551. Comment #239483 by chewedbarber on August 29, 2008 at 6:01 pm

Let's show the child-mutilators that we know how to stop slaughtering people on our own highways, and then we'll have the moral authority to comment on others.

I will always have the moral authority to condemn--fuck commenting on--child-mutilators. This goes without saying, and I think the fact that I have bothered to say it, is proof that I need a break.

Traffic accidents? Are you joking?

Other Comments by chewedbarber

552. Comment #239485 by Diacanu on August 29, 2008 at 6:03 pm

chewedbarber-

Are you joking?

Sadly no.
I think he's genuinely fucked up.
Some kind of autism maybe.

Other Comments by Diacanu

553. Comment #239487 by kkelly on August 29, 2008 at 6:09 pm

I love tera, so full of non sequiturs, and he's totally serious!!

Other Comments by kkelly

554. Comment #239491 by Teratornis on August 29, 2008 at 6:22 pm

Comment #239474 by Diacanu:

Teratornis-

I lacked the indoctrination to get sucked in by some other religion which might have been OK with evolution.

Nah, but you're a dogmatist for your radical environmentalist agenda, and I've seen you be as much as an inflexible, petty, capricious weasel for that, as fundies get for their Jesus shit.

I'm dogmatic when it comes to facts. For example, if someone claims the Earth is flat, I'm going to object in a way that will sound pretty dogmatic to a Flat Earther. The better I am able to present the facts to the fact-denier, the more dogmatic I will seem.

I am quite inflexible when it comes to facts - until someone shows me I got some facts wrong. (Sound of crickets chirping...)

Look at how religiots or even their atheist facilitators like to call anyone who makes a good argument for atheism "dogmatic" and "inflexible." I guess those are just pejorative labels for "people who remind me of facts that trigger my cognitive dissonance."

Being only human, I occasionally do sound petty to people who reject the facts when I make the mistake of attempting to present the facts to those people, who respond by attempting to redirect the argument away from the facts and onto little personal issues. Like anyone else, I can sometimes be tricked into taking the bait, because some people are masters at baiting.

What else can people do when they reject the facts? They can't argue on the basis of facts. They have to make the argument about the other person somehow. Or invoke taboo (there are some facts which we do not mention).

Barack Obama noted in his acceptance speech last night (quite a performance, I might add - it's high time the U.S. gets a President who can deliver a speech as well as the actors who play Presidents in Hollywood movies) that his opponent will have to make the debate about little things, because the U.S. Republicans have already lost on the big issues - the war, the economy, the energy fiasco, the exploding deficit, etc.

It's going to take me a while to get tired of hearing Obama speeches. Although I wish he could include consumers when he's blaming the oil companies and Republicans for our energy problems. Unfortunately, politicians cannot afford to tell voters when they are doing something stupid. That would be political suicide. People only vote for people they like, not for people who tell them what they're doing wrong. So the politicians have to blame everyone other than the people whose votes they seek.

I'm not running for office, fortunately, so I can write exactly what is stupid and barbarous about squandering the Earth's finite petroleum simply to feed a psychological addiction to travel.

Although I did actually have someone in real life tell me I'd have her vote if I were running for office. I found that surprising, since I'm not even sure I'd vote for myself. A politician probably cannot be too closely attuned to the facts, or else he'd lose his political effectiveness. One aspect of this is how an openly atheistic politician would be even less likely to become U.S. President than a black man or a woman.

Hmm, must be a personality type thing.

Everyone is dogmatic when they find themselves on the side of the facts. The resulting ineptitude and impotence of the opposition virtually assures this.

If you don't like my dogmatism, then for pete's sake write something that causes me to question my facts.

Would be interesting to run you through a cat scan, see what's up.

I imagine this would be interesting, for someone who doesn't care about facts, but rather cares about personalities.

Do you spend much time reading about celebrities in the tabloids?

Here's what I would find interesting: to read you presenting facts that contradict some claim I have written.

For example, can you disprove my claim that recreational boozing kills about 100,000 people per year in the U.S.?

Have you even Googled to check what qualified researchers claim about that number? Or did you simply reject my mention of that number outright on some nonfactual grounds? For example, because the number bothers you?

Other Comments by Teratornis

555. Comment #239492 by Diacanu on August 29, 2008 at 6:24 pm

Yep, we're aaaall deluded.
Only mighty Teratornis sees the truth.

*Wank*

Other Comments by Diacanu

556. Comment #239496 by Teratornis on August 29, 2008 at 6:31 pm

Comment #239480 by Diacanu:

Teratornis-

Every human is in denial about some aspects of reality.

Yeah, anything you don't agree with is denial.

I'm still waiting for some verifiable source to contradict some factual claim I made somewhere, but all I hear are crickets chirping.

Your generalized, purposely vague denouncements do not constitute rational arguments.

Have you ever taken an introductory course in logic or rhetoric? Or read the Wikipedia article on critical thinking?

Why exactly do you have such a distaste for critical thinking?

*Wank gesture*

I freely acknowledge your mastery of baiting. While it may be good for self-amusement, it isn't productive for logical discourse. But that's OK, we can have any kind of discussion you want.

Other Comments by Teratornis

557. Comment #239497 by Diacanu on August 29, 2008 at 6:35 pm

Teratornis-

it isn't productive for logical discourse.

Neither is your bombastic self-important bullshit, so I guess we're at an impasse.

Other Comments by Diacanu

558. Comment #239498 by Sciros on August 29, 2008 at 6:37 pm

I can write exactly what is stupid and barbarous about squandering the Earth's finite petroleum simply to feed a psychological addiction to travel.

You haven't yet, so I can only assume you want all the oil for yourself to use for a spaceship to La La Land. Also, you have issues with referring to your personal fantasies and baseless convictions as "facts." There's no point in illustrating that to you anymore, since you repeat the same crap over and over anyway and claim that everyone else is just in denial.

Other Comments by Sciros

559. Comment #239501 by Diacanu on August 29, 2008 at 6:40 pm

Oh, and Tera, stop acting like you're the vanguard/guardian/arbiter of logic.

You're not.

Logic isn't trying to (literally) be Mr. Spock like you do.

That's just swinging the pendulum to the opposite extreme of anti-rationalist fundies.

It's the other side of the same coin.
You haven't changed.

Other Comments by Diacanu

560. Comment #239505 by 8teist on August 29, 2008 at 7:00 pm

Abiotic Oil In Lake Baikal's Bedrock


http://oilismastery.blogspot.com/2008/08/abiotic-oil-in-lake-baikals-bedrock.html

Other Comments by 8teist

561. Comment #239506 by Teratornis on August 29, 2008 at 7:11 pm

Comment #239483 by chewedbarber:

Let's show the child-mutilators that we know how to stop slaughtering people on our own highways, and then we'll have the moral authority to comment on others.

I will always have the moral authority to condemn--fuck commenting on--child-mutilators. This goes without saying, and I think the fact that I have bothered to say it, is proof that I need a break.

I'm curious about the nature of this moral authority. Who do you have authority over?

Have the child mutilators accepted your moral authority?

I'm sure your personal sense of right and wrong is sacred to you, since it's tied up with your self-love and you show no more deficiency there than any normal self-loving human, but do your received values carry any weight with the people who received different values?

I'm guessing not. Most likely, the only people who might acknowledge your moral "authority" would be people who don't happen to want to do any of the things you condemn. Which means you have no meaningful moral authority, since you are unable to change anyone else's behavior, whether by force or any other means.

If you have successfully forced or persuaded some child mutilators to abandon their religious practice, then I stand corrected.

Traffic accidents? Are you joking?

Of course not. Your incredulity perfectly illustrates the cognitive blind spot I'm talking about. By definition, your blind spots must be nearly impossible for you to recognize, since you are blind to them.

It is about as impossible for the Muslim child mutilators to accept your condemnation of their child mutilating as it is (probably) impossible for you to accept my condemnation of your habit of gaswasting for personal enjoyment (assuming you are a recreational gaswaster - which is highly likely if you can afford a computer and you inhabit an area where gaswasting is prevalent) and your (probable) refusal to accept the kind of traffic regulation that would be necessary to make driving reasonably safe. You probably wouldn't like 20 MPH universal speed limits, sobriety checkpoints everywhere, a driver's test that could actually reject the large percentage of incompetent or emotional drivers, a complete ban on cellphones in automobiles, and so on.

If you occasionally drive an ambulance to pick up sick or injured people, I don't have a huge problem with that, even though it still has most of the same externalities as other forms of driving. I recognize that saving some lives directly, when there is no effective alternative, is worth supporting a little terrorism and contributing a little to violence on the roadways.

However, only a tiny percentage of motoring is of the lifesaving variety - if that's all the motoring we had, the external costs might be manageable.

From a public health standpoint, traffic "accidents" might even be worse than child mutilation - traffic accidents are certainly worse than circumcision of the male variety at least, and I should know because I've experienced both. Traffic accidents cause harm, whereas I've never had occasion to miss my foreskin, and I can't even recall losing it. The only way I'm even aware of having lost it is because I was told by others.

The practice of male circumsion is certainly odd, but only an innumerate fool could think of it as being objectively more harmful than traffic "accidents."

How many people die from circumsion every year? How does the total compare to the death toll from traffic "accidents"?

I quote the word "accidents" because, as I already pointed out and I'm sure you subconsciously refused to understand, the rate of traffic "accidents" is a predictable function of the policies and resources a society allocates to traffic regulation.

For example, if we wanted to virtually eliminate drunk driving, we could put breathalyzer interlocks on all motor vehicles sold, and make it a serious crime to bypass the interlock. This would add a substantial cost to consumers, and it would seriously inconvenience the millions of drivers who habitually drink and drive (which would be the whole point, of course).

We don't have such interlocks in our cars because we live in a culture of barbarians who believe it is better to murder about 15,000 people in the U.S. each year who could probably be saved if every car had such an interlock. (Presumably the numbers are comparable in other countries, in proportion to their amounts of driving and boozing.)

15,000 people every year is a lot of people. That's about triple the number of U.S. citizens who have died in five years of military adventure in Iraq. Those are deaths we could readily prevent. How many people get killed each year by the child mutilators?

Don't get me wrong, I don't approve of the child mutilators. But what they are doing is hardly worse than what the supposedly advanced countries do with their addictions to vices such as recreational drugs, recreational gluttony, and recreational gaswasting.

Of course having faults by no means disqualifies one from pointing out the faults of some backward brown people. It merely makes one look self-righteous and foolish, especially when one simultaneously denies one's own faults.

Other Comments by Teratornis

562. Comment #239507 by Diacanu on August 29, 2008 at 7:13 pm

Teratornis-

It merely makes one look self-righteous and foolish,

Like calling anyone with a car a friend of Bin-Laden, then offering no alternative but more fucking bicycle paths?

And say, what are those sex-robots of yours going to be powered by? Wind?

Other Comments by Diacanu

563. Comment #239508 by Sciros on August 29, 2008 at 7:22 pm

If you occasionally drive an ambulance to pick up sick or injured people, I don't have a huge problem with that, even though it still has most of the same externalities as other forms of driving. I recognize that saving some lives directly, when there is no effective alternative, is worth supporting a little terrorism and contributing a little to violence on the roadways.

This is pure gold. Teratornis you need to post more often.

faults of some backward brown people. It merely makes one look self-righteous and foolish

Why even bother reading Dave Barry anymore, I ask you people?

Other Comments by Sciros

564. Comment #239509 by markg on August 29, 2008 at 7:41 pm

And say, what are those sex-robots of yours going to be powered by? Wind?

I don't care if they are powered by wind, and I wouldn't mind if they blow me.

Other Comments by markg

565. Comment #239510 by Ishruul on August 29, 2008 at 7:42 pm

The lesser of two evil...

Comparing oranges with bananas is futile I agree, we can't compare traffic accidents with child-mutilation on the one fact that traffic accidents aren't an infringement of human rights.

But cutting the weiner of children and clipping off vaginal lips are. It is torture. You disregard someone objection(babies does have objections, crying is a fucking good exemple)to perform some ritual, wich may be a high value for you, but not the the one wich it's directed to.

Common sense ain't an universally grasped concept. So we must, humanity as a whole, support more sanctionned actions taken by the UN to eradicate violation of human right.


EDIT: I bet if plucking out 1 eye be a religious custom of some country, we'll clean their act real quick. Fucking sexually frustrated dickhead.

Other Comments by Ishruul

566. Comment #239520 by Teratornis on August 29, 2008 at 9:14 pm

Comment #239507 by Diacanu:

Teratornis-

It merely makes one look self-righteous and foolish,

Like calling anyone with a car a friend of Bin-Laden, then offering no alternative but more fucking bicycle paths?

I assume I'm writing to people who have some capacity to reason freely, unencumbered by irrational emotions of guilt and a concept of absolute morality.

Let's say a worst-case personal transportation scenario is something like the following:

1. Driving long distances purely for personal entertainment in a single-passenger gas-guzzler. For some example, see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas-guzzler

Almost any adjustment to the above scenario is likely to be an improvement. The adjustments are so obvious it hardly seems necessary to list them, unless you want me to assume I'm writing to an audience of modest intellectual capacities.

I can easily handle that assumption:

2. Stop driving for pleasure. Do something else for pleasure, such as denounce the sins of other people on the Richard Dawkins site. Or sit at home and get drunk. Watch TV. Contribute to an article on Wikipedia. Anything other than driving.

3. Fill the empty seats in the vehicle with other passengers (car-pooling).

4. Drive shorter distances (find a vacation spot closer to home, etc.).

5. Buy a vehicle with superior fuel efficiency.

6. Ride a bicycle. Certainly the bicycle competes well if the objective is entertainment. Most people who drive feel as if they need to drive to a destination, where they get out of their cars and do something else. In contrast, lots of bicyclists enjoy riding itself so much that they don't feel as if they need to stop and do something else.

7. Use mass transit. If there isn't any in your area, get involved politically and make it happen. Or move somewhere that has working transit.

8. Telecommute to work.

9. Shop online instead of driving to Wal-Mart. One fully-loaded delivery truck wastes far less fuel than the dozens of lightly-loaded cars it replaces.

Etc. Almost everybody who is currently using more petroleum than necessary can easily figure out some ways to use less. This is usually quite easy in wasteful countries like the U.S., where there are more car seats than people.

In Japan, which is already more than twice as energy-efficient as the U.S., further savings might require somewhat more intelligence. But check out Amory Lovins sometime - he's published whole books on the further energy savings possible even in advanced economies like Japan's.

Also, as James Howard Kunstler likes to point out, we don't have any choice about reducing our petroleum consumption, once the world passes its peak of production and goes into terminal production decline. At that point, either we deliberately negotiate our consumption downward, or nature begins negotiating for us.

That is, your failure to think of viable alternatives to gaswasting will not put one more barrel of oil in the ground. It would be equally futile for a starving child in Haiti to exclaim, "I can't run out of food because you haven't given me an alternative!" The availability of food is in no way tied to the presence or absence of alternatives. If you are currently in the habit of consuming much more than the per capita world oil production (which is steadily dropping), then unless your name is Bill Gates and you can outbid all the other greedy consumers you will probably have no choice but to cut back. The only person responsible for figuring out how to do that is you, although lots of other people have already written books and Web sites full of possibilities.

So, what's your alternative to offer the Islamic child mutilators? Or do you feel that because child mutilation is evil, the job of figuring out what else to do falls on the evildoers?

The Richard Dawkins site is full of denouncements of religion, without much in the way of real alternatives to religion. For example, Islam is doing a pretty good job of restraining the public health catastrophes of AIDS and booze that are decimating many non-Islamic cultures. What's your alternative to Islam that doesn't, say, turn Saudi Arabia into a wasteland of AIDS-infected drunks?

The average person is, after all, stupid enough to believe in religion. Do you suppose anyone that stupid has the mental capacity to successfully navigate the hazards of life by reason alone? There are plenty of neighborhoods near me which do not paint an encouraging picture.

It's pretty clear to anyone who looks at the statistics that (a large percentage of) humans are evidently so stupid and so poorly in control of their emotions that only religions or police state control can protect a lot of humans from their own stupidity and moral depravity. Perhaps you are comfortable with getting rid of restraints on human stupidity and letting Social Darwinism take over, but unfortunately the stupid humans have a way of taking down less stupid humans with them. So I don't really know if the Social Darwinism approach is a good one yet. Certainly we could not say either way without doing some serious study on the issue.

I'm sure someone as smart as Richard Dawkins can handle atheism, but what about the dumbshits? Like the clowns who call in when Richard is on the radio, and say they would kill their neighbor if they didn't believe in God. There really are lots of people like that. We have prisons full of them.

As Napoleon said, the purpose of religion is to stop the poor from murdering the rich.

I agree that if we condemn things, we might try to think about some alternatives people can try, but do you?

And say, what are those sex-robots of yours going to be powered by? Wind?

Well, there are radios and flashlights you can charge up by cranking them, so when it comes to sex-robots, uh, use your imagination as to how you might charge them up.

All seriousness aside, wind is one possibility, although modesty prevents me from taking credit either for inventing the concept of sex robots, or the robots themselves, as might seem to be implied by your use of the phrase "of yours". It's faintly possible that I might contribute to their invention in a small way, if they get invented on a commons-based peer production system, which would mean I could contribute without having to get off my butt, or take a shower first and go to meetings where I might have to encounter other humans face to face, but nothing quite like that is in place yet so I wouldn't bet on it. Instead I am merely predicting where current trends in technology appear completely capable of leading.

A moderately active human only dissipates about 100 watts. The power requirements for a humanoid robot would be similar, if it matched humans in efficiency and performance. A humanoid robot might be more efficient than a human, since electric motors can be about 90% efficient, whereas muscles are only about 25% efficient if I recall correctly. The inefficiency of muscles becomes obvious to anyone who uses their large muscles long enough to begin sweating to remove the waste heat generated. Humans also have to use energy to digest food and rebuild tissues, and robots would probably work differently. In terms of overall energy cost, robots would probably be far cheaper than humans, since robots won't have these enormous needs for entertainment, comfortable environments, and rather specialized food sources. This would be reflected in the overall lower cost of building a robots compared to the cost of raising and educated a human child to adulthood.

If robots can't be made cheaper than humans, they aren't going to be widely used.

Per capita energy consumption in the U.S. right now is about 10 kW, averaged around the clock. Thus the average person in the U.S. already consumes enough power to run dozens of human-scale robots continuously. Generating this power from renewables poses no resource constraints, it's just a question of time, investment, redirecting the workers, developing the technology, etc.

Even the Republican-influenced U.S. Department of Energy (which must cater to an administration that loves Big Oil, loves petroleum wars, and disbelieves in global warming) published a study that finds the U.S. can readily generate 20% of its electricity just from wind by the year 2030, so that probably sets a very conservative lower bound on what is possible.

Incidentally, the U.S. became the world's leading producer of wind power around July, 2008, edging out Germany which held the #1 spot for years. Germany still has a higher installed nameplate capacity, but U.S. wind farms are more productive because the U.S. has windier sites to build them on. Germany of course generates a much higher percentage of its total power from wind than the U.S. does, but the U.S. is adding wind power faster than any other country and the annual growth is astounding (around 40% for a doubling time of less than two years).

As to where robot power will come from, that should be obvious. The robots themselves will construct the solar arrays or wind farms or geothermal plants they need to power themselves sustainably for our amusement.

Of course I acknowledge the very real possibility that peak oil could destroy civilization before Moore's law gets far enough to give us these self-sustaining slave robots. I also acknowledge the sci-fi hackneyed yet plausible scenario of the self-sustaining robots deciding they don't need humans around any more

Another possibility is to skip the robots and go straight to virtual reality, which might consume just milliwatts, since it only needs to tickle nerves directly, but I don't know how the competing technologies will develop (i.e., which would become viable sooner). Building robot companions that rival human companions looks difficult, and so does building brain implants. It's hard to predict which might become feasible first. I like to write about robots because everybody has built up a concept of them by watching movies, so they tend to freak out at the idea of robots that would actually be attractive. Movies have, of course, almost invariably portrayed fictional robots with freak-out qualities.

Movies like to make a big, deep Uncanny Valley because evidently it sells tickets.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley

Repliee Q2 doesn't quite make it across yet, but I can't fault the Japanese for trying. Somebody has to try.

Other Comments by Teratornis

567. Comment #239522 by Sciros on August 29, 2008 at 9:29 pm

What's your alternative to Islam that doesn't, say, turn Saudi Arabia into a wasteland of AIDS-infected drunks?

FUCK YEAH! This is the kind of shit I want to see posted here more, Teratornis. Keep that shit coming, motherfucker.

I could quote the rest of your post with as much enthusiasm, but it's right there for me to read every day for a good laugh so what's the point.

By the way, everyone needs to visit Wiki's page on Uncanny Valley that Teratornis linked to. The "zombie" entry on the graph cracks me up. WTF "zombie" hahahahah

Other Comments by Sciros

568. Comment #239531 by Quine on August 29, 2008 at 10:09 pm

Youknow, BigBird, from time to time I want to encourage others to stop feeding you, and wonder how new people can figure out that you are not a troll, but then in the middle of some long winded blow-by you come out with something like:

Comment #239520 by Teratornis:

As Napoleon said, the purpose of religion is to stop the poor from murdering the rich.

and I think what a great contribution you could make if you just went out and found an editor.

Other Comments by Quine

569. Comment #239535 by Teratornis on August 29, 2008 at 10:19 pm

Comment #239510 by Ishruul:

The lesser of two evil...

Comparing oranges with bananas is futile I agree,

How is it futile? We can compare anything with anything else.

For example, see if you can overcome your cognitive blind spot just enough for this message to tune in, between those bursts of cognitive static (the blinding emotions of incredulity):

Muslim child mutilators have been indoctrinated since early childhood to view mutilating children as not much of a problem.

Similarly, gaswasting travel junkies in countries like the U.S. have been indoctrinated since early childhood to view traffic "accidents" as not much of a problem.

We know humans have an enormous innate capacity to become indoctrinated into ignoring various problems, when their cultures go to work on them early enough. Look at the history of slavery - once upon a time, not very long ago, most white people were convinced black people were inherently inferior, and owning black people as slaves was perfectly appropriate. In the U.S., there were even a few freed black people who themselves owned slaves!

A little farther back in the Middle Ages, a popular form of entertainment was cat burning, shows in which live cats were burned to death, so the audiences could laugh at the cats' screams of pain. By today's standards, cat burnings would seem totally barbaric, but once upon a time they were no big deal. Unless you were a cat!

It's easy for us to recognize the blind spots of other people who received different indoctrination than we did. We can denounce the cat burners and child mutilators because we didn't have their upbringing. But recognizing our own blind spots - seeing past our own upbringing - that's something only thoughtful people can do.

I was brought up as a fundagelical creationist, and I managed to reason my way out of that. So don't be surprised that I similarly question all the other nonsense I absorbed growing up. I have personal experience with being blind and then becoming able to see something. It's amazing how much that can expand a person's mind.

That's why I question the thinking capacity of anyone who hasn't consciously examined and rejected at least one important aspect of his or her upbringing. A person who hasn't done that may not even be aware that he or she can have blind spots.

It is just as difficult for Islamic child mutilators to see through their blind spot as it is difficult for you to see through yours.

If you grew up in the U.S., you've probably been indoctrinated into cars since infancy. You've viewed cars as a necessity for so long that you can't even logically connect the slaughter on the highways with your own use of cars. It's as if accidents are some completely independent phenomenon, like meteor impacts, totally beyond the human power to influence, and having nothing at all to do with our personal behavioral choices.

But that isn't true. The rate of auto accidents is a pragmatic social decision, reflecting our willingness to allocate policy and resources to the problem. Most people haven't consciously thought much about the decision, but collectively we most certainly do make this decision.

we can't compare traffic accidents with child-mutilation on the one fact that traffic accidents aren't an infringement of human rights.

Killing and maiming people does not infringe on their rights? You don't acknowledge a right to live free from unnecessary violence?

Chopping cities right in half with superhighways that humans cannot easily cross does not infringe on their rights?

Where I live, the freeways function something like the Berlin Wall for anyone who doesn't have a car. There are only a few overpasses and they are almost all activitely hostile to humans, not unlike the old checkpoints.

But cutting the weiner of children and clipping off vaginal lips are. It is torture. You disregard someone objection(babies does have objections, crying is a fucking good exemple)to perform some ritual, wich may be a high value for you, but not the the one wich it's directed to.

Babies cry when they're born. Do you believe that being born is also a form of torture? (Actually, one could make a pretty solid case, but it's not clear we have any good alternatives.)

People who get worked up about the circumcision of male infants amaze me. Talk about fretting about a non-problem. None of the so-called "victims" have any recollection of it. Do you have any studies which document any objective harm resulting from the practice?

I agree the practice is silly, and we can ridicule the practitioners, but if you think cutting off a piece of obviously useless skin from someone who won't remember it is worse than murdering thousands of people every year because we are too lazy, cheap, and irresponsible to do what is necessary to make travel safe, I can only conclude your grasp on reality is nonexistent.

Which is perfectly understandable, since you've been brought up to view cars as not a problem. Your upbringing has crippled your grasp on reality in that one area. Like the Chinese speaker who cannot distinguish the English "L" and "R", it is possible the neural circuits necessary to recognize car-nage as a problem have atrophied away in your brain from never having been used in your formative years.

As far as I have been able to determine, the only drawback of male circumcision is that the "victim" finds it less comfortable to whack off dry. That is, in fact, why the practice of circumcision became popular in the U.S. among non-Jews. Opponents of masturbation such as John Harvey Kellogg (yes, the corn flakes guy) recommended circumcision as a preventative measure.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Harvey_Kellogg#Anti-sex_and_Anti-masturbation_positions

It seems as a preventative for masturbation, circumcision is not very effective.

Kellogg's views were bizarre, but hardly as damaging as automobiles. Just count the dead bodies.

Common sense ain't an universally grasped concept.

Kipling seems to have agreed:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_White_Man's_Burden

So we must, humanity as a whole, support more sanctionned actions taken by the UN to eradicate violation of human right.

Your concept of "human rights" appears to be a logically inconsistent received social construction, riddled with blind spots.

EDIT: I bet if plucking out 1 eye be a religious custom of some country, we'll clean their act real quick.

I don't know. It all depends on how serious the denizens of "some country" are about it.

The United Nations likes to make its lofty rules for all countries to follow, but look at the track record of enforcement. Saddam ignored multiple U.N. resolutions until the U.S. invaded and killed his ass. But look at the cost - how many times can the U.S. military afford adventures like that? The U.K. played a smaller role in the Iraq project, and how much political support for muscular interventionism is there in the U.K. now?

North Korea and Iran are similarly ignoring the U.N., and invading them would be even costlier than invading and occupying Iraq.

The list of countries violating some part of the U.N. pronouncements on human rights is almost the entire list of countries. Even the U.S. is in violation with its "detention" camps for terrorism suspects. Not to mention capital punishment for ordinary criminals. Should someone invade the U.S. so we stop executing murderers?

I'm impressed at your hubris that we are the world's morality police. Have you learned nothing from recent history? Once upon a time, nations like the U.K. had their global empires, in which they subjugated many different peoples and attempted to civilize them, but that era is over now.

Back in the good old days of Imperialism, white men could take the Maxim gun to spear-wielding savages to impose Victorian morality on them with industrial efficiency. Today it is not so easy to impose our will on people who disagree with us. The former savages moved up to AK-47s and truck bombs, plus the advanced nations now feel guiltier about using their full military advantages. Somehow we want to impose liberal democracy on people who didn't ask for it, and do so without generating any bad pictures to appear on the news.

Fucking sexually frustrated dickhead.

I'm trying to picture how I could be fucking and sexually frustrated at the same time. In my experience, the two things rarely coincide.

So, would you care to try again, with something resembling relevant facts this time? I get that you think cutting off a piece of useless skin is worse than mowing people down in cars, but can you explain why? That is, can you detail some objective harm that results from losing a useless piece of skin that compares to, say, losing entire limbs or one's life?

Try to look at the situation like a Martian would, without all the social bias you're swimming in. Granted, that's like asking a fish to imagine a life outside water, but give it a whirl.

The first step is to realize you've been brainwashed to believe at least a few unreasonable things. If you can manage just that much, you've moved ahead of about 99% of homo sapiens.

Other Comments by Teratornis

570. Comment #239541 by Diacanu on August 29, 2008 at 10:29 pm

Shut off, and go to bed, Aspergers.

Other Comments by Diacanu

571. Comment #239547 by irate_atheist on August 29, 2008 at 10:48 pm

569. Comment #239535 by Teratornis -

Perhaps you regard that all pharmaceuticals should be banned because, regrettably, they have side-effects and some people do have severe - even life-threatening - reactions to them. And sod the benefits to those who use them responsibly.

Female gential mutilation has no benefit whatsoever to the person being mutilated. Car use has a large benefit to those that drive to:

1. Get to work and provide an income for their families whilst producing goods and services for others in the community.

2. Transport elderly relations around who cannot safely use public transport due to infirmity.

3. Save time - something none of us can buy - on a lot of journeys compared to using many forms of publci transport as they currently stand.

You clearly have no grasp of cost-benefit analysis or the concept of utility.

People who get worked up about the circumcision of male infants amaze me. Talk about fretting about a non-problem. None of the so-called "victims" have any recollection of it. Do you have any studies which document any objective harm resulting from the practice?

http://www.noharmm.org/incidenceworld.htm

http://www.cirp.org/library/death/

If you then say that, ah, but male circumcision reduces likelihood of AIDS transmission, I can throw your logic back to you and say that using a condom or monogamous practices are, in fact, more effective.

Other Comments by irate_atheist

572. Comment #239549 by irate_atheist on August 29, 2008 at 10:51 pm

570. Comment #239541 by Diacanu -

Could be worse me old mucker.

David Robertson could have written another book.

*shudders*

Other Comments by irate_atheist

573. Comment #239551 by 8teist on August 29, 2008 at 11:11 pm

Irate ,571 fuckin` A I`d like to see T carry the gear I have to lug around every day to work on a frikkin` bicycle or public transport(not that public transport exists in NZ).

I guess everyones perception of reality is different.

Other Comments by 8teist

574. Comment #239553 by Laurie Fraser on August 29, 2008 at 11:15 pm

Come on, 8. Everyone knows that you Kiwis are so strong you could carry your work gear on the ends of your ...

Other Comments by Laurie Fraser

575. Comment #239555 by 8teist on August 29, 2008 at 11:20 pm

I don`t like to boast Laurie

Other Comments by 8teist

576. Comment #239559 by 8teist on August 29, 2008 at 11:30 pm

Its probably time to derail this thread and start talking rugby ,seeing as there is another big game on tonight.

Other Comments by 8teist

577. Comment #239562 by Laurie Fraser on August 29, 2008 at 11:37 pm

Now you're talkin, 8! Starts at 10.30 our time.I dare say our boys are in with a chance.

Damn - gotta go and do some chores for SWMBO. See you later, mate.

Other Comments by Laurie Fraser

578. Comment #239563 by irate_atheist on August 29, 2008 at 11:41 pm

573. Comment #239551 by 8teist -

Indeed. Perhaps he thinks that all the equipment for tele-commuting provided by people (such as myself) magically transports itself around the country. As do the engineers (such as myself) who install and suppport such equipment.

Hey - Tera - ever tried carrying a 42U half-height server-cabinet on your bike? HP DL-360 servers are a bit of a bastard to put under your arm as well. Perhaps a 35kg UPS to power it all would be more maneagable.

So, Tera, things you can do to reduce your energy consumption (and as at least a proportion of your electricity is generated by gas and oil fuelled power stations, reduce your useage of fossil fuels):

1. Turn all your lights out. Unless you have a medical emergency, in which case it's acceptable.

2. Eat only raw vegetable and fruit. I assume you are a vegetarian already becasue otherwise you would be wasting gasoline used in transport animals, feedstock, frozen meat and vetinarians around the countryside.

3. Don't cycle anywhere. You are wearing out that bike and one day it will need to be replaced - along with it's mineral-based lubricants and plastic parts. Not to mention the waste of energy in manufacturing the frame. So, walk everywhere.

4. Don't use a computer. Ever. Each time you turn it on and off, the component parts become more liable to failure because they go though a heating/cooling cycle. Not to mention spin-up and spin-down of the hard drive. So, it too will fail and - presumably - you will want to replace it. Just think of all the gasoline wasted just in transporting it to your front door. But then again, perhaps you're eco friendlier and use a solid-state solar powered laptop. And all your home electricity is produced by solar-power and wind-turbines. No? See point (1) above.

5. Don't fart. Methane is a much more powerful grenhouse gas than CO₂. (I know it may superficially have nothing to do with peak oil, but, technically speaking it will make the world's air-conditioners work just a little bit harder. More gas/oil burned.)

Unless you address all of the above, you have no moral authority to stop Puff Daddy repeatedly flying across the Atlantic to further his film career. You are clearly as bad as a child-mutilating goat-herder. Worse, in fact. After all - the putative primitive doesn't use any oil.

Other Comments by irate_atheist

579. Comment #239564 by kkelly on August 29, 2008 at 11:42 pm

I agree with you Tera, about not using an automobile unless it's absolutely necessary given how much violence they cause. I also agree that we should never go out in public unless absolutely necessary, for the violence we inflict on others with our germs is sinful. And we don't even have to act irresponsibly by coughing and sneezing or not washing our hands to be complicit in the carnage. All we have to do is breathe. Sidewalks aren't safe, the flu virus spreads most efficiently in cold, dry air because it's able to stay afloat longer (smaller water droplets). A walk down to the corner shop to get that carton of milk you don't need might make you a murderer. Just breathe in flu virus, take it home to your family and uh oh, grandma's dead. Even if she isn't, the grandma of your kid's friend's aunt's son-in-law's kid's friend's grandma is. All because you're a selfish asshole who wanted a carton of milk that YOU DIDN'T NEED. And what is it, 60,000 deaths/year in this country alone? That beats traffic deaths by about 20,000. So please, please apply your logic skills to this issue because only you are smart enough to convince everybody.

Other Comments by kkelly

580. Comment #239565 by irate_atheist on August 29, 2008 at 11:44 pm

579. Comment #239564 by kkelly -

Hey - that's my grandma. You murdering bastard. Stop breathing immediately.

Other Comments by irate_atheist

581. Comment #239568 by 8teist on August 29, 2008 at 11:52 pm

"
1. Turn all your lights out. Unless you have a medical emergency, in which case it's acceptable.

2. Eat only raw vegetable and fruit."


Hehe I used to work with an old boy who did the above ,turned his hot water off in summer ,boiled all his food then drank the juice ,tight as a ducks bum, the funny thing was he bought a brand new car every year .

Other Comments by 8teist

582. Comment #239574 by irate_atheist on August 29, 2008 at 11:59 pm

581. Comment #239568 by 8teist -

Yeah. But the milege he got from it. Wow.

Other Comments by irate_atheist

583. Comment #239577 by Laurie Fraser on August 30, 2008 at 12:10 am

So, irate, etc, - I live in a solar-powered home (2.5 Kw photovoltaics and wind turbine.) Does that mean I'm free to buy an SUV?

Other Comments by Laurie Fraser

584. Comment #239579 by Sciros on August 30, 2008 at 12:15 am

Laurie the new Hummer HX looks pretty wicked. Runs on E85, too. Good to raise those food prices a bit, keep the poor people hungry.

Other Comments by Sciros

585. Comment #239582 by Laurie Fraser on August 30, 2008 at 12:28 am

Good point, Sciros - does it come with armour plating (just to add more weight and keep the hungry at bay)?

Seriously, although I agree with much of what Teratornis has to say about our addiction to oil and motorised transport, there are many other ways we should be reducing our consumption of energy. For instance, in my area the local council has virtually zero energy efficiency mandates for new houses, so you see these great big brick boxes with black roofs and no eaves being stuck up that require air-conditioning on most days of the year. (And we commonly get 40 degrees plus throughout summer.) I built my place on a passive solar design. Even at the height of summer last year, when we had a week of 45 days, the downstairs never got above 27 degrees. So it can be done, and easily. And, as domestic needs account for about 25% of all energy use, enormous savings in that use can be made with very little effort.

Other Comments by Laurie Fraser

586. Comment #239600 by Wosret on August 30, 2008 at 2:03 am

I avoid Tera like the plague. Not only because he's weird, and insane, but almost entirely because I don't want to spend four hours reading each of his posts.

For a guy that acts like he is so considerate to people, and the world, you would think he would try to be a hell of a lot more concise. Doesn't he realize how much time he wastes, both typing those exhaustively long winded posts, and the potential time of anyone crazy enough to actually read them?

I don't know about him, but I gots shit to do. If he has a point to make, he should be able to do it in less than ten thousand words. Or at least throw an interesting plot in them. "Oh, the neighbor was the murdered".

Other Comments by Wosret

587. Comment #239736 by Ishruul on August 30, 2008 at 9:21 am

569. Comment #239535 by Teratornis

1- Mutilation, murder, torture, etc...Is inflicting harm to someone consciently. A highway accident, is an accident, wich mean not on purpose.

2-

Muslim child mutilators have been indoctrinated since early childhood to view mutilating children as not much of a problem.

That doesn't make it acceptable, it's like saying murder is ok cauze some guy said so.

3-

Babies cry when they're born.

Of course, take a football, get it through a hole the size of a golf ball without serious harm. Your knowledge of human anatomy is quite non-existant (beside the redundant blind-spot metaphor).

4-

I'm trying to picture how I could be fucking and sexually frustrated at the same time.

I apologize about that one, it wasn't aimed at you, but rather any retard who thing mutilating people for religious beliefs is good. Wich is always because of sexual frustration, aiming for control.

5-

So, would you care to try again, with something resembling relevant facts this time? I get that you think cutting off a piece of useless skin is worse than mowing people down in cars, but can you explain why?

I see you have absolutely no clues about the difference between intentionnal actions and unintentionnal ones. The abstract concept of 'choice' may be something you apply to everything?

6-

The first step is to realize you've been brainwashed to believe at least a few unreasonable things. If you can manage just that much, you've moved ahead of about 99% of homo sapiens.

Unlike you, I wasn't brought up in the cretartionism fundamentalistic views. I'm no U.S. citizen either, I don't even have a car (by choice, not for ecological reason but economical).

I'm impressed at your hubris that we are the world's morality police.

Like I said, I ain't a US citizen and I don't think US should police anything beside the US. The UN is a consortium of country willing to uphold the law in a global fashion, still it need to be back up by the majority to do so.

But since you seem to have something against highways, traffic and cars, I can point out an organization that you would like to support.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Make_Roads_Safe

7-

I get that you think cutting off a piece of useless skin is worse than mowing people down in cars, but can you explain why?

I didn't said that, they are not the same thing, one is inpose the other incidental.

P.S, you asked for relevant fact about child sexual organ mutilations and child birth. here you go.
http://www.crin.org/email/crinmail_detail.asp?crinmailID=1425
http://www.infocirc.org/facts.htm
http://www.netdoctor.co.uk/menshealth/facts/circumcision.htm
http://www.articlesuniverse.com/Article/Why-Babies-Prefer-Natural-Childbirth/48467


P.P.S. I don't like you very much. Blind-spot...I prefer auto-critic, much more useful.

Other Comments by Ishruul

588. Comment #239816 by Diacanu on August 30, 2008 at 11:22 am

Mitchell Gilks-

For a guy that acts like he is so considerate to people, and the world, you would think he would try to be a hell of a lot more concise. Doesn't he realize how much time he wastes, both typing those exhaustively long winded posts, and the potential time of anyone crazy enough to actually read them?

I called him on that back when I tried to be nice to him, he didn't listen.
He thinks anything he says is so fuckin' important, he simply can't reign it in.

Another fevered ego tainting the collective subconscious.

Other Comments by Diacanu

589. Comment #240222 by aubnop on August 31, 2008 at 5:06 am

So true.
I'm 14...I know geeky...and I haven't even been taught evoltion.

Other Comments by aubnop

590. Comment #241344 by Cobra in the fire on September 2, 2008 at 6:10 am

Teratornis,
You miss a fundamental point. When I talk about these examples I refer to the individual cases of these acts, not an entire people.

I was using these examples to illustrate a point about the liberal mindset. Liberals fight to the end for rights for their own, mostly privileged WHITE people, to be free of oppression, for women not to be beaten or abused. Or they patronise other races by offering token gestures that don't solve anything about the actual true divisions.

Then the hypocrites defend the right to practise a culture in the west that actively oppresses its own people. Its OK because "that is what THEY do".
THERE IS NO THEY..We are all human beings..If someone lives in my nation I consider them as my people, and for that matter anyone else is one of my people, because to quote Cicero, I am a human being and nothing human is foreign to me.

Liberals would be so accomodating to these other beliefs that in the end they would passively facilitate the abuses as long as it was not happening to THEM. Inaction is as bad as supporting it.

Teratornis, did you vote against Bush, because I certainly voted against Blair? Blair took my country to war on a lie. All these protests about it matter not one bit if all the people jumping on the bandwagon ,when its trendy to be so self righteous, are too apathetic to do something and vote their goverment out. The younger generation wave placards then can't be bothered to vote? pointless.

As for the lack of memory about unanaesthetised circumcision meaning it isn't traumatic, then presumably you wouldn't have minded if you had been kicked as a baby, and therefore being needlessly damaged is ok then. Because you wouldn't remember. A cheap shot, but there you go..I know why this practise is carried out on kids, but it is obviously pointless for anything other than tradition, and that is not a good enough reason to do this. In Africa it reduces AIDS infections in adults, thats a reason. Tradition isn't. It was tradition to stick the heads of criminals on spikes in London a few hundred years ago. Shall we go back to that because tradition is such a wonderful thing? I think not.

As nations perhaps we are not better than others, but as individuals in every country we must try to work against ignorance ,and pretentious moral cowardice in the form of cultural relativism, whether our own or others. It applies to me, you, an Iraqi, an American, whoever...You can allow others to practise their beliefs, but not past the point where it harms others. I do my best. its probably not enough, and my views may be flawed, but I try.

Other Comments by Cobra in the fire

591. Comment #241430 by Cobra in the fire on September 2, 2008 at 8:22 am

Diacanu, Teratornis, a few things guys.

Why do you Teratornis, bother to be so pompous in answering Diacanu? Are you some rabidly intellectual exhibitionist? Wow ,Frasier look out!

Diacanu, raise your game. Swearing at the guy is just provoking more pretentious prattle, and it makes you look less intelligent.

God knows what the professor thinks about this kind of rubbish. It must be an embarassment if he sees this on his website.

You two should get married!

Other Comments by Cobra in the fire

592. Comment #241589 by traintrain on September 2, 2008 at 5:02 pm

Insulting someone by calling them 'asbergers' aint gonna cut it either Diacanu. I think you'll find that a few intellectuals through history may well have been 'aspies' which kind of backfires somewhat; makes you look a little less intelligent than your posts would suggest

Other Comments by traintrain

593. Comment #241607 by Sciros on September 2, 2008 at 9:30 pm

Insulting someone by calling them 'asbergers'

Bwahahaha what a glorious typo. Indeed, perhaps the more appropriate term for Teratornis is 'assburgers.'

EDIT: The diagnosis is in. Teratornis's affliction IS Assburger's Syndrome! Nearly all the symptoms are there.

Anyway seriously there are like 100 good reasons not to read Teratornis's posts. But there's 1 GREAT reason to read them -- the sheer hilarity. I mean, shit like "What's your alternative to Islam that doesn't, say, turn Saudi Arabia into a wasteland of AIDS-infected drunks?" -- that, ladies and gentlemen, is raw talent. I can't make up statements like that if I tried. Teratornis is a professional.

Other Comments by Sciros

594. Comment #241609 by Diacanu on September 2, 2008 at 9:45 pm

Cobra-

Diacanu, raise your game. Swearing at the guy is just provoking more pretentious prattle,

And more insanity too. *Smirk*
Just look at the line Sciros quotes.

and it makes you look less intelligent.

I can only disagree.
*Shrug*

God knows

No he doesn't. *wink*

what the professor thinks about this kind of rubbish.

Hey, it's his site, if he doesn't like me, he can tell me to leave the party, and I'm gone.
*Shrug*

Other Comments by Diacanu

595. Comment #241612 by Diacanu on September 2, 2008 at 9:50 pm

traintrain-

Insulting someone by calling them 'asbergers' aint gonna cut it either Diacanu.

Insulting? No.
Diagnosing a problem?
Sure.

I think you'll find that a few intellectuals through history may well have been 'aspies'

Tsst, I don't care.
If those 'aspies', had robot personalities, and ruined one of my parties, I'd show 'em the door.

I don't like assholism in any context.
Sorry.
He's got a disorder?
Let him get treatment and pills.
If he's just an asshole with a robot personality, fuck him.

which kind of backfires somewhat; makes you look a little less intelligent than your posts would suggest

Well, I guess I'll just have to live with that scar on my heart somehow.

Other Comments by Diacanu

596. Comment #241613 by Diacanu on September 2, 2008 at 9:52 pm

Sciros-

The diagnosis is in. Teratornis's affliction IS Assburger's Syndrome! Nearly all the symptoms are there.

Indeed.
I was hoping someone would do the homework on that post.
Shows I didn't pull it out of my ass.

Other Comments by Diacanu

597. Comment #241810 by Cobra in the fire on September 3, 2008 at 5:27 am

Ok, Tongue in cheek I can handle....(-:
At least you have good taste in manga...

Other Comments by Cobra in the fire

598. Comment #241814 by traintrain on September 3, 2008 at 5:35 am

OK...typo noted. Maybe I'm an aspie

Other Comments by traintrain

599. Comment #243679 by mr.frazzlebottom on September 6, 2008 at 7:38 pm

Some of the children, though, were impervious to this knowledge, and Dawkins was disappointed. But he did not challenge them or demand that they change their mind. The Radio Times, however, still published a letter from someone criticising the programme, saying Dawkins "tried to promulgate his atheist doctrine amongst schoolchildren."


Well, that's the crux of the "problem" that religion has with evolution and atheism -- to the religious fundamentalists simply providing or even making available information pertaining to evolution will always be perceived as promulgation.

Fundies are people who live a life based on the belief in texts (their church sanctioned texts of course) as the absolute truth -- they tell their children of the absolute truth of their texts. Therefore, they will always want to censor or hide all other texts if there are differences -- however remote -- with their own.

Other Comments by mr.frazzlebottom

600. Comment #244357 by init on September 8, 2008 at 3:14 pm

Sorry but I have to say the Americans are idiots... Not that I want to humiliate anyone. To me it's also sad to know.

In Poland - a traditionally Catholic country - noone needs proves that the evolution tells the truth, not Bible. It is obvious to everyone. The people here are too not so brilliant if they haven't connected the fact so quickly (i.e. they thought there is a "reconciliation"), but still they didn't deny the sole fact of evolution! They just didn't recognize its consequences so easily. But now, it seems they do.

"Answering the old question 'unde malum?' [where is evil from?], we perhaps have to say that the evil began when our ancestors killed all mammoths" -- Stanislaw Lem

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