably get a much longer available time to realize your mistake and release the wrongfully accused (and maybe the gvt can even somewhat atone for the mistake). Unless you can raise the dead, it doesn't matter for the person whether you understand your mistake once you've murdered them (let's use the proper word, here).
What actually happened was that the guy invented said blue led (on a standard engineer salary), which pretty quickly allowed his company to rake in tens of millions. When he politely complained that the invention which made them huge profits had earned him exactly nothing, his boss basicaly said:
"Oh, that's right. Here is a $300 bonus. Have fun at the bar!"
The problem he is complaining about when he talks about education is probably linked to the pyramidal hierarchy that's ingrained in Japanese people from kindergarten : whatever you do, the group leader is at the forefront. In research, that basically means a department director is the first credited for any discovery, except if he is generous enough to allow whoever did the actual work be awarded the authorship. Considering this also works in case of problems (the one in charge is the one taking the blame), you could say it is a game of give and take.
However in this case the profit only accrued to the boss/owners (I don't know whether the company was privately owned or not), with pretty much nothing for the guy at the source of it all. That's a breach of the unwritten rules of Japanese social interactions, but standard workings of Japanese society would have had him take it and shut up, too bad form him that his higher-ups were dicks. He decided he wouldn't.
Most European nations do have their own military and France - and Great Britain, to a somewhat lesser extent - do pull their own weight.
Don't confuse imperialism with a benevolent will to protect people : whatever the US military does is first and foremost to further the interest of the US itself (be it through control of specific regions, or simply an increase of budget going toward it). The only difference with previous Imperialist powers is that they have to be somewhat more discreet about it, so the average American can still believe the "we're the good guys" mantra.
Well, that last quote is my point, exactly. How can you have a strong external armed force without a significant amount of taxes, subsidiary to military industry (because otherwise you're not independant, and your military might means nothing)? And of course, you need a significant amount of government to manage all of that
This goes against libertarian professed ideals and pretty much shows how internally inconsistant that standpoint is (except if you just want the Law of the Jungle, where might makes right): or you go right back to Ferguson analysis, with the "elite" free to do as they please - as they're the real creators, operating in a void where only their minds shine (I'm splicing Rand in here) - and the rable having lost any other ability than to work like drones, pay up when necessary, shut up and be happy about it.
At least Ferguson had the courtesy to lament this situation and to insist that such a separation was only the result of the way advanced society works. Heinlein, following Rand, believes that some simply are gifted and should lord over the rest (through being rich without contributing anything back in modern society). That's why I call it drivel : nobody works in a vacuum. If you want quotes, here's one:
If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants, by Newton.
Slashdot Mirror
Looking at the news over recent years, it seems there is an explosion in the number of pedophiles - I'm not too sure about that, various historical traces show that it isn't anything new, but it has recently been fount as a very efficient tool to get quite unsavoury laws passed. However, if indeed there is a growth in those numbers, I can't help but think that your kind of attitude fuels it. After all, if you think that, whatever their age, children should be subject to criminal laws intended for adults, why couldn't they be perfectly valid sexual partners?
Maths are a tool to be used in astronomy. When you get to the point they become the main observation device (and it amounts to that in this case), you've gone astray.
The maths might simple, but that doesn't mean they're valid if the data sample is too small.
Right now, the number of systems we've detected is somewhat above a thousand. There are around 100 billions stars in our galaxy alone. So, in other words, the people who wrote that article have decided that a 0.000001% sample is enough to draw conclusions.
On top of that, what a surprise, said conclusion is that the Solar System is a (very?) rare occurrence. I haven't taken the time to look it up, but I'd bet that the same scientists, a decade or two ago, would have said that there probably were no other planets in the universe, or at least that they were incredibly rare.
I wonder whether such an attitude stems from fear of being seen as a lunatic in the scientific community, or if many among those harbouring those views are influenced from a religious point of view of the "uniqueness" of humanity and its planet.
That said, if I were to imagine a reason linked to jedi for the blasters (assuming they are overall less efficient that standard, nowadays firearms), I would probably see it along the following lines :
- Standard weaponry is actually easy to directly defend against with the Force (bullets are simply small lumps of metal, albeit extremely fast), no lightsaber needed.
- As an answer, energy weapons such as blasters have been developed.
- When the jedi died out, nobody remembered that there actually were more efficient weaponry, and so they kept using the blasters
I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be so hard to imagine some other idea that sounds at least as valid as this one. Of course, it is all predicated on the fact that the stormtroopers are lousy against the heroes for the simple reason of plot convenience, which so many seem to forget here.
Taking into account the rate of fire an the speed of the ordnance itself, it appears that it would be significantly harder on the jedi if everyone was using conventional weaponry. I posit that both jedi and sith have manipulate the minds of everyone in the galaxy into using blasters so that they still have a fighting chance while using lightsabers.
Of course, that's probably a pipe dream, and they will have to accept more immigration as time goes on (they already have a rising problem with the number of old houses that belonged to people who died and that nobody wants). At the current rate, the population is going to drop from its current 120 millions to a mere 80 millions.
That said, you do raise a good point, which begs the question : how much of UK's (and other's) natality problem is actually because of the push toward an ever longer workweek (for an ever shittier paycheck)? I don't believe Japan has the exclusivity on this one, unfortunately.
The reality is that, except when there are hard laws that prevent it (such as for people working in factories), the average Japanese worker does something like 4-7 hours overwork per day (and quite often they'll have to come on weekends too, if they have any kind of management position). At the heart of that is a combination of conservatism (let's keep this way of checking up for mistakes, never mind the fact it's been obsolete for at least 20 years and there are another two in use at the same time, one of which is also obsolete, albeit not quite as much), social pressure (you better be there to work late, and if you finish early, find someone who hasn't to give them a hand, don't ever think of going home because you're actually know how to do your job within a reasonable amount of time) and sheer inability of knowing what to do with yourself if have free time. About that last, from primary school onward, everything is done so that people do not learn to have and enjoy long amount of free time.
The end result ? Japan is the first wealthy country to see its population numbers go down (it started in 2007, if I'm not mistaken). It's come to the point where the utra-conservative, very pro-business Prime Minister Abe urges people to stop with the long hours and go home (because sex : after 15 hour days going on forever, you do tend to lose interest in favor of a simple pillow).
I honestly don't know about Johnson, but I've often seen guys of his age involved in science such as him to be quite pro-nuclear: quite enough for most to not be particularly thorough when it comes to researching positive outlooks. That brings me to the IAEA which is the source cited and has been criticised a lot for its very positive stance about nuclear power.
Last of all, when talking about Fukushima workers, let's not dig too deep, it could lead to taking a look at the sub-sub-contracting (often through the yakuza) of people and the way their eventual issues may get handled afterward :
http://www.rt.com/news/fukushi...
http://www.forbes.com/sites/wi...
http://www.reuters.com/article...
Those are a few among all the various scandals surrounding the Fukushima disaster (still ongoing, by the way). But please, do keep downplaying what the risks are in using nuclear power. In any case, most of the vocal crowd on ./ will cheer on.
As I recall, Bush won the election after a massive amount of fraud gave him Florida and the Supreme Court decided they liked it that way.
And, of course, let's not talk about the 2004 elections...
That said, I really felt that most of those early comments came from the same source. I may be mistaken, but still...
Yeah, I don't really believe there's anything genuine there...
Yeah, right, like this is even remotely true
The reality is that most people working in offices spend a large part of their day pissing the time away (I see to remember reading somewhere that the average real work time in offices in modern countries was about 15H a week). If not, why so many people updating their facebook page during working hours.
So that 15 mns argument really sounds like a poorly thought out excuse.
You really don't want to anger those living there now. Those NASA engineers knew what they were doing...
That's the reason why the US dollar is the international currency to this day. Being such, it means that, essentially, the US government prints money(well, the Fed, but there's not much of a difference), and it's up to the rest of the world to pick up the tab.
Diesel engines are much more polluting than petrol since the combustion is incomplete.
I already know about the difference between the official trope about diesel pollution and the improvement reached nowadays, but that wasn't the point.
To begin with, until the 50's, there was no such thing as an united Democratic party, the biggest divide being between North and South : ever since the late XIX century, the US statu-quo was to leave the nation as a whole to, mostly, the Republicans, and the South to the pro-segregation Southern Democrats.
Considering their reactions and the way they acted under Roosevelt's presidency, it is quite clear that you should be seen as firmly conservatives.
The diesel problem isn't a combustion one: diesel is more efficient than petrrol. In case you wonder what "more efficient", that is that the combustion rate is higher than that of petrol.
The problem lies with particle emissions / N compounds emissions. That's where diesel pollutes much more than petrol.
- A new thing appears (electronic mail), and through common shortening ends up being named email for English speakers.
- Among many new users of internet are the French who start taking advantage of this new tool. Most of them not being pedant linguist, they don't particularly care about how they name it, they just need to use a word that's both meaningful and non-confusing. Hence, at the start, 'email' works fine.
- Very quickly, again for the sake of simplicity, 'email' gets shortened into 'mail'. People understand what email is (and the word itself), but since the word 'mail' is English and in no way close to its French equivalent (courrier), there is no risk of confusion.
- Enter the linguists invoking the need to stay within the parameters of French, and so to create a specific word that arises from French roots : 'courriel' (the exact counterpart to email : Electromic mail ; Courrier Electronique). That's something that worked in the past, and I actually think the word "ordinateur" (the thing that puts into and rearranges order) is actually a better description of what the machine is than the English 'computer'. However, contrary to what happened 20 years before, global communication interferes with the attempt, and the word 'courriel' has never really caught on (except in some official writings) in France. I don't know about Quebec.
- A last ditch attempt has been made, following the idea that there are no diphtongues in French, the Academie has tried to make people write mail 'mel'. Of course, the reality is that, although it may be true of the official standard French (supposed to be that of the Versaille area), there many regional variations of accent where diphtongues do appear, and I hear as many 'mel' as I do 'mail' in everyday conversations (I won't bother with phonology symbols)
- End of story, 'lo and behold, there is a new word in French, which describes something very specific (electronic mail), and that word is Mail. It may be a while yet before the final official spelling is accepted as such.
The difference is that in the latter case, you most probably get a much longer available time to realize your mistake and release the wrongfully accused (and maybe the gvt can even somewhat atone for the mistake). Unless you can raise the dead, it doesn't matter for the person whether you understand your mistake once you've murdered them (let's use the proper word, here).
What actually happened was that the guy invented said blue led (on a standard engineer salary), which pretty quickly allowed his company to rake in tens of millions. When he politely complained that the invention which made them huge profits had earned him exactly nothing, his boss basicaly said:
"Oh, that's right. Here is a $300 bonus. Have fun at the bar!"
The problem he is complaining about when he talks about education is probably linked to the pyramidal hierarchy that's ingrained in Japanese people from kindergarten : whatever you do, the group leader is at the forefront. In research, that basically means a department director is the first credited for any discovery, except if he is generous enough to allow whoever did the actual work be awarded the authorship. Considering this also works in case of problems (the one in charge is the one taking the blame), you could say it is a game of give and take.
However in this case the profit only accrued to the boss/owners (I don't know whether the company was privately owned or not), with pretty much nothing for the guy at the source of it all. That's a breach of the unwritten rules of Japanese social interactions, but standard workings of Japanese society would have had him take it and shut up, too bad form him that his higher-ups were dicks. He decided he wouldn't.
You must be American.
Most European nations do have their own military and France - and Great Britain, to a somewhat lesser extent - do pull their own weight.
Don't confuse imperialism with a benevolent will to protect people : whatever the US military does is first and foremost to further the interest of the US itself (be it through control of specific regions, or simply an increase of budget going toward it). The only difference with previous Imperialist powers is that they have to be somewhat more discreet about it, so the average American can still believe the "we're the good guys" mantra.
After all, not so long ago, it was pretty standard in fiction to talk about rape as "a fate worse than death".
I'm pretty sure quite a lot of people still feel the same, although they mostly won't admit it openly.
This goes against libertarian professed ideals and pretty much shows how internally inconsistant that standpoint is (except if you just want the Law of the Jungle, where might makes right): or you go right back to Ferguson analysis, with the "elite" free to do as they please - as they're the real creators, operating in a void where only their minds shine (I'm splicing Rand in here) - and the rable having lost any other ability than to work like drones, pay up when necessary, shut up and be happy about it.
At least Ferguson had the courtesy to lament this situation and to insist that such a separation was only the result of the way advanced society works. Heinlein, following Rand, believes that some simply are gifted and should lord over the rest (through being rich without contributing anything back in modern society). That's why I call it drivel : nobody works in a vacuum. If you want quotes, here's one:
If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants, by Newton.