Pangloss

Well put.

My opinion is that there's no argument. We have to compete in a global marketplace. That's going to mean that outsourcing sometimes happens. But it hasn't hurt us as much as more people seem to think. We have 95% employment in this country and if outsourcing were so evil then the standard of living and average income levels would be falling like a rock instead of basically holding steady. Don't get me wrong, I think those two areas are major problems in the economy, no question about it. But radical suggestions like "jobs are a right" and other socialistic radicalisms are just pointless. It's obvious that the market works. It could perhaps use a little tweaking here and there, but it works. I have no problem with some-time incentives to deal with spot problems in outsourcing. Helping hands for people who get laid off due to outsourcing (retraining incentives, for example) are a good idea as well. Our citizens are our greatest asset, and we should help them because helping them helps all of us. A good aircraft mechanic, for example, can often become a good computer technician or even a programmer. But outsourcing is not evil. And over time, if we can't do it, then we lose our ability to compete. At that point it's just a matter of time before we really do see average income and standard of living fall like a rock.

Or I could just remind you that sometimes you Californians pay as much as 20 cents per kilowatt hour for electricity. If you run Folding overnight, every night, it will add up. I agree that the sums are mostly trivial. I just think it's something people need to be aware of. Distributed computing is many interesting things, but one of them is not "free".

LOL! That was a rather fatal math error, wasn't it? Rather blew my own argument right out of the water, I did. (chuckle) Definitely one for the highlight reel.

Yes, that's the general idea. I'm just not sure people realize that it costs them more than if the computer were actually sitting idle. In a faster computer you could be looking at another 10-20 bucks a month just for Folding. Sorry, I missed this reply earlier.... Yah that's a good point. Presuming that you shut off the computer at night, it's not a bad way to toss in some space cycles. It adds up over time, too. But of course then you have this quote from someone else above: It's not "free" just because your boss pays for it. Yeesh. Oh well.

A 9/19 poll by USA Today, CNN and Gallup included the following question: 9. If you had to choose, which of the following would you say would be the best way for the government to pay for the problems caused by Hurricane Katrina? The results were as follows: 54% Cut spending for war in Iraq 17% Raise taxes 15% Increase federal budget deficit 6% Cut spending for domestic programs 5% Other 3% No opinion http://www.usatoday.com/news/polls/2005-09-19-poll.htm I don't really disagree with any of these options, but I think it's interesting that ABC's George Stephanopoulis was representing, in his interview with John McCain on Sunday, that this poll shows lack of support for cutting spending on domestic programs. The poll doesn't show that at all. In fact, I'm sure that if you asked most Americans "do we spend too much on domestic programs", most Americans would say that we do. It's just that spending on the Iraq war trumped that option in this poll, which asked for what the responder felt was the best option. One of the things that's interesting about that is that is demonstrates the lack of understanding about where our money is going. Estimates put the total expenditures at between $100 and 200 billion so far, but even if we assume the worst of those numbers, that's still only one percent of the total budget. Might that be a good way to pay for Katrina? Sure. But is it really likely that we can't find that amount of money anywhere else in the other 99% of the budget? The recent highway bill was widely reported to contain somewhere around $24 billion in pork (a figure which probably came from a special interest group, but which has been generally accepted by the media and politicians, which I think is also a sad statement about how things work in this country). ABC News did a couple of great pieces last week where they asked politicians if they'd be willing to give up their piece of that pie. A couple (like Democrat Nancy Pelosi) had the guts to say they would. But neither the President nor the Republican leadership has any intention of revisiting the highway bill. That swine-laden ship has sailed. I don't have any great answers here, but it sure seems to me that something is wrong with this picture.

"Sheehan transported to Abu Graib for interrogation by Lindie Englund" Oh wait, sorry, that one was from "Fahrenheit 9/26".

Top Ten Headlines for Cindy Sheehan's Arrest in Tomorrow's New York Times: 10. "Tragically misunderstood mom to miss Regis" 9. "Protest party purloined per party pogrom" 8. "Sheehan says see shells drop on the shia" 7. ?

ROFL!

Oh ok, well in that case the "sentience" issue was just a semantics thing, and I apologize for any misunderstanding on my part. Alas, there is, in my opinion, insufficient objective, scientific evidence of this distinction between animals and plants. Obviously you disagree, and so we'll simply have to agree to disagree. I offer you the last word on the subject, with respect and recognition of your point of view. For what it's worth, you make the case for your side better than anyone else I've discussed the subject with.

Yes, animals react to the mechanics of pain. So do plants. As you say, "these facts are non-controversial, and supported by all our current knowledge" -- you make my case for me. But you've forgotten something. The crux of your argument, stated earlier, was that animals are sentient. So you have a choice here: You can either explain to me why plants should not be protected while animals are, or you can prove the sentience of animals. If you can do neither, then your argument is based on faith. No, I'm saying that we can make a decision -- the one I proposed above. True centrism is not a moral equivalence argument. It is about seeking common, middle ground and finding the most tractable and least objectionable position that moves society forward towards a common goal. (Something you should understand, given your position on Roe v. Wade, hm?) America was founded with slavery intact, but declaring that "all men were created equal". This hypocrisy is manifest, but our characterization of this as a "flaw" is colored by our modern perceptions of race, science, social context, and the simple fact that unity was not possible for the 13 colonies without slavery left intact. They didn't make a moral compromise. They made a moral sacrifice. We can learn from their mistake by taking precautions against the possibility that sentience resides just beneath the surface in the minds of a few highly developed species, such as dolphins and chimpanzees. I'm agreeable to extending them protections. Eventually, as our understanding of sentience (not to mention our ability to produce entirely artificial food) improves, the situation may change, and we should then change as well. But since you cannot tell me whether in fact sentience arises in such a manner, or in fact whether plants won't derive it either, you can not have your logical basis for animal rights. You can stand on a pulpit and preach as long as you want. Some will listen. More power to you, and I wish you luck in your quest, just as I also wish luck to those who teach the Golden Rule on Sundays.

Do we? We still eat mammals and experiment on them. And we enjoy movies that personify fish and crustaceans.

I was just reading this morning the introduction to Russell and Norvig's famous "Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach" (generally considered the standard introductory textbook on AI), which was recently revised (2003), and came across this passage: It seems to me that we may not know enough to know if the brain is evolving or not. But I suppose it's also reasonable to suggest that it seems to be doing so. I'll have to think it over. (ar ar)

An interesting exercise in induction theory.

Good job tacking swansont's awesome list to this thread, ecoli. That thing rocks.

Exactly. It's not a perfect analogy that I made, but I think it demonstrates an important point. Here's another imperfect analogy: This is not generally well considered today, and it is certainly not politically correct to discuss it, but 200 years ago black people were often looked at as racially inferior, not just by bigots, but by thoughtful, scientific, well-meaning people -- even those who opposed slavery. The vast majority of Americans and Europeans, the very forefront of western scientific achievement, assumed that they were incapable of higher thinking, rational discourse, or scientific or engineering thought and achievement. This background assumption was a big part of why slavery persisted for so long. People wondered why so much time and effort was being "wasted" on people who simply weren't capable taking advantage of being free. Some day we may look back on the period of animal experimentation in the same way that we look back on that horrific assumption. Given that, scientifically, intelligence has to come somewhere, and given evolutionary theory, it's logical to conclude that some animals are closer to sentience than others. But we make no distinctions in our experimentation or consumption practices. Will future societies forget that we were unable to scientifically determine key aspects of our own evolutionary development, and condemn us for eating animals, just as we often condemn our forefathers for hypocritically declaring that "all men are created equal"? They might. But they'd be just as wrong to do so as we are wrong to condemn George Washington or Thomas Jefferson for thinking blacks were inferior. They simply had no reason to think otherwise, and we are in exactly the same boat. Today we know better about black people, and some day we will know what causes animals to become sentient. Determining *today*, with our *current* knowledge, that not eating animals is the correct moral action, is premature. So like I said, if that's what you want to do, more power to you. But to me that would just feel like I was playing to the history books. I don't care what some future, flawed assessment of my actions will be. I only care that they are correct moral actions for what I know to be the truth today, because for all I know they'll discover tomorrow that sentience occurs IFF lightning strikes on the third Tuesday of a blue moon in a leap year. We simply cannot know what the future will hold. (But I don't mean to suggest that *your* actions, IMM, are based on a flawed view of future historians. That's just my view on it.)

Getting all offendy at a rational critique of a web site (especially one with such a blatantly obvious agenda) says more about you than it does about the critic. Opinions do not require backing up. Factual statements do. I am simply stating my opinion. If you don't like it, state yours.

If I remember correctly, Jamail is a leftie spin doctor, counterbalancing some of the rightie spin doctors that have been filling up the blogosphere over the last couple of years regarding the war in Iraq. They're really starting to come out of the woodwork these days, getting a lot more play and discussion on politics boards. The right-wing ones are the most annoying, IMO, because they take nuggets of truth and spin them Rush Limbaugh-style. The leftie ones for the most part are so far off the charts that they fly right into tin foil hat territory, so it's easy to separate the wheat from the chaff there. But I don't believe Jamail is one of those kinds of extremists. I think he's more of a Howard Dean type (heavy spin but still clinging to a factual base of information). Just putting a little perspective on things. I don't have enough experience reading his blog to contribute a more comprehensive opinion. Thanks for the link, Daymare.

Never interrupt me while I'm adjusting my tin foil hat!

IMM, there's nothing wrong with you doing whatever you want to "lessen animal suffering". But expecting others to go along with your unsubstantiable opinion is functionally akin to expecting children to pray in schools or give their souls to Jesus. It's your belief. You're entitled to it. But that's the end of it. I do agree that people shouldn't pick on you for having that opinion, but it doesn't make them insensitive to the plight of animals, it makes them intolerant human beings.

Just to toss a slightly different perspective out there, I think if your goal is to become a science programmer, high-level programmer, or computer scientist, then Java or C++ is the best place to begin. If your goal is business applications, client-server database work, etc, then Visual Basic .NET is the best place to start. Microsoft is truly the master of low-end, wizard-oriented programming, especially for small businesses, and backs it up with the best knucklehead-level training on the planet. You can do higher level programming in VB as well, of course, but I think if your goal is to learn OOP concepts and programming "best practices", C++ or Java is really better. Computer Scientists should really focus on those languages rather than something like VB, which they could then pick up in a hearbeat if they needed to.

Actually that's not a straw-man argument, Basc, because it's factually accurate. In order to qualify for that categorization it has to be off the subject and/or inaccurate. (BTW, even if you view that as a straw-man argument I hope that you don't think I was trying to "straw-man you", i.e. as a personal attack.)

Agreed.