Focusing on the money makes a lot of sense to me. If we are honest with ourselves about the monetary incentives at work here, the whole discussion gets more realistic.
I'm also reminded of the historical conversation having to do with the 13th amendment: In one swoop of the pen, a vast sum of money was wiped off the books, the value of all that property which was now nullified.
I don't have a lot of ideas on how to make guns less profitable- unlike drugs, their high value has less to do with their legal status. But I don't think the gun lobby has got the nation's best interests in mind.
Since the Kern County shooting, I'm noticing that this topic (and problem) is not going away. John Stewart nailed it: http://www.thedailyshow.com/full-episodes/tue-january-8-2013-stanley-mcchrystal
-where it's a problem about framing. But it's a comedy program, not a political forum.
[disclaimer: I may be a newbie, but if I'm breaking a rule here, I can usually hear it without freaking out.]
The main problem I'm having, is that gun violence in schools makes me angry, and that makes it harder to think straight. But if gun violence in schools doesn't make som...
"becoming rationalist"- there's an 'ism' there that raises my hackles a little. But there was one experience not long ago that piqued my interest in cognitive bias: I quipped to a friend, "When I do it, it's processing. When you do it, it's drama."
He called that attribution bias, and now I've started a collection of biases that I think I understand in my gut. Most of them seem highly mental and theoretical, but that's mostly because I have so few points of contact with other people.
How about, "I'm Joe and I make $200,000 a year"? or; "I'm Joe and I drive a 2011 Lexus"?
If someone needs to be that specific about themselves, people are right to wonder about that person's motives. There is information we have about ourselves that's not supposed to be secret, but it is considered private- no the first thing you say aloud at a party.
Context is important here too: A mensa board is unlikely to take offense with an IQ comment. If you talk about your interest in DeviantArt, people might want you to be even more specific. A ...
I'm not entirely sure though that I agree with the statement that Aspergers is "a form of autism"
If anything, I'd be tempted to say that autism is a more pronounced degree of asperger's. I certainly catch myself in the spectrum that includes ADD as well.
The whole idea of neurodiversity is kind of exciting, actually. If there can be more than one way to appropriately interact with society, everyone gets richer.
Office stuff is different from carpentry, but I know that one person is less productive (per person) than two, and two less than three. Four is usually overkill. Beyond that, carpentry teams are organized in groups of three when they're not singletons.
I don't know if the sheer number of items on the board is a good measure of productivity. Under certain circumstances, a brainstormer might edit what she says more tightly. I suspect that above a certain number of people, there isn't enough time for everyone to be heard in any case.
I have a hunch that for...
That's not actually what I meant, but the challenge seems interesting. lemme see...
Reciprocity? (I'm looking for a word to describe what happens when Islam holds Jesus up as a prophet worth listening to, but Christians afford no such courtesy to Muhammad.)
Faith (Firefly's Book asks Mal, "when I ask you to have faith, why do you think I'm talking about God?")
Ethics vs Morals (few people I know seem to recognize a difference, let alone agree on it)
Moral Class (If we were to encounter a powerful extraterrestrial, how would we know they weren't God? How would they understand the question if we asked them?)
I guess the words weren't so small after all...
Hello, newbie here. I'm intrigued by the premise of this forum.
About me: I think a lot- mostly by myself. That's trained me in some really lazy habits that I am looking to change now.
In the last few weeks, I noticed what I think are some elemental breakdowns in human politics. When things go bad between people, I think it can be attributed to one of three causes: immaturity, addiction, or insanity. I would love to discuss this further, hoping someone's interested.
I wasn't going to mention theism, but it's here in the main post, and suddenly I'm interested...
There's a science question here, and there's an engineering question here. They are two different questions.
Science asks, what are the numbers, what are the likelihoods? And there is always going to be more study needed. Consider that people are still arguing over evolution, there may never be numbers so compelling that they convince everyone.
The engineering question asks what we could do to change things. Engineers don't get to wait for better numbers, they have to do the best they can with what they've got. We don't really know why the violent crime rat... (read more)