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On 1/21/2011 10:42 AM, Warp wrote:
> Darren New<dne### [at] san rrcom> wrote:
>> Warp wrote:
>>> Darren New<dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>>>> I'll just point out again that it wasn't the executive branch, but the
>>>> congress, that declared a national day of prayer.
>>>
>>> The first words of the first amendment to your constitution somehow
>>> resonate in my head when I read that, causing a terrible pain...
>>>
>
>> Yeah, me too.
>
> Btw, the attitude that Americans have towards their Constitution seems
> quite strange. Seemingly they consider it an infallible and untouchable
> holy scripture, and even the idea of going and changing even a single letter
> of it is tantamous to blasphemy. (Amendments can be added, but changing
> existing text, *especially* the original text written by the Founding
> Fathers, is considered some kind of sacrilege.)
>
Not true.. There have been recent calls by some of the "new" people on
the right wing to "repeal" whole sections of it, ranging from
desegregation, to well... if it involves civil liberties, or the right
to not be lorded over by religious fanatics, they want it removed. Those
things apparently being "unnecessary", sort of like taxes, health care
and the minimum wage.
No, the ones that are required to take it as a sacred document, in
theory, is the supreme court. Which is why the ones now there, all
appointed, and non-removable, by right wingers, have ignored it, and
case law, in order to declare corporations full citizens, and thus able
to spend every dime they have to elect people who will write corporate
friendly laws (and maybe even adjust the constitution, so they can deny
people the right to work/get service there, if they don't like their
religion, color, or national origin).
I bloody wish they took it as sacred. Though.. maybe that is the
problem... these idiots don't read their own damn bible with enough
seriousness to have a frakking clue what it says, its hardly a surprise
they have an equal amount of "total respect" for the constitution, i.e.,
no frakking clue what it actually says, since actually reading and
understanding it would like, I don't know.. taint it, or be a sin, or
something...?
--
void main () {
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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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> I'm not sure what drop of ink you're talking about. Are you exaggerating for
> effect, or have you actually heard an argument about this? (I *have* heard
> that in some contract disputes, but not the Constitution.)
I misremembered: The smudge-that-could-be-a-comma was not in article 1,
but in the 5th amendment (the typo in article 1 is an "it's" which should
be an "its").
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Errors_in_the_United_States_Constitution
--
- Warp
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On Thu, 20 Jan 2011 13:26:25 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:
> On 1/19/2011 8:56 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> On Wed, 19 Jan 2011 20:28:07 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>>
>>> Why hedge the matter and say "some would say".
>>
>> Because while you believe there is no difference, some believe there
>> is. Who am I to say they're (or you're, or - for that matter - I'm)
>> wrong?
>>
> Its called "critical thinking". Apparently a practice that isn't taught
> too well in colleges (never mind it should start in grade school:
>
> "After the full four years, 36 percent had shown no development in
> critical thinking, reasoning and writing, according to the study, which
> forms the basis of the new book "Academically Adrift: Limited Learning
> on College Campuses.""
Sure, it's critical thinking, but just because people don't employ it the
same way you do, that doesn't make it wrong. There's nothing wrong with
having a system that works for an individual to organize one's thoughts
in a way that lets you think about them.
> If you don't know how to interpret facts in the first place, you can
> hardly, in the case of those people with the opinion there "is" some
> huge difference, whine about someone else pointing out that there isn't
> any. Right?
Sure. But at the same time, if you use a tool to help you organize facts
so you can interpret them, that puts you in a position of being able to
talk about the different interpretations, or seeing that there isn't any.
Jim
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On Wed, 19 Jan 2011 23:05:39 -0800, Darren New wrote:
> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> And after I used that technique to clarify my thinking and what I
>> wanted out of a new job, I accepted the offer.
>
> If you need to make a decision, flip a coin. Between the time the coin
> lands and the time you look at it, you'll learn exactly what it is
> you're hoping you'll find.
That might work for you, it doesn't work for me.
Jim
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On Thu, 20 Jan 2011 13:35:39 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:
> On 1/19/2011 8:56 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> So there again, I don't think it's necessary to be offensive to those
>> who are happy to believe that some supernatural power intervened -
>> whether that's the case or not.
>>
>> Jim
> The problem is.. It doesn't just stop at them using it to effect their
> *own* lives.
If the outcome is agreeable to everyone, there isn't a problem with
this. In my case, of course it affected more than just my life, it
affected my wife's life and my stepson's life. And we talked about it as
well, but they ultimately said that since I'm the one who will be
affected the most by the change (in that what I do from day to day would
change dramatically), that ultimately it was my decision to make.
> Failure to recognize that it is a form of applied reasoning
> (and I would argue that isn't always the case, since you need data to
> reason from, and religion tends to reject wide ranges of data and
> sources), leads people to trying to make decisions for *others* based on
> the same reasoning.
Which is why I don't think anyone should ever, ever, ever do a tarot
reading for someone else, because it shifts the purpose from really
organizing one's thoughts about an issue to just being entertainment.
There's absolutely nothing mystical about it at all when done properly.
> It also leads them, invariably, to false
> equivalencies, failure to understand what they are actually advocating
> for/against, etc.
I find for me that when I do a "reading" myself, it actually *helps* me
understand what I'm actually advocating for/against. Because it's a tool
that helps me be introspective while looking at the topic from all
angles. That's how I use the tool, and why it's an appropriate tool for
me.
> We spent decades in the US, far more than any other
> country in the world, being "nice" to the religious, [...]
Yeah, there are whackos out there. There are also non-religious whackos
out there.
> Oh, right, and it also plays in to the hands of quack psychology, quack
> pharmacology, quack gizmos, modern patent medicine gibberish, and all
> the rest of the stuff, which preys in the same inability to tell the
> difference between confirmation bias, placebo, and/or what their own
> brain is doing, versus "quantum, spiritual, all natural, suplimental,
> toothpaste", or what ever they have made up this week to sell the same
> fools.
That's a completely different topic.
Jim
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Warp wrote:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Errors_in_the_United_States_Constitution
Thanks! I was completely unaware of that debate. :-)
Given that the details of commas in british english differ from american
english, I'm rather surprised anyone is making a fuss about such a thing.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Serving Suggestion:
"Don't serve this any more. It's awful."
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On 1/21/2011 12:19 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Thu, 20 Jan 2011 13:26:25 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>
>> On 1/19/2011 8:56 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>>> On Wed, 19 Jan 2011 20:28:07 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>>>
>>>> Why hedge the matter and say "some would say".
>>>
>>> Because while you believe there is no difference, some believe there
>>> is. Who am I to say they're (or you're, or - for that matter - I'm)
>>> wrong?
>>>
>> Its called "critical thinking". Apparently a practice that isn't taught
>> too well in colleges (never mind it should start in grade school:
>>
>> "After the full four years, 36 percent had shown no development in
>> critical thinking, reasoning and writing, according to the study, which
>> forms the basis of the new book "Academically Adrift: Limited Learning
>> on College Campuses.""
>
> Sure, it's critical thinking, but just because people don't employ it the
> same way you do, that doesn't make it wrong. There's nothing wrong with
> having a system that works for an individual to organize one's thoughts
> in a way that lets you think about them.
>
>> If you don't know how to interpret facts in the first place, you can
>> hardly, in the case of those people with the opinion there "is" some
>> huge difference, whine about someone else pointing out that there isn't
>> any. Right?
>
> Sure. But at the same time, if you use a tool to help you organize facts
> so you can interpret them, that puts you in a position of being able to
> talk about the different interpretations, or seeing that there isn't any.
>
> Jim
Point is, usually the "method" goes hand in hand with the failure to
learn the facts needed to make an effective decision. Odds are, the vast
majority of people with Tarot cards *do not* use them as a system to
work out what to do, based on knowing sufficient facts. They use them to
derive what they want to see, usually for someone else, by cajoling
people into giving them information (i.e. a magic trick, and not even an
honest one, for either involved). There is a difference between someone
that realized what they are doing, and does it for themselves, and the
majority, who would never even question that it worked via magic, or one
sort or another. The later isn't going to look for facts, examine their
own premises, attempt to understand the real causes behind things they
already "assume" to be true.
Basically, what I am saying is, a crutch can help you do something you
can't, temporary or otherwise, when you need it. If you spend you whole
life being told you *must* use a crutch to do things, eventually you
stop trying without it, even if you don't really need it. The end result
becomes that you are so reliant of the crutch, and so unaware of why
your world view has been distorted, that there are, invariably, some
things that you can never do, imagine doing, or understand how to do,
since doing them requires putting down the crutch first.
I could care less if someone has an "alternative" way to process
something to get a valid result. The problem is, most of this stuff was
invented to get a *specific* result out of its users, practitioners, and
even its teachers, and the end result has *never* been to question
assumptions, understand how things work, outside of the sphere of
explanations allowed by them, and curtail discovery. After all, "Idle
hands are the devils play thing", is a concept that exists in just about
every religion, cast system, or authoritarian vision, and the method of
controlling them involves a) never letting anyone have time to question,
and b) if they do, having convenient rituals, stories, and meditations,
directed at making people accept the way thing are "supposed" to be,
without questioning them.
This is the core of all such practices. That they can be adopted to do
other things, if you know what they are, why they work, and honestly
approach them, doesn't change the fact that virtually every single "true
believer" in any of these things is still walking around with the
crutch, convinced they can do nothing without it, and that their whole
world view is only true, proper, and complete, if seen in relation to
the existence of the crutch.
--
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 1/21/2011 12:24 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> We spent decades in the US, far more than any other
>> country in the world, being "nice" to the religious, [...]
>
> Yeah, there are whackos out there. There are also non-religious whackos
> out there.
>
True. Though, as one person once stated it, "Do you refuse to treat a
recognized, and maybe curable, cancer, because there are a lot of other
sorts of cancers your cure won't fix?" One less source of wackos is
still one less source.
>> Oh, right, and it also plays in to the hands of quack psychology, quack
>> pharmacology, quack gizmos, modern patent medicine gibberish, and all
>> the rest of the stuff, which preys in the same inability to tell the
>> difference between confirmation bias, placebo, and/or what their own
>> brain is doing, versus "quantum, spiritual, all natural, suplimental,
>> toothpaste", or what ever they have made up this week to sell the same
>> fools.
>
> That's a completely different topic.
>
> Jim
But related. Once willing to give up reason on one subject, its easy to
fall prey to others. And, again, the majority of people playing with
something like Tarot are *not* doing so honestly, or with themselves,
they are doing it because it is simply a different sort of "power
bracelet", which fits into the gibberish they already fell for.
In any case, you don't make progress against it by a) ignoring it (it
won't go away), b) pretending its not a problem (they have no problem
claiming you are a problem instead), or c) trying to refute it on a case
by case basis (they will happily present you with 80 cases in five
minutes, then demand that you address why all of them are wrong, or you
lose, in the same time, even when you can't properly address the *first*
one, in 10x as many minutes).
The only way to effectively address it is all at once, early, before
people get overly hooked into it. And, we can't get people to teach what
is needed to do that in bloody colleges here, never mind to 8 year olds,
never mind that there is plenty of evidence that this *is* possible, of
parents let us do it, instead of whining in abject horror at the idea
that schools is about how to think, not just jamming facts in, and
hoping they stay there long enough to test.
--
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 Fri, 21 Jan 2011 21:26:02 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>> Yeah, there are whackos out there. There are also non-religious
>> whackos out there.
>>
> True. Though, as one person once stated it, "Do you refuse to treat a
> recognized, and maybe curable, cancer, because there are a lot of other
> sorts of cancers your cure won't fix?" One less source of wackos is
> still one less source.
Sure, but there are also plenty of reasonable people who are religious as
well.
The whackos are the minority of any particular group, generally (unless
you're talking exclusively about a group of whackos, that is <g>).
>> That's a completely different topic.
>>
> But related. Once willing to give up reason on one subject, its easy to
> fall prey to others. And, again, the majority of people playing with
> something like Tarot are *not* doing so honestly, or with themselves,
> they are doing it because it is simply a different sort of "power
> bracelet", which fits into the gibberish they already fell for.
And that's their decision to make. Lots of strange things happen in a
free society. If you don't want that to happen, you need to go to a less
free society.
Jim
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On Fri, 21 Jan 2011 21:17:01 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:
> Point is, usually the "method" goes hand in hand with the failure to
> learn the facts needed to make an effective decision. Odds are, the vast
> majority of people with Tarot cards *do not* use them as a system to
> work out what to do, based on knowing sufficient facts.
Sure, there are bad people in the world. That's also a consequence of a
free society - some people will take advantage of other people.
The solution isn't to remove the thing that people use to be dishonest,
it's to address the dishonesty head on. Which is what law is intended to
do.
The same argument can be made about gun control: rather than heavily
regulate guns in the US, make the bad usages illegal and deal with those
who break the law.
Jim
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