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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();
}
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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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On 17/01/2011 7:42 PM, Stephen wrote:
> Got it :-D
> I'll take a bit to compare them. O_O
Did you get the file?
--
Regards
Stephen
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On Mon, 24 Jan 2011 22:27:58 +0000, Stephen wrote:
> On 17/01/2011 7:42 PM, Stephen wrote:
>> Got it :-D
>> I'll take a bit to compare them. O_O
>
> Did you get the file?
I did indeed, and listened to it last night. Wonderful stuff. :-)
Jim
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On 24/01/2011 10:41 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> Did you get the file?
> I did indeed, and listened to it last night. Wonderful stuff.:-)
>
:-D
--
Regards
Stephen
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On 1/24/2011 3:20 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> 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
The only flaw in that is you can't go back and "undo" things that
already happened. Making bad uses illegal is meaningless if the "bad
use" is something like people dying, or losing all of their money.
Ironically, there **are** laws on the books, lots of them, making doing
either to someone illegal. Oddly enough, they have no effect at all at
either preventing the misuse of a gun, when they are easily available,
or preventing people's money stolen from them for what *they* are
convinced is real, but the shop owner only gets by with even selling at
all by labeling it "entertainment" (this rule can vary from place to
place, but in most cases the law says its legal only as an amusement).
Its con artist lying about being a magician, so that they can rob people
that believe magic actually works. Or, its someone that thinks it does
work, pretending to be a magician, because its not legal to do it
otherwise, unintentionally robbing gullible people that also believe in
it out of their money. Either way, its not strictly legal for them, at
least under a lot of laws, to claim they can *actually* do any of it,
any more than it is legal for someone selling a bottle of mostly water
(i.e. homeopathy) to *actually* claim that their tap water can cure
cancer. The problem is, more than half the idiots writing the laws
either have stake in the same game/business, or believe in it, and thus
these giant loopholes exist, like being able to sell, say, Airborne,
with no evidence, fake credentials, fake creators, fake "research
institutes", outright bold face lie about all of it, then get by with it
because the only "legal" requirement is that they do not specifically
claim that it "cures" anything (though you can claim it helps, even if
the evidence is all fishy, inconsistent, and not generally accepted by
anyone but the quacks), and it says it is a "supplement". Same, as I
said, with Tarot card readers, and the like. As long as its
"entertainment", it doesn't matter if the thief charges the target 50
cents, $50 dollars, or $50,000 dollars, they paid for an
"entertainment", and can only get in trouble of the person scammed
actually sues them, and can prove the thief *actually* claimed it was real.
Thankfully, or perhaps sadly, this isn't often too hard, whether it be
the rather inconvenient corpse resulting from lax gun control, or the
fact that nearly every practitioner of bullshit, not matter how cleverly
they work the loopholes, tends to "believe" their own BS, making it hard
for them to argue they charged someone $50,000 to be "entertained".
Or, to put it another way, you can't legislate human behavior,
gullibility, or wishful thinking by making the *outcomes* illegal. You
can only do it by limiting the range of situations where those behaviors
will produce a negative outcome. And you *definitely* can't do it if the
consequences are purely post-hoc, do not address the underlying reason
why people keep doing it, like mental illness, or poor education, and
instead do nothing but increase the jail time, or otherwise fiddle with
the punishment. You either have to prevent the behavior on some level,
or you have to make sure as few people as possible see it as a viable
option.
Some things, like psychic BS is so easy to pull, and so close to the
pre-existing "wish fulfillment" people seek anyway, that the "costs" of
getting caught, never mind the likelihood of failing to find a victim
are both easily accepted. Like a pick pocket in a room full of blind
people, with bad counting skills, and no guards. The odds that most of
them will even notice you lifting a few coins is small, and you only do
get in trouble of you are stupid enough to get overly greedy. The
cost... might be fairly high, or it might be simply not being allowed
into the innumeracy club for the blind again. If its the later, its
simple enough to just find new people to pick pocket. And *that* is the
case with "psychic" gibberish (and religions, but that is another
matter). With guns, its a bit different. We know the consequences are
stupidly high for the victim, we have set the consequence about as high
as we can get it (or as high, in places with death penalties), yet... we
have lowered the bar, in some places, to the risk of it actually
happening, the availability of the tool used to do so, and all other
factors, including the "need" some people insist they have to own dozens
of those tools, to the point where its like hoping that people don't
show up at the next comic con wearing cheesy costumes. You will *always*
be disappointed, since nearly everyone will do it, and no matter how
much you legislate the consequence, there will be the one person that
tries to show up as "the nude avenger", or something else that crosses
what ever line you placed on how bad, cheesy, or questionable the costume.
In short, make it so every has a gun, anyone can carry one, and do
**nothing** to address **any** of the other issues, or what ever excuse
there is for allowing people to get by with so many other things via
loopholes, or easy access, or failure of any oversight, when the
*actual* thing they did is illegal as hell already, and can't be made
any more so... well, the value of that is highly debatable when the
people that are injured as a result of failing to address anything but
the post-hoc punishment of the shooter, or scammer, or bank baron, or
rapist, or whatever, are either dead, scarred for life, bankrupt, or
otherwise seriously/permanently injured.
In case you are not getting what I am saying, I have no problem with
people selling Tarot cards. I have a set myself, though I found them
pretty useless for "anything" at all, unlike you. But, I would lay odds
that you are the rare exception, with a fair certainty of being right,
with respect to the number that have them, and don't either believe the
stuff they are selling (which doesn't change scamming people with them
being illegal), or *intentionally* scamming them with the things. This
doesn't mean you ban the cards, it means you make frakking law so that
they can't "entertain" anyone with them either, with being very precise
what that means, and that it doesn't mean, "Charge them stupid amounts
of money for it, or less, lot and lots of times."
--
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 1/24/2011 3:18 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> 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.
>
There is nothing "reasonable" about religion. Tolerable, yes, but not
reasonable. That said, I have no more problem tolerating fools spending
insane amounts of cash on foam hands, and the like, to see a ball game,
with all the silliness of that, than I do with those you are calling
"reasonably religious". At least up to the point where one of them
decides to piss me off by insisting that I *must* where a football
jersey, or the like, because their "team" is just ever so more important
than my own *personal* choice of wardrobe. Thankfully, sports fans get
no where *near* as unreasonable as "reasonable" religious people about
that sort of thing... Oddly enough, the later can get downright crass,
if you pick the wrong subject, day, event, or shirt, with very little
seeming interest in making sure they remain all reasonable, and the like.
--
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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