Newgrounds.com — Everything, By Everyone.

I wanted to wait for this to cool a bit before bringing it back up, to switch up who all was reading it. Pardon me for the resurrection, I at least have a somewhat decent reason.

So, having looked over the topic... I'd like to annotate the chaos theory's connection to free will. What caused me to make this post? What caused me to wait first? What caused me to put three questions in a row like this?
It all has to do with cause and effect. The cause, no matter how small or hard to recognize, comes before the effect. So I can answer those question, but once I do I then have to ask... What caused that?
What caused me to post this? I was bored. Why was I bored? I didn't have anything else to post in. Why did I not have anything else to post in? Because I got up early today and stayed on the computer all morning. Why did I do that? Because... Why? Because... Why?
You see, the pattern here progresses from now, to a moment ago, to this morning, to last night, and so on. Sooner or later, having asked the cause of my decision and the cause of that, and so on, I move slowly back through time all the way to the start of it. There is no effect without a cause, and no cause comes after the effect. Therefor, all causes, including my decisions right now, are an indirect effect of the starting points of energy packets in the very beginning of the universe.
By this logic, as cold as it seems, we have no free will. Nor is there such a thing as a random interaction, since the motions which cause that interaction are based on the original state of the universe.

Honestly, I think at this point the government should fund the production and distribution of solar panels. If we got the solar panels for free, instead of the pay back system, it would be much more immediate benefit. Which, for the average american consumer, is all that matters. Then they don't have to worry about buy back prices at all. Don't pay the person for the energy produced in the long haul, just give them the solar panels to produce it and you get to keep any energy they don't use. They don't pay a bill, you get energy from them, it's a win/win. Admittedly, the logistics of affording those will be a drain on the government, but that's what getting rid of pork barrel is for.

I'd say drop the day, we have enough excuses not to go to work already. If they're really that into it, make it something other than prayer. Add in that the President does NOT have to declare it, since that's a complete waste of his time and I highly doubt he declares any other established holiday...

At 5/3/10 07:33 PM, Patton3 wrote:

As for the main subject at hand, I have to wonder if there was some other motivation. Someone else mentioned they might be selling drugs, but then we'd have kids who are 15 and 12 committing cold blooded murder in order to sell cocaine, which sounds a bit fanciful.

Actually, check the bit where I asked what the possible reasons for their having done it where. The response I got was they wanted to go to Arizona to sell t-shirts to drug people. That sounds rather fanciful to me, which is why I doubt the validity of the concept. You don't kill over t-shirt profits. You MIGHT kill over drug profits, which are far more money. Besides, who sells t-shirts deliberately to drug people? There's some reason they chose that demographic, and I for one doubt it's because of the leaf logo on the shirt.

Rethink? I'd say if there were drugs involved, and enough money to have convinced them to commit murder, when it's not illegal to sell t-shirts to anybody regardless of their illegal occupation...
I'd say the shirts had something else in them, possibly caked with coke or maybe even 't-shirt' used as a coverup word for something illegal. They probably weren't selling shirts though, whatever the case. I'd strongly recommend the police try to find their shipment to figure out the real cause here.

Premeditation means they knew exactly what was about to happen. If this was a crime of passion, as a developing and hormonal teen I would expect a modicum of leniency. They made this decision, they rationalized it out, they thought about the results, and they deserve to be charged as adults. I would, however, wonder what would drive them to do such a thing. If he was abusive, in any way, I'd consider making it self defense charges as an adult.

Desired results... I'd guess you think we LIKE abortions then? I'm liberal, I like freedoms. I don't like abortions, at all. If my wife told me she was having one, I'd have a serious talk trying to convince her to change her mind. But if she makes that decision, it's HER body. Not mine. The desired result is that she has access to the choice, and access to the information she needs to make that choice. Not that the information is crammed down her throat, and not that she has to do it. That she is, in fact, free to locate that information and make that decision. These bills would strip that information away in one case, and force it on her in another. Neither of those are the 'desired results'.

I'm in favor of studying technology for more efficient resource usage, educating the population on the benefits of having fewer children, and offering tax incentives for those who have two or less children. A secondary incentive for that would be to offer one-time shots of x amount of dollars for a teen to have a reversible vasectomy, or intrauterine birth control.
By a slow reduction in population down to about... I probably wouldn't recommend less than half our current numbers, and more efficient resource management such as more fuel efficient freight trucks and less 'energy vampire' nature appliances, we could reduce our environmental impact as well as reducing the cost of living.

Black, white, Muslim, Christian, Atheist, born here or born there... What does it all matter in the end? We're either a country who wants the best person for the job to lead us, or we are not. If we are NOT interested in picking the best person for the job, we should do away with the election entirely and go by whoever is listed as the most popular person in America. By the way, I'm guessing Opera wins that one, which would probably be a good thing. ^^

Well, I'm going to rewrite the entire situation for you, Ravariel, and we can maybe have a conversation on the side here if I'm lucky... I'm going to do my best to make this as simple a situation as possible, using a hypothetical that I in no way will EVER assert as actually having happened or ever happening or ever even being likely to happen in the whole course of human history. Frankly, your responses here intrigue me and I'd like to see how you respond to this. *grin*

Let's assume 'A' holds a valuable object, and was at some point legally entitled, or believed firmly that he was legally entitled, to that object. 'A', for whatever reason and through whatever method, binds the object to himself in such a way that if he was to be parted from the object, it would kill him. The only way to retrieve the object from 'A' is to kill him. 'B' receives proof that he is legally entitled to the object. He is, without any question, entitled to take that object from 'A', legally. So, my question then becomes, since 'A' requires the object to survive and 'B' is legally entitled to take the object, is 'A' legally entitled to consider 'B' a threat to his life and protect himself with lethal force, or is 'B' legally entitled to take the object regardless of 'A's situation, and without regard to the safety of 'A'?

This whole thing is non partisan, I'm not attempting to use the government in any way whatsoever, save that 'legally' is impossible to really define without one... I'm just curious how you'll respond. Honestly, I could care less about the answer itself, I'm just interested in the psychology of the situation.

If anyone else feels the urge to chime in with an answer, please do. The more the merrier. ^^

At 4/15/10 03:00 PM, Ytaker wrote:

Well, an important fact to take note of is that republicans controlled the country. They took the legislature after Clinton. They're the main reason America had money. They enacted spending cuts and tax raises. Revenues increased. Remember, read my lips, no new taxes? Bush (the old one) violated that because they needed to make the country more solvent, and the democrats refused to accept just spending cuts, without tax rises.

The democrats then got into power, because republicans had raised taxes and proceded to try and massively raise spending and taxes, with Clinton's healthcare plan. Their plan failed, the people kicked them out, and the republicans were back in office. The president doesn't control the purse strings of the country, the legislature does, congress and the senate.

While tax revenues have increased under Bush, spending has massively increased. He's pretty left wing, for a republican. A compassionate conservative, as they're often called. Massive increases in education and healthcare expenditure, much more regulation of business. One who might have been a member of the democrat party, before they stopped caring about anyone who didn't love abortion and euthanasia, or who spoke in a rural accent and everything the (now) right of christianity hates. He lost his support because of that, even from the right, which is why he's so easy to blame.

http://publicpolicypolling.blogspot.com/
2010/04/obamabush-nearly-divided.html

Now that people have seen what the democrats would do if they're in control, he's almost as popular a president as Obama.

Well, all party politics aside my post was just an oversimplification of the view from the left, where his was the same thing from the view on the right. I was basically answering the OP with the most basic answer possible, to prove a point. When you simplify something, in either direction, it almost always sounds logical at a glance. The deeper you look, the more problems you see with a simple answer. That's all I was pointing out with that. :)

With the same attempt at simplification that you used to pin the crisis on Clinton, I'll put my twist on it... Granted, I'll be subject to the exact same failings of oversimplification you are, but you'll be able to understand it at any rate.
Clinton saves money, America has money. Bush spends money, America has no money. See where the average American would look at the situation and wonder why Bush did that?

When they start showing kids going to war, making it sound like a wonderful place of lollipops, and suggesting they enlist at the first chance they get... Then we have a problem.
In the meantime, it's just shots. Shots you should probably get anyways, most of the time. Granted, swine was a big exaggerated mess, but you should still go get vaccines regularly. It's not propaganda, it's public service made friendly. :P

At 4/12/10 11:21 AM, SixInARow wrote: If you want to fill yourself with awful-tasting shit, then go ahead and call it a sport, fatty.

Try reading the thread next time. You've just failed in the most epic of fashions, and managed to look like a total goon doing it.

Not that it'll help any, but having read the ENTIRE topic, I vote Proteus as the logical arguer of this thread.

At 4/7/10 09:54 PM, VigilanteNighthawk wrote:

At 4/7/10 03:58 PM, JeremieCompNerd wrote: You guys still didn't get it? The biometric ID system is MORE difficult to fake than most other systems.

Yes, but is it worth the cost of implementation and possible privacy concerns? There must be a balance between cost, security, and privacy.

I'm not seeing the privacy issue here, given that the most data you can really tell about someone from their fingerprints and eye scans is their eye color and if they use their fingers for anything rough. I'm also arguing for the security, not counting the cost effectiveness. I agree, it's not worth it. But when people say it wouldn't help at all, I disagree with that.

Why do you think high-tech movie vaults use them?

I'm willing to bet that those vaults also have a database of biometric data to verify the accessor. I'm also willing to be that said database is highly secured and not accessible publicly, something that any verification database would have to be for a national system.

True, but to do that you'll need to : A) Steal someone's card and replace all the photos on the card, including Photo, Fingerprint Scan, and Retina Scan.
Or B) Change the name on your own card, leaving you without one in your name.
Then you get to C) Match all the photos on the card to the name on the card in the system, likely to be a very difficult hack.
It's not going to be exceptionally easy to pull off. As opposed to today, where I could spot someone who looks vaguely like me and just memorize the info on the card.

If this is implemented, then it makes existing ID cards MORE DIFFICULT to pass off as someone else's.

No, it will make it more difficult to create fake cards depending on the encoding scheme, though probably not for long. If you have a photo id, then no one else but you can use it.

Not really. People don't do more than glance at a photo, I work at a beer barn. You can't tell if a photo taken a year or more ago is the same face as the person in the car, because it's easy to be close enough. Change your hair style, put on some weight? Your photo doesn't match exactly anymore. Your fingerprint stays the same.

You're complaining about identity theft, our current system isn't nearly as secure as it could be if you had finger prints / eye scans on the cards. If I had a credit card, I'd love to have my finger print on it for comparison, so that nobody could claim it was theirs without my finger.

This would do very little to curb identity theft. Yes, it would make your credit card more difficult to use in the real world, but it would do nothing to stop any form of online fraud. The only way you could hope to stop that would be to have a database of biometric data and have scanners on every computer. This would not only add significant expense to most systems, but it would also require an online database for verification. Once the database gets cracked, (as gumOnShoe pointed out), the thief could simply upload a victim,s verification signature and bypass their own hardware. Afterwards, the victim's identity would be PERMANENTLY compromised. This would be far worse than today as you can change you credit card number, social security number, and your driver's license number, but you cannot alter your fingerprints or retinas.

True, online purchases would be difficult to regulate by that method. Then again, I can do the same thing right now. I swipe your card, and ALL the data I need to use it is on the card. I can max it out and have it back in your pocket within three hours, and if you don't know it's gone you can't report it stolen till it's far too late. Even with biometrics, online is still going to be an easy way to use stolen cards.

You guys still didn't get it? The biometric ID system is MORE difficult to fake than most other systems. Why do you think high-tech movie vaults use them?
If this is implemented, then it makes existing ID cards MORE DIFFICULT to pass off as someone else's. You're complaining about identity theft, our current system isn't nearly as secure as it could be if you had finger prints / eye scans on the cards. If I had a credit card, I'd love to have my finger print on it for comparison, so that nobody could claim it was theirs without my finger.

At 3/31/10 11:38 AM, KingEpicness wrote: What's wrong with it is that there are people who have to pay even more hard-earned money to give something free to people who aren't as wealthy. And doctors will make less, be less motivated....

Actually, my dad was a doctor. He couldn't make enough to keep his practice open, thanks to healthcare refusing to pay. So when you say 'making less and being less motivated' you're really not getting their point of view. It's not POSSIBLE to make less than we were in the old system, because it was just that broken. And motivation doesn't have as much to do with payment for some doctors as others, but when you're not making anything at all even the ones motivated to help others like dad can't stay in business. Something had to be done, even if you disagree with it. Or would you rather leave that rusted nail in there until it falls out on it's own?

Yes, football brings in money. Now go and bring us proof that it brings in MORE money than we pay for it. Also, don't forget to include the cost of the members themselves, most of whom that I've met personally are only passing math because the geometry teacher is also the coach.

At 3/29/10 10:29 PM, Warforger wrote:

At 3/29/10 09:30 PM, SadisticMonkey wrote: I doubt that it would be that simple, no. But given this is administered by the government, it easily opens the door for exploitation for political gain. And it would be impossible to track this kind of exploitation because it would all be hidden by the government in the interests of protecting the database from criminals etc.

What? If the Fascist Patriot Act didn't do this then a Socialist Healthcare bill won't.

It's not a healthcare bill, good effort though. This is a bill requiring, if I'm not mistaken, for valid photo ID's to carry a finger print and retinal scan of the holder on them, to be compared to the holder for confirmation of identity. Those who cannot produce this ID, complete with matching finger prints and retinas on themselves, would not be eligible for employment. That has NOTHING to do with healthcare, and I'm guessing you've only read the title and saw 'Bio' in it. More effort from posters, plox.

Me, I like teaching kids more about anything and everything so if they screw up after they know the facts then we don't have to feel bad for the stupid fuckers.
As for some thread about kids and guns : Sure, tell them where the safety is, show them what it does, remind them that real people don't respawn. Don't forget to mention that banging on bullets with a hammer is a BAD idea.

To me, that's not even remotely close to a utopia. That's a dictatorship with no privileges. You won't allow nice cars and houses? Giving kids jobs four years earlier and choosing them for the kids instead of letting them work towards their goals? It's just not my ideal world.

I've got a lot of ideas on utopian societies, but it'd just piss everyone off if I wrote out how mine would work. :P

For one, to the person that called me an idiot : You don't know me. Don't insult people you don't know. It's a bad habit that lands people in hospitals after bar fights, and you never know if you're going to run into me out some night drinking.
For two, and more on topic... Personally, I think that at a certain point money becomes ridiculous. I'm in favor of a limitation on how much you're allowed to earn in a single year. What I make in excess of that amount would role over to the next year, so if I make seven million this year, I keep 5 million. WAY, WAY MORE THAN ANY PERSON SHOULD EVER EVER EVER NEED. Two million gets put away for me to collect next year, if I make less than five million. So you make unsightly amounts of money each year? You're only saving it up for old age and your kids. It encourages people to not jack their prices up sky high just so they can make 30 million a year in profits. It encourages you to pass the difference in what you could be making and what is fair for a human to own on to your employees, or to cut back on the cost of your products to pass it on to your patrons/clients/customers.

At 1/30/10 07:44 PM, joshhunsaker wrote:

Taxing the rich more than we tax them makes absolutely no sense. You realize that 2/3rds of those in the top tax bracket are small business owners?

Well, then we need a higher tax bracket on the other side of them for corporate fuckups and oil tycoons. Duh.

Part of the problem here is that global warming isn't just the warming of the globe. I'm indifferent on if it's getting hotter or colder, it's the freaky weather that I'm worried about. More than a shorter or longer growing season, or having to water crops more often, it's that we're messing our weather systems up so badly that we'll eventually be seeing tornadoes where they've never been, our ocean currents are changing so hot places are getting cold and cold places are getting hot... It's just bad news all around from what I've heard. Yes, I've read papers on this, no, I don't remember where. Most of it was printed anyways, not strictly online.

Personally I think we need to start from scratch. We've built too much C-R-A-P on our original laws to even see what they mean anymore. Someone needs to draft a new constitution that keeps relevant points from our current government but eliminates the pork. It needs to include rules for the governing of all major issues that face our world today, not back then. Abortion, taxes, law, military, everything should be cleanly organized and written in such a way that the average American can read it.

When we have all that set up, then we can tell the republicans and democrats both to take a long piss up wind while we watch this country function effectively for the first time in god knows how long.

I'll throw my hat in here that there simply aren't enough jobs to be performed to keep our society running anymore. The productivity of a single person is now much higher in ratio to the number of people, so we're fast approaching the point where a small percentage of humans are needed to provide all the comforts of daily life to the masses. Work as a whole needs major reform as that shift occurs. We need to move to a society where work is only part time, where you can work between 3-9 months out of the year, switching out with others who have the same job at different times of the year, and get paid year round. Money is no longer the same thing it once was, guys. At this point, we're going to be wasting products more than we're using them if it keeps up... We should instead give them away.

While I find that the subject of greed is most likely the case in one form or another *if* they did actually falsify data (I doubt they did, we'll see) there are other options. Greed would be my first guess, but my second would be to mention the whole "road to hell paved with good intentions" line. Cleaning up our world = good, no? So any data that supported the cause of improving our environment, global warming or no, could be considered by some to be worth even going to far as to tarnish one's own reputation to implement. Think of it this way, if you thought your kid was going to grow up in a world without forests, and forests were actually important to you, would you consider faking data to keep the trees up?

Calling all egos, calling all bloated egos now...

Pox, the reason they do this is because they view themselves as the exception to the rule. They believe their shit doesn't stink, and nothing they do is ever wrong, because they know a few numbers and can spout rhetoric. Sound like someone we know?

At 12/2/09 12:26 AM, Dawnslayer wrote:

At 12/1/09 02:24 PM, Drakim wrote: But then came the real brainbuster. In the same day, I was told my religion was abortion because I do not oppose it, and Global Warming was my religion since I accept mainstream science.

Wow, that was directed at you? I was just reading that line today. (It's #25 on the list at the time I write this.)

Please, please tell me that entire site is nothing but a big joke... Did you actually read all of that? Any one of those comments was worth laughing at, but all together like that it's just sad.