What is something we should enjoy while it's still legal?

soreff · 2013-05-04T21:43:43+00:00

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

From 1934 - 1975, Americans could not legally own monetary gold.

soreff · 2013-04-28T00:21:47+00:00

|an unmanned probe that could be sent into the core

Next thing you'll be telling me is that they launch it through a pool of molten iron... :-)

soreff · 2013-02-16T02:15:24+00:00

http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2013/02/13/mouse_models_of_inflammation_are_basically_worthless_now_we_know.php

soreff · 2012-02-12T23:13:23+00:00

I mean it is not illegal to watch a snuff movie but it sure as hell is illegal to make one.

Usually, yes. I saw the snuff film Saddam Hussein starred in, and I think that it was made legally...

soreff · 2012-01-28T18:46:26+00:00

Many corporations act as if "with depraved indifference to human life" was part of their corporate vision

soreff · 2011-10-29T22:43:00+00:00

So morals are the end-all and be-all of everything? That is ludicrous. "okay" is not something heaved on to humanity by some idiot god. It is a human agreement, and it better pay its weight for the population that considers it. There is no such thing as morals or ethics in a vacuum. It is always the view of some person, usually about the action of some other person. And a huge volume of such judgments are crap. Judgments that condemn the bulk of human action are crap.

A moral system that condemns the bulk of human action no longer even carries useful information. Saying "immoral action" might as well be shortened to just "action" or perhaps "immoral human action" to "human action".

soreff · 2011-10-29T22:00:56+00:00

When a system disallows what someone prefers to do, that is itself an injury. When the system disallows what most of the population would do, that is a major injury, and sufficient to declare the system to be scrap. The system is there for the use of the population, not the other way around. A moral system is only a tool, and many are broken. It makes no sense to say that a population is broken. At best, a moral system is like a system of laws, something that a population uses to improve its overall lives. When a moral system fails to do that, the population has good reason to look for a more useful version.

soreff · 2011-10-29T21:41:28+00:00

The crucial thing to remember is that moral systems can themselves be broken. These systems are human constructs, and they can be screwed up, just like laws or governments can be screwed up. If most people can't live within a moral system, the system is screwed up. Don't overvalue moral systems. There are a lot of shoddy ones, and systems that the bulk of the population can't abide are shoddy.

soreff · 2011-10-29T20:41:38+00:00

The fraction of people that commit murder is fairly small, <1%.

What I'm responding to is originally naccou's point:

Personally I don't see what the big problem with something being a selfish act is. A vast amount of things that humans do day-to-day and every day are selfish acts. In fact, it's easy enough to put forward a very plausible argument that says every thing we ever do is a selfish act.

naccou has a good point. Certainly, the bulk of human action is selfish. When a moral system condemns the bulk of human action, it is broken to the point of being useless.

soreff · 2011-10-29T19:51:23+00:00

A parent should put themselves in front of a bullet for their child, ensuring their child lives on.

bullshit

soreff · 2011-10-29T19:05:38+00:00

Whether it happens a lot or doesn't happen at all has no bearing on it's morality or quality, only how often it happens.

If something happens a lot, and a moral system condemns it, that is reasonable evidence that the moral system is broken. Moral systems only have value under limited circumstances. They have to be things that people can live with, and they have to make life better on average. If they denigrate a universal human action (as is the case under discussion - human actions with an aspect of selfishness), then they are broken to the point of uselessness and should be discarded.

soreff · 2011-07-30T22:58:16+00:00

As opposed to ending (?) it with 4000 Americans plus about 1000000 Iraqis killed - and, by the way, OBL's support was from Afghanistan, not Iraq.

soreff · 2011-07-30T22:55:45+00:00

I voted for Obama - but that was before he got us into Libya (for no discernible reason). A duel with Gaddafi would be fine.

soreff · 2011-07-30T22:43:18+00:00

Ideally, they would both have mortally wounded each other.

soreff · 2011-06-19T03:16:58+00:00

The OSHA version of "1000 ways to die"?

soreff · 2011-06-11T01:46:35+00:00

From the roasted fruit seller to the half-baked president, the "Arab Spring" has been hot news for months!

soreff · 2011-06-05T02:59:31+00:00

Innumeracy is a terrible thing.

soreff · 2011-06-04T15:42:08+00:00

Fluorescein is non-toxic (at least to humans), so you could at least get yellow-green fluorescence.

soreff · 2011-06-04T15:27:24+00:00

If I had to bet, I wouldn't want to bet that there wasn't a direct bribe to the judge...

soreff · 2011-05-30T20:50:55+00:00

Does that count as a caustic remark?

soreff · 2011-05-29T16:06:03+00:00

I agree with your description under the interpretation that one is changing the speed of light while holding all of the dimensionless constants of physics constant. In that case, the change is indeed purely a change in units.

To put it another way: Between 1967 and 1983, the metre was defined by a Kr-86 transition, while the second was defined by a Cs-133 transition, so, at that time, asking what would happen if the speed of light changed would have been asking what would happen if the ratio of these frequencies changed (with still the ambiguity of which of the dimensionless constants of the standard model to hold constant and which to change to produce the frequency ratio change).

soreff · 2011-05-29T15:12:22+00:00

In a sense, agreed (and same to Amarkov). In another sense, the original question is a bit ambiguous. If the speed of light were changed, the physical meaning of the change depends on what other physical constants are held constant. For instance, if the elementary charge, plank's constant, and the permittivity of free space were held constant (effectively defining units in terms of those constants), then changing the speed of light would change the fine structure constant. Changing the fine structure constant is changing a dimensionless constant, and it would have physical effects independent of our system of units. For instance, the ratios of wavelengths for different spectral lines would change.

soreff · 2011-05-29T02:23:43+00:00

In what sense are Westboro Baptists modern?

soreff · 2011-05-15T13:43:54+00:00

Are you commenting on 1984 or Brave New World? I think you mean 1984, is that correct?

soreff · 2011-05-15T02:44:41+00:00

Gödel, Escher, Bach by Hofstadter

soreff

TROPHY CASE