tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post6298474563234165157..comments2024-03-18T21:52:45.757-07:00Comments on CONTRARY BRIN: Transparency and Privacy: what we need, want and do not understandDavid Brinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comBlogger106125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-39993878673341364062017-10-09T06:27:08.145-07:002017-10-09T06:27:08.145-07:00The bosses need to know what the servants are doin...The bosses need to know what the servants are doing. In a democracy, the bosses are the people, and the servants are the lawmakers, the executives, and the enforcers.<br /><br />Obviously, we are not in such a democracy.Howard Brazeehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08837948125432719131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-73300703479624463772017-10-08T15:02:27.825-07:002017-10-08T15:02:27.825-07:00Larry,
Great point about contraception vs. war as...Larry,<br /><br />Great point about contraception vs. war as moral objections. As usual, it's all down to partisanship, and double standards abound. For the most part, the right wing is the party of zero forgiveness, zero chances, tough turkey tits and shut up and quit whining - except when something happens to them or one of their own people. Then the rules they apply to everyone else no longer apply. Left-wing PC bullying and litmus tests come across as being just as bad, but in a way they are opposites. The lefties are trying to hold their own to high standards (or what they think of as high standards), while the righties are trying to hold everyone else but themselves to high standards. Superficialities like group membership, church attendance, physical appearance or even just saying certain key words over and again are all it takes, that last bit being their own form of PC bullying. Hang out with a bunch of conservatives and refer to people as African American instead of black or colored and you get some really nasty looks. Even mentioning the word "equality" and you risk being processed through a tree shredder.<br /><br />Ah, I love the smell of complexity in the morning! It smells like understanding.Paul SBnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-31215479691791013162017-10-07T14:50:54.803-07:002017-10-07T14:50:54.803-07:00Although I'm keeping a conversation alive, Dr ...Although I'm keeping a conversation alive, Dr Brin has moved...<br /><br />onward<br /><br /><br />onwardLarryHartnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-77574590138549809222017-10-07T14:50:20.223-07:002017-10-07T14:50:20.223-07:00Tim H:
LarryHart, I suspect it's a heretical ...Tim H:<br /><i><br />LarryHart, I suspect it's a heretical interpretation, but some folks feel sin must be punished in this world, especially lust and that with disease and children,...<br /></i><br /><br />And again, the point is to force them to admit that what they want is for the US Government to enforce religious law, which is anti-American. With abortion, they can hide behind "protecting the babies", but when they extend the exact same arguments to contraception, it shows them up for what they are.<br /><br />Paul SB:<br /><i><br />Contraceptives are directly forbidden by the largest Christian church in the world,...<br /></i><br /><br />And I can understand not forcing Catholic organizations to participate in providing contraception. But the way Obamacare dealt with this was for them to opt out and then the insurance company would directly provide the service. And even <b>that</b> was considered too much of an imposition--they couldn't even indirectly participate in a <b>system</b> which provides a service they disapprove of to their employees. And yet, no one would allow me to have a moral objection to war, and to therefore withhold tax dollars from the system that perpetuates it.<br /><br /><i><br />There is another element that is simply a matter of the nature of conservatism. The world's major religions all began and developed their dogmas when the world was a very different place than it is now. Through most of history worth control meant promoting birth, not preventing it.<br /></i><br /><br />On that, we totally agree. I've mentioned it often myself. That's also why everyone hates homosexuality and self-gratification so much. The sex drive <b>must</b> be channeled into producing more of "our" babies. Every sperm is sacred...<br /><br /><i><br />And this is a place where our two political parties tend to go to opposite extremes. One side ignores all mitigating circumstances and demands blood for every tiny little transgression, while the other side seems to be willing to forgive absolutely anything and hold no one accountable for anything they do wrong. It should be obvious that both sides are too extreme to be at all functional. <br /></i><br /><br />As I said above, that can be taken two opposite ways. I first thought of the liberals as the ones who "ignore mitigating circumstances and demand blood for every little transgression" in the area of political correctness and progressive purity tests. And the Republicans are, of course, "willing to forgive absolutely anything and hold no one accountable for anything they do wrong" when we're talking about their own politicians or corporations or police officers or white supremacists. Only after thinking about it for a moment did I realize you most likely meant each description to apply to the opposite party instead.<br />LarryHartnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-38617007107491399252017-10-07T11:03:11.222-07:002017-10-07T11:03:11.222-07:00Paul SB:
As looney as Loci is, his latest rant do...Paul SB:<br /><i><br />As looney as Loci is, his latest rant does touch on something very important. Personal responsibility is deeply necessary for social animals to live together without simply killing one another and going extinct. And this is a place where our two political parties tend to go to opposite extremes. One side ignores all mitigating circumstances and demands blood for every tiny little transgression, while the other side seems to be willing to forgive absolutely anything and hold no one accountable for anything they do wrong.<br /></i><br /><br />You might be amused to know that my first reading of what you said reversed the parties from the way you most likely meant them.<br /><br />I don't want to make the first post on Dr Brin's new thread be about this one, but I might continue this conversation over there later.<br /><br />Now, as Dr Brin said:<br /><br />onward<br /><br /><br />onward.LarryHartnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-82630096438338383622017-10-07T10:20:10.348-07:002017-10-07T10:20:10.348-07:00onward
onwardonward<br /><br />onwardDavid Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-16219414529196747822017-10-07T09:25:35.575-07:002017-10-07T09:25:35.575-07:00BTW: his interpretation of that Sapolsky quote is ...BTW: his interpretation of that Sapolsky quote is pure sophistry. How far back in history do we have to go to get to an average lifespan of 30 years? It's not the increased life expectancy that is bringing down the rate of violent crime. Life expectancy continued to rise in the 1990s while violent crime was spiking. It is true that a majority of violence is committed by men between the ages of 16 and 25, after which age it starts to drop steeply. But the number of men in that age group has not dropped, only the number of men living into their 70s and 80s has increased, which is due in part to the decreased number of man getting killed in the earlier age group. More faux logic from our faux rancher.Paul SBnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-56927637978722655662017-10-07T09:25:13.053-07:002017-10-07T09:25:13.053-07:00Larry con't,
It wouldn't be hard to guess...Larry con't,<br /><br />It wouldn't be hard to guess that I sit firmly on the fence on this one. Context is everything. As a general rule I am all for holding people accountable for their actions, and idea that generally aligns with the right wing. If people are not responsible, then many people will cheat and steal any chance they get. Just look at our captains of industry and wizards of Wall Street - crooks and thieves from the roots of their hair to the cuticles of their toes. Their wealth and power for the most part makes them immune to consequences. Once in awhile you get a case where they do something so outrageous that the law has to step in, like that fine, upstanding capitalist who raised the price of medicine by something like 900% over night. But most of the time their behavior is so normalized by our culture that they can get away with genocide in the name of business. ironic that the right wing, which hammers on the idea of personal responsibility, is so quick to defend this parasitical class of people. <br /><br />But context is everything. I have no idea what led Puerto Rico to being massively in debt, whether they had any actual choice in the matter or if they really did mismanage their budget. Our faux rancher's comments on the ordinary citizens of that island is nothing more or less than racism. My thesis advisor was from Puerto Rico and he was nothing like lazy. You can't get through a doctoral dissertation, or guide others through the thesis process, teach classes and grade graduate-level writing being lazy. And it's a bit ironic that right wingers would hold out their debt as a reason to despise them when they drive the federal government's debts to record heights with each Republican administration (which is not to say that Democrats don't do it, too).<br /><br />Is a murderer an evil person who deserves to be punished? Most of the time I would say yes. Charles Whitman, who committed the first mass shooting to be televised, had a tumor growing on his amygdala. He was the unfortunate victim of a disease that drove him to violence. Tragic all around, but he was in no way in control of himself when he was pulling that trigger. Had he survived, and had they the technology to discover that tumor without dissecting his body back in 1964, he would have deserved treatment, not prison or the chair.<br /><br />Likewise when people grow up in abject poverty, where there are no opportunities for them to make a living honestly, do they deserve punishment for turning to crime to put food on the table? I'm with Sir Thomas Moore on this one. The people who deserve punishment are the architects of a society that forces people into that level of desperation. For every thief who gets a year in prison because the system doesn't give them any better alternative, a Republican politician should spend a year in jail. That would be justice. It's their policies that drive most of our poverty. But the right wing has a long, long tradition of victim blaming, a tradition loci embraces heartily. Paul SBnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-24621880666597983442017-10-07T09:23:59.237-07:002017-10-07T09:23:59.237-07:00Larry,
Contraceptives are directly forbidden by t...Larry,<br /><br />Contraceptives are directly forbidden by the largest Christian church in the world, a church that is well-reputed for its conservatism. Think Vyogotsky - schema theory. If abortion goes into the large umbrella category of bad behavior, and the reason people do it is end unwanted pregnancies when they couldn't possibly afford to raise a baby, that makes it similar enough to contraception to get shoved in the same mental category. It's thinking that doesn't require use of the frontal lobes - simple knee-jerk reactionism. There is another element that is simply a matter of the nature of conservatism. The world's major religions all began and developed their dogmas when the world was a very different place than it is now. Through most of history worth control meant promoting birth, not preventing it. Every faith out there has its supernatural means of promoting pregnancy, and every culture has its home remedies and bizarre, analogical superstitions intended to increase your chances of conceiving, not decrease them. 8000 years of agricultural past has burned the needs of low-tech farming into the cultures of most of the human race. <br /><br />Today we have the opposite problem. Nearly half the world has entered the Demographic Transition, and now having babies is a net burden rather than a net benefit to a family. With 40% of the people in this country living in poverty, there are an awful lot of people who simply can't afford to have children, because they can barely afford to feed themselves. The remedy every religion would demand for that problem is not to help lift them out of poverty, but to demand permanent celibacy. They naively think that celibacy has no dire mental health consequences for human beings. But then, these belief systems evolved before there was even a concept of mental health, when people believed that everything a human does is entirely that person's responsibility, just as every sparrow that falls must be the responsibility of some "person" somewhere. That's the analogical reasoning that makes up gods. Since humans do things on purpose, then the wind that blew your roof off must have been done deliberately by someone. The rock that rolled down the hill and smashed your hut must have been a bad, bad rock, and deserves to be punished.<br /><br />As looney as Loci is, his latest rant does touch on something very important. Personal responsibility is deeply necessary for social animals to live together without simply killing one another and going extinct. And this is a place where our two political parties tend to go to opposite extremes. One side ignores all mitigating circumstances and demands blood for every tiny little transgression, while the other side seems to be willing to forgive absolutely anything and hold no one accountable for anything they do wrong. It should be obvious that both sides are too extreme to be at all functional. The first side is pure despotism, the other pure anarchy. Ever since Freud showed that the decisions humans make are very much influenced by forces they are not even conscious of, it has made the line between responsible and not responsible very difficult to navigate.<br />Paul SBnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-82398780263084052892017-10-07T08:33:06.012-07:002017-10-07T08:33:06.012-07:00LarryHart, I suspect it's a heretical interpre... LarryHart, I suspect it's a heretical interpretation, but some folks feel sin must be punished in this world, especially lust and that with disease and children, who must in turn suffer. Funny how it's Women And children first there, but that's what happens when believers put the commentary of a misogynist over their gospels...Tim H.noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-87146471078094120672017-10-07T06:01:49.504-07:002017-10-07T06:01:49.504-07:00From today's www.electoral-vote.com
Trump .....From today's www.electoral-vote.com<br /><br /><i><br />Trump ... issued a rollback of Obama's policy regarding birth control. Consequently, business owners would be able to refuse to cover their employees' contraception costs if the owners have a "moral objection." ...<br /> <br />In any event, the American Civil Liberties Union saw this coming from a mile away, so they've already got their lawsuit ready. It's going to be a while before we know if Trump's executive order is actually going to take effect. Not that he particularly cares; he's already got what he wanted, which is an ability to tell evangelicals that he "fought back" against those liberals and their pro-choice agenda.<br /></i><br /><br />Have things really got to the point where the use of <b>contraception</b> is considered part of a liberal, "pro-choice" agenda? Life no longer begins at conception, but at sexual attraction, and social conservatives are fighting for the right to life of the un-conceived? LarryHartnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-43496300550727994872017-10-07T05:46:08.360-07:002017-10-07T05:46:08.360-07:00Paul451:
They seem to have allowed state laws aga...Paul451:<br /><i><br />They seem to have allowed state laws against fully automatic weapons and other military-style armaments like grenade launchers. Which is funny considering the purpose of the 2nd.<br /></i><br /><br />I'm not convinced that the Second Amendment was meant as permission to take up arms against the United States government itself, at least not until a very last resort. If the US government were ever so tyrannical that the people's only option was armed rebellion, and if that rebellion were successful, that would be the end of the Constitution once and for all. You don't push back federal troops with gunfire and then just go back to normal.<br /><br />It's a fine line, I know. The right to bear arms probably is meant to allow one to hold off a rogue leader until general order is restored. But it can't mean that a duly-elected government with broad popular backing is allowed to be held off by armed resistance of a few dissenters, can it?<br /><br />Someone here just recently mentioned the Whiskey Rebellion. In that case, it was the locals Washington was able to conscript to <b>put down</b> the rebellion who were the "well armed militia" in question, not the rebels themselves.<br /><br />I interpret "The tree of liberty must...be watered with the blood of patriots" differently from how most people seem to read it these days. The "patriots" in that statement are not the tyrannical rulers and their armed forces, but the good Americans who might have to bring the fight to them. The deaths of patriots is not a <b>desired</b> thing. But, Jefferson is saying to his audience that freedom isn't free--that <b>you</b> might have to take actions which put you at risk of being shot in order to defend freedom. The "patriots" are the good guys (Tom Brady notwithstanding).<br />LarryHartnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-80037413056728629682017-10-07T05:26:37.246-07:002017-10-07T05:26:37.246-07:00donzelion:
LarryHart: "My point is that the ...donzelion:<br /><i><br />LarryHart: "My point is that the Constitution is silent on guns."<br /><br />True. Stephens' dissent is pretty convincing, but 5 judges disagreed with him; Scalia's is also pretty straightforward, and extends to implements used in 'traditional self-defense' - handguns, but not WMDs or bombs. <br /></i><br />I realize that whatever the Supreme Court rules is settled law, but only until a future court turns around and overrules them. See Plessy vs Furgueson or Dredd Scott or (soon) Roe vs Wade.<br /><br />I'm splitting semantic hairs here, but I'm not talking about a decision in any specific case. "The Constitution is silent on guns," is a true statement. Any application of the Second Amendment to firearms in particular is inferred from what is meant by "bearing arms". If limitations on some kinds of arms pass muster (and they self-evidently do), then I'd like to hear why "guns" are so off limits. Rather, I'd be interested in hearing an argument that supersedes "The NRA bribes and threatens us" as the most plausible.<br /><br />Implements of "traditional self-defense" probably don't include firing 900 rounds per minute. Then again, someone could maybe argue that if you were alone in your log cabin defending your position from an invasion by the entire Sioux nation, you wouldn't want to have been deprived of your arsenal of machine guns, ammo belts, or hand-held grenade launchers.<br /><br />When I argue that tactical nukes are "arms", or that driving a car through a crowd of protesters is "bearing arms", I'm trying to show that the current defense of unlimited gun possession inevitably leads to absurd conclusions. Dave Sim once described this dynamic by saying "Sometimes, jumping on the bandwagon is the best way to demonstrate that the wheels have fallen off."<br />LarryHartnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-46311002763385167532017-10-07T04:38:37.062-07:002017-10-07T04:38:37.062-07:00LarryHart,
"So yes, the Republican Supreme Co...LarryHart,<br /><i>"So yes, the Republican Supreme Court has interpret that to mean anyone has an absolute right to <b>any firearm</b>"</i><br /><br />(Emphasis mine.) <br /><br />They seem to have allowed state laws against fully automatic weapons and other military-style armaments like grenade launchers. Which is funny considering the purpose of the 2nd.Paul451https://www.blogger.com/profile/12119086761190994938noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-67804626864823718702017-10-06T20:54:05.836-07:002017-10-06T20:54:05.836-07:00LarryHart: "My point is that the Constitution...LarryHart: "My point is that the Constitution is silent on guns."<br /><br />True. Stephens' dissent is pretty convincing, but 5 judges disagreed with him; Scalia's is also pretty straightforward, and extends to implements used in 'traditional self-defense' - handguns, but not WMDs or bombs. <br /><br />That said, even Scalia's argument did not posit an 'unlimited' right to gun ownership. A licensing regime is possible, but unlike for driving, the licensing has to be carefully tailored. For driving, anyone who wishes to drive must prove eligibility; for gun ownership, anyone who wishes to block someone from owning a gun must prove disability to take the right away (insanity or felony conviction).<br /><br /><i>"You missed my point."</i><br />I caught it clearly, but was focusing on the law; cars (or for our purposes, cameras) are not covered by Scalia's opinion, as neither is a 'traditional implement of self-defense.' Of course, someone could try that in court and see how far it goes, but this lawyer would advise against it...donzelionhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05991849781932619746noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-16340248783164575712017-10-06T20:48:43.672-07:002017-10-06T20:48:43.672-07:00Still wrongheaded in most ways, or just wrong. But...Still wrongheaded in most ways, or just wrong. But also clearly back on his meds. Welcome back from loonytown LocumranchDavid Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-52632837112306694752017-10-06T19:36:13.932-07:002017-10-06T19:36:13.932-07:00David says that "(my) cult controlled both Co...<br />David says that "(my) cult controlled both Congress and the presidency for most of the subsequent time (related to the passage of) The Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965", and I agree that this was a Republican driven proposition designed to bust unions & drive down employee wages. <br /><br />He errs on two points, however, the first error being that this pro-immigration law (supposedly passed by evil Republican lickspittles) is much beloved by globalists, diversity proponents & US Democrats, and the second error being his assumption that US Republicans are MY cult even though I was a Bernie Sanders delegate in the last election.<br /><br />Alfred argues that "There is no such reciprocity principle", the implication being that the rule obedient are credulous suckers who can expect nothing in return for their good behaviour but the short end of the stick, the very point made by Henry Fielding in 'Jonathan Wild', a perspective with which I have come to agree.<br /><br />Occam & Smurphs are working themselves into a tizzy over a big intercontinental nothing, Elon Musk's BSR would be subject to misuse if it were not uneconomical to the extreme, promising to transport passengers anywhere on Earth in an hour on just 1000x the energy requirement of an aeroplane & 100,000x the energy requirement of an automobile traveling similar distance. More likely, he's a Music Man who will Madoff the lot & set space travel back 50 years.<br /><br />Finally, I'd like to thank both PaulSB & Alfred by citing a Sapolsky quote that debunks the whole Pinker 'Better Angels' hypothesis, that quote being "The best crime deterrent is a 30th birthday". It's what I've been saying all along about this 'Better Angels' nonsense.<br /><br />Pinker misattributes plunging western crime rates to humanity getter 'better' when he should have attributed plunging crime rates to the social democalypse of Western Society getting OLDER with the concurrent loss of youth, vitality & exuberance. It's senescence, in essence, that is responsible for plunging western crime rates with Pinker confusing 'deader' with better.<br /><br />Best<br />____<br />@Alfred: You're right. I threaten omission (inaction) rather than commission (action) after offering decades of warnings & cautions, so when the cities burn I intend to be too busy washing my hands to put participate in crisis management. Like the morbidly obese diabetic, non-compliant to medications, bereft of personal responsibility, allergic to exercise & addicted to cake, who wonders why complications only happen to him. Like Puerto Rico, acquiring $70 Billion in unsecured debt, another $50 Billion in unsecured pension obligations, a dysfunctional 19th Century infrastructure, NO attempt to plan for adversity, and a population incapable & unwilling of helping themselves, that wonders why so few shed tears for their misfortune. Ants will help ants, but those who choose to live like grasshoppers can only expect to die like grasshoppers.locumranchnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-78891544657872663962017-10-06T17:58:34.769-07:002017-10-06T17:58:34.769-07:00donzelion:
My point: "You have a constitutio...donzelion:<br /><i><br />My point: "You have a constitutional right to guns, though"<br /><br />For NOW, you have a constitutional right to guns, because that's what the Supreme Court ruled in DC v. Heller (2008). While I agree with Stephens' dissent, I acknowledge that it was the dissent: the law's the law.<br /></i><br /><br /><i>My</i> point is that the Constitution is silent on guns. What you have is a Constitutional right to bear arms. Yes, that includes guns. It also includes WMDs. There is no language in the Second Amendment which treats guns differently from any other armaments. So yes, the Republican Supreme Court has interpret that to mean anyone has an absolute right to any firearm, but I'd like to hear the reasoning that disqualifies any other type of weapon from the exact same protection.<br /><br /><br /><i><br />"I wonder if there's a Constitutional argument to be made that driving is protected by the Second Amendment."<br /><br />Privileges and Immunities clauses (the basis for the 'freedom to travel'), the 'full faith & credit' clause (a license to drive in one state much be upheld in other states) - there's a lot in the Constitution that serves as a base for a privilege to drive, but no clearly established 'right.'<br /></i><br /><br />You missed my point. I was proposing that all of the restrictions and regulations on driving a car might be circumvented by arguing that driving a car (which can be used to threaten and kill--I mean defend yourself against protesters) is a form of "bearing arms".<br />LarryHartnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-70989650217239304682017-10-06T17:19:20.080-07:002017-10-06T17:19:20.080-07:00Paul SB:
but there isn't a corporate office a...Paul SB:<br /><i><br />but there isn't a corporate office anywhere that won't laugh your resume into a trash can if you don't claim to be the best multitasked ever, so good at multitasking ... nobody else is as good a multitasked than me,<br /></i><br /><br />There will be so much multitasking, you'll get sick of multitasking!<br />LarryHartnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-21782931559512711982017-10-06T17:15:17.277-07:002017-10-06T17:15:17.277-07:00LarryHart: My point: "You have a constitution...LarryHart: My point: "You have a constitutional right to guns, though"<br /><br />For NOW, you have a constitutional right to guns, because that's what the Supreme Court ruled in DC v. Heller (2008). While I agree with Stephens' dissent, I acknowledge that it was the dissent: the law's the law.<br /><br /><i>"I wonder if there's a Constitutional argument to be made that driving is protected by the Second Amendment."</i><br />Privileges and Immunities clauses (the basis for the 'freedom to travel'), the 'full faith & credit' clause (a license to drive in one state much be upheld in other states) - there's a lot in the Constitution that serves as a base for a privilege to drive, but no clearly established 'right.' Hence, every state, through it's ordinary police powers, gets to declare which of their residents they permit on the streets - but once any single state permits you to drive, no other can block you from their roads (ordinarily). And if any single state withdraws your driving privilege, they may do so for as long as they wish (though any other state could restore those privileges once you become a resident there - most are unwilling to do so for people convicted of driving felonies).<br /><br />Dr. Brin re-reads the 6th Amendment, to cut out the initial phrase before the operative term in order to tease out a 'freedom to record' (by cutting out the part about doing so to mount a defense in a criminal trial). He's doing precisely what Scalia did in nullifying the 'militia' part of the 2nd amendment - both may have good intentions in their own way, but one has ample legal backing, the other does not.<br /><br /><i>"You have the right to bear arms for the security of a free state, not free reign to do whatever the heck you want with those arms."</i><br />Indeed (though the right to bear arms isn't restricted to 'security of the free state' -<br /> it's just a prohibition on government conduct).donzelionhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05991849781932619746noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-28664272225193730652017-10-06T16:39:52.210-07:002017-10-06T16:39:52.210-07:00donzelion:
You have a constitutional right to gun...donzelion:<br /><i><br />You have a constitutional right to guns, though <br /></i><br /><br />Actually, you don't.<br /><br />You have the right to <b>bear arms</b>. Absolutely nothing about guns in particular that doesn't also apply to any weapons from swords to hand-held thermonuclear devices.<br /><br /><i><br /> - not to a car.<br /></i><br /><br />That Nazi who ran over a protester might consider driving his car to be "bearing arms". I wonder if there's a Constitutional argument to be made that driving is protected by the Second Amendment.<br /><br /><i><br />Setting barriers in tricky in this field.<br /></i><br /><br />You have the right to bear arms for the security of a free state, not free reign to do whatever the heck you want with those arms.<br />LarryHartnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-25998378256854816022017-10-06T15:57:30.840-07:002017-10-06T15:57:30.840-07:00Occam's comic,
You might try losing the 14yr ...Occam's comic,<br /><br />You might try losing the 14yr old girl sarcasm and actually say things.Paul451https://www.blogger.com/profile/12119086761190994938noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-41688390892561157902017-10-06T15:29:23.937-07:002017-10-06T15:29:23.937-07:00Duncan,
You're right, of course, nut be caref...Duncan,<br /><br />You're right, of course, nut be careful about calling sugar addictive. It is, plain and simple, but like all addictions it is more addictive for some people than it is for others. There are a whole lot of genetic and metabolic factors. But the other side of that is the fact that every cell in your body operates off of sugar - glucose specifically but they can turn other kinds of sugar into glucose, they can even strip proteins out of your muscles and turn those into glucose in desperation. Sugar does not equal bad. Too much sugar equals bad, and there is no one number that applies to everyone.<br /><br />The BMI thing reminds me of my little neologism "exemplar entrainment." Humans will often look to the most extreme examples of some characteristic and hold them up as standards for everyone else. About 2% of humans can successfully multitask, but there isn't a corporate office anywhere that won't laugh your resume into a trash can if you don't claim to be the best multitasked ever, so good at multitasking ... nobody else is as good a multitasked than me, except for maybe Vladimir Putin, who is a truly exceptional multi-tasker. The best multi-tacker ever.Paul SBnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-46637621937646595252017-10-06T15:21:42.614-07:002017-10-06T15:21:42.614-07:00Alfred,
I know that 75% number is the genuine art...Alfred,<br /><br />I know that 75% number is the genuine article. It taught this stuff to cheeseburger-snarfing teens for years. And I get that personal responsibility is a cornerstone of all social life. That is the whole point of terrorizing the peasants with tales of hellfire and eternal damnation. But when you start to understand the mechanics of mind and personality, the personal responsibility thing gets much more fuzzy. Insanity gets you treatment in a mental hospital (ideally, anyway) rather than the chair, and many people see the insanity plea as a sort of excuse making, as if spending your life locked away surrounded by the insane is a better fate. <br /><br />Sure, people make excuses. Who doesn't? When you are looking at a thing like the health of 300 million people, you have to look at it the way an epidemiologist or CDC worker does. You know that even with the right information many people will still make the wrong decisions. You can hope that they will survive those decisions and learn from them, but whether they do or not, you still have to treat them. If a person has grown up in an inner-city ghetto where there are fast-food joints on every street corner but no grocery stores for miles, and taking public transportation is taking your life into your hands, then big surprise you will get a whole lot of fat people. Are they to blame? Are they not taking personal responsibility? If a person was born with a much higher than average sensitivity to dopamine, how likely is it that he will not become addicted to soda and blow up like one of those amazing growing sponge toys?<br /><br />Multi causality is more often the rule than the exception, and the old blame and shame game rarely changes people's behavior. All it does is add to the stress that drives the overeating. So before bitching about all those stupid fat people, we need to consider factors. The personal responsibility view does not explain why the obesity epidemic has become an epidemic, and it has no power whatsoever to reverse it. There are huge structural changes that society needs to change that, but the conservative elements of society can hardly conceive of what is needed, much less approve. I'm afraid we're going to look a lot like "Wall-E" in another generation as long as a majority of people continue to be backward thinking and oversimplify complexities instead of trying to account for them.<br /><br />I keep forgetting that I wanted to ask Dr. Brin about that "Pathological Altruism" book he referenced. The Amazon page didn't have a whole lot of information, but I'm curious. You would think with a name like that I would be bothered or offended by it, but I am not really partizan so much as practical. Anything can be taken too far, even something we would normally think of as a good thing like altruism. Better to know about those complexities before smashing into the associated limiting factors. Those impacts can be quite deadly. Very little in this world is all good or all bad, it's all about context.Paul SBnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-77335266010562469782017-10-06T15:17:33.317-07:002017-10-06T15:17:33.317-07:00Second Amendment
This was put in place so that the...Second Amendment<br />This was put in place so that the slave states would always be able to have armed militias to keep the salves from getting uppitty<br />The initial draft said "country" <br />If you can change it's name from "The Second Amendment" to "The Slavery Amendment" then you will have a much better chance of fighting it<br /><br />PaulSB<br />Obesity<br />I don't think that we could do this more wrong if we tried!<br />First we set the target from the median in some 150 year old numbers - BMI - 22 !!!<br />The minimum mortality BMI is about 29<br />Setting the target so low means that few people are at the "correct" BMI <br />It is DIFFICULT to move your BMI downwards<br />So people do a number of bad things<br />They just let it go - and get fatter<br />They yo-yo diet - which is even worse for you<br />AND the people who really do need to lose weight don't bother because its obviously impossible<br /><br />And then we decided that "Fat" was bad - using some very dubious science - and substituted SUGAR which is not only bloody awful for your body it is also addictive <br />duncan cairncrosshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14153725128216947145noreply@blogger.com