142 Forum Posts by "Coherent"
OOPS. Israel caught faking the photos of bulletproof vests and nightvision. That puts a monkey wrench in the works don't it?
If you don't believe the blog, feel free to check the EXIF data on these photos yourself. They date all the way back to 2003. Any credibility that the IDF might of had is completely gone at this point.
At 2/7/10 01:49 PM, FUNKbrs wrote: It has been in decline. This year. And this year, we had record cold temperatures.
Wait a minute.....
Hey you make a good point man. I've been trying to tell these people that global warming doesn't exist for 30 years now
At 1/29/10 05:22 PM, Proteas wrote: Then you have no right to ask me not to be hostile to the ideas you presented, because guess what? I'm a conservative, and you're topic was meant to troll people like me. And since you've admitted to the true motive behind posting this topic, I have no reason but to regard you as nothing more than a run-of-the-mill troll right now.
True motive? I was suggesting from the start that Liberalism might be an ideology more in tune with reality than conservatism. Are you honestly only realising this just now? Oh and in addition, this is also an ad-hominem attack.
Saying that your method of debating me was juvenile was not an attack on you, just your debate style.
Which in the context you used it, was an attack on me. Thus, ad hominem.
Not really. Because as you noted, scientific method is based on fact not personal bias, of which you would have to have in order to pick a side on a political debate.
I don't see why. Someone can come to a conclusion simply by examining the facts of the situation, which is coincidentally what the scientific method is all about. I'm sure scientists do have their own biases but I'd be willing to bet that as a whole, those who follow the scientific method have much less bias overall than those who don't.
At 1/29/10 04:44 PM, gumOnShoe wrote: HOWEVER, a scientist is an EXPERT in some field as well. So the issue here is, whether scientific findings and fields are of political importance.
Another thing to look at. All forms of science are based on a process known as the scientific method. Which states that one must come to the most logical conclusion based exclusively on facts and not personal biases. It's not much of a stretch to say most scientist extend this method beyond what is simply their line of work, which is why many Scientists tend to be Atheist. So since scientists tend to be liberal we have to ask does this suggest that liberalism is more in tune with the logic of the scientific method?
At 1/29/10 04:28 PM, Proteas wrote: Theirs is an academic line of work that more relies on the intellect than it does actual physical labor or strength or dealing with the general public, of which the vast majority of this country really does do on a daily basis. That's not to say that they don't work hard at what they do, but it's not work in the traditional sense.
I see, so should we also exclude anyone who works a white collar job? Since physical labor seems to be the determining factor here? And strength and dealing with the general public? What does that even mean?
Oh really? Then what was the point of posting this then if not to gloat about how many more liberals there are on college campuses than conservatives, thus implying that conservatives are somehow stupider by comparison?
Well that's exactly what I was suggesting, though I don't appreciate your hostile choice of words. But what you're suggesting is that I implied that because liberals tend to be more educated they're segregated from the general population and have no real life experience. This is simply not true, I never made or implied any such claim.
If you can't actually argue against what I'm presenting that you would resort to something this juvenile, then you don't have much going for you.
This sounds a lot like an ad hominem attack to me Proteas. How exactly is the argument I made juvenile? The fact that you don't specify along with your logical fallacy detracts from the credibility of your argument.
At 1/29/10 03:57 PM, gumOnShoe wrote:At 1/29/10 02:55 PM, Proteas wrote: But what part of their degree qualifies them as experts on political matters?What part of their degree would preclude them from understanding politics and forming a rational opinion based on the evidence they have observed?
A valid question. In fact, I might add that "real life experience" may be a detriment in some cases as it may provide a bias that would obscure an otherwise clear cut issue. For example, a man gets mugged by a black man, as such he develops a bias against black people. If Proteas' argument is valid, this man should be more qualified to form a rational opinion on black people than someone who does not have this real world experience.
At 1/29/10 03:30 PM, Proteas wrote:At 1/29/10 03:23 PM, Proteas wrote: who actually work for a living.pardon me, "don't have a degree and don't work in the academic field."
I do like this description better. My questions still stand
At 1/29/10 03:23 PM, Proteas wrote: You're own opening post points to this and even implies it, does it not? Scientists are smart liberals who've spent their lives studying away in academic settings while republicans are the average joes who actually work for a living.
Oh, so you're saying that being a professor or a scientist doesn't constitute "actual work". No I certainly did not imply this in my opening post. This sounds more like a personal bias than measurable fact to me. Tell me, what exactly do you think the differences are between scientific work and "actual work"? Furthermore, what exactly is it about "actual work" that gives someone a greater understanding of events than someone working in a scientific or academic field?
At 1/29/10 02:55 PM, Proteas wrote:At 1/29/10 01:44 PM, Coherent wrote: *citation neededIt's an opinion that can't be backed up by evidence, just the same as your idea that scientists are liberal simply because they're intelligent.
The citation is needed for your claim that scientists and professors "have probably never held an actual job or worked outside an academic environment"
At 1/29/10 01:32 PM, Proteas wrote:At 1/29/10 02:17 AM, Coherent wrote: So now it would seem that not only are those more exposed to higher education identifying themselves as liberals, but the majority of scientists are as well?Correlation does not imply causation, if it did,
No of course correlation does not definitely mean causation, but you would be a fool to think it did not suggest it. Which is the point of this thread. We must ask ourselves why have more highly educated individuals have turned to liberalism?
one could simply counter the argument by pointing out that such individuals have probably never held an actual job or worked outside an academic environment... so what would they know about the real world and how it should function in terms of political scope?
*citation needed
Social Liberalism to be specific. I was talking with a conservative friend of mine and he was going on his usual rant about how the american school system has a liberal slant. I agree with this to an extent, but today I had a different idea. Have you ever considered that liberalism is more widely accepted by college proffesor and students because liberalism is simply more compatible with reality?
After all, liberals aren't the one claiming "God did it!" is the best and most useful scientific explanation for everything. Liberals aren't claiming extremely trivial benign things like homosexuality are "immoral" and "evil".
A recent poll by the pew research center found that 52% of all scientists identify themselves as "liberal" while only 9% identify themselves as "conservatives" (an even lesser 6% identified themselves as republicans) (Source: http://people-press.org/report/528/) So now it would seem that not only are those more exposed to higher education identifying themselves as liberals, but the majority of scientists are as well?
Of course, none of this objectively proves that liberalism is closer to reality, but it certainly worth considering and discussing. It certainly seems from my perspective that conservatives in this country have taken to arguing based on their own personal moralitys (or other biases), rather than arguing upon logic in reason.
Just my 2 cents
At 12/18/08 10:58 PM, gdude100 wrote:This may sound wrong, but Im not a good explainer.
any idea how I might do that?
Ok, so I was experimenting with addEventListeners the other day, and I made a class for my buttons. now instead of extending another button class I decided to use my own. so I added 4 listeners. rollover, rollout, mousedown, mouseup. the button changes color when its rolled over and sets an assigned variable to "true" every time it's pressed. Now theres nothing wrong with the button itself, it works fine.
but I implemented one for a creation of mine, just as a start button. but when I press the start button and I try to use the arrow keys to move the character around, he wont move. he will however start moving if I click the flash window again. its similar to what happens if you click outside the swf when playing any flash game, only it's happening inside of the swf.
My best guess at what's happening is that when I click the button, the game focuses on the button instead of the stage. When it's not focused, the stage cant recognize the key presses. I have no idea if I'm right or not, it's just a theory. Does anyone have a clue what's going on?
At 12/18/08 12:05 AM, echeese wrote: You still need to implement the 2nd part of afro-ninja's post
I'm pretty sure you don't need to attach the key listener to the stage. besides, the code doesn't work with any listeners. I checked
package Functions
{
import flash.events.*;
/**
* ...
* @author DefaultUser (Tools -> Custom Arguments...)
*/
public class Key extends EventDispatcher
{
var i:int;
private var keyArray:Array = new Array();
public function Key():void
{
for (i = 0; i < 222; i++)
{
keyArray.push(false);
}
addEventListener(KeyboardEvent.KEY_DOWN, kDown);
addEventListener(KeyboardEvent.KEY_UP, kUp);
}
private function kDown(event:KeyboardEvent):void
{
keyArray[event.keyCode] = true;
}
private function kUp(event:KeyboardEvent):void
{
keyArray[event.keyCode] = false;
}
public function isDown(kNum:int):Boolean
{
return keyArray[kNum];
}
}
}here's the full code with changes.
ok, I made it extend EventDispatcher, but it still doesn't work. No errors, but the functions I assigned to the listeners dont work when I press down or release a key.
Not sure what's causing the problem.
package Functions
{
import flash.events.KeyboardEvent;
/**
* ...
* @author DefaultUser (Tools -> Custom Arguments...)
*/
public class Key
{
var i:int;
private var keyArray:Array = new Array();
public function Key():void
{
for (i = 0; i < 222; i++)
{
keyArray.push(false);
}
addEventListener(KeyboardEvent.KEY_DOWN, kDown);
addEventListener(KeyboardEvent.KEY_UP, kUp);
}
private function kDown(event:KeyboardEvent):void
{
keyArray[event.keyCode] = true;
}
private function kUp(event:KeyboardEvent):void
{
keyArray[event.keyCode] = false;
}
public function isDown(kNum:int):Boolean
{
return keyArray[kNum];
}
}
}this is the error I receive(twice):
1180: Call to a possibly undefined method addEventListener.
1180: Call to a possibly undefined method addEventListener.Anyone have a clue what's going on?
Reviving this thread, hoping for an answer.
That makes sense. Thanks Gus. I have a new question:
I want to make my classes operate themselves, as in, update themselves frame to frame. What i've tried doing is adding a function to my classes named "run" and having the main .fla execute it every frame:
package {
import flash.display.MovieClip;
import flash.text.TextField;
import flash.text.TextFormat;
import flash.events.MouseEvent;
public class simpleButton extends MovieClip {
private var button:TextField=new TextField ;
private var texture:TextFormat=new TextFormat("Arial",null,0xFFFFFF,true,null,null,null,null,"center");
public function simpleButton(line:String,wide:Number=100):void {
button.selectable=false;
button.width=wide;
button.height=20;
button.text=line;
button.background=true;
button.backgroundColor=0x333333;
button.setTextFormat(texture);
addChild(button);
}
public function run():void {
button.backgroundColor = (mouseY>this.y && mouseY<this.y+this.height && mouseX>this.x && mouseX<this.x+this.width)? 0x000000 : 0x333333;
}
}
}this is in the main timeline:
var newButton:simpleButton=new simpleButton("Hello World");
addChild(newButton);
stage.addEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME,enterFrameFunction);
function enterFrameFunction(event:Event):void {
newButton.run();
}anyways, this doesn't seem to be working. Does anyone know a better way to do this?
Hey, I'm dabbling in AS3 after a long hiatus from flash. The new style is really growing on me but I often find myself stuck. The problem I'm having right now is nesting movie clips inside of other movieclips (or in this case sprites). Here's an example of what I'm talking about.
In AS2, you could create a new movieclip inside another movieclip by doing this:
_root.createEmptyMovieClip("instancename",depth);
_root.instancename.createEmptyMovieClip("nestedinstance",depth);Now, this is how I'm attempting to do it in AS3:
var instancename:Sprite = new Sprite();
var instancename.nestedInstance:Sprite = new Sprite();However, when i try to do this I get a compiler error:
1086: Syntax error: expecting semicolon before dot.So, what am I doing wrong?
Also, I'm declaring this thread my official AS3 migration thread. I'll ask all my question in this topic instead of creating new ones, so that I dont clutter the forum with multiple threads.
At 10/4/08 01:22 AM, omega510 wrote: well at least i didnt get susspended like when i advartised bush
Wait, you've already been suspended for this before, and you were surprised when you were suspended again for doing the exact same thing?
Hey, so I'm doing something with actionscript and I have a bunch of code in the one scene in one frame in the first scene. And when I do something in the code it's supposed to move to the second scene. The problem is that when this happens all the code from the first scene keeps going even over the second scene and that messes up a bunch of stuff. Can anyone help me? I'm using flash 8.
At 9/26/08 08:39 PM, Al6200 wrote: they're the only ones who can print it, so such a risk doesn't really exist.
Well to an extent. It is true that paper money is printed by a branch of the government called the mint. However this is not the sole way that new money enters the economy. Banks under US law are allowed to loan out about 9 times as much money as they actually have in their vault (and they do). The actual value to support this money comes from the assets that could be liquidized in case someone were to default on their loan.
So while this money isn't printed paper money, it still is new money which enters the economy via the private industry and not the mint.
At 9/24/08 10:58 AM, Proteas wrote: It implies that a 17 year old is just as mature as a full grown adult in their decision making ability, which they are not, and may act in a way that is not in accordance with their overall well being.
It doesn't imply that at all. What it does do is show an understanding of human behavior. If parents were notified it would pressure the pregnant teenager to hide her pregnancy, which could cause serious health effects.
And more importantly, why would you need to hide an abortion from your parents?
I cant imagine explaining a pre-marital pregnancy to ones parents is ever a pleasant experience even in the most liberal of households. The child would most likely fear punishment or retribution from their parents, which is a reasonable fear.
Beyond ignoring what I said about the rampant substance abuse problems we have in this country? You think giving an alcoholic another drink is somehow going to magically solve his drinking problem?
What do you think is going to happen if we legalize drugs? You're an educated adult Proteas, are you going to start doing crack as soon as it's legalized? Most people who don't do drugs now, aren't going to start doing drugs after they're legalized, and inversely, most people who do drugs when they're legal, will also do them if they're illegal. So why make them illegal, when all that will serve to do is create black markets which will in turn fund organized crime? Furthermore, how exactly is throwing a drug addict in jail going to help him with his addiction?
And you think I'M making blanket generalizations? Sheesh.
Well think about it for a second Proteas. Do you think it's a coincidence that the vast majority of people who are born lower class stay lower class? Do you think it's a coincidence that the vast majority of people who are born rich stay rich? When I say that the upper class is born into it's wealth, I'm not making a blanket generalization. I'm making a supported claim.
Magical thinking. What your line of reasoning shows is that you do subscribe to this liberal viewpoint that the gun actually causes the crime, and without the availability of such a device, crime would magically disappear.
Well, crime would be reduced. I don't believe anyone has ever said that crime would magically disappear. That would be a strawman argument.
One you won't touch with a ten foot pole, I notice.
It's completely opinionated, there's nothing to argue against because you haven't made a backed statement.
That's moral relativism renamed positivism to gain influence with those who are otherwise uninitiated to liberal bullshit.
Moral Relativism usually goes hand in hand Positivism, but one can be a Positivist and still believe in absolute morals. Positivists simply believe that laws should be based off of what is effective, not what is "right" or "wrong".
And weirdly enough, you're not taking human behavior into consideration in your decisions.
Where exactly?
At 9/24/08 09:39 AM, JoS wrote: At some point I am sure someone will notice. Its nto like you can hide a pregnancy for ever.
No you can't, but you can hide it for quite a bit, and the longer you wait to tell someone the less chance you have of a safe delivery.
The people will do it anyways argument does not really fly with me. People murder anyways, so why have laws against it. We just waste a lot of money and time investigating them.
Well actually that's wrong. By and large people tend to not kill each other, even if there isn't a law in place. Luckily for us, it isn't human nature to be fatally aggressive towards one another. And of course, the people that actually commit murder would commit it whether there was a law in place or not.
% wise, yes, absolute amount, they are the highest. People seem to have some kind of fixation on % of GDP, complete ignoring the absolute amount.
Well maybe that's because the amount of impact it actually has on the people donating is taken into consideration when you compare the amounted donated to the GDP. For example: A homeless person donates one of his two dollars to another homeless person, while a multi-billionaire CEO gives a 5 dollar bill to a homeless person he finds on the street. In an absolute amount, the CEO gave up 5 times as much money as the homeless man, but when you take into account how much he was giving up compared to his total wealth, you'll realize that the homeless man was far more generous.
In this respect we realize that overall, US taxpayers really don't give a very large amount of their tax money to foreign humanitarian aid.
No, they would just beat them to death with a golf club, hammer or knife. Not every crime of passion is done with a gun, usually whatever is handy. Likewise criminals will always be able to get guns somehow. If you advocate legalizing drugs because those who want to get them will get them anyways, why doesn't the same apply to guns? People who want one bad enough will still get it.
Yes, but a golf club, hammer, or knife are all much easier to defend yourself against than a gun. Also, you're much more likely to survive a wound from a golf club, hammer, or knife. Also, if you had taken the time to actually read my previous statement, you would realize that I said right at the beginning that I am against banning guns. That being said, I support gun ownership because of the black markets that form under gun bans, which in turn fund more crime, not because I subscribe to the argument that "guns dont kill people, people kill people". Guns certainly don't kill people, but that was never the point, guns make it significantly easier to kill people.
I think my women studies professor would disagree with you. People are always poor because of society, not because of anything they did or bad choices they made.
Some people do end up poor because of bad choices. But by and large your woman studies proffesor is correct. While the US's capitalist system claims to give everyone equal opportunity, most educated on the subject would agree that this is decidedly false. You can't honestly expect that a poor black child growing up on the streets of Compton, has the same opportunities as a middle class white kid in Suburbia.
That aside, the argument was never about why they end up where they are. The argument was over whether or not someone should be held responsible for their actions even if they did end up that way because of a poor upbringing. Which obviously they should be.
At 9/24/08 12:18 AM, Proteas wrote: - approving minors to have abortions without parental consent,
What's wrong with this? Even notifying parents of an abortion might pressure the poor kid to not report the pregnancy to anyone, which reduces the chance of a safe delivery.
- lowering the drinking age and repealing the drug laws regardless to fit European standards while ignoring the rampant substance abuse problems in this country
I don't see what's wrong with this either. What someone puts in their own body is their business. besides, drug laws dont really stop use (as demonstrated by the prohibition in the 1920's), all they really do is create black markets for drugs which then in turn fund more organized crime.
- helping out in every humanitarian crisis no matter how piddly when we're considered "sticking our nose in somebody else's" business when it doesn't fit their viewpoint
From what I've heard, the US gives a relatively low amount of humanatarian aid to other countries. That is, when you compare the amount given to the amount the US has.
- taxing the SHIT out of anyone who manages to make something of themselves financially because it's not fair to everyone else
We could argue for hours about why the rich become rich. But for the purposes of this argument, I'll just say it's not as simple as you're trying to portray it to be: The rich are able to make more of themselves because they have better oppurtunities than most people do. I would argue that most of them are born into their wealth.
- repealing gun ownership laws because guns somehow magically sprout legs and start firing at random people on their own
While I myself am against banning guns, I think this is a poor argument. Maybe it is true that guns don't kill people, but the vast majority of murders in this country are what we call "crimes of passion". What this means is that the murder was committed in the heat of the moment, and was not premeditated. So one could make the argument that if the killer had not had access to the gun, that the crime would have never happened.
- absolving people of all personal responsibility for any action that might be remotely influenced by society or their upbringing
I'm not sure I agree with you on this. I consider myself a more moderate liberal, but I don't think someone is immediately excused from taking responsibility just because they had a bad upbringing. But it is always wise to keep an open mind and understand that this in fact the root of the problem, which is why you may see many liberals arguing that increasing spending to education and national infrastructure helps to reduce crime and poverty.
- refusing to discipline their kids in a manner appropriate for their behavior IF they discipline at all
This is just pure bias.
Proteas, the key difference you need to understand between liberals and conservatives, is that liberals tend to follow a Positivist line of thinking, while conservatives tend to follow a Naturalist line of thinking. Naturalists (what I believe you are) tend to argue that laws and regulations should be driven by moral analysis, or what is "right" and what is "wrong", while Positivists tend to argue that laws and regulations should be guided by an interpretation of human behavior.
Now I'm guessing that when you think about drugs or abortion you immediately come to the conclusion: "they are wrong, therefore they should be illegal. case closed." But you have to realize that not everybody is going to necessarily agree with you, and most of anyone who would have persued those activities while they were legal, will still pursue them while their illegal. This is why you have to realize that Democrats in Congress are not necessarily saying that abortions are "right", rather they are understanding that laws that do not take human behavior into consideration tend to be ineffective and even harmful.
At 9/20/08 11:44 PM, cellardoor6 wrote: Their language
You do realize that the US was not the original english speaking nation, right? Besides, you could basically make the same argument that all US culture was derived from British culture. That doesn't mean that there aren't differences.
At 9/3/08 12:35 AM, blitztactics07 wrote: Well, I think people should make up their minds already, but I strongly feel a Muslim should not be a president of the US for Chrissake, if we don't want another "World Trade Center Affairs" kind of crap.
0/10.
I saw this when it was first airing. Tucker made an absolute idiot out of himself.
