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[edit] Wiki-Project: Dead Links (sticky)
David noted that he'd been seeing dead links in the articles he was referring to on RationalWiki.RationalBlogs.org, so I put together a project page offsite that lists them all page by page. There may be some false positives because my tools are less forgiving that a browser. There's a raw dump of all dead links at the end of the list. Check it out. Please email me which pages you've cleared dead links from and I'll remove them from the list. If enough people actually do anything about this, I'll write an app that will let you check pages off the list yourselves. Surprise me. ![]()
03:47, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
I may have missed some updates from people working on this project - if you emailed me in the last week, please resend it. ![]()
14:25, 13 June 2013 (UTC)
[edit] "Remove all warning labels"
Googling those four words will produce several results to remove all warning labels, and let people's common sense sort things out.
I have never been directly confronted with this, but I'd like to know what would be a good thing to say if someone tells me it would be a good idea to remove any warning of dangerous chemicals or NSFW material? How can I refute that such a thing is a horrible idea, and not just because it's borderline illegal?— Unsigned, by: DoomTay / talk / contribs
- Many companies put warnings on labels in order to avoid future lawsuits (a CYA tactic), not because they were required to do so by law. --Seth Peck (talk) 19:29, 14 June 2013 (UTC)
- The stuff I got when googling this phrase mostly looks satirical, especially as phrases like "let natural selection take its course" appear a lot, à la the Darwin Awards. Can you cite an example that you think looks like somebody seriously advocating this position for real? Wēāŝēīōīď
Methinks it is a Weasel 20:14, 14 June 2013 (UTC)
- It's possible; there really are people that short-sighted out there. EVDebs (talk) 23:23, 14 June 2013 (UTC)
- A lot of Right Libertarians are for removing requirements for warning/ingredient labels thinking that it's a consumer's responsibility to find out is in their goods, and if they don't and end up drinking gallons of formaldehyde its their own fault. And the ones who do not say that, don't call out the ones that do.--Token Conservative (talk) 02:16, 15 June 2013 (UTC)
- It's possible; there really are people that short-sighted out there. EVDebs (talk) 23:23, 14 June 2013 (UTC)
- The stuff I got when googling this phrase mostly looks satirical, especially as phrases like "let natural selection take its course" appear a lot, à la the Darwin Awards. Can you cite an example that you think looks like somebody seriously advocating this position for real? Wēāŝēīōīď
- I am in favor of removing labels that give no useful information to the consumer. For instance the EU has mandatory labelling of food with GM ingredients, but the label conveys zero useful information and its only purpose is to provide leverage to pseudoscientific fear mongering and boycotts. (Similarly, putting the race of the farmer on food would convey no information and be useful only to racists.) It would be OK if the label listed some useful information, for instance what transgenic traits are present and that they were approved as safe by EFSA.
- Removing risk and safety phrases or the warning pictures from chemical products is just stupid. Even professional chemical supplies have those, because chemists prefer to look at the bottle rather than checking the hazards of each new substance in some database. People who want to remove those labels are just being misanthropic assholes. --Tweenk (talk) 19:16, 15 June 2013 (UTC)
- If some consumers prefer to avoid GM food, why shouldn't they be able to? Wẽãšẽĩõĩď
Methinks it is a Weasel 19:27, 15 June 2013 (UTC)
- Conversely, what if consumers specifically want to buy GM food? Labeling would make that alot easier. — (talk to) [æn əˈmɛɹɪkən ˈnaiːɪlɪst] 19:42, 15 June 2013 (UTC)
- See Tweenk's point about the race of the farmer. This isn't a measurable property of the food, so it would come down to traceability. What's the status of traceability? Well, the system is supposed to trace which cow is in which frozen lasagne. The computer says "Daisy" and the actual answer turns out to be "Oh, that's horse meat which we bought cheap without any paperwork from a guy whose name I've conveniently forgotten". I can stomach a budget increase to have the traceability requirements spot-checked. But why would I pay to do such checks in the name of pseudo-science? Was the cow in my burger really a Scorpio? Were these carrots properly grown on a ley line as stated? Were the proper sacrifices made to the Corn God before planting this cereal crop? I don't care, and nobody will spend any money checking, which means in fact the labels will just reveal how much suppliers are willing to lie to you, like my "organic" mineral water or the "environmentally friendly" detergent my sister gave me. The product isn't different, but the smaller supplier is willing to risk lying because the potential slap on the wrist if they're caught will be softened by the piles of cash they're making meanwhile. Tialaramex (talk) 23:25, 15 June 2013 (UTC)
- Last I checked, genetic modification was a real science not a pseudo one. Weaseloid
Methinks it is a Weasel 01:30, 16 June 2013 (UTC)
- It's a technology, rather than a science. Think fuel injection rather than physics, but I understand that the line is fuzzy. The objections though are pseudo-science, of the same character as the people who don't want "chemicals" in their food. Mostly they rely on a hazy intuition rather than any deep understanding of what's going on. And there's a general theme of neo-luddism in there, "I don't understand it, therefore it's bad" which you could most charitably characterise as naive. Tialaramex (talk) 02:25, 16 June 2013 (UTC)
- Same question: if some consumers prefer to avoid GM food, why shouldn't they be able to? You seem to just be saying "because I don't like their reasons". Wẽãšẽĩõĩď
Methinks it is a Weasel 09:42, 16 June 2013 (UTC)
- Adding GM food labels largely seems to be because "I don't want to grow a second mouth were my anus used to be". It encourages, or at least allows, some of the most irritating pseudoscience around currently to happen.--Token Conservative (talk) 17:31, 16 June 2013 (UTC)
- Weaseloid: Same question? Same answer. But actually you've changed the question, and the answer to your new question is "Sure, they can avoid GM food if they like". But it leads back to how they'll know what a "GM food" is, which I've already answered. They can only really know if the rest of society is willing to spend a lot of money on the associated regulatory regime, which it has no more reason to do than verifying the astrological charts of chickens or whatever. Tialaramex (talk) 23:14, 16 June 2013 (UTC)
- There is zero consumer demand for the astrological charts of chickens. These idiotic red herring strawman analogies really aren't helping. Wèàšèìòìď
Methinks it is a Weasel 00:14, 17 June 2013 (UTC)
- Demand isn't enough. GM isn't a special case here. The UK investigated whether it should legally control the phrase "freshly squeezed" concerning fruit juices (as it does the phrase "fruit juice" itself). There was significant consumer demand, but in the end the investigators concluded that there wasn't anything they could usefully achieve, the "demand" reflected a bunch of vague notions that freshly squeezed juices were inherently superior, not any specific concerns that could be reflected in legislation nor anything measurable. The tobacco and alcohol industries both have a lot of experience of this, you can take something irrelevant and give it prestige through marketing. Instead of saying "Buy Foo brand dog shit" you say "Foul-smelling dog shit can help keep your mouth healthy" and then change the packaging of Foo brand dog shit to make a big deal of how foul smelling it is. Customers think they're making an independent rational choice about quality, when actually they're just eating dog shit because you told them to. Tialaramex (talk) 02:13, 17 June 2013 (UTC)
- Eating dog shit. Right. Wèàšèìòìď
Methinks it is a Weasel 06:50, 17 June 2013 (UTC)
- You're right. What sort of crazy world would we live in if people were so stupid that they'd willingly buy a product that's obviously bad for them? Or where marketing people would do something like make health claims for such a product. How cynical would you have to be to advertise a cheaper to manufacture and less healthy product as being superior? Those people would be monsters, right? OK, well it did happen here a little bit, but that's ancient history, like racism or poverty, we got rid of it and now we can go back to watching TV knowing we're smart than those people from the bad old days. It is a bit weird though, that marketing still exists. Now that we're all too smart for it to work on us you'd think it would go away. Tialaramex (talk) 09:11, 17 June 2013 (UTC)
- Eating dog shit. Right. Wèàšèìòìď
- Demand isn't enough. GM isn't a special case here. The UK investigated whether it should legally control the phrase "freshly squeezed" concerning fruit juices (as it does the phrase "fruit juice" itself). There was significant consumer demand, but in the end the investigators concluded that there wasn't anything they could usefully achieve, the "demand" reflected a bunch of vague notions that freshly squeezed juices were inherently superior, not any specific concerns that could be reflected in legislation nor anything measurable. The tobacco and alcohol industries both have a lot of experience of this, you can take something irrelevant and give it prestige through marketing. Instead of saying "Buy Foo brand dog shit" you say "Foul-smelling dog shit can help keep your mouth healthy" and then change the packaging of Foo brand dog shit to make a big deal of how foul smelling it is. Customers think they're making an independent rational choice about quality, when actually they're just eating dog shit because you told them to. Tialaramex (talk) 02:13, 17 June 2013 (UTC)
- There is zero consumer demand for the astrological charts of chickens. These idiotic red herring strawman analogies really aren't helping. Wèàšèìòìď
- Same question: if some consumers prefer to avoid GM food, why shouldn't they be able to? You seem to just be saying "because I don't like their reasons". Wẽãšẽĩõĩď
- It's a technology, rather than a science. Think fuel injection rather than physics, but I understand that the line is fuzzy. The objections though are pseudo-science, of the same character as the people who don't want "chemicals" in their food. Mostly they rely on a hazy intuition rather than any deep understanding of what's going on. And there's a general theme of neo-luddism in there, "I don't understand it, therefore it's bad" which you could most charitably characterise as naive. Tialaramex (talk) 02:25, 16 June 2013 (UTC)
- Last I checked, genetic modification was a real science not a pseudo one. Weaseloid
- See Tweenk's point about the race of the farmer. This isn't a measurable property of the food, so it would come down to traceability. What's the status of traceability? Well, the system is supposed to trace which cow is in which frozen lasagne. The computer says "Daisy" and the actual answer turns out to be "Oh, that's horse meat which we bought cheap without any paperwork from a guy whose name I've conveniently forgotten". I can stomach a budget increase to have the traceability requirements spot-checked. But why would I pay to do such checks in the name of pseudo-science? Was the cow in my burger really a Scorpio? Were these carrots properly grown on a ley line as stated? Were the proper sacrifices made to the Corn God before planting this cereal crop? I don't care, and nobody will spend any money checking, which means in fact the labels will just reveal how much suppliers are willing to lie to you, like my "organic" mineral water or the "environmentally friendly" detergent my sister gave me. The product isn't different, but the smaller supplier is willing to risk lying because the potential slap on the wrist if they're caught will be softened by the piles of cash they're making meanwhile. Tialaramex (talk) 23:25, 15 June 2013 (UTC)
- Conversely, what if consumers specifically want to buy GM food? Labeling would make that alot easier. — (talk to) [æn əˈmɛɹɪkən ˈnaiːɪlɪst] 19:42, 15 June 2013 (UTC)
- If some consumers prefer to avoid GM food, why shouldn't they be able to? Wẽãšẽĩõĩď
[edit] I was in a bar fight last night
So I was out with my chums, had a few lagers. Noticed a group of lads who were up no good. I went up to said lads and told them to leave, they were messing up the tone of the place. Said boor punched me in the face. I recovered, and called him a fascist collaborator. Next one of my chums swung a bar stool and smashed the mans jaw in. I proceeded to fisticuff one of his accomplices. Later, when the police arrived, we explained our predicament and the unprovoked nature of the assault, and after handing over a crisp fifty euro bill, the said gentlemen allowed us to leave in good grace. The scoundrels with whom we fought spent an ignominious night in a jail cell, presumably they all now suffer from a painful sphincter. Just another example of my crusade for liberty and justice. MarcusCicero (talk) 11:56, 16 June 2013 (UTC)
- So: violence, bribery, schadenfreude & vicarious rape. Liberty & justice are really scraping the barrel these days. Weaseloid
Methinks it is a Weasel 12:17, 16 June 2013 (UTC)
- You're the wrong sort of berk Marcus.
ГенгисOur ignorance is God; what we know is science.
13:12, 16 June 2013 (UTC)
- Thats a very English insult Genghis. What did I do wrong? The above has a certain amount of literary licence but essentially that is what happened. (I really did call him a fascist too, it was great). The only thing is though, I've been kicking myself all day that I didn't get to say 'obscenity thy mother' to him, a bit of Hemmingway and I would have this guy on the ground begging for forgiveness. MarcusCicero (talk) 14:03, 16 June 2013 (UTC)
- You're the wrong sort of berk Marcus.
- Prison rape jokes are the classiest jokes.--
talk
18:09, 16 June 2013 (UTC)
- Who said anything about rape you sick fuck? I just said they presumably have a painful sphincter, whatever more you read in to that is all inside your own twisted, devious head. MarcusCicero (talk) 18:22, 16 June 2013 (UTC)
- Had they been eating vindaloo? Wèàšèìòìď
Methinks it is a Weasel 18:37, 16 June 2013 (UTC)
- No, they just happened to have painful hemorrhoids. This trivial bit of information, discovered when MC found a pharmacy receipt by chance, should have been perfectly obvious from subtext. Their inability to use top-quality toilet tissue, as they'd been accustomed, has exacerbated their condition. It was not at all a thoughtless joke, made because it's socially acceptable to laugh at the long-running and global problem of prison rape. If you think that's the case, then there's something wrong with you, as his immediate and vicious response should make clear.--
talk
19:45, 16 June 2013 (UTC)
- AD, you have a suspicious mind, forever casting dark clouds over people's character. It is an unbecoming trait. Perhaps you should consider the deeper resonance within my parable, for I rarely tell a story, that isn't in fact a story within a story, within a story. These enigmatic passages, which contain various clues to help decode them, could easily be uncovered by simple deduction and arithmetic. I applaud your attempt to get a rise out of me, but you have failed absolutely. MarcusCicero (talk) 21:07, 16 June 2013 (UTC)
- It's not too hard to figure out. You recently read For Whom the Bell Tolls, that masterpiece by Ernest "Hemmingway," and you possibly went out drinking one night. Beyond that, I'd say a large-to-total percent of the rest is poorly-wrought fiction that simultaneously evokes "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" and "Frasier" by trying to be both roguish and priggish. It's one of your usual attempts at chumminess, dishonestly clad in obscurity so that you can stage one of these immediate retreats ("You're just misinterpreting my cleverness! I'm the puppetmaster!")
- Boring.--
talk
21:22, 16 June 2013 (UTC)
- There's that arrogant side of you seeping out again, its in your blood or something you can't help yourself. Its so effortless. So what if I mis-spelt Hemingway, why do you need to be such a Nazi all the time. You nevertheless remain a worthy adversary, my nemesis. MarcusCicero (talk) 21:40, 16 June 2013 (UTC)
- AD, you have a suspicious mind, forever casting dark clouds over people's character. It is an unbecoming trait. Perhaps you should consider the deeper resonance within my parable, for I rarely tell a story, that isn't in fact a story within a story, within a story. These enigmatic passages, which contain various clues to help decode them, could easily be uncovered by simple deduction and arithmetic. I applaud your attempt to get a rise out of me, but you have failed absolutely. MarcusCicero (talk) 21:07, 16 June 2013 (UTC)
- No, they just happened to have painful hemorrhoids. This trivial bit of information, discovered when MC found a pharmacy receipt by chance, should have been perfectly obvious from subtext. Their inability to use top-quality toilet tissue, as they'd been accustomed, has exacerbated their condition. It was not at all a thoughtless joke, made because it's socially acceptable to laugh at the long-running and global problem of prison rape. If you think that's the case, then there's something wrong with you, as his immediate and vicious response should make clear.--
- Had they been eating vindaloo? Wèàšèìòìď
- Who said anything about rape you sick fuck? I just said they presumably have a painful sphincter, whatever more you read in to that is all inside your own twisted, devious head. MarcusCicero (talk) 18:22, 16 June 2013 (UTC)
- tl;dr you stayed home and had a wank, but thought about drinking a beer - David Gerard (talk) 22:47, 16 June 2013 (UTC)
I have my doubts about this story. Said boor punched me in the face. I recovered, and called him a fascist collaborator. That sounds like the kind of think I would say, yet I don't. Even I see that as weirdly over the top anti fascist. And I'm extremely weirdly over the top anti fascist. –Александр(а) Ehrenstein (Talk | Contribs | Ragebox) 22:49, 16 June 2013 (UTC)
[edit] Creeping Islamophobia
I’m really getting tired of the way this site seems to be growing increasingly tolerant of Islamophobia in regards to arbitration courts. I’ve had to correct the sharia page multiple times to even acknowledge that it is not legal in Britain to coerce people into an arbitration court (or, alternatively, delete weasel words about how it secretly isn’t being “enforced,” and attempts to make it sound as if this is a valid argument for banning it, rather than for properly enforcing laws against coercion). And I just noticed that someone vandalized the page for One Law For All to remove reference to the very fact that arbitration courts are private, continuing to spread the Islamophobic lie that the UK government has somehow allowed Muslims to live under a “parallel legal system.” The simple fact, that we need to acknowledge, is that arbitration courts are just private contracts that need to be honored, as long as they don’t violate any other laws. And attempts to ban Islamic arbitration specifically is nothing more than Islamophobia. Period.--Mustex (talk) 03:19, 17 June 2013 (UTC)
- Nuanced views of the place of religion in modern life is not something that Rationalwiki is excellent at. If I knew the way/I would take you home. 03:33, 17 June 2013 (UTC)
- The problem is that people here are going to oppose Islam as it is a religion, but of course Islamaphobes would love to hide behind such claims. I have noticed that this site does seem a bit harsh in its treatment of Islam. It might be best to avoid criticizing it unless necessary because of the Islamaphobia problem. I have a lot of problems with intolerance of the minority of Islamic extremists, but I don't publicize such thoughts because they'd be exploited by racist Islamaphobes. Bigotry Wiki is actually doing a series on Islamaphobia, when if gets back up if you're interested. –Александр(а) Ehrenstein (Talk | Contribs | Ragebox) 03:38, 17 June 2013 (UTC)
- You should check out this thread on the Islamophobia talkpage, wherein Muslims are quite literally worse than Hitler.
Wėąṣėḷőįď
Methinks it is a Weasel 18:05, 17 June 2013 (UTC)
- @Weaseloid. Some Muslims, and some Christians, believe it to be just to torture me for ever, and also want it that I be tortured forever. Pretty sure that's worse than being in a concentration camp, starved for years, and then killed in a gas chamber. Just saying. Luckily, they either don't have enough political power to implement that, or there's a convenient little loophole where they can't implement this themselves, but they're more than happy enough to do it via proxy (e.g. Allah aka the Muslim god and the Christian god). So, as I said, if they actually believe that, then they are more morally abhorrent than the Nazis. At least as a Jew under Nazi Germany the torture would eventually end. EnlightenmentLiberal (talk) 20:21, 17 June 2013 (UTC)
- "Pretty sure that's worse than being in a concentration camp, starved for years, and then killed in a gas chamber." im going to go with the idea that wanting me to be tortured in some afterlife that may or may not even exist is the lesser of two evils to actively torturing me here in this life before just outright killing me in a really terrible way. --MikallakiM 20:29, 17 June 2013 (UTC)
- As I said in the above post, and in the post in the link provided above, if they really believe that, then they are morally worse than Nazi Germany. Thankfully, IMHO very few of them actually believe that. But that's what their religion preaches. I am thankful that they are only halfhearted followers of a moral philosophy that is morally worse than Nazi Germany. I am thankful that here is no such thing as an afterlife where they might be able to contribute to this horrible but thankfully fictional system of "justice". However, I see no reason why we should cut anyone any slack when they say that shit. What they say is more heinous than Nazism. Being tortured forever is worse than being tortured for a finite time. EnlightenmentLiberal (talk) 22:23, 17 June 2013 (UTC)
- Well, this conversation sure sank to the lowest common denominator in a hurry. If I knew the way/I would take you home. 22:26, 17 June 2013 (UTC)
- As I said in the above post, and in the post in the link provided above, if they really believe that, then they are morally worse than Nazi Germany. Thankfully, IMHO very few of them actually believe that. But that's what their religion preaches. I am thankful that they are only halfhearted followers of a moral philosophy that is morally worse than Nazi Germany. I am thankful that here is no such thing as an afterlife where they might be able to contribute to this horrible but thankfully fictional system of "justice". However, I see no reason why we should cut anyone any slack when they say that shit. What they say is more heinous than Nazism. Being tortured forever is worse than being tortured for a finite time. EnlightenmentLiberal (talk) 22:23, 17 June 2013 (UTC)
- "Pretty sure that's worse than being in a concentration camp, starved for years, and then killed in a gas chamber." im going to go with the idea that wanting me to be tortured in some afterlife that may or may not even exist is the lesser of two evils to actively torturing me here in this life before just outright killing me in a really terrible way. --MikallakiM 20:29, 17 June 2013 (UTC)
- @Mustex. You had me up to here: " And attempts to ban Islamic arbitration specifically is nothing more than Islamophobia. Period.". Let me try this: I want to curtail or limit binding arbitration courts of all kinds, not just Islamic ones. I also don't like the binding arbitration agreements in the US. In a great many software licenses, you purportedly give up a lot of your rights to sue. I don't think that should be allowed in such shrink-wrap agreements. I might be able to make a similar case for the Sharia courts, especially if the decisions are binding such as they would be if they were part of a legally enforceable contract. My view of morality and legality informs my views of contract theory, and, for example, I don't think you can contract yourself to be a slave, and I don't think it's right to be able to sign away such significant amounts of other rights as happens in these cases. The simple fact is that Sharia law is designed to enforce many malicious cultural trends which demonstrably hurt people, and are worse than the common government civil courts, and that is why we should try to demote them in whatever moral and sensible means we have. EnlightenmentLiberal (talk) 20:21, 17 June 2013 (UTC)
- Also, sometimes we must reluctantly choose between throwing a lot more resources at something or abandoning it. The Sharia courts are being abused to get people to legally "agree" to things no ordinary civil court would accept, I'm going to assume you don't deny that Mustex. So we either need to throw resources at identifying and actively prosecuting coercion or we could save that money and get rid of the whole system, both options will of course open us up to accusations that we're islamaphobic or racist. But the third option is in fact racist, that's where we do neither and it says "The people (mostly women) who are losing out here aren't white so who even cares?".
- The UK's small boat fishing industry faces the same sort of ugly choice. Right now small boat fishing is ridiculously dangerous. You might have the idea that this is unavoidable. Truth is, it's not. Avoiding it would be expensive not difficult. The government doesn't want to pay for all the safety upgrades out of the public purse, and it doesn't want to drive small boat fishing out of existence. So nothing gets done, each successive government continues to kick the can down the road, and meanwhile men (for it is almost exclusively men on these boats) die needlessly. Tialaramex (talk) 10:17, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
- @EnlightenmentLiberal: Ok, while I probably wouldn't agree with your ideals about arbitration, the fact remains that most of the anti-sharia groups don't even care about Jewish arbitration, let alone stopping abuses of secular arbitrators. As for the issue of throwing money to eliminate the corruption, yes I would prefer that over banning the entire system, because the latter seems mind-blowingly authoritarian. The analogy I've often used here is this: Two brothers have a large inheritance dispute. They decided to settle it with a winner-take-all poker game. Of course, we could take steps to prevent cheating, and even tell them that they're being incredibly stupid and should just go to court. But, do we REALLY have any right to stop them? I say no.--Mustex (talk) 17:04, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
- the fact remains that most of the anti-sharia groups don't even care about Jewish arbitration *KWAAARK* first to bring Jews in - David Gerard (talk) 21:44, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
- Sure. It's just one of my little economic tinkerings. I think capitalism is awesome when it works, but I also know of plenty of cases where it does not. In cases like shrinkwrap agreements, there is unfair bargaining power. Also most people are just too goddamned stupid, and this is one of those very rare cases where I want the government to protect people from themselves. It's basically a collective action issue. Most people don't experience immediate penalties from accepting, and only by working together to boycott organizations that have the worst shrinkwrap agreements will they go away, which means the plan is doomed to failure. I agree to your poker game example, but that's precisely because it lacks this element of coercion. Admittingly, the shrinkwrap agreements have a much bigger collection action problem than Sharia courts, so I admit my own analogy is tenuous at best. There, it's mostly my humanism values coming out. Free speech is more about the right of the listener to hear than the speaker to speak. It's about throwing ideas out and criticizing them to arrive at truth. The Sharia courts are harmful, and thus they need to be criticized. I think we can all agree here. I really don't know what kind of policy I would want in this case. Still, it bothers me if we ever get to a situation where the defacto standard of civil resolution is not the civil courts but private arbitration courts, because then you defacto lose a great many legal protections in court. Meh, I'm just rambling now. EnlightenmentLiberal (talk) 19:34, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
- I can understand that people may wish to settle disputes outside of the legal framework for financial and time reasons but the problem with any extra-legal arbitration is whether there is any compulsion on any of the parties. It might be argued that some religious courts have inherent biases of some kind, perhaps against women and that a woman may feel compelled by familial/cultural pressure to submit to a scheme where she already starts at a disadvantage. There is a distinct difference between, say, industrial relations courts where an independent arbitrator is agreed by both unions and management and there is a balance of power, compared to a lone individual who is already in a weak position fighting against the religio-cultural traditions of their local community.
ГенгисOur ignorance is God; what we know is science.
00:13, 19 June 2013 (UTC)
- Ok, I won't claim that the issues being raised here are not troubling, and maybe my initial statement was a bit strong (I've spent far too much time arguing with people who don't understand the difference between a property dispute, and a beheading). I actually have mixed feelings about the shrink-wrap agreements, but I should mention that I would be fully in agreement with a requirement that both parties be able to withdraw from an arbitration up until a certain point (say, the final decision of the arbitrator), which would make shrink-wrap agreements void anyway. As for the issue of bias, however, I would question the idea that private groups can't be biased. Now, I know someone here is going to raise the example of non-discrimination legislation, but the key difference is that in those cases, the person being discriminated against did not consent to be discriminated against. If a black person feels that racist whites have a right to not hire him, he has every right to not work for racist white people. However, with opposition to these arbitration courts the opponents seem to be saying that these women can't consent to be discriminated against. Now, I'm fully behind the arbitrators being required to tell them "Yes, I will be biased as all fuck," but if they still agree to it, it seems to me that's on them. As for the issue of social pressure...well, it may be sad, but people, IMHO, have the right to be douchebags and peer pressure others into doing stupid things.--Mustex (talk) 21:24, 19 June 2013 (UTC)
- @Weaseloid. Some Muslims, and some Christians, believe it to be just to torture me for ever, and also want it that I be tortured forever. Pretty sure that's worse than being in a concentration camp, starved for years, and then killed in a gas chamber. Just saying. Luckily, they either don't have enough political power to implement that, or there's a convenient little loophole where they can't implement this themselves, but they're more than happy enough to do it via proxy (e.g. Allah aka the Muslim god and the Christian god). So, as I said, if they actually believe that, then they are more morally abhorrent than the Nazis. At least as a Jew under Nazi Germany the torture would eventually end. EnlightenmentLiberal (talk) 20:21, 17 June 2013 (UTC)
[edit] RE: A weird philosophy if I've ever seen one
I was going to mention that the guy's only finished the intro of his...thing..., and it pretty much hasn't received exposure apart from on this site. And yeah, it's pretty much a blog at this point in time. (FYI, his video game stuff and the four books he's published on the subject so far aren't exactly all that famous either; only marginally more so and even then mostly on more obscure gaming sites.) It'll be a while before he finishes it, if at all, so I agree that an article should wait until then. By then it may have very well received more attention, especially if he or his 'fans' decide to start promoting it, or if he turns it into an actual book. Doesn't mean we can't snark on it while it's being written...
I want to see (and quite possibly write; don't think I'm pressuring any of you into doing it for me because I might just be the one to have to do it) an article on it for these reasons: to refute the notions that it is even philosophy (if it turns out to be yet more ranting), to see if any of it holds merit and to allay the effects of the inflammatory tone by providing a more rational observation. Basically, I think that if it's going to be presented as philosophy, no matter how bad it is it should be treated and criticized as philosophy. (keyword being criticized)
An article, if it's written, doesn't even have to be that long; a point-by-point rebuttal would mostly consist of the identification and refutation of bleedingly stupid cruft with the occasional semi-valid point. Might be fun, though. Think of it as fish in a barrel, if you will. I can't blame you folks for not wanting an article about it, but I'm prepared to agree to disagree. At the very least, it should go on the webshites page (and the author could go on the kooks page).
To be honest, though...I kind of want to see the author react to a potential article. Kind of. --Trar, the one true Scotsman (och, talk to me laddie) 20:48, 17 June 2013 (UTC)
- "i just want to see them react" Because thats a wonderful reason, not anything good, but to get people to react. good on you. --MikallakiM 20:52, 17 June 2013 (UTC)
- One of the more interesting qualities of the Internet is that there are so many people with so many weird beliefs and a slight bit of articulation that there are just too many pages crammed full of craziness at which to marvel. People who honestly believe Final Fantasy is secretly real, people who believe that every international group is a front for the Bilderburg Group, and so on. At this point, I think I'm so jaded that it takes a truly unique and cleverly crazy thing to really make me interested - or else something only mildly crazy that is thoughtlessly espoused by millions (like Twilight's basic plot).--
talk
01:58, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
- Rebuttal would be a waste of time, giving it excess publicity is a waste of time. Post it, laugh at it, let it die or come back the next time someone stumbles on it. Don't immortalise it in an article - it might just disappear without a trace. Author is even less notable than Archimedes Plutonium, which is saying something. I've dropped a mention of it on Timecube Law where it's relevant and interesting. All it's useful for is picking out the weirdest quotes.
gnostic 17:46, 19 June 2013 (UTC)
- Rebuttal would be a waste of time, giving it excess publicity is a waste of time. Post it, laugh at it, let it die or come back the next time someone stumbles on it. Don't immortalise it in an article - it might just disappear without a trace. Author is even less notable than Archimedes Plutonium, which is saying something. I've dropped a mention of it on Timecube Law where it's relevant and interesting. All it's useful for is picking out the weirdest quotes.
[edit] Techie help needed
I'm looking to install either Cyanogenmod or Kineology for my Kindle Fire HD 7, but apparently need the later version of TWRP than I've currently got installed. No problems finding the download page, but I've noticed that they've got two versions, Blaze and Otter. Does anyone know the difference between the two?--
Jabba de Chops 13:37, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
[edit] Fire in space
I look forward to seeing the result of this experiment.
Генгисpillaging
01:24, 19 June 2013 (UTC)
- There's videos of candles burning inside an orbiting spacecraft [1] etc. CS Miller (talk) 11:37, 19 June 2013 (UTC)
[edit] Lumines strategy
I'm trying to get 210 squares erased in the 180 second time attack of Lumines Supernova, but I can't go any higher than 160 erased. Does anyone have any tips? --TechCheesekvetch 17:10, 19 June 2013 (UTC)
- I don't know what these words mean.--
talk
23:39, 19 June 2013 (UTC)
[edit] Let the party begin
I will be gone for two weeks. I will be back just in time to murder a bunch of goats and eat some delicious babies for the 4th of the July. Who's bringing the chips and dip to the "Hamilton will be gone" party? Smokeless, I think?
Oh, and someone make sure to let me know if RW finally gets the collective intelligence to permanently ban Marcus.--Token Conservative (talk) 22:26, 19 June 2013 (UTC)
- Hi Hamilton. Hope you enjoy your holiday. Pleasant trip. MarcusCicero (talk) 22:30, 19 June 2013 (UTC)