padren

I wouldn't call that advertising - it's "selling" a commercially competitive open source engine for free, knowing that expertise with that engine can translate into lucrative contract work. I also wouldn't say the parts that are open don't matter, as the model often offers advantages to potential adopters beyond the financial incentive in making it more competitive than high cost pure commercial alternatives. There are also many products that are fully open source, free for non commercial use, but require a fee for commercial use beyond a certain scale. Rakknet is an example of this sort of product.

If freedom of speech was limited to prevent people from making flawed, inaccurate, and outright dangerously stupid comments simply because it could cause harm or derail entire economies, the Republican Party would have had to mime their entire campaigns on street corners in the last election. Of course, they believe it's the Democrats that are giving voice to dangerous and harmful ideas that will be the End of America - so really if you want to get into regulating speech all you will do is decide who are the saviors and who are the devils based on some sort of mob mentality. The key factor is that you actually are legally allowed to yell "Fire" in a movie theater if you see a fire. Once you get beyond movie theaters the question is: whether or not Jenny Mccarthy is a hero for blowing the whistle on vaccines, whether Cantona is correct that such a protest would produce a long term benefit for everyone, whether AGW theories are based on dirty science, whether florescent bulbs are harder on the environment than incandescent bulbs, etc... all boil down to a question of whether the person speaking actually does see a fire or if they are just high as a kite and/or exceptionally stupid. We already (allegedly) regulate speech for accuracy/libel, but any more would be a mistake considering the people we would have to ask to regulate it.

It was effectively a closed system, but the fact it existed before an open system could even be realistically imagined changes the nature of the beast a bit, since there was no alternative to the closed system. Before certain technologies existed, it was impossible to record audio. That doesn't mean all creators of audio performances adhered sternly to a "no recordings" policy - the question wasn't asked because the very thing the question addressed did not exist yet. The net effect is about the same, but the distinction is worth noting. If you want to use the engine in a commercial project, you can for free - but even though it's very well documented, the expense of training programmers to learn it inside out to the point of creating niche proprietary project-specific extensions is much higher than paying the creator or a veteran contributor to head the development. The revenue comes from the value of the expertise.

The technology was difficult enough to utilize that open standards would have been moot - it took a lot more than writing data to build a game for the Atari console, even if you knew the standards. Technology wouldn't even advance enough for that question to be raised for some time. Ogre3D is an A list quality 3D rendering engine written in C++, fully open source and has been used in delivered, A list games. The engine was originally started by Steve Streeting, and while much of his contract work has been closed due to non-disclosure contracts, it's the fact that his product is open source that allowed him to do a lot of contract work as an expert with that engine. There are many other examples of this sort of model, but it's worth noting that his revenue is based on an entirely free-to-use and free-to-get/change open source product.

When talking formats and engines, SQL comes to mind as a pretty big mix of holy-grail level achievement of standards and at the same time painful idiosyncratic derivations. Just the fact that you can hack together a database in MS Access and actually run it on a production website (NOT that such an act would be encouraged) and connect through any number of proprietary or open source application layers is amazing, when you look at everything from MySQL to Oracle in terms of engines you have just about everything that can happen, happening all over the place at once. When you take into account the complexity of atomic transactions, indexing, data integrity and all the requirements for production level databases (plus the need to constantly innovate and one-up the competitors) the cross-compatible open standards make anything in the consumer market (browsers, office doc formats) look pretty flimsy by comparison. Btw, good points on the app-store Pangloss. When a new proprietary technology creates a market, it's hard to fault the company for not opening the doors wide open. It was a non-issue when Atari game cartridges came out and no one accused them of being closed off because it was so hard to access just because of the technology limitations of the time. Since we've moved to a point of having almost virtual hardware (touchscreen keyboards, UIs) all it takes to extend something is data, so people are painfully aware of how much better something could be if they could get under the hood. That said, there is something about blocking what you can and cannot do with hardware you own (warranty aside) that bothers me about crippleware. If you own the equipment, you should legally be able to do anything from nothing at all to smashing it with a hammer.

The whole program was born at a time when the public was panicked and wanted any kind of reassurance that flying was safe. It's taken a long time to wind down and now that it's loosing steam people are getting fed up at all the things that have been justified in the name of theatrical security. It doesn't help the TSA appeared to be a job give-away for people who pretty much just had to be a warm body capable of passing a head count. There's a certain level of incompetence that has finally broken the comfort zone barrier and people are angry. For instance, there really is no excuse for body scans being leaked despite very unambiguous assurances it would never be possible. I think the main reason we are stuck with theater still, is that the job of actually doing a full-process audit and restructuring based on effectiveness is such a monumental task no one wants to do it, or is even sure how to do it. People are upset, but not nearly as upset as they will be if the sheer level of facade is laid open and picked apart for the wasteful failure that it is... but that has to be done to something functional in it's place. As a side note: It looks like if the TSA doesn't straighten up, they'll actually be facing competition, so they may not have a choice and have to clean their processes up.

Pangloss, the Christian Right has been trying to argue that America is a Christian nation in one manner or another since the Pilgrims ran out of beer off Plymouth Rock. You are also making poor generalizations: the "downtrodden, scapegoated western Muslims" are not the Muslims wanting to create a set of laws above State or Federal law. In case you missed that: the Muslims the left stands up for are not the Muslims wanting to create a set of laws above State or Federal law. I think you'll find the Left stands up for any Christian that is having their rights violated or is being unfairly scapegoated as well - regardless of the actions of the Religious Right. That's simply called a rational approach where people are not bunched into unfair generalized stereotypes but instead are judged on their actions and unique characteristics. I'll say for the record that any Muslim that wants to pass a law that gives Muslims special rights is equally condemnable by the left as any Christian doing the same thing (random fruitcakes aside of course). It's just that (outside of the right wing wharrgarbl machine) it is obvious Muslims are not getting special treatment. Seriously, they can't even build a community center in NY without getting a wave of wharrgarbl, which interestingly enough no one in NY even cared about until the Wharrgarbl Machine started screaming "EVERYONE IS ANGRY THEY WERE INTENSIVE BY BUILDING THERE!" and people decided "Well if they made everyone angry, I guess that's kinda insensitive..." Before you try to make these comparisons, could you maybe come up with... perhaps a single shred of evidence that Muslims are trying to get their own special laws? The only evidence I've found so far is your bad judge reference and that woman that wanted her face covered in her driver's license photo - both failed miserably and were not representative of any larger Muslim community. PS: Would you please let me know how you came to that apparently debunked idea that the TSA was considering special privileges for Muslims getting on planes? I'd like to know if there is some truth to that which is just really hard to find, or if you decided to concede it was just misinformation from the Wharrgarbl Machine.

Sharai Law just like Biblical law or Scientology principles can be interpreted as being above "worldly laws" or not, it depends on the specific practitioners. Some will always be extreme and many will not be. As for Western Islam struggling in the West, I haven't seen any evidence of that aside from the reactionaries loosing their heads over the odd community center - but that isn't an issue with Islamic integration, it's "Real America" that is having trouble adopting a moderate Western way of life. Any group that believes they should have distinct laws separate and above state and federal laws will have a conflict. It works like this: If a law interferes with your practice of religion, you can challenge the law. If the law exists to protect the rights of others, and granting the challenge would violate the Constitutional Rights of other people, the challenge will fail - you can't use a constitutional religious rights to trump another person's constitutional rights. If the law does not protect the rights of others, then the challenge will probably succeed. The First Amendment is fine as it is, I don't understand what needs to be "easier" or changed. You cannot use the First Amendment to justify that you have a right to obstruct other people's first, second, third - or any Amendment rights. Not when it extends to liable, trespassing, breaking and entering, breaches anti-stalking laws, wire-tapping laws, or any other law that protects people from harassment. No religious group has special privileges to harass others above and beyond the amount already protected via freedom of speech. First, when someone kills a homosexual person they are charged with murder, and quite likely a hate crime if they were targeted for their sexuality. We have people murdering people over those issues, but we also have people murdering over money and romantic jealousy, along with every other possible motive. People who commit murder go on trial for murder, regardless of their faith or reasons. As for women - in this country at least, any women can refuse to wear face coverings and even walk away from her entire religion if she wants to. A Jehovah's Witness may insist that his wife not be given a blood transfusion in a hospital - but his wife can still legally say "Screw that, I want the transfusion" and no amount of church doctrine on "respecting your husband" or "blood transfusions are wrong" beliefs can override her decision if she makes it. That is true in any community to the extent that their local laws do not conflict with state or federal laws. If any community (religious or otherwise) enacts a local law that violates constitutional protections against search and seizure for instance, a person can refuse and will ultimately win in court. Even if the community found evidence of criminal activity - if it was an illegal search that evidence cannot be used against the person.

You could be right, I am not sure how a graph of the benefits and risks would look - but I think it's still worth noting that the reason drugs make it across the border in the volumes they do (when not backpacked ) is because smugglers intentionally choose mules that look least likely to be profiled.

What part of her statement "sounds like more than simple consideration" to you? I honestly don't understand how you could come to that conclusion from the video. Has she expressed interest in giving Muslims special privileges in the past? Is it out of character that Muslims join the rest of the religions in America that ask for more rights than they can possibly legally be allowed? We've had every other religion in the country try to pull the "special privileges are religious rights" card, so what if some Muslims pull it too? Why is there any fear we will make specials laws for them when we never have in the past for anyone else?* Last I checked, the woman who didn't want her face visible in her driver's license lost her case, despite the ACLU representing her. People of all faiths ask for stupid stuff (Creationism in school for instance) all the time and honestly if anyone has the clout to get their way, I don't think we have to be worried about Muslims changing our laws on religious freedoms and individual rights. So what if the "Fiqh Council of North America" issued a fatwa condemning scanners? The Catholic Church in America still can't get over the idea of birth control and still tells its members that their legal right to abortion unilaterally is an amoral choice. They aren't forcing anyone to keep unwanted pregnancies, so legally it's alright. When the Catholic Church does it we say they are a little backwards by contemporary standards - when some traditionalist Muslims say the same sort of thing (stressing modesty, whatever) suddenly everyone freaks out like planes are going to start exploding in the sky. I'm sure it doesn't help that the word "fatwa" entered our vocabulary tied to Bin Laden issuing them condemning our existence and seeking our deaths. It doesn't help that Sharai Law came to us from the Taliban and the horrors they practiced. All that aside - all I see are some traditionalists getting miffed and issuing some statements, no different than traditionalists in any other religion. It's cute, it happens all the time, it goes nowhere and it's nothing to be freaked out about. No one is going to start the legally sanctioned stoning rape victims in America. No one is going to give Muslims special rights to pass through airport security. No one anywhere in our security apparatus has even vaguely suggested they would consider such an insane idea a good one, let alone politically viable. That's some serious tinfoil hat material that apparently has come out of thin air. EDIT: *I admit some laws passed are definitely Christian-centric, but that can't be separated from the size and early cultural impact of Christianity on America, and we still never have passed a law so blatantly favoring Christians as the one people are fearful may pass favoring Muslims. Any half decent terrorist could slip some tools into Mr. Smith's possession to get it through airport security. As soon as we demonstrate a weakness in selective profiling (you can't increase in one area without lessening in another) people will change their tactics to exploit that weakness. Any kid who thinks they are muleing drugs has no idea if the bags contain weapons or explosives - just they are sealed in wrapped newspaper. Drug runners or terrorists alike would select that kid based entirely on their ability to beat the profiling of the day. It wouldn't be hard for another terrorist to get his bag once on the plane. When you start to profile, you really weaken your security - it's better to have a solid wide-net screening process than one so easily adapted to.

Jackson, can you please provide some basis for that assertion about Janet Napolitano? Every reference I can find in any articles suggesting that she is going to propose making exceptions for Muslim women is based on one quote (at least that I can find) that, if you watch the video of her statements, blatantly unsubstantiated: Video here Maybe you are basing your comment on something else, but I want to be sure you are not making the claim Napolitano is "considering" making allowances for Islamic Women based on that video and the subsequent blatant mischaracterizations popping up in the right-wing fear-o-sphere.

This really isn't a new issue, David Koresh tried to create an isolated community with their own religious laws that bypassed US law (stockpiling arms that are illegal under US law) and regardless of what a sect may want, they will always be held accountable to breaking US law. It doesn't matter if the practitioners are of a Christian sect or an Islamic one - there is more than enough case precedent that demonstrates that religious views do not trump the laws of the state or nation. It's really just a matter of what words are used: You can say "Biblical Values" but those sects treat it as "Biblical Law" just as Islamic fundamentalists refer to "Sharai Law" - the only reason it's more touchy on the Islamic side is that the word "law" implies direct conflict with the legal system, where was "Sharai Values" would sound far less threatening. The fact is both are the same issue - groups wanting to live by a code of values based on their religion, which they are allowed to do up to the point that it conflicts with state or federal law. What we have not seen (and is implied by the concerns Pangloss raised) is any legal challenges to establishing that religious practices should be allowed to be practiced with legal immunity from state and federal laws. The "wife beater judge" made a ruling that supported that idea, but he was overturned and aside from the standard "white noise" of random poor rulings case precedent is pretty well established for all religions. It's worth noting that (allegedly) Scientology supports the harassment, intimidation, and "dirty tricks" to be used against enemies of their church without concern for the moral implications of those actions. The degree to which they act in accordance to the legal limitations of state and federal law has only to do with not wanting to be caught, jailed and/or fined. According to their beliefs (again, allegedly, I'm not a lawyer or expert) anyone who decides to place themselves in the position of being an enemy of the church is "a criminal" and deserves no ethical consideration. They are no less dedicated to their beliefs than any Muslim that believes their laws are set down from a higher authority than state or federal authorities. All the same they know if they publicly commit a crime against state or federal law, they will be pursued for it. This is all based on pretty basic principals within our society, and there is a ton of case precedent involving everything from the Branch Davidian to Scientology and the Catholic Church demonstrating how groups that believe in a higher authority still have to act within accordance of state and federal law. No group of Muslims will be able to change that. No isolated crackpot rulings by errant judges, or ACLU challenges are going to change that now at this point in our society. Even if some Muslims make legal protests and try to challenge the laws it will not matter. They can want their own laws all they want - hell, David Koresh wanted his own army - but it's not going to go anywhere. Legal precedent is far too established and no matter how many fringers (and no matter what religion those fringers adhere to) no religious group will be above the law in this country. The concern is beyond laughable.

Obama can't blow his nose without being accused that it proves he's a secret Muslim, and frankly he doesn't have the cajones to make such any exceptions for Muslims if he did think it was wise - something I seriously doubt. On top of that, you may want to read the article you posted: "One option offered to passengers who don't want to use the scanners would be a pat down by a security guard. The Muslim groups are urging members to undergo those instead." A ) Apparently pat-downs are already considered a viable secure alternative to the body-scans, and available to passengers (not just Muslim ones) B ) The Muslim groups are urging members to opt for that already freely available option, not get special treatment. So in short, the body scanners probably save time but are not currently considered a requirement to pass security, and the Fatwa issued called the scanners inconsistent with Islamic beliefs and thus recommends they take the extra time for the freely offered (to all) pat-down option instead. There is honestly no problem with with this Islamic Fatwa - if they don't want to go through the screening process over modesty concerns let them not go through them. They get patted down like anyone else who doesn't want to be scanned. If they don't want that either, fine, they just won't be allowed in airports, no more than they would be issued "photo ids" if they won't show their face to a camera at a DMV. Quakers don't like buttons let alone airplanes but they get along just fine, this is really a whole lot about nothing. It honestly appears to be a trend that people get in a flap over nothing, and are excused over some "looking at the bigger picture" that is really just the background din of wharbargl with no excusable basis in reality.

Lemur, you are the one advocating vigilante justice - you are the person who says foreign intervention is necessary due to a lack of faith in the courts to pursue justice. Then you talk about how vigilantism is bad? Of course I agree on the doing SOMETHING about it, but if that SOMETHING requires illegal vigilantism I wouldn't fool myself into believing that violence won't be factor. I would wish to avoid it, I would hate it, but if I decided to use illegal methods to hinder the freedoms of another, I have to acknowledge they do have the right to defend themselves against such illegal assaults. All it would take is for them to call the police, at which point I can either abandon my liberation mission and go to jail, or I can shoot it out with the police in hopes of carrying out my mission. How would you deal with that, if you were one of these liberators? I'm all in favor of more aggressive international cooperation in preventing human rights abuses. I even agree (as I said before) that human rights is an issue that transcends borders. What I disagree with is the idea that you can use force without an expectation of justified, violent resistance. Hence, I consider military intervention a last resort and expect it to be bloody, with diplomacy being the preferred method to promote human rights. I am not familiar with the Cuba evacuations, but I assume those kids and probably their parents were willing participants? As for Elian, that's a pretty big side-topic considering all the factors. With regards to the CIA/airlines deal: you realize if the Cuban government had found out, those involved would have to shoot and kill people to get out of that country alive, right? Violence may not always occur, but you have to be aware of just how quickly the stakes go up when you engage in such missions - you have to be sure the ethics are still defensible within the scope of the risks you create. If you create a severe risk for violent confrontation in which the violent parties are justified in using violence, you have to be sure you are morally okay with those potential consequences. It's not natural to attack anyone who crosses national borders just because of their presence (we have very open borders!), but it is natural if those people have some idea about how you are living your life wrong, they want you to change that, and they won't take no for an answer. If someone came to your home and tried to abduct your child to save them from "the evil corrupt capitalist machine" to be hidden away in China - wouldn't you call the police? You know the police will use lethal force if necessary to prevent the abduction, and you know the abductor didn't come all this way to give up and spend their life in jail. Bloodshed isn't merely retaliation - it's self defense. How would you handle that situation? You could do all those things without the need for foreign liberators - they could just come and visit the way missionaries often do in other countries, and have a polite chat. Of course, since these people tend to be highly isolationist and distrustful of anyone outside their communities, no one will be using your online forum or going to these get-togethers. You are missing the "third hand" that is most important: "they might be avoiding public accountability because they are believe the public is up to no-good and they know it are absolutely certain. What to do then? I am not disagreeing with that - my point is we settle our disagreements about ethics and morality through a legal framework to avoid out-of-control vigilantism. When you send people over national borders (where laws change) to bypass the legal framework you rob people of anything but the most basic tools to work out their differences - arguing and violence. The whole reason we have better lives today than we did 10,000 years ago is we have more options available - civilized options. We still have all the barbaric options at our disposal of course, but the civilized ones are far more appealing to most, the odd back-alley mugger not withstanding. When you work to subvert someone's will by means outside those civilized options, you reduce the options left to them. You may do so out of a sense of ethical obligation, but don't kid yourself that that is what you are doing. Honestly its the ones that believe they are do-gooders that bother me more than the ones who are just faking it. Fakers have ulterior motives and if you push the right buttons they may give up, because they don't really care about the morality. How much effort do I have to make to validate these guys? If I get 10 well intentioned people a day show up at my house, dead set on usurping my rights due to some backwards morality they have - how many hours of my life do I have to dedicate to them? When do I get to say "Look, I get 24 hrs of life today, not a minute more, I gotta spend 8 of those working, and I am not interested in dying slowly here for a few more hours to convince yet another misguided fool to leave me alone" when the person has no legal authority to demand my attention? If you are helping local authorities, that is called rendering assistance and we do that all the time on humanitarian missions, and the occasional involvement in a civil war. IIRC, we went into Vietnam to help the local authorities stop communist forces from forcing their will on the people there. Again, it's not deceit that is the big concern - it's people that believe they are right and will die for it that really makes things messy. Aside from vigilantism, what other tools besides international law do we have to aid justice? So far, all you've done is try to justify vigilantism, and I've agreed that at times it is necessary but as a means to achieve justice it's an exceptionally brutal tool with a very high cost. If a legal framework exists and is given time to remedy the shortcomings then yes - those are checks and balances. If international law is violated then it's vigilantism or all out war, period. When someone who has no legal authority to impose their will on you, and yet attempts to - how do you resolve that? During a heated confrontation? If the issue hasn't been resolved diplomatically, what makes you think a direct confrontation will get better results? Civility works because we have rules we all agree to, that gives us additional options to us beyond simply acting like animals. When you cross national borders as a vigilante (even a non-violent vigilante) you are engaging those individuals without the benefit of those common rules that allow civility. You leave people to defend their own with the only tools left - as animals. Animals with some decent communication skills, but as I said before, if communication could resolve the issue, it would be better achieved through diplomatic channels. It's not that it's "not worth the trouble" its that in the real world you have to ensure your efforts to intervene do not create near-inevitable conflicts with a higher ethical toll. Hence, it is often more ethical to use slower methods such as diplomacy that does allow some suffering because direct and immediate force-of-will intervention will cause greater suffering in the big picture. In our "liberation" of Iraq you have to imagine just how many parents couldn't even get water to their children when sick, who had to struggle to just get food - that is a huge toll of suffering on people who technically you are there to help. It's hard to get someone to accept that you are making them suffer "for their own good" when it endangers the lives of their children and all good intentions aside, it creates the scenarios that lead to violent resistance, no matter how good your intentions are. Sometimes it is necessary, but it's very naive to think in this world people will just trust each other when all social rules and commonality is thrown out the window. Side note: Perhaps the discussion between Lemur and myself should be broken down into a "Ethics of international intervention" thread, it seems to be getting bigger and it's really on topic to the Bush memoirs.

First of all, we have a system of justice in the US that we consider to be held in high esteem - we consider the high burden of proof to demonstrate guilt a good thing, even if some guilty parties are never found guilty in a court of law. So, these "liberators" coming from a foreign land, have to come onto US soil, and trespass on private property to "liberate" this 12 yr old wife against her wishes, against the wishes of her 40 yr old husband, and against the wishes of the child's parents. Once they liberate her, what are they going to do with her? She can't go back to her parents - they'll just take her back to her husband. If she's dropped off in the other side of the nation, she'll find a way to get back to her husband. So what are these "well intentioned" liberators to do? You can't break down locked doors of people who under US Federal and State law have not committed any crimes, or even conducted themselves in a manner to justify a search warrant. How could that not end in bloodshed? Perhaps you aren't aware of this idiosyncrasy within a subset of the Mormon religion largely limited to areas of Utah: A man in his 40s will "marry" a girl as young as 12 in a religious (non-legal) ceremony, and may take multiple wives in this fashion. Polygamy is still illegal, but unless they get a legal marriage the state can't do anything about the age of the girl or number of wives. Most of the country finds this to be amoral, but it is difficult to identify and prosecute due to the lack of cooperating witnesses. The parents of the girl consider it not just moral but a duty within their religion, the girls consider it a moral obligation to respect their parents and their new husbands, and the husbands consider it not just moral but their religious duty as well. You can't expect to hold everyone to be ethically accountable to the same standards when everyone believes they are right. Of course, naturally as all involved are human, it's safe to say none of them are right, but some are more right than others - but who is? The people who are more right and the people who are less right both equally believe they are right, so the weight of their moral convictions can't help. Secondarily, who in their right mind would trust someone just because they say they have good intentions? If the police show up at my door I have rights and obligations under US law, but if some people from another country do the same why on Earth would I trust them? They are already breaking US law just being in the country for the purpose of usurping US law. So you have law breakers at my door demanding my compliance under threat (I assume they don't just want to make a polite suggestion, or they would have just emailed me) - but they are assuring me if I cooperate I won't be harmed. You think that would go well? You have to consider the guilty, those who are guilty but don't believe they did anything unethical, and of course those who the "liberators" believe are guilty due to bad information. You have to consider the impact on and risk to bystanders, and the fact that the liberators are breaking international law by taking justice into their own hands. I cannot imagine how you think that would end in anything but violence. And BTW, if we let people from Country A march into the US to save the 12 yr old girl because of Universal Ethics, who's going to tell people from Country B they can't do the same thing to stone a US citizen to death for drawing a picture of Mohammad? Under their cultural ethics they believe they are just as ethically justified to intervene in crimes against their God as others believe themselves to be for stopping crimes against human rights. I happen to agree that human rights transcends the issue of borders and local law - but to take will-imposing actions against those violations is an absolute rat nest of trouble, and that's why we have over 175 embassies and consulates on US soil and a whole slew of international treaties and local laws.

Lemur, military intervention has to be a last resort, even when ethical violations are taking place. Consider the ethical violations going on in the US right now: people do die because they cannot gain access to basic medical services - should some righteous nation charge our shores and dawn and "liberate" us from ourselves? What percentage of the US population would have to die in the invasion before the "liberation" was in fact, less ethical than the violations being addressed? It's nice to pursue Moral Universalism, but who decides what is universally moral? If the US government doesn't stop the marriages of 12 yr old girls to men in their forties in Utah due to a percieved "obstructively high burden of proof" (without cooperating witnesses, you can only charge the adult if sex can be proven) what nation can justify invasion, and the high death toll that would result?

I can understand why a group may promote an isolationist philosophy - many religious groups already do this. The issue I have is any attempt to promote Sharia Law above the legal "law of the land" is inherently illegal, and I would assume racketeering laws could even be used against any group that tries to promote or conceal illegal conduct from law enforcement. Since this movement (no group was named in the article) has expenses I assume they collect donations. If those donations promote illegal activity and interference with law enforcement, doesn't the group become subject to racketeering laws? At that point it's a criminal organization.

It's very difficult to do, but whenever true-cost is raised, it's shouted down as if simply discussing a possible figure will in itself derail the entire economy and plunge us into the dark ages. The issue has to be dealt with politically because it will be politicians that have to draft solutions, although I agree science needs to play a big role. If people can actually agree on some decent rough values and then work towards their effective representation these sorts of product-bans would be obsolete. That's like complaining about flaws in the financial strategies one's spouse comes up with while at the same time refusing to even acknowledge any need for planning. In some cases, it's a fair complaint but when an entire political wing dedicates itself to pure obstructionism they pretty much loose any leg to stand on. I'm not in favor of a ban on incandescent lights, but until conservatives have something to add instead of just something to oppose I cannot imagine finding their "contributions" worthwhile enough to digest. People whining that "Square One was better!" don't have a solution, and frankly it was the problems present at Square One that forced us to act and end up here at a flawed Square Two. I'm all in favor of finding the best possible "Square Three" and the sad thing is it's the sort of thing liberals and conservatives could really work together on - their differences are a strength since we need people who are both penny-wise and socially aware to deal with complex true-cost issues.

There are really two key factors in choosing how to write: 1) Courtesy to others 2) Self interest When someone posts on a forum, they are asking people to spend some of their free time reading it, assessing it, and possibly responding to it. Making the process as simple and effective as possible shows courtesy and value for the time others volunteer. Secondarily it's always good to know what your goal is in any act of communication, and try to maximize that effect. If you want to convey a sense of a casual or lackadaisical musing between friends, and you know your target audience is "lol-friendly" it could improve the communication to use some of those shorthand emotes. However that is not generally the case in a science-centric forum like this. I have noticed posts move towards friendly side-conversations (often appearing within politics posts, and helpful for humanizing opponents and defusing tensions) will utilize "ROFL" or "LMAO" and the like with more frequency, but most of the time the goal is to communicate a complex argument, counter-argument or concept which is just not conducive to casual conventions. As a note: I definitely spend a lot of time trying to rewrite my posts before I submit, and I think it really helps. It's not just spelling and grammar, but I find by the time I am nearly done writing a post I'll have stumbled on many ways to optimize the text. I think it's generally worth while to do so, because good habits never go to waste. Same with spelling and grammar - my grammar is especially bad, but I always use the built-in spellchecker and correct red-underlined words if they are available. Efficiency is part of the equation in doing anything well so it's not worth loosing a day over minor improvements, but if you are taking the time to do something anyway, it's always worthwhile to take the opportunity to do it as well as possible - it's free practice and can only raise one's skill.

The problem is we want to buy things at artificially reduced costs that are not representative to true free market costs. If half of bulbs in California go incandescent and the other half florescent - why does everyone pay during the rolling blackouts? I am not saying incandescent bulbs are definitely more expensive than florescent ones when adjusted for real cost - but it's the fact that everything from light bulbs to carbon emissions get some sort of ideological "free pass" by conservatives that they only have liberal solutions to criticize. Why don't they get in the game and try to solve the "true-cost" problem instead of just complaining that the ideological left only come up with ideologically leftish solutions?

That explanation is similar to mine but yours does make the assumption that we are not living in a purely metaphysical universe that only appears to be physical. Pretty much anything that requires more assumptions than "cogito ergo sum" does, and this will get you in trouble due to the burden of proof. You can argue your summary is the most elegant or the simplest known way to describe the Universe, and even point out that you are not making any assumptions greater than those already needed to apparently maintain our ability to survive any given minute in this Universe, but you still get locked into assumptions. Just a note on the quantum thing: there is no scientific claim that anything exists in a superposition (two places/states at once) until it is observed by a conscience being - you are correct in your skepticism there. That is a poor characterization derived from poor articulation and pop culture reporters failing to communicate the actual information. The issue with superpositions is actually that they are in both states until interacted upon by measurable forces that collapse them into one state or the other. The corollary to this is that since we, as conscious beings require some sort of measurable force to act on what we want to detect in order to detect it - any attempt to measure it will cause the superposition to collapse. Therefore any observation made by a conscious being will cause it to collapse, but it's just because of the mechanics involved - not something special about conscious beings. Consider a ship at night navigating through iceberg infested waters, where you blow a whistle and if it echos, you know there is an iceberg there: It works fine for icebergs, but if the sound generated by the whistle pushed the icebergs around, you could not detect them without moving them. When we get to quantum scales, even using a single photon to bounce off a particle and come back into a receptor (similar to the whistle sound bouncing off the iceberg) will change what you are trying to observe if you successfully detect it. It's like trying to detect where moths are in a room by shooting bowling balls through it and listening for "splats" - you can detect the bugger, and know where you detected it, but it sure isn't going to be there anymore. Therefore all attempts by us to observe these types of interactions fail, because that key element in "observation" is to interact with it, and nothing we can use to interact with it has a small enough impact to leave it in the state you just detected. The nice thing (imo) about my matter-proof is that it is not inconsistent with materialist views, but doesn't depend on them. I can address anyone with that view and say "But if you're right, then I have to be right - but I don't need you to be right for me to be right." It usually becomes a question of run-away burdens of proof - someone is happy to accept the proof of your gas gauge as evidence that you filled the tank, but when you want to discuss any complex topic they are uncertain about -suddenly you have to prove you aren't existing in The Matrix or some dream. It is generally an unfair burden of proof but since this topic was so simplistically specific "prove matter exists" I assumed such a burden would be in effect. As such I tailored my proof to that high burden by discarding unnecessary ancillary assumptions about matter. We all have to admit that we make these assumptions about reality every day, and no one is really eager to jump off a building just to find out if this is a dream - but if we want to get this deeply philisophical it's going to come up under the burden of proof. However, since my proof is consistent with materialism and all other considerable models of the Universe (even models that conflict with each other) without depending on any of them I am able to side-step that debate entirely. Are there any holes in my proof that I missed?

If your thoughts on differentiation exist, then something has to be responsible for that differentiation - there has to be a cause. There is no need to even claim they originate outside one's thoughts - all matter could exist only in the imagination of the person you are proving the existence of matter to, and from their perspective you could potentially be a figment of their imagination. However, regardless of whether you exist (from their perspective) they have to acknowledge that matter (from their perspective) does exist. Yes it does, and without any doubt. The mistake you are making is you have an unreasonable definition of what a Pegasuses is, and what a unicorn is - you want to know if they exist as other animals exist. They do exist, but what they are, are patterns in literature, art, and conceptualizations. Not flesh and blood animals. If I wasn't clear enough I'll elaborate: For us to make any observation of distinction, there must be corresponding complexity within the unique at least equal to the differentiation observed. If you want to get into theories on the subconscious, the nature of consciousness and pattern recognition you could easily argue that corresponding complexity must exceed the differentiation observed, but for the purposes of our discussion we don't need to address that so it's just an aside tangent. What we can be sure of though - I hope you can agree - that if you can observe "black and white" as different things, there must be some corresponding complexity to the universe (whether it all exists within your mind, some meta-philosophical soul, the Matrix, or physical reality) that is capable of existing in multiple states and thus able to create the difference that you observe. Can we agree on that? The premise is pretty simple and straight forward - but if you disagree let me know because we will have to deal with that before addressing secondary factors in this argument. So, what then, is observable complexity in the Universe? We can't say much for certain about it - I can't say for instance, based on the logic above, that matter "as defined by shared scientific empirical studies of it's behaviors and properties" definitely exists. I cannot say matter (as defined by that which has mass, as an example) exists. But I can say that matter exists. This is because when you get down to the most basic yet still sound definition of "matter" itself, you are referring to observed differences that relate directly to the complexity of the Universe. Whatever the nature of this Universe is - it has complexity, and some of that complexity is observable in the form of the observable differences between matter and not-matter. We aren't proving unicorns here. It would be equally viable to prove that "light" exists because we can differentiate light and darkness, therefore that must be based on some sort of complexity within the Universe. When testing "light" by this measure, we can safely say the best simplest definition of light is "that which observably differentiates from darkness" and again it doesn't matter if it exists within our mind or within an outer reality. If everything exists in our minds - that is the Universe. Then there is no outer Universe and no point in a definition for light that only works for an outer Universe that doesn't exist. The definition that relates directly to observable complexity in "the Universe" (whatever that may be) is the simplest, and most accurate definition possible. Thus, you can say safely that matter exists. You just can't make the general assumptions about matter that we all assume to be true.

I am referring to "cogito ergo sum" because it's the most basic burden of proof for the existence of individual experience, and then I use that as a base to demonstrate that the properties of matter can be differentiated via personal experience from non-matter. When an individual observes the differences between space with matter vs. space without matter, you have to accept that those spaces have different properties. That is proof of something that can be personally confirmed, as "If you can observe a difference, there must be a reason there's a difference." Then, I demonstrate that this differentiation is the basis for the definition of matter, thus we can say matter exists - and anything else matter could be is irrelevant. It doesn't matter at that point if matter is made up of atoms, or has the property of mass, or any other "sticking points" on proof that matter exists. Any relevant definition must at it's most basic level has to the differences between matter and non-matter. Any additional observations or empirical collection of evidence regarding the other properties of matter are ancillary. As such, you can say definitively that matter exists, and anything you say about matter that "cannot be proven" is ancillary and does not negate the most basic and accurate definition of matter - that which can be observed as different from non-matter.

It seems to me the biggest issue with this questions is the three slippery definitions: 1) What is matter? 2) What is proof? 3) What is existing? We can say "Matter exists" pretty definitely, by invoking again the Descartes argument, and building on that: If you perceive a difference between any two things (a rock and a banana, for instance) then those two things cannot be entirely the same. They could both be similar (both elements of a dream, or both 3D renderings in The Matrix, or both distinct objects in "reality") but once you acknowledge there is a difference (that difference may be based on a variation of 1s and 0s or a difference in memory centers accessed during dreaming, or different patterns of different atoms in distinct molecular structures) they cannot be the same. So, if we have "space where nothing is" and "space where mattery stuff is" as two distinct and different observable phenomena (fit for Descartes), we can say that matter exists, even if we don't know what matter is. If this is all a dream, then our own definition of "matter" is defined within the scope of this dream. If we are in the matrix, our concept of matter is defined by the parameters of the matrix. If we are in The Matrix, matter may be better defined as "An interface class implemented by elements of the Matrix that simulate atomic structures" than by what seems to make matter observable to us in whatever environment we happen to be in. So - while we could get lost for days on the nature of the definition of matter, or equally lost in the definition of proof or existence, I think using Descartes as a starting point we can say matter does exist, because it's presence creates differences within our "thinking" by which, "we know we are." For all the fluid definitions of matter, the fact matter creates differences in our observations is inescapable, thus any relevant definition must address those differences, thereby confirming it's existence.