Evils of the World
POSTED BY: theheroofcanton
UPDATED: Wednesday, April 14, 2004 12:57
VIEWED: 16503
PAGE 4 of 9
Speaking of heat....
Temperature is a subjective thing (albeit within a limited range for neurotypical ppl). What feels hot to you may feel warm to me. Fortunately, we have thermometers where we can look at a thrid thing and agree on a numerical value, no matter what it "feels" like.
I suggest we stick to facts as much as possible. Where someone has a fact (not an opinion) that counters ours, let's try to resolve exactly WHAT we're talking about, before resorting to baseless assertions, ad hominem arguments, and insinuation.
And where we DO have an ethic that is driving our opinion (and we all do) let's try to be honest about it.
My ethics are:
There is only this world... don't expect the supernatural to reward, punish, or rescue us.
Reward promotes work, punishment promotes avoidance.
Humans are a SOCIAL species, with all of the biology that goes along with cooperation, competition, rank, and exclusion. "Human nature" (human neurology) includes within it intrinsic rewards for cooperation (the opiate centers "light up" by fMRI) as well as rewards for competition.
What we reward, and what we punish, determines what kind of society we build. We often call on the supernatural or human nature to support our self-created definitions of "evil" and "good", but these appeals to a higher authority are baseless.
Many people acting together is not the same as the average of all these people acting individually. We create systems that outlive us by many generations, as we need to understand and govern these systems.
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some extra info on costs
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3775686/
and on the flip side
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3072945/
edit: oh, btw, this in reference to equipment costs for soldiers
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Quote:
Originally posted by RocketJock:
By the way, enjoy your vote while you have it. The washington power brokers are pushing for Electronic Voting w/out a paper trail; the company most likely to get the contract is ChoicePoint. If the name sounds familiar, it's because they handled the 2000 election in Florida.
IIRC they had problems with the paper ballot system thay had in place that required people to punch out a paper chad on a punch card... the punch cards can then be read electronically. With the punch cards they can do manual recounts. The big problem was that people were confused by the ballot form and how the chads maynot have been punched out completely (hanging chad).
Hopefully they've instituted changes in FL to correct their problems.
In Rhode Island we used to use the old fashioned flip-the-switch ballot booths until 1998 where we switch to optical scan ballots that are easy to read, easy to mark and can be rescanned or manually recounted.
I can see where a paper-less voting system can be hacked all to easily... you may as well go play a video slot machine... it would be like nothing more than a video game that's rigged so the house wins.
Jaymes
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As Apeman61 said - "And agree to disagree as it were. 'Cause it looks like everyone has their own opinions and arguing ain't going to do anything. The way it is is the way it is and it's not going to be changed by yelling and eachother."
I couldn't agree more - people generally have their positions on things, and arguing in a chat room won't change that. It's still kind of fun, though...
Would this be a bad time to bring up my hatred of the corruption in the Catholic Church? :-)
"I like smackin' 'em!" - Jayne Cobb
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Before you change the world, you have to change your mind, or the minds of others.
Why were the pyramids built? Wouldn't the people have been better off digging more irrigation canals? They were built because of an IDEA.
Why did the Catholic Church become such a power? Wouldn't the world have been better off if the Pope had actually followed Jesus' precepts and actually helped the poor? It was all because of an IDEA.
Why do we allow corporations to run roughshod over almost everyine in the world, and at the same time destroy the biological diversity that we all depend on? Because of an IDEA.
It's important to disagree and to discuss. People do sometimes unchain their minds.
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Quote:
Originally posted by HKCavalier:
Oh, and I make about 22 thousand dollars a year, which qualifies me as poor. And I saw nothing like a tax break last year. Nothing. I owed.
QUOTE]
HK, I don't know if you have kids or not but we got ours...
From the www.irs.gov website...
http://www.irs.gov/individuals/article/0,,id=111546,00.html
We have 2 children... and probably paid out more in taxes than HK did and so we wound up getting money back... it was basically an extra refund that came in during the summer. And it wouldn't have mattered if we made $50K, $100K or $1 mil. It was a set amount for the number of children. So $400 is a larger percentage comparatively for lower income than for larger income.
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I think that there is one fundamental fallacy that is in this thread. Namely, that GW is the president. There was a Scottish newspaper that described him as the unpresident and I tend to agree. After all, aren't presidents voted in?
And yes, I do think he is evil.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2004/01/2
6/hsorensen.DTL
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"If you truly love the memory, you must set it free()!" -Me
"Also, I can kill you with my brain." -River
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Quote:This is such tired old propaganda. George Bush, whether you agree with him or not, legitimately won the election. He was not appointed. He had more votes in Florida then Gore and he won Florida, thereby winning the Electoral College. This is a fact. It is also a fact that Gore tried hard to get re-count after recount in primarily Democrat-supporting counties of Florida and suppress largely pro-Bush military ballets, which was an attempt to push the election in his favor. The Supreme Court did not appoint George Bush; it put an end to Gore’s attempted hi-jacking of the election, preserving Bush’s lead.
Originally posted by SigmaNunki:
I think that there is one fundamental fallacy that is in this thread. Namely, that GW is the president. There was a Scottish newspaper that described him as the unpresident and I tend to agree. After all, aren't presidents voted in?
And yes, I do think he is evil.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2004/01/2
6/hsorensen.DTL
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Quote:What facts? I put you in that category because you don’t have any facts. What you have is supposition, the bases of any good conspiracy theory.
Originally posted by SevenPercent:
Not indicting him, just telling you why folks dont like him- Also, do not put me in the camp of the tinfoil hat brigade because you dont like the facts-
Quote:Like I said we didn’t make the decision for him to invade Iran. He did that all on his own. That had nothing to do with us.
Originally posted by SevenPercent:
So let me get this straight- If we help a country that invades another, we're not responsible? Since we provided Saddam with nerve agents he used on his own people, we're not responsible for their deaths? We supply the guns and ammunition to fight a war and it has nothing to do with us?
Quote:They don’t have 17 UN Resolutions against them, do they?
Originally posted by SevenPercent:
You took that quote out of context, it went with the other that said there are worse human rights violators in the world that we arent attacking(try China, try N. Korea)-
Quote:Stop with the self-righteous BS, you’re the one who tried to dismiss Saddam’s atrocities with the old “they deserved it” line. I’m not going to support you if you intend to paint with such a broad brush. The majority of the people Saddam killed were innocent women and children, not militants. And that is the difference between us and them.
Originally posted by SevenPercent:
And if you go back, I never said that Saddam was a saint, nor did I compare GW to him- If you use the argument that you and you alone care about the suffering of little children, I'll pass your sainthood recommendation along to His Holiness asap- Of course I care, you're just being asinine here- We all care about innocent people being killed, but the answer is how to help them best and stabilize the region while protecting ourselves, and to that end we are sorely lacking-
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Finn:
I find it interesting that you comment on my voted in comment, but fail to address the evil comment.
Also, could you provide a link supporting your claim please.
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"If you truly love the memory, you must set it free()!" -Me
"Also, I can kill you with my brain." -River
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