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On 1/12/2011 11:27 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Wed, 12 Jan 2011 19:54:12 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>
>> And, I would, and many
>> others have, that if you do not enforce the matter strictly, you lend
>> yourself to a slow erosion of principle, in which the number of people
>> trying to actively violate it, or find ways around it, or even
>> repeal/change it, increases, as more and more succeed in finding such
>> loopholes. We often have difficulty seeing this, for much the same
>> reason the other side can't imagine every problem being solved from
>> guns, or prayer, or capitalism, or what ever combination of notions they
>> think are king of the hill at the time.
>
> My word, that's a very long run-on sentence. ;-)
>
> But it boils down to the "slippery slope" argument, and while I have been
> guilty of using it myself in the past, in more recent times, I've not
> really been convinced of it.
>
> Both ideologies use the argument when it suits them.
>
> I'm not really sure what the rest of what you wrote was, because it was
> so difficult to read. Sorry.
>
> Jim
Well, the reason both sides make the argument is that its correct. If
you don't enforce absolute moral codes, and arrest, hang, burn, or
whatever, anyone you catch at it, you end up finding that some of the
stuff you think is wrong becomes "normal", for everyone except your
group. The flaw in the ointment is that they assume they *know* the
answer, and what the consequences are, even when they have no evidence.
I would say that, while this *sometimes* happens with the other side,
most of the arguments *tend* to be backed by, "We tried that, it didn't
work, made things worse, or nothing bad happened when no one followed
it." All of them much more sane arguments than, "The world will come to
an end if we let X people do Y thing! Someone told me, though I have
know idea on what page, that the Babble says so!!!"
Or, Rand's book said so, or the wild guess I pulled out of my ass
yesterday says so, or I find it icky, so it must be so, etc., ad nauseum.
Someone quoted the thinking behind some of this stuff as, "Credo quia
absurdum" : 'I believe *because* the idea is absurd.'
--
void main () {
If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
if version = "Vista" {
call slow_by_half();
call DRM_everything();
}
call functional_code();
}
else
call crash_windows();
}
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On 1/12/2011 11:28 AM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Wed, 12 Jan 2011 11:01:50 -0500, Warp wrote:
>
>> Jim Henderson<nos### [at] nospam com> wrote:
>>> I fail to see how telling
>>> people "if you believe in something, practice it" comes even close to
>>> establishing a state-sponsored religion
>>
>> For fair balance, shouldn't there be a "Nation Day of Atheism"? You
>> can
>> make the exact same arguments: It's not promoting atheism nor forcing
>> anybody to be atheist. You can be atheist if you want, but it's your
>> choice.
>
> Actually, there is one - and it's usually (now) held on the same day as
> the NDP IIRC.
>
> Jim
I also here there is a "national body awareness day", AKA, "national
nude day", but I don't see anyone in congress, or the president,
standing up and declaring *either* a NBAD day, *or* a, "national day of
keep your clothes on". The people *in* the government are far more
Christian, usually, than the ones that elected them. Few, if any, are
anything else, with the exception of some Jewish people. The presidents
have *all* been Christian. It is irrelevant if the "indended" result
isn't sectarian. You might as well go to Africa and not complain when
the local president, with great cheers from everyone else in the
government, and a lot of stupid speeches about the "blackness" of
Africa, declared a, "National day of not being white."
What matters is the result, the perceived support it lends to the
majority religion, the very narrow list of "faiths" that tend to get
mentioned, and that it *supports*, how ever unintended, the position of
people who *literally* believe that the government *can* be totally
Christian, supporting it, endorsing it, etc., just so long as they
"allow" everyone else to worship as they please (just not marry, have
sex in certain ways, dress, look, speak, think, sell, buy, own, or
publicly display what they wish, if it offends the sort of Christians
that those people believe qualify).
Its this thinking, and the inadvertent support for it, which makes the
national day of prayer a problem. For them, it *does* endorse it, and
they quite clearly do not think that "endorsing" religion, even their
own, is a problem, only denying others their own (save, again, for any
conflicts in expression, in which case their own overrides the "wrong" one).
We see it all the damn time, in everything from the 100% church driven
drive to get Prop 8 passed, to violence against minority religions,
which gets brushed off as, "Well, its a small town, so.. And they won
the case, even if they lost their business, home, etc., due to having to
move.", to you name it. Its the same argument some atheists give
"against" those they call "accommidationists". If you give ground, you
find yourself not addressing one clear issue, you find that the issue
gets buried under a dozen stray men, 50 irrelevant issues, and 100
unrelated cases/assertions. Even if you win, you lose, since merely
trying to win will result in cries of persecution. Nah, merely
suggesting that you might have a relevant point about *any* religion
does, even from the people that don't follow it.
The whole "Nation day of Atheism" thing is precisely what they would
like to see atheists do, or anyone else with the "wrong religion", or
who doesn't pray. We do our thing, you do yours, just so long as its out
of sight, in the basement, with the door locked, and we don't hear any
of it. After all, we outnumber you, and most of us are *sure* God =
Jesus. Suggesting otherwise is persecution, and how dare you do that on
the "national day of prayer".
This is the logic we are trying to deal with here. What is "intended",
never mind "legal" doesn't mean jack, if 10% of the people think its
about *them*, 60% of them don't give a shit, as long as you *are*
praying, and everyone that isn't is seen as stupid, abnormal, wrong
headed, or even Un-American, for not "joining in", and the 20% that
don't care *also* don't care to try to change the situation. Its about
perception, not strict legality. And, just as you can't cry "fire" in a
crowded theater, it is not appropriate to cry, "All you people are
special, if you are one of the ones that prays", in a nation where most
of them see it as reflecting one religion, some see it as *only* about
that one religion, and it actively excludes those that do not believe in
doing it at all, including other religions.
--
void main () {
If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
if version = "Vista" {
call slow_by_half();
call DRM_everything();
}
call functional_code();
}
else
call crash_windows();
}
<A HREF='http://www.daz3d.com/index.php?refid=16130551'>Get 3D Models,
3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>
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On 13/01/2011 11:02 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Thu, 13 Jan 2011 20:52:18 +0000, Stephen wrote:
>
>> On 13/01/2011 8:38 PM, Jim Henderson wrote: ...
>>>
>>> Jim
>>
>> Mornington Crescent! :-P
>
> It's about time! :-)
>
How many words?
--
Regards
Stephen
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>> I think we need to distinguish between DNA that isn't used for anything,
>> and DNA which actually produces proteins, but they don't do anything
>> really useful.
>>
>> Just having a sequence in your genome doesn't really cost that much.
>> Synthesizing it into a protein is much more expensive.
>>
>> It wouldn't surprise me if non-eukaryotes have fewer genes turned on,
>> and possibly smaller genomes, but I doubt that they have radically
>> "cleaner" genomes.
> You are forgetting that you *still* have to copy all that extra stuff,
> when ever you divide the cell, so there is still a cost to synthesize
> all the copies, before the cell splits to form new cells.
Yes, there is a cost. What I'm saying is that it's a very small cost.
> Also, its not
> a simple case of, "just ignore the stuff I don't use", something has to
> run through the pattern, decide what needs to be unfolded, or folded,
> jump past any stuff that is folded into an unusable state, etc.
It's not like a computer, doing a linear scan of the entire genome
looking for active genes. It doesn't work like that.
As far as I know (and I'm not an expert on the subject), having extra
inactive genes imposes very little penalty for transcription.
> And, most of the code, unlike in multi-celled organisms, is going to be
> "on". There is no reason to turn parts off, except for mitosis, and the
> like, if you are not differentiating the cells
False.
Unicellular organisms might not build colonies of differentiated cells,
but that does *not* mean that all genes are switched on, all the time.
There are organisms that can metabolise both aerobically and
anaerobically. That's two different metabolic pathways, involving
different sets of proteins. Many if not most organisms can utilise more
then one food source. That's different sets of proteins. Many organisms
have a life-cycle more complex them just "grow, divide, grow, divide".
That requires different sets of proteins. Some cells even signal each
other, and undergo limited differentiation under certain conditions.
More sets of genes. Then there are genes only used in response to attack
or damage. And so forth.
Seriously. Few if any organisms go around with *all* their genes
switched on all the time.
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> It means that the value you are measuring is not determined until you
> measure it. Hence, as far as we will ever be able to know without
> divine(*) intervention, yes, it's random.
OK, but that was my point, it could be controlled by something
*impossible* for us to find out. The same way as an artificial brain
simulation running on one of our computers would find it impossible to
find out about our universe.
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> The technical term for that is a 'hidden variable theory'; the variable
> has a value except we don't know it. Bell has shown that if the universe
> can be described by a hidden variable theory some measurable quantities
> have different values than if the variable has no value until measured.
> Alain Aspect has shown that nature is incompatible with a hidden
> variable theory. So Darren is right, and you, Einstein, Podolsky, and
> Rosen are proven wrong. Nothing to be ashamed of, I'd say.
Does that prove that there is nothing "running" our universe - ie it's
not some computer simulation inside another far more complex universe?
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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Warp wrote:
> > It's just that defining "species" in terms of behavior is ludicrous.
> Well, give a definition that shows two men are the same species, that a
> bacteria's descendants are the same species, and that these two populations
> of fruit flies are the same species. What exactly has to be in the genetics?
I don't think you get it. What I said is that the claim "two groups of
animals have been speciated away from each other if they won't interbreed
because of instinctual preference" (rather than their genes being
incompatible) is an incorrect definition.
You can't argue pro that definition with the argument "well, you can't
give a better definition". That argument coulud be used to defend anything.
"Two groups of animals are of different species if they have a different
fur coloring."
--
- Warp
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scott wrote:
> OK, but that was my point, it could be controlled by something
> *impossible* for us to find out.
If the result is determined by something that exists before you measure it,
you won't get the results we get. The whole point of the experiment is to
figure out if there's something unmeasurable that is controlling the
results. The answer is "no".
> The same way as an artificial brain
> simulation running on one of our computers would find it impossible to
> find out about our universe.
Except the brain would get different results for the Bell Inequality tests
than we do. Because there would be hidden variables making the determination
of what result to produce.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Serving Suggestion:
"Don't serve this any more. It's awful."
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scott wrote:
> Does that prove that there is nothing "running" our universe - ie it's
> not some computer simulation inside another far more complex universe?
It means that there isn't some "value" that exists before we measure it.
It's possible that the super-universe is simulating ours, but if so, that
super-universe also has purely random interactions in it.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Serving Suggestion:
"Don't serve this any more. It's awful."
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Warp wrote:
> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>> Warp wrote:
>>> It's just that defining "species" in terms of behavior is ludicrous.
>
>> Well, give a definition that shows two men are the same species, that a
>> bacteria's descendants are the same species, and that these two populations
>> of fruit flies are the same species. What exactly has to be in the genetics?
>
> I don't think you get it. What I said is that the claim "two groups of
> animals have been speciated away from each other if they won't interbreed
> because of instinctual preference" (rather than their genes being
> incompatible) is an incorrect definition.
>
> You can't argue pro that definition with the argument "well, you can't
> give a better definition". That argument coulud be used to defend anything.
I'm not arguing against it. I'm asking you what your definition is. You say
"it's genetics", but that isn't enough. You're treating my question as if
I'm saying "you're wrong." I'm happy to be shown you're right, but you
haven't done that yet.
*You* are the one asserting it's genetics and can't be just behavior. *You*
are saying *I* am wrong. But you're not supporting that. You're just saying
it louder.
I'm happy to be shown wrong, but the way to show that isn't to say "you
don't get it". The way to show me wrong is to provide a *better* definition
than "these creatures would never have fertile offspring if humans hadn't
invented artificial insemination."
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Serving Suggestion:
"Don't serve this any more. It's awful."
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