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Alrighty! Now we're down to some real thought. *Grins*
Part of the argument you used is that the Fund might restrict freedoms, but the way I had envisioned this it would be entirely separate from your own bank account. The Fund couldn't tell a person to get X car, because for one thing there's a very limited government of the Fund. A random selection would occur and a panel of judges would decide if a massive withdrawal at any given moment was deemed 'necessary' in other words, if you do buy a Hummer for no reason and use the collective account it's likely to get vetoed. But getting a random selection of people to agree that a mid sized sedan isn't necessary would be rather difficult, it would take quite an excessive use of the Fund to warrant refusal since several people would have to agree you were wasting money. Even then, you can still buy that excessive car, just not with the Fund's assistance for it.

Another part was that nobody would be motivated to work, however the incentive is that you are only putting into the Fund what you wish. You still have a personal bank account, so you still have a strong incentive to work hard and make more money. The Funds is entirely voluntary, and you would only put into it when and if you felt you could. No monthly payment required, no demands for your cash, only the incentive to pay into it to help your fellow man as they have helped you.

True, the money wouldn't accumulate as well as it could if it was managed properly, but it's also not intended to be a multimillion or multibillion dollar industry the way insurance is. It doesn't require salesmen, treasurers, managers, offices and office space. It would accumulate interest as an open bank account and that would be the limits of it's growth. It would have a computer system with maybe one employee (if an automated computer selection system wasn't possible) and the occasional repair or server upgrade and that would be the limits of it's cost as well.

As for the Tragedy of the Commons, I'd like to think of the better nature of mankind. However, we know all too well that very few people are capable of truly offering assistance to others without seeing a future benefit from it, (even when having just benefited from that same person) so I do believe that you are correct. The world simply isn't ready for this kind of project to be real at the moment, if I believed it was even for a moment I would establish more detailed rules and open the Fund myself. For the moment, it's simply an interesting thought experiment to me and I thank you for your effort in talking it through with me so far. :)

Only somewhere there's a rich prick making money off insurance, denying that money to everyone he can even if they actually do need it, and insurance only covers a specific purpose (fire, house, et cetera). This is more like a family income type thing, where people help each other to maintain basic standards of living even if it means they don't get to buy their new Mercedes this month.
At any rate, I'm hoping this spurs debate and helps foster thought on what we could accomplish together as a species if we helped each other out instead of screwing each other every chance we got. For one thing, the Fund as a whole would have more money since there wouldn't be as many people paying late charges and ridiculous interest rates. The same people squeaking by on minimum wage could actually afford to live on that money if they could avoid the expenses of being in the hole, and with that extra could help someone else out in return. :)

I have a thought experiment I want to run by you, just to see if my head is really that far off normal that I think this could work. :P I don't know if it's technically socialist ideals or if there's a better term for it, but this isn't about what thoughts it follows it's only about whether you think it could succeed, and what you think could cause it to fail.

Imagine a bank account. This bank account is listed under the name 'The Fund' or something similar. It can be accessed by anyone, anywhere, who has signed a contract to become a member. This membership can be backed out of at any point, for any reason. The membership is free, and the contract is a new form of social contract among all members. Location is not an issue, this is an international bank account among all people of the world.

The thought experiment is as such, that if a member signed the contract their obligations would be FIRST to the laws of their country. This wouldn't be a separate nation, you'd still have to live under the usual laws.

Next, you would have the right to withdraw money for certain purposes, and within reason. These purposes would be for such things as rent, bills, food, car payments, and other simple things that every human should be entitled to. You would be expected to put any money you had that you didn't need into the funds, essentially a request that in exchange for the insurance of having the assistance of the other members of the Fund, you would pay into the account as well to assist others when you had enough to spare at the end of the month.

There would be no one person in control of the Fund, rather every person would take part in voting and if a need arose for a quick panel of judges to determine if a case (such as removing someone from the Fund for never putting money in and making no effort to find employment/funds outside the Fund, or for someone needing to make a withdrawal of questionable necessity), that panel would be randomly selected from the members of the Fund to prevent any one person from maintaining an office or title in the Fund.

So, these being a few simple ideas for how an organization of socialist style concepts might exist in a modern setting, what would everyone's opinion be on such a concept? Do you think that by using randomly selected or universal voting that corruption of the 'government' of such a Fund would be stymied? Do you think that there would be any way to prevent it's abuse by people with no intent to ever add money to it? Discuss and enjoy. :)

Wow... The troll to end all trolls. And the sad thing is, you probably actually mean it. You're probably not even worth psychoanalyzing but let's give it a go here...
I'd wager 20 bucks you grew up upper middle class, in a low income school zone of a large city in the southern states, primarily republican and christian. You believe in your religion, but don't really get it and probably sleep through the sermons. Your family probably owns at least a small business with several employees, so you heard a lot of bitching about paying lazy people's paychecks. Likely the one most bitched about had one or more of these 'imperfections' you rant about.
Let's see how close I am so far. By the way, I happen to have Aspergers, don't mind people with disabilities or no money, and for that matter like Twilight.
For the record, whether I'm right or not about your childhood the appropriate action for you to correct this ignorance is still education. Go seek out a place where the groups you dislike are, and sit down and shut the fuck up. Just listen, sit there for hours. Get to know the people you're condemning, you'll find that they're a lot nicer than you are. Who knows, maybe you'll even make a friend. You know, those people who hang around you regardless of whether you have money or not, and don't ask for things all the time? You probably don't have many of those...

At 6/20/10 02:47 AM, SolInvictus wrote:

they even rigged up van's to do the job. but i guess humane means anything without blood or that had been used by the Nazis...

Yeah, I've been wondering for a while now about the use of the word 'Humane' in capital punishment. It seems to mean more 'Easy to watch' than 'Painless to the criminal'. Because let's face it, probably the absolutely fastest way to die is to not tell them it's coming, let them think it's in a month or so, and sneak in and shoot them in the head about nine times while they sleep. They don't feel it, they don't even have to feel the terror of knowing it's happening. But people for whatever reason can't be reasonable when it comes down to the death penalty. There have to be people watching, you can't hire people who work for the mafia and don't mind doing it, you have to let them know it's happening... Frankly there's a billion cheaper, easier, more humane ways to do it than the methods we use today. They just for whatever reason won't acknowledge them.

At 6/19/10 06:33 PM, Proteas wrote:

At 6/19/10 06:02 PM, SolInvictus wrote: you're not factoring quantity into this; individual gas chamber executions would be ridiculously expensive, just think of all the gas wasted making the atmosphere within a chamber lethal for just one person!

That's if you go with a poisonous gas or other such substance. I once heard it said there were some gas chambers the Nazi's used that were simply filled with diesel fuel exhaust. Just run the exhaust right into the airtight chamber, and start the engine. Death by carbon monoxide poisoning, you just fall asleep and never wake up.

And how much is diesel fuel right now? $2.75 a gallon? A little more expensive than shooting somebody, I'll grant you that, but it's not like you'd be using the whole gallon, either. You just have to find an engine made pre-1975 when emissions standards were non-existent, which isn't all that difficult to do here in the states...

That's not a terrible idea, but nitrous oxide I believe would be about equivalent in painless, fast deaths. We'd need to look at the two as far as costs and effects on the body both. Then we'd need to reduce the size of the room for best economy effect, shrink that down to a simple mask and you no longer need to fill a room to reach lethal concentrations.

Between being injected with a toxin cocktail that leaves me alive for minutes, being electrocuted and feeling my nerve endings fry with a chance of survival, and being riddled with bullets where at least I have the guarantee of bleeding out in seconds or having such immediate brain damage that I don't feel it? I'm glad he got the humane way out on a technicality. I think if they offered the same choice to most people, they'd find that those executed prefer $2 bucks worth of bullets in the backyard to several hundred dollars worth of setup in the airconditioning.
I'd still try to beg for death by NOS if I had it coming, but that's just me.
At any rate there's a fine line in which the death of the person is called for. I believe that line is just on the other side of where he was, with anyone who can't be rehabilitated and made a productive person in society being deserving of the death penalty.
My view is that jail isn't a punishment, it's a forced isolation during which you should be thinking about what you did, and how you can better yourself to not have to come back. If you can't figure that out in five years, there's an outside chance you'll figure it out but it's not worth spending that much money on you to wait around on that inspiration in my opinion. Jail sentences should be reformed, along with the structure of the jails themselves, to directly reflect a second chance for the criminals. Less time locked in a cage, more time with individual and group therapy to promote better decision making skills. Change the sentencing times around so the therapists decide how long the inmate remains based on how they've grown from the experience, which forces them to work towards bettering themselves for freedom. Then send them the bills for it, explaining that they've cost the system X amount so far and if they reach a certain point at any given time where the value exceeds what they can reasonably be assumed to put back into the system with their remaining life (with a certain degree of leniency of course to cover those with disabilities or the elderly who have less time or capacity for earning money), then they may face an execution when we realize they're a complete loss. Essentially, if you're a healthy 22 year old man who ran a stop light, it would be nearly impossible for you to fool around long enough to earn a death penalty. You have a huge potential still for becoming a productive member of society, and it would be very foolish of you to refuse to learn to obey traffic signals for so long as to waste that much money. If you're a 42 year old who killed five people, you're going to be in there for a while being reminded of the value of human life, and you'll have less earning power, less chance to be a redeemable member of society, thereafter because of what you did. You're already handicapped in how much time you have, you'd better buckle down and be very much interested in learning to behave or you might be in deep trouble. This gives those with a chance of death penalty a chance to redeem themselves, no matter what they did, by really feeling remorse and getting control over themselves.
The biggest problem with this that I see is cost. To prevent any one therapist from being bribed into a release, you'd need to cycle therapists through several jails and have two or three needed to vouch for an inmate to ensure release. The upside to that is the reduced time people could spend in jail if they really did have no intentions of doing it again.

At 6/16/10 12:27 PM, Ravariel wrote: Firstly, fuck you and the obvious racism that prompted this thread.

Thank you, you beat me to it. It's just pathetic when the melting pot of the globe still tries to keep cultures separate because they don't want to or can't understand them.

I'd like to see adblock gone simply because I don't want to have to PAY for things. So long as someone makes money on ads, they can keep their stuff free. Once that goes, I'm stuck paying my money for things. I don't have the money to pay for admission to NG, so I happen to like their ads. I highly doubt it will ever be gone, however, because nobody else thinks about things like that. We'll just keep blocking out our options until websites are forced to make us pay for the internet in the future. It seems silly when you can just ignore the flashing pics. The only ads that bother me are the in-screen popups used by myspace.

Okay, day one showed new viewpoints and some insight to the region... Day two shows... *Looks* This is already degenerating, isn't it? I'm tempted to call for the lock already before this gets out of hand.

And yes, the idea with the big steel bowl is that nobody would be happy. It was never intended as an actual solution but rather as a thought experiment.

At 6/8/10 03:48 PM, kamil-fucker wrote: I doubt all the different parties involved would allow the rock to be sealed off completely, I think you can rule that one out. I think there always be conflict over the city of Jerusalem, probably until those religions seize to exist, and if its not about Jerusalem they'll find something else to war about.

Actually, from what I saw it didn't look like anyone was allowed down to see the rock very often anyways. Sealing it may be much more culturally acceptable than one might expect if they each want to protect it, rather than using it as a sight of public worship. Thoughts?

At 6/8/10 10:14 PM, SteveGuzzi wrote:

At 6/8/10 03:16 PM, JeremieCompNerd wrote: I personally think the rock should be isolated and sequestered. A structure could be built to protect it completely, sealed off from everyone.

yeah maybe someone should like, build a dome around it or something...

Actually, I knew that was there. That's a building, with entrances and guards and under the jurisdiction of only one of the religions. I mean a big upside down steel bowl with no way anybody can screw around with the rock.
Let's avoid extreme and unproductive amounts of sarcasm, aye?

At 6/8/10 04:22 PM, Lidov wrote: As an Israeli, I can assure you that no-one in Israel cares about this stupid rock. Not even the religious guys. Really, nobody cares about it, nobody speaks of it, and I have only heard of it several times. The Jews think Jerusalem is important for a different reason, the western wall, and temple mount.
The western wall, is allegedly the surviving remains of the temple of Jerusalem, but now we know it is not true. The temple mount is where the Temple was built, but now there is only a mosque there. It is called Al-Aqsa mosque, and it is one of the holiest places to the Muslims. I think it is the third holiest place after the kaaba and Medina, but I am not sure.

Anyway, if you ask me, the only solution there is to the Jerusalem issue was already suggested in 1947, the holy city of Jerusalem should be under an international rule. The actual city of Jerusalem, should be divided between Israel and the new Palestinian state, that I hope would be established. This means that the border will split Jerusalem. I think eventually it is the only solution there is to this problem, even if it isn't a good one.

So, one vote for sharing and new info on the region. Now we've got a bit of progress... So, is it the specific location that makes that temple holy, or would any temple built that way be equally important? As a thought experiment, not a practical concept, could the temple be moved without offending anyone?

It seems we've got a decent run of comments here, hopefully we'll have a few more diverse viewpoints and some serious thought on the subject, then this can fade into the background before any serious flame wars start...

I watched a documentary this morning on Jerusalem, which pointed to a massive and controversial object as the primary reason the city is so important. The object in question? A rock. Let's take a look at why this rock is important to so many people. If I misrepresent or misspell anything from your religion, I apologize in advance.
Muslims believe the rock is where Mohammed ascended directly to heaven.
Jewish faith claims it as the location where God started work on the production of Earth, the first land mass created.
It is also claimed to be the spot where Solomon's temple was built, where the Ark of the Covenant was hidden, and where Issac almost sacrificed his son to God.
This location, this rock, is holy to a great many people. That status has produced a great deal of bloodshed over a very (comparatively) small location.
So, I'm asking you, what should be done about this location to ensure future peace? Who do you think has the right to be there? Only one group, equal reign for all with claim, or should the place be left by everyone involved?
Though it sounds rude, and would be very inconvenient and expensive for all involved, I personally think the rock should be isolated and sequestered. A structure could be built to protect it completely, sealed off from everyone. No one group would be worried about the other group(s) disturbing their sacred rock. If nobody can play nice with the sacred rock, it goes up on the shelf until we learn to share, kiddos.This of course is the more extreme approach to what I think would be a much less volatile situation if everyone would just agree to share it peacefully.
Please, no flaming or obviously biased opinions in this thread, I'd like reasonable and thought out answers ONLY. This is NOT the place to discuss your religious viewpoints as a means of trying to convert or demean others, it is a thought experiment for finding a peaceful solution to a generations old property rights issue.

College is a money pit where you pay an excessive and ridiculous amount today, pay interest on it every day from now until your sixties, and make just enough more to pay that interest. You'll be stuck with the massive debt forever. I honestly refuse, I can learn anything they teach at college online for free poking around wikipedia in my spare time. College would mean something if the cost was low enough for everyone to go without accruing massive debt, or if few enough people went that it meant something anymore, but for now it's become the expected. It's just the way things are done in America now, you set up massive loan debt and get the same shiny piece of paper as your neighbor.

At 5/30/10 07:56 PM, WadeFulp wrote: Yeah right, we need oil for too many things to just cut it off. Plastics for example. Without oil we can't possible maintain our current populations around the world. If we cut off oil it would result in most of the human population around the world dieing. Maybe some believe that would be best for the Earth, but good luck convincing everyone they need to starve to death, freeze to death, etc, in order to protect the Earth from the human race.

Wow, Wade in the Forums, never thought I'd see that... Nice to meet you, on with the discussion. :)

I think we can escape oil as a power source, though I agree we need it (in MUCH smaller quantities) for plastics and other such endeavors. We can replace it as a power source, so we should try to do so before we run out. If we keep using oil to power our cars, we're going to hit the day when we no longer have enough of it left (several hundred years down the road most likely, but it will eventually happen) to use for anything at all. We can give ourselves far more time to use it in other things by replacing it from anything that it can currently be replaced from. In the meantime, our environment as well is an issue, not only from such vague problems as global warming that nobody can see clearly and is in dispute, but I can't see one person even here on NG who says that the Gulf isn't a bloody mess right now thanks to us. Cutting back on the use of oil as a fuel source would extend it's availability for use in other endeavors that can't currently use anything else for a very long time, reduce it's impact on the environment, and reduce the amount we needed to drill for each year.

I concur entirely with GumOnShoe, on all points both relevant to the discussion and your presentation thereof.

Personally, I wouldn't mind subforums in the Politics section for Science and Religious Debate. It wouldn't be much more trouble than what we've already got to maintain, as far as stress on the mods go. It'd just be more organized.
(As far as mod duties go, I mod other forums and see no difference when the number of topics is the same)

Forget it, it's obvious you don't listen to reason, I've got better things to do than discuss gun policy with rednecks.

At 5/18/10 11:52 PM, LordZeebmork wrote: If we ban guns, nobody will have guns. If we ban marijuana, nobody will have marijuana. If we ban porn for people under 18, nobody under 18 will have porn.

Pot and porn are easy to manufacture with little to no equipment and a little instruction from someone else who's done it. Guns require expensive equipment to produce and an intricate knowledge of the inner workings of such. When we bust a porn site for not having an effective system for blocking minors, or a dude with a green thumb in his basement, six more spring up. When we knock out the few people with the time and money to manufacture any reasonable number of guns, they aren't so easily replaced.

Good at dodging bullets, are you?

Good at semi-witty responses that don't mean anything, are you?
In close quarters environments such as homes, you're not likely to be more than a few steps outside of arms reach, especially in the kinds of small homes and apartments where break ins are more likely because of placement in 'bad neighborhoods'. Your response time with that gun has to be faster than the time it takes me to cross that distance. The closer that distance is, the more easily I can get to you before you pull the trigger. And by the way, you still haven't mentioned a reply against Tazers, you know, those guns that fire electrified probes at a distance? I've got just as good a chance of dodging as you do.

At 5/18/10 04:52 PM, LordZeebmork wrote:

And if people could fly, we wouldn't need airplanes. It doesn't matter how well something would work if not for some facet of human nature; human nature is the way it is, and it can't really be changed.

I concur, which is why I don't support Marxism. I do, however, believe that it shouldn't be an insult, since the ideals, however incorrect, aren't evil in and of themselves. I've heard far more misguided things that got much better reputations.

At 5/17/10 11:16 AM, JeremieCompNerd wrote: Or like me you could use a knife, which is better for close quarters urban environments where if you miss the robber you could shoot up your neighbor's house.

Good luck with that knife when the robber has a gun.

If we take up the guns as we should, it'll be much less likely for him to have one.

You come in my house with a gun, I have a machete by my bedside and we'll see if I actually need a gun to protect myself.

Short-range weapon against long-range weapon? Yeah, that'll work out well for you. Heh.

Actually, it'll work rather well in a close range environment. The closer you get with that gun, the more the advantage shifts to me. A sharp instrument or tazer is better in such close quarters. For short to mid-short range, a stun gun or can of mace will work over the short distances of a hallway or alleyway much more safely than a traditional gun would.

At 5/18/10 07:39 AM, Ravariel wrote:

You're ignoring the fact that people who make less than about $15k/year don't pay federal taxes at all, while those who make a lot of money pay a lot in taxes. Also, just because each state spends about as much as they tax does not mean that all of the residents of that state are equally benefited by those tax dollars. Social programs to help the needy are a major expense, as are schools and health care, the poorer people being the largest users of those programs.

Yeah, because it's such a horrible thing when the rich don't get to buy a yacht but the poor can afford food. Such a horrible idea, let's abolish all taxes to correct this great injustice!

At 5/17/10 09:44 PM, SadisticMonkey wrote:

At 5/17/10 11:16 AM, JeremieCompNerd wrote: Or like me you could use a knife, which is better for close quarters urban environments

Yeah I have knives, but most strong men could overpower women with knives

I wouldn't risk it, that's for sure. I've watched martial arts masters fighting little girls with markers, they invariably get at least one long black mark somewhere. Knives are effective and efficient fighting weapons, regardless of your size.

where if you miss the robber you could shoot up your neighbor's house. It's illegal to fire a gun in most city limits anyways, for the very reason of stray shots.

1. Well being inside, the chances of you hitting "your neighbour" are incredibly small. I mean we're talking shotguns or handguns here, not some .50 cal rifles.
2. More defensive situations won't actually involve a shooting. Just the fact that you're pointing a gun at an thief will more than likely be enough to make him leave or stay put while you call the police.

1. True, but regardless of the odds it has and can happen. Apartments have a significantly worse chance of it, with a single wall between the room with the gunfire and a potentially occupied room next door.
2. Again, true, but a tranquilizer or stungun would in fact work just as well for keeping the robber down.

If we take away guns, it means that the robber is less likely to have access to one,

Gun control doesn't work and if you didn't already know this you're incredibly ignorant and really shouldn't be talking on the issue.

Did you even look at that chart on there? America is still at least twice the homicide rate as the nearest competitor on the 'low gun ownership' side, and about 6 times that of France. Clearly we're not a peaceful country because of gun ownership after all, no? Something is obviously wrong with that, and anything done is better than nothing. Nowhere that I read there indicated that taking guns INCREASED violence, only that it didn't appear to lower it. I'd rather try something that won't work and feel better for trying, than to let it slide and never know if it could have saved someone's life. By the way, I'll talk about whatever subject I damned well please.

and so is the paranoid fuck who buys one for self defense and doesn't know how to use it to defend themselves. You come in my house with a gun, I have a machete by my bedside and we'll see if I actually need a gun to protect myself.

Okay, say there's no guns, but machetes are easily accesible.
If you break into a woman's house with a machete, and she has a machete, chances are you could kick her ass unless she's some sort of fighting expert.

Again, see 'Untrained youth with knife V. Trained martial artist twice their size'. It's almost impossible to get a knife away from someone who's trying to defend themselves without getting hurt in the process. Also, still ignoring other safety methods, aren't you?

However, if you both have guns, you're more than likely not going to risk getting shot by taking her on.
Guns make it a level playing field.

Actually, my gun to her gun I just have to pull the trigger first. It's not that hard to aim, I'd rather risk going after her gun to gun than to try to take her knife to knife.

Besides, I did mention tranquilizers right?

Completely impractical.

Proof? We've used them on bears and tigers and all manner of wild beast, humans are no exception to the rule. Stun guns, if you don't believe a chemical does the trick.

There's just other ways to do it besides leaving a firearm next to your bedside, filled with explosives designed to project shrapnel towards a target. These things aren't designed to be used for anything other than killing, and I don't believe that power belongs in the hands of anyone who isn't bright enough to see that they don't need it.

If you break into someone's house you full well deserve to be subjected to the risk of being shot.
A thief being shot is far better than an innocent home owner even getting mildly injured by the thief.

I agree, but I'd rather have neither happen. Oh, and don't forget, it's not just violent crime we're reducing by nixing guns, you also drop off accidental shootings. No handgun means kids don't pick them up by accident. No shotguns means no Dick Cheney repeats.

I'd like to see one person argue that they, in this modern society, need a gun for ANYTHING that some other method of protection can't be used AT LEAST as effectively for. Mace, stun guns, tazers, knives, all excellent defensive implements. Guns are an offensive implement, not for protection but for attack. I don't see anyone not living in a remote desert or mountain region far from modern conveniences needing to hunt to live, it's done for sport. You don't need it to hunt, you don't need it to defend yourself, you don't need it to protect a right which no longer has any purpose in this world. It's a ridiculous concept that just plain needs to go.

At 5/17/10 07:13 PM, RubberTrucky wrote:

One of the obstacles perhaps is that an artisanal product is just a fancy name. though locals can make the real artisanal stuff, anyone can slap a name on shit until it has been recognised as a protected local item.
One can apply for product protection ( I mean make it so that no-one else can call other shit that than those who produce it in the right way) but such a label takes years of paperwork t acquire. And even if that label is obtained there are still lots of people who can find loopholes to abuse those products, especially the Chinese know how to do so. Like 90% of the counterfeit products on the market is probably Chinese.

Racial profiling aside...
It should be easier for people to get that protection, especially if it's becoming a big issue where more than one company is doing this false product marketing.

Yeah, because that's exactly what humanity as a whole needs, more profits for businesses at the cost of people with genuine need.

If sparkling wine can't be called Champagne unless made with grapes from the Champagne region of France, even if it's just as good quality, then cheap chocolate should not be able to call itself Artisan Belgian Chocolate when it's not even half as good. That's false advertising, and should be revealed as such.

At 5/16/10 11:18 PM, SadisticMonkey wrote:

At 5/16/10 06:51 PM, JeremieCompNerd wrote: The average citizen DOES NOT NEED A FIREARM.

I agree!

I mean, why would you want to be able to defend yourself? Like if someone broke into your home, you don't need to protect yourself, you just wait half an hour for the police to show up, and in the meantime ask the criminal that he doesn't hurt you until they arrive!

Or like me you could use a knife, which is better for close quarters urban environments where if you miss the robber you could shoot up your neighbor's house. It's illegal to fire a gun in most city limits anyways, for the very reason of stray shots. If we take away guns, it means that the robber is less likely to have access to one, and so is the paranoid fuck who buys one for self defense and doesn't know how to use it to defend themselves. You come in my house with a gun, I have a machete by my bedside and we'll see if I actually need a gun to protect myself. Besides, I did mention tranquilizers right? If you're/they're that pissy over having a range advantage in their house, you/they can at least get something that'll leave a living body for the police to pick up and arrest later. There's just other ways to do it besides leaving a firearm next to your bedside, filled with explosives designed to project shrapnel towards a target. These things aren't designed to be used for anything other than killing, and I don't believe that power belongs in the hands of anyone who isn't bright enough to see that they don't need it.

It's really irritating that Marxism has become so negative, considering the original Marxist views are frankly worth reading about. If we could ensure that the people going into office weren't greedy SOB's like most people are, Marxism might actually work. Either way, on to Glenn Beck.
Glenn Beck is about as credible as Newt and Rush are, which is to say these people will say or do anything to make people look at them, even if they know people are only looking to figure out just what on earth they stepped just stepped on. On to gun rights.
The average citizen DOES NOT NEED A FIREARM. I repeat, for the benefit of those with no hearing whatsoever, you do not need a firearm to survive in our modernized country unless you support yourself by hunting wild game. If you can afford to buy your meat at the market, then you don't need that gun to survive. If you live somewhere where stores are harder to get to, I agree there should be provisions allowing certain forms of firearms for hunting. I'd nominate tranquilizer round firing rifles, actually, as that firearm. That way, it's harder to 'accidentally' shoot your buddy in the woods and kill him. As for game, once it goes down you can kill it up close. If you've got the stomach to skin it and cook it, you should be able to kill it while it's out cold just fine. Anybody who isn't living off food they killed themselves, doesn't even need that.

At 5/12/10 11:17 PM, adrshepard wrote: Go for it. Just pray you don't get into a collision with my SUV and have your teeny car launched into orbit.
It's got to be the best car to destroy in a riot. You'd only need a couple twelve year olds to tip it over.

When your SUV hits another SUV, there's significantly more energy in the impact, simple velocity mathematics. When his little toy car hits my little toy car, the damage is significantly less. If everyone who didn't absolutely have to have these massive gas guzzling garbage heaps would move to smaller cars, then it wouldn't be dangerous to drive the smaller cars. It's a pathetic case of 'I won't update x to work with y because y isn't practical since it's not compatible with x'. You're the exact reason small cars aren't safe, we'd all be safer if small cars were the only ones on the road. I include mass delivery trucks in that, since I prefer trains as a method of transfer over any distance.
Also, if you're involved in and sticking around riots constantly you probably deserve to have your car dinged up a bit.

As for the original poster, there's a lot of things contributing to overuse and underdistribution of resources. You're hyperfocusing your argument and it's just making you look silly and uneducated. Widen your view, admit that McDonald's and Walmart aren't the only greedy wasteful companies and that the average American is just as wasteful on our own smaller scales and you might get some real credibility.

Second thoughts? That'd still be fairly simple to explain, let's look at the same branching path and set up a second branch path at the bottom of that one. You first wanted to look left, but then the electron traveled down the other path at the second junction and you looked right. Of course, again I simplify a depressingly complicated arrangement of interactions on subatomic, atomic, and regular old cellular levels.

As for the example, I think you mean the one about the wife and the girl across the street? You're assuming that the atomic interactions to which I refer only supply the impulses you receive, correct? In other words, that the interactions of such things only affect the input to you, that you then make a rational decision and can choose to ignore that? If so, I've failed to fully explain... It would determine your initial impulse, but also your second guessing, the path your rationalizations took, and every other step of the process. Every bit of it, determined from the start. Of course, since the thoughts we have are determined in the exact same way, you could say that it's not the decision that was made but rather, the decision's maker. You were made to make the decision, in the same way that the decision was made. So, I live as if I'm the one in control, as if I have free will, because my mind happens to be set up so that I can accept rationally that my decisions at any given moment were predetermined while still 'choosing' to make the best decision possible.

When I say our decisions are based on the subatomic particle movement, I'm not referring to particles from granny getting smashed interfering with our brain. I'm referring to the particles that were already in our brain. Look at it this way, I tell you to look to your side. You look left, or you look right. The difference in which is based on billions of factors, but let's simplify it down to one step instead of billions. You have two sets of nerves, and the electrical impulse can travel down one, or the other. Which one that electrical impulse travels down is chosen not by you deciding you want that electricity to travel down, since you have no control over electricity whatsoever, but rather by the direction that particle was moving at the time when it hit the junction. You looked left, or you looked right, but you only felt like you chose that direction. The laws of particle dynamics decided which direction YOU would choose.

At 5/5/10 06:48 PM, ArmouredGRIFFON wrote: We have no free will but we still have the freedom to make choice seems to be the summery from this.

Not really, no. Our choices are based on initial events, decided billions of years before we were ever born. It seems as if we have a choice, but the decision we make is always going to be what we would have made. No matter what you decide, it's ultimately based on the motions of atoms in your mind. Those motions were plotted and graphed from the very start, so though it feels and seems like you have a choice, you're ultimately going to make exactly the choice you were always meant to. Turn your head. The direction you just chose to turn was predetermined. You felt you had the choice, but it was based on something much, much older and usually quite difficult for people to wrap their head around. Especially if they don't want to in the first place. But, of course, that's your choice. *Grins at the paradox*