Posts by hatamoto

He's 16. In most western countries, that's old enough to be out on his own.

As I was, when I was 16. Not for reasons anywhere like your own (my mom was having a helluva time and I was tired of being moved around from place to place as work or danger demanded), but yes... on my own, working, my own place and my own life.

A great many of my adolescent egocentricities died a quick death after I started living on my own, and despite ensuing dramas and poor choices, I survived. Well enough to be something of a lardass who now needs to come to about.com to help scale back from living TOO well.

If "the system" is too cruel to contemplate, consider that in most places you can legally boot his ass out the door on a whim. Perhaps leaving him to his own devices for a while will moderate his attitude.

Original Post by madamq:

"The world would do just fine if you all vanished without a trace".  Such venom and hate! 

 

Once again ALL Americans lumped into one just because one person made an unfortunate remark. 

This is a fricken HUGE country - why do so many believe that the actions of the few, or the voice of one, represents all Americans?

We are not cookie cutter slices. 

 

Really? You saw "venom and hate" in there? I saw a simple statement of fact: The US is not essential. If you all vanished (raptured en masse?) the world would take a while to adjust, but it would truck along just fine, much as it did before the US ever existed.

It's interesting that you take a statement that counters the claim of american exceptionalism as an attack, though.

On 9-11, I knew the US would go to war. Didn't know with who, but I knew war would happen because extreme violence is the american way. They simply have no other means of processing shock, and they'd finally been given a taste of what every other country in the world has had to deal with for a very long time. Without a war, all that anger would turn in on itself.

Afghanistan was an odd target, but one that had at least some portion of utility... although it was pretty tangental. Attacking Afghanistan because some Pashtuns let al Qaeda train in a slice of land on the border is like burning down a dojo because some guy who learned kung fu there beat up your girlfriend. Still, the Taliban (funded and trained in part by the US, btw... as were the Mujahedeen, part of which morphed into what we now call al Qaeda) were becoming an international eyesore: blowing up reclining Buddhas, doing nasty things to girls who dared to try to learn to read, and generally causing problems with the cashflow from the poppy fields because they were the first people in centuries to actually have the ability to do anything about them.

Downside to Afghanistan, of course, is that the last time someone took and held that country was Suleiman the Great. The UK couldn't do it, the USSR couldn't do it, US/NATO probably won't be able to either. Noone told baby Bush that the old addage "Never get involved in a land war in Asia" was referring to Afghanistan specifically.

All this is orthogonal to the actual motivation of the people calling the shots, though. The highest echelons of power in the US military structure speak openly about a "cataclysmic confrontation of good and evil" and that "the christian god is more powerful than the muslim god" etc. Pretty much the entirety of the PNAC is some end-time wackjobs who see extermination of arabs and the eventual vaporization of jews as signs they're about to be raised up into the firmament, so much so that there's non-profits that exist who send emails from the rapturees to their families saying "If I've gone missing, it's cuz I've been raised up. Suck up to god and you can come too."

PS @ kay_h: The US gets 26% of its domestic oil supply from Canada. We could sell that oil anywhere... I hear China's in the market. Don't think for a second that you're essential to any country's wellbeing; after a short period of adjustment, the world would do just fine if you all vanished without a trace.

Sure there would. One of our basic instincts is to do violence to those who oppose us. The lizard brain instinct is strong, clearly evidenced by the various assaults, abuses and murders that take place even with the strongest of penalties in place.

You can't say, though, that because people have violent tendencies that ALL violence sources from the individual and the organizations that whip them into a frenzy before unleashing them on an unsuspecting world are without culpability.

There are quite literally churches in the US who are, at this very moment, giving sermons. Those sermons include fiery indictments of damnation against gays, arabs, liberals, et al. Those sermons are visually aided with full color motion images on flat panel LCD screens of M1 tanks, F-18 jets, and various other militaristic icons (when they're not building life-sized replicas of various military craft coming through the walls of children's churches...

Maybe your particular congregation is a mellow feed-the-poor house-the-homeless type. That's awesome, please go forth and do what good works you can... but you have to understand that there is a history and current drive in many religious organizations to use people's desire to believe in god to use them as pliable pawns in a high-stakes game of power and control over the world.

Original Post by fitnessgirll:

 Ignorance is not biased. Stupid people can be found in all walks of life and religions AND lack of religions.

I'm glad I live in a country where we are allowed to voice the free thought and will of our minds. I find it ironic that many embrace this freedom but denounce others when they use their freedom [whether that be in protest, religious choice, equality...etc].

It's always engaging to read opposing points of view on things that truly cannot be completely validated as an absolute/true thing but the irony of it all...with people telling other people things like...'My way of THOUGHT is right. Your way of thought is stupid'..yadda yadda...

hmmm

What about situations where there's "opposing points of view" on things that CAN be truly and completely validated?

For example, the "Birther" movement.

Birthers believe, in denial of full and verified documentation from sources both official and unofficial, that Obama was born outside the US... most of them claim Kenya. Yet there is a superabundance of factual, tangible evidence to show that he was born in Hawaii at the time and place described.

Free to voice their opinions? Sure. Damned idiots? Oh, you betcha. Independently verifiable facts are not subject to interpretation, no matter how much wingnuts may want them to be.

Sure... and when it comes to someone who equates Hawking to Hitler, I equate him to a douchebag.

Get my point?

Original Post by simwaves1:

Original Post by loriklorik:

So... if god can be timeless... why not just say the universe is timeless instead? That it always goes from big bang to massive universe and then back to the start again?

Why do we need to INVENT the idea of a "god"? Why not just work with what we do know? We do not know how far time extended... we know how old things in the universe are, but that does not mean that is the begining of time.

 

As for the big bang, who said that was the begining of time? We don't know that time started then...we simple know that the universe originated from that point (meaning, the gas and particles theory still is perfectly fine).

why can't the universe be timeless? Do you understand what it means to be timeless? The universe can't be timeless because it is within space-time. If you are making an argument for a cyclic universe that expands and then collapses upon itself and then expands again ad infinitum, then that's a bit different. This view still isn't supported by science, for a few different reasons:

1. There isn't enough gravitational force to pull everything back to the original spot.

2. The expansion of the universe is accelerating.

3. This assumes that space-time is static, which is in direct contradiction to science.

The rest of your post is just misinformation. Read something about Einstein or Stephen Hawking (or just about any other modern day physicist). Extrapolating back to the big bang includes the beginning of space-time. Time didn't exist before the big bang.

I believe we touched on this topic before. Whatever existed before the Big Bang may be unknowable from our current position in spacetime, but there's nothing to say that physics within the singularity that lead to our universe's creation couldn't have an analogue to time, we just don't know.

Saying "There's no such thing as time before the big bang because the big bang created all of spacetime" is silly. It may not have been time as WE know it, but it certainly could have existed.

My wife and I tend to work in parallels.

I'll call her "girly girl", she'll call me "manly man"... that sort of thing.

We also absconded with some names from media. For a long time (well, still I suppose) we were "Honey Bunny" and "Pumpkin" from Pulp Fiction.

And occasionally I'll call her my bitch... at which point she protests and calls me HER bitch. Then we're off on a tirade of the nastiest stuff we can come up with that usually ends up with that kind of sex which is almost, but not quite, angry... you know, that whole "Oh, you think I'm a bitch? We'll see who the bitch is!" type thing.

We're clearly dis-functional.

Original Post by carloil:

have a nerd crush on ed norton.....

He was a real badass in American History X.

Original Post by jenniferthepennifer:

Original Post by hatamoto:

Eric Schwartz pretty much sums up my opinions on the matter. NSFW, but hilarious... unless you're one of those intense fundamentalists, in which case please go drag a cross around somewhere, kthxbye.

LOL - this song will be stuck in my head forever! 

I know! Catchy innit? I hadn't seen it in years and as soon as this topic came up it immediately popped into my head.

One day down the road I'll be some old dude in an atomic rocking chair on the porch of the old folks home, belting out "Keep your Jesus off my peeeenis..."

Then it'll be time for my pills.

Original Post by lysistrata:

And the point of my examples has been to suggest that utilitarian calculus is quite often not "noble" in the slightest.  Look at the justification for torturing prisoners - pure utilitarianism.  Not too many people are shaking Cheney's hand for his nobility right now (Glenn Beck and his wingnuts notwithstanding).

I disagree. Torturing prisoners rarely if ever results in useful information, and in those rare occasions where actionable intelligence is offered (as opposed to a bunch of babble) it could have been obtained easier and more reliably using standard psychologically based interrogations. Any senior FBI and CIA official can tell you the same, but Cheney wasn't listening because information wasn't what his goal was.

The techniques used on Zarqawi et al were functionally equivalent to those performed on US troops in prior wars... not to extract intelligence, but to extract confessions. In other words, a public relations 'win'.

Of course, in the long run, torturing of prisoners, sometimes to death and many of whom were just regular schmucks in the wrong place at the wrong time yields extremely negative results. Any future combattant fighting US forces will have to presume that capture will ultimately lead to death by torture... not to mention that a number of people formerly enamored with the ridiculous notion of a 'shining city on the hill' getting smacked with the reality stick with a quickness.

So... in summary: torture bad. Information gotten could have been gotten in other ways, and in ways that won't come back to spank the torturers. The 'ticking time bomb' scenario exists only in crappy dramas.

Utility may have been the reason stated, but any rational person at the time could have easily foreseen that the negatives would and have outweighed any positives. There's been several books written on that very topic.

Heck, the idea of "nobility" is entirely non-utilitarian.  What are you, a Platonist or something?  Been reading Camus lately? 

Nobility, in this specific case, refers to the fact that a governing body removed from the immediate and unenlightened self interest of a given individual is more able to decide what's better for society as a whole even if it comes at a cost to specific individuals. If there's a hostage situation and the only choice is to plug a .50cal through me into the hostage taker in order to save a dozen school kids they should take the shot. In my personal case, as in the larger case, nobility refers to my willingness to accept that trade and the ramifications thereof... in my case, my probable violent death, in the larger case support for my suddenly bereaved family.

A purely utilitarian focus would be extremely difficult to accomplish without total foreknowledge of outcomes, so it's always tempered by something and the nature of that tempering determines the flavor of the society.

In the above example, I would posit that a government who cared about its people would would provide money and professional resources to help a greiving family adjust, which also happens to satisfy utilitarian aims: a well adjusted worker is a productive worker, and a happy citizen tends to spread happiness. People treated well tend to also praise those who came to their aid in time of need, prompting other people to be able to trust that should they be in a dire situation, the government could be a helpful agent.

Conversely, a callous government who cared only about short term outcomes would send a nice letter saying "Sorry, but he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Sucks to be you." Cheaper, certainly, but in the long run probably not the best solution overall: people traumatized by violent crime tend to develop violent tendancies, and certainly the uglyness of it all will spill over from the immediate circle of friends and family to more distant circles and friends-of-friends, with the message of you can't depend on the powers that be to give a flying **** about you.

The first and primary purpose for the existence of any government is as a source of power for which to suppress destructive individual acts. All other things are secondary to that purpose: to protect people from themselves.

I agree with the first sentence but not the second.  It is one thing to protect individuals from each other; it is another, quite more paternalistic thing, to protect individuals from themselves.

I have no problem with the government in the first role, because I believe that the proper role of government is to create the optimal conditions for its citizens to pursue their own happiness (whether hedonistic or otherwise).  The second role is only justified if we believe it is the government's role to maximize what it considers to be its citizens' happiness.  Example:  If I want to sit at home and smoke crack until it kills me, what is the government's justification for preventing me from doing that?  Usually it has something to do with how everybody else is better off.  Let's leave aside the question of whether this rationale is grossly and obviously mistaken.  What about it is somehow "noble"?  Incarcerating more people per capita than any other nation in the world for no better reason than that they aren't maximizing their contribution to other peoples' happiness seems ... well ... kinda North Korean to me.

I blame the limitations of print media for this one. When I say "protect people from themselves" I meant it as themselves in the collective sense, not the individual sense, as in "protect people from one another". I'm not a fan of regulation of individual behaviours that have no direct effect on others. If you recall, I said I favored a utilitarian approach tempered by hedonism; in my opinion, the abuses we choose to endure are part of what makes life interesting.

There are interesting points of conflict in that area... for instance, Canada has universal health care, and people who smoke put a disproportionate level of strain on the system. However, it would be generally unconsconable to eliminate smoking, so instead we just make it increasingly unpleasant to do so (while also eliminating its effects on unintended third parties) and use the funds from increased taxation to help pay for the sick smokers.

IMO if you want to smoke crack til your teeth pop out of your head, go for it. I'd still be in favor of limiting the amount of crack available on the street due to the high incident of violent crime resulting in crack addiction. Marijuana on the other hand has rarely resulted in violence beyond the tragic and rapid demolition of bags of Oreos and so the harm done by jailing offenders far outweighs the harm they might do to themselves. In both cases, the biggest problem is the exploitation by organized crime of the artificially inflated prices; if I were Pablo Escobar, I'd have a half dozen lobbyists on speed dial to shout down any legislation ending or slacking on the so-called War on Drugs.

I'd feel miserable because, all other things being equal, losing one to save five is a cold but obvious calculus... even if that one is me. So on one side I'd feel a dramatic urge to survive, one that would likely take over... on the other (one that wouldn't be so adrenalin fueled) that in so doing 5 other people had to die.

... and not for nothing, but if I have so little time to determine who'll live and who'll die that I have to choose in a heartbeat "me or them", I'm surely not going to have time to evaluate their overall worth. On rational examination it's obvious that people responsible for the death of millions and no specific advancement in human development aren't going to rank high on the 'to be preserved list'.

Do you actually have a point with these increasingly random hypotheticals? 'Cuz we're long past the point where we're talking about political theory and firmly into the realm of situational ethics now.

Heh, all politics are local. ;)

But even if it wasn't an issue at the moment, I can't conceive of a situation where a society could afford to treat ONLY the elderly paliatively or ONLY the young preventatively. Brought to its minimalist roots, a parallel query could be formed...

If you had a sick and possibly dying parent, and a cadre of children in need of checkups and flu shots, and you were living in an environment where health care was an out-of-pocket expense and you could only afford one of the two, which would your money go to? I'd suggest most parents would get their kids sorted first, but they'd be extremely distressed about having to make the decision and would find some way to cover both, giving up various luxuries and probably even pushing back the rent and utilities.

Of course, that scenario gets dangerously close to moving things out of the abstract, given that 60% of all bankruptcies in the US are related to medical costs.

Maybe we need to find a less pertinent abstraction. ;)

Original Post by 1heavenlybody:

Notice the graph doesn't include my IQ level of 142 as BELIEVING IN GOD, and for that fact the other two family members there are in my family with MENSA IQ LEVEL too.

The graph presented doesn't even touch the HIGHLY INTELLIGENT people of 132 or higher IQ, which is the top 2% of people in the world intelligectly.  INTEL which is the TOP 1% isn't represented either.

So, where do you stand? Do you know you are in the top 1 or 2% by testing or just THINK YOU ARE SMART.

Have a blessed day. 

I scored 99.4th percentile on the Wonderlik extended test which I'm told roughly places me in the high 140s-low 150s. I was a card carrying Mensa man until I went to a couple meetings.

Imagine the worst, most obnoxious know-it-all douchebag you know. Now imagine two dozen of them in a single room. Add alcohol.

Yeah. Not pretty. I was going hoping to find some reasonably smart people to hang out with and powwow and have conversations slightly more interesting than "zomg did you watch American Idol? Oh! Emm! GEEEEEE! Like totally!"

What I found was a small battleground of powerfully smart people engaged in a non-stop intellectual dick swinging contest. Even the women.

Mensa: Nice idea. Shaite implementation (at least from my POV)

PS - I don't directly identify with any particular label. One needs to be generated for people who think that whether or not a god exists, it's completely irrelevant to our daily lives. Perhaps 7th Day Idontcareists?

MADE him? I dunno. Possibly. I think the guilt we collectively felt over it was the fact that we recognized, even if only vaguely, that he wasn't right and that we could have, should have done something.

I dunno, it's probably just run-of-the-mill survivors guilt. I still think about him sometimes, he was a pretty cool dude, if a bit off-the-wall.