Lives wasted versus lives spent.
The little kid is wasting lives.
The medical lab is trying to spend them.
"Spending" lives? That's a really disturbing way to look at it! So what's a life worth and whose is it to spend? I'd pick the kid pulling the wings off flies as the less dangerous to society!
... religious people invariably use the bible or the "Word Of The Lord" as a reason not to pursue some avenue of scientific research. More educated people who have been to university or whatever...
As a Christian with degrees in Physics and Engineering, I object to your implication that "religious people" are not "more educated". In my life I've seen no evidence that religious people are any less educated than anyone else.
You also said:
... Likewise even the best example of "evil" science is pretty much bound to have some benefit to someone or some area of society... The difficulty of defining "evil" and "good" is why the impact of scientific investigations should be undertaken scientifically and not based upon who has the most firmly entrenched pre-conceptions and fears and the largest pressure group to bolster them.
I could not disagree more. That is the very mindset that I am concerned about. From a purely scientific standpoint, there is no basis for calling anything evil or good! That doesn't mean good and evil do not exist. You claim that "evil" science is justified if it may possibly benefit someone down the road. I think I'm safe in saying that that does not fit in to most people's ideas of morality. Should the morals of the scientific community (or a radical subset thereof) outweigh the morals of society as a whole? Do you think that because you have technical knowledge in some area that you are better fit to make moral judgments than someone less educated? IMO, the scientific community, while possibly the most well informed, is arguably the most biased on these issues and therefore not in the best position to make these calls.
I find particularly disturbing that whenever a story like this is posted no one seems to care about the horrible experiments made on animals or ridicule those who do.
Get used to it. We nerds like to ridicule things, and then fall into a fit of snort-laughing.
Seriously, though, I can sympathize with your view. I understand that many people (I don't know if this includes you) put animals on the same level as humans as we are all "fellow creatures" on this planet. From that point of view, harming animals for research is certainly barbarous. I expect the scientists who did this experiment thought nothing of it, having routinely done much worse things to rats (I mean, none of them even died here).
I believe man is worth more than animals, but I do not think they are worthless. At one time in my life, I would have made some of the same arguments I've seen in this thread that try to reduce your concerns to irrational sentimentality. They claim that you only care because of the "cuteness" of the animal, or that you are hypocritical because you kill thousands of microorganisms every time you bathe or brush your teeth. To trivialize our feelings of compassion toward animals is to deny part of our humanity. Aren't we all concerned about a child who is cruel to animals or tortures insects? Don't the experts tell us such behavior may be a warning sign? Whether one thinks it's rational or not, there may be some value in compassion for animals.
I believe there is a line that needs to be drawn on what we can do in the name of scientific research, but we are pushing the line all the time, and I think most people aren't outraged because they just don't really realize what's going on, or because they've been convinced to ignore those feelings. Fetal stem cell research is (IMO) about as bad as it gets. We're not even talking about animals anymore, they actually create (presumably unsustainable) human embryos for the sole purpose of harvesting stem cells from them. Think about this, you can argue about whether such an embryo is a human life, but it's getting close. It was from such an embryo that they cloned "Dolly" the sheep. How long before our world starts looking like something out of a dystopian science fiction novel?
I don't agree that the ends justifies the means. We can not arbitrarily allow everything in the name of science on the grounds that it may benefit humanity someday. So where do we draw the line? You might be okay with where the line is today, but what if tomorrow they move it past your point of comfort? Will you be outraged and take action? Or will you move your line?
Actually, it wouldn't even be that difficult. All you'd have to do it find a giant mirror built by intelligent aliens 1000s of light years away and look at the earth in it. The reflection you saw would be 1000s of years old and you wouldn't have to go anywhere to see it!
If you hate knowing geeky things, you shouldn't read slashdot!
If it makes you feel any better, though, I think you're wrong to reduce it to a 2D manifold. Google maps includes elevation data and 3-D building models.
consider it immoral to require people to translate that much newspeak on a Friday afternoon! Maybe I'm getting old and slow, but was that supposed to mean something? Or was being unintelligible the whole point?
Okay, bottom line: Yes, the U.S. has debts, yes it will have to pay them some time. But that will not necessarily require a tax rate increase at any point in the future. There are other factors to consider:
We may get a congress that will actually cut spending, or at least slow spending growth to where the economy can catch up (though I'm not too hopeful as long as the dems are the majority). A growing economy can increase the total tax revenue without a tax rate hike. There is even a theory that a tax cut can contribute to economic growth to the extent that tax revenue increases in spite of the cut. Even though that didn't happen this time around, I think it's possible that the tax cuts "softened the blow" of the recession that we seem to be currently climbing out of.
IMO, raising taxes to pay off the debt is a bad idea. When someone is a compulsive spender, do you give them more money? No! They'll just spend all that much more.
I guess I don't see the difference. A wave comes in, you "use" it (taking some of the energy out of it). Then another wave comes in --- it's "renewed"! Is that so conceptually different than harvesting a crop and waiting for another one to grow? I don't think humans have to be an active agent of the renewal to call it "renewable".
This article lists waves as a renewable source of energy.
A balanced government is more important for my health than balanced meals.
That sounds very moderate.:-)
The one thing that will help any organization achieve great things is unity -- people united behind a common goal. If you accept the premise that both parties are bad for the county, then sure, having a balance of power between them is the probably the best case because they won't be able to implement either bad plan. However, I don't accept that premise. I would much rather have Republicans in control of all 3 branches, just as many would rather have a government filled with all Democrats.
I can think of an illustration in business. There are anti-trust laws to limit monopolies, but simply having a huge market share is not illegal. You have to have price fixing, predatory pricing, or some such. Just as a monopoly is not necessarily a failure of the free market system, a "monopoly" of elected officials from one party is not a failure of our system of government unless that party is doing something wrong to keep other parties out. In both cases, it may represent an opportunity for a new party to step in and compete!
Having one party in control of multiple branches doesn't negate checks and balances. Just look at the last 6 years. I have to say, I haven't seen many bills "flying through" as you say. To what bills are you referring? On the contrary, I've been surprised at how little republicans been able to get done, and how much has been done that I consider more in line with the Democrat agenda. The control wasn't that great to begin with -- there was only a narrow majority in both houses and not all representatives of a party vote in lock step. For that reason, I don't think this turnover will change things all that much. Sure, the majority party in the house gets some extra powers and privileges, but there still isn't a huge majority. Of course, we'll have to just wait and see.
I'm not naive enough to think that this process actually works
I don't appreciate your implication that I am naive if I think our system of government works. I concede that it is not perfect (any human system will be imperfect), but look at how many people in the world "vote with their feet" for it.
I actually think an uninformed (or underinformed) vote can be worse than no vote because of one thing: deception. The campaign ads (both sides, including "mine") can be very misleading. The ballot wording of proposals are also misleading so I try to look that info up ahead of time. E.g., here in Missouri we voted today on a proposal to eliminate property tax on properties owned by not-for-profit groups. Sounds good - who could it hurt? But if you read the full text (more than what's on the ballot), it mentions that any tax revenue lost will be compensated for by increasing property tax on everyone else. So I would imagine many people will vote "yes" for this, not realizing they may be voting themselves a property tax increase.
One thing I didn't vote on was judge retention. I always forget to research that, which is too bad because I do feel strongly about getting rid of activist judges. But how can I vote on whether to retain someone I know absolutely nothing about (not even party affiliation)?
That's my story, and it's up to you whether you feel informed enough to vote, but I encourage you not to sell yourself short. You can probably spend an hour or 2 on research and be just as informed as most of your fellow voters.
Here's an easy way to make the problem obvious even intuitively. When tax cuts create a deficit, the extra money you "save" isn't being given to you by the government anymore. It's being given to you by say, a chinese banker.
You have got to be kidding me! Is this what they're teaching in economics courses now? When you have more money due to a tax cut, you're not being given the money by anyone. You're just keeping more of your own money! How do you figure a Chinese bank is giving me money?
I'm not saying gov't spending isn't a problem, but neither the deficit nor the total debt is exceptionally high right now as a percentage of gdp
Your taxes are not lower. The Bush administration has failed to cut spending to pay their tax cuts...
I'd argue with you, but I think you're too busy arguing with yourself.
Seriously though, I understand that we'll eventually have to "pay the piper", but the situation may not be as dire as you believe. Table 2 of this document shows that the debt as a percentage of gdp is not exceptionally high right now.
And I think an economist would also tell you that a growing economy will increase tax revenue without a tax rate increase and that at least in theory a tax rate cut could spark economic growth and actually increase tax revenue. (I don't have enough evidence to say that happened with this tax cut, but according to the cob data we took in more in 2005 than 2004).
Funny thing is, we "believers" will say the same thing about atheists. I think this article in particular is a good example of scientists trying very hard to make a concrete conclusion on very sketchy evidence.
E.g., the article says you can look at rocks and determine what latitude they were formed at by the inclination of their magnetic field. If the Earth's magnetic poles were in the same places they are today. Oh, and if the rocks haven't reached their Curie temperature since then, and if they weren't re-magnetized via groundwater percolation. And if (at least this occurred to me, though I didn't see it mentioned in the reading) the rocks hadn't been physically rotated.
I started reading the linked paper but lost interest before the end.
I'm not sure I agree that this is good. I'd like to know more details of the case. For example, if the airline signed a contract prohibiting free wifi in the terminal, I don't think the FCC should overrule that. Not that I'm against free wifi in general. Personally, I'd like it if everything I wanted was free:-)
FYI, the wikipedia article calls it the "anthropic principle". Would "Anthopomorphic principals" be like when they have a pet wedding with dogs wearing dresses and tuxedos?
I totally agree that the study may be bunk. But you yourself said that the word Autism covers a range of disorders, so the fact that your child doesn't seem to have been affected by television doesn't mean that no other child would be.
With all the information that is public, it *is* trivial to create a bomb. Access to plutonium, which he has, is the hard part.
I disagree. The basic physical principles of a nuclear reaction are well known, but I have to think that some very important details of making an actual weapon are kept quite secret. If it was "trivial", I think more countries would have the capability by now (many countries have enough scientists, money, and motivation).
not security, but there is a problem...
on
IE7 Toolbar Mayhem
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· Score: 1
I may be posting too late for my comment to be read, but here are some things I have a problem with after reading this article:
MS deciding whether I know what I am doing. One warning is understandable, but "Are you really, really, really sure?" gets annoying. That's not added security. If someone ignores one warning, they'll probably ignore all of them (whether they know what they're doing or not).
The warnings are inconsistent - you get different numbers of warnings from different toolbars. Does that mean that some warnings are voluntary and the toolbar author can bypass them?
Wouldn't it be better if, for their "toolbar API" or whatever they call it, MS gave the toolbar author a "sandbox" to restrict their activities (like not changing the registry or starting up additional processes)? Then they could make one warning that says "Do you want to install a new toolbar?" And if you click "yes", a toolbar will be installed and that's all.
Just a thought and maybe easier said than done, but as this article shows, you can only protect Joe User so much via "Are you sure?"
Slashdot Mirror
Max and Falcon - I'm going to have to report both of you to the Logic police.
If you'd RTA, you'd see that's exactly what they did. The first key is "ewq" so one click for "e", 3 for "q".
You also said:
I could not disagree more. That is the very mindset that I am concerned about. From a purely scientific standpoint, there is no basis for calling anything evil or good! That doesn't mean good and evil do not exist. You claim that "evil" science is justified if it may possibly benefit someone down the road. I think I'm safe in saying that that does not fit in to most people's ideas of morality. Should the morals of the scientific community (or a radical subset thereof) outweigh the morals of society as a whole? Do you think that because you have technical knowledge in some area that you are better fit to make moral judgments than someone less educated? IMO, the scientific community, while possibly the most well informed, is arguably the most biased on these issues and therefore not in the best position to make these calls.Seriously, though, I can sympathize with your view. I understand that many people (I don't know if this includes you) put animals on the same level as humans as we are all "fellow creatures" on this planet. From that point of view, harming animals for research is certainly barbarous. I expect the scientists who did this experiment thought nothing of it, having routinely done much worse things to rats (I mean, none of them even died here).
I believe man is worth more than animals, but I do not think they are worthless. At one time in my life, I would have made some of the same arguments I've seen in this thread that try to reduce your concerns to irrational sentimentality. They claim that you only care because of the "cuteness" of the animal, or that you are hypocritical because you kill thousands of microorganisms every time you bathe or brush your teeth. To trivialize our feelings of compassion toward animals is to deny part of our humanity. Aren't we all concerned about a child who is cruel to animals or tortures insects? Don't the experts tell us such behavior may be a warning sign? Whether one thinks it's rational or not, there may be some value in compassion for animals.
I believe there is a line that needs to be drawn on what we can do in the name of scientific research, but we are pushing the line all the time, and I think most people aren't outraged because they just don't really realize what's going on, or because they've been convinced to ignore those feelings. Fetal stem cell research is (IMO) about as bad as it gets. We're not even talking about animals anymore, they actually create (presumably unsustainable) human embryos for the sole purpose of harvesting stem cells from them. Think about this, you can argue about whether such an embryo is a human life, but it's getting close. It was from such an embryo that they cloned "Dolly" the sheep. How long before our world starts looking like something out of a dystopian science fiction novel?
I don't agree that the ends justifies the means. We can not arbitrarily allow everything in the name of science on the grounds that it may benefit humanity someday. So where do we draw the line? You might be okay with where the line is today, but what if tomorrow they move it past your point of comfort? Will you be outraged and take action? Or will you move your line?
Actually, it wouldn't even be that difficult. All you'd have to do it find a giant mirror built by intelligent aliens 1000s of light years away and look at the earth in it. The reflection you saw would be 1000s of years old and you wouldn't have to go anywhere to see it!
If it makes you feel any better, though, I think you're wrong to reduce it to a 2D manifold. Google maps includes elevation data and 3-D building models.
consider it immoral to require people to translate that much newspeak on a Friday afternoon! Maybe I'm getting old and slow, but was that supposed to mean something? Or was being unintelligible the whole point?
The manufacturers of rubber gloves will make a fortune!
We may get a congress that will actually cut spending, or at least slow spending growth to where the economy can catch up (though I'm not too hopeful as long as the dems are the majority). A growing economy can increase the total tax revenue without a tax rate hike. There is even a theory that a tax cut can contribute to economic growth to the extent that tax revenue increases in spite of the cut. Even though that didn't happen this time around, I think it's possible that the tax cuts "softened the blow" of the recession that we seem to be currently climbing out of.
IMO, raising taxes to pay off the debt is a bad idea. When someone is a compulsive spender, do you give them more money? No! They'll just spend all that much more.
This article lists waves as a renewable source of energy.
The one thing that will help any organization achieve great things is unity -- people united behind a common goal. If you accept the premise that both parties are bad for the county, then sure, having a balance of power between them is the probably the best case because they won't be able to implement either bad plan. However, I don't accept that premise. I would much rather have Republicans in control of all 3 branches, just as many would rather have a government filled with all Democrats.
I can think of an illustration in business. There are anti-trust laws to limit monopolies, but simply having a huge market share is not illegal. You have to have price fixing, predatory pricing, or some such. Just as a monopoly is not necessarily a failure of the free market system, a "monopoly" of elected officials from one party is not a failure of our system of government unless that party is doing something wrong to keep other parties out. In both cases, it may represent an opportunity for a new party to step in and compete!
Having one party in control of multiple branches doesn't negate checks and balances. Just look at the last 6 years. I have to say, I haven't seen many bills "flying through" as you say. To what bills are you referring? On the contrary, I've been surprised at how little republicans been able to get done, and how much has been done that I consider more in line with the Democrat agenda. The control wasn't that great to begin with -- there was only a narrow majority in both houses and not all representatives of a party vote in lock step. For that reason, I don't think this turnover will change things all that much. Sure, the majority party in the house gets some extra powers and privileges, but there still isn't a huge majority. Of course, we'll have to just wait and see.
I don't appreciate your implication that I am naive if I think our system of government works. I concede that it is not perfect (any human system will be imperfect), but look at how many people in the world "vote with their feet" for it.I actually think an uninformed (or underinformed) vote can be worse than no vote because of one thing: deception. The campaign ads (both sides, including "mine") can be very misleading. The ballot wording of proposals are also misleading so I try to look that info up ahead of time. E.g., here in Missouri we voted today on a proposal to eliminate property tax on properties owned by not-for-profit groups. Sounds good - who could it hurt? But if you read the full text (more than what's on the ballot), it mentions that any tax revenue lost will be compensated for by increasing property tax on everyone else. So I would imagine many people will vote "yes" for this, not realizing they may be voting themselves a property tax increase.
One thing I didn't vote on was judge retention. I always forget to research that, which is too bad because I do feel strongly about getting rid of activist judges. But how can I vote on whether to retain someone I know absolutely nothing about (not even party affiliation)?
That's my story, and it's up to you whether you feel informed enough to vote, but I encourage you not to sell yourself short. You can probably spend an hour or 2 on research and be just as informed as most of your fellow voters.
You have got to be kidding me! Is this what they're teaching in economics courses now? When you have more money due to a tax cut, you're not being given the money by anyone. You're just keeping more of your own money! How do you figure a Chinese bank is giving me money?
I'm not saying gov't spending isn't a problem, but neither the deficit nor the total debt is exceptionally high right now as a percentage of gdp
Seriously though, I understand that we'll eventually have to "pay the piper", but the situation may not be as dire as you believe. Table 2 of this document shows that the debt as a percentage of gdp is not exceptionally high right now.
And I think an economist would also tell you that a growing economy will increase tax revenue without a tax rate increase and that at least in theory a tax rate cut could spark economic growth and actually increase tax revenue. (I don't have enough evidence to say that happened with this tax cut, but according to the cob data we took in more in 2005 than 2004).
E.g., the article says you can look at rocks and determine what latitude they were formed at by the inclination of their magnetic field. If the Earth's magnetic poles were in the same places they are today. Oh, and if the rocks haven't reached their Curie temperature since then, and if they weren't re-magnetized via groundwater percolation. And if (at least this occurred to me, though I didn't see it mentioned in the reading) the rocks hadn't been physically rotated.
I started reading the linked paper but lost interest before the end.
I'm not sure I agree that this is good. I'd like to know more details of the case. For example, if the airline signed a contract prohibiting free wifi in the terminal, I don't think the FCC should overrule that. Not that I'm against free wifi in general. Personally, I'd like it if everything I wanted was free :-)
FYI, the wikipedia article calls it the "anthropic principle". Would "Anthopomorphic principals" be like when they have a pet wedding with dogs wearing dresses and tuxedos?
I totally agree that the study may be bunk. But you yourself said that the word Autism covers a range of disorders, so the fact that your child doesn't seem to have been affected by television doesn't mean that no other child would be.
- MS deciding whether I know what I am doing. One warning is understandable, but "Are you really, really, really sure?" gets annoying. That's not added security. If someone ignores one warning, they'll probably ignore all of them (whether they know what they're doing or not).
- The warnings are inconsistent - you get different numbers of warnings from different toolbars. Does that mean that some warnings are voluntary and the toolbar author can bypass them?
- Wouldn't it be better if, for their "toolbar API" or whatever they call it, MS gave the toolbar author a "sandbox" to restrict their activities (like not changing the registry or starting up additional processes)? Then they could make one warning that says "Do you want to install a new toolbar?" And if you click "yes", a toolbar will be installed and that's all.
Just a thought and maybe easier said than done, but as this article shows, you can only protect Joe User so much via "Are you sure?"