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What Did You Change Your Mind About in 2007?
Posted by
Zonk
on Tue Jan 01, 2008 01:41 PM
from the read-dawkins'-it's-awesome dept.
from the read-dawkins'-it's-awesome dept.
chrisd writes "The Edge 2008 question (with answers) is in. This year, the question is: 'What did you change your mind about and why?'. Answers are featured from scientists as diverse as Richard Dawkins, Simon Baron-Cohen, George Church, David Brin, J. Craig Venter and the Astronomer Royal, Lord Martin Rees, among others. Very interesting to read. For instance, Stewart Brand writes that he now realizes that 'Good old stuff sucks' and Sam Harris has decided that 'Mother Nature is Not Our Friend.' What did Slashdot readers change their minds about in 2007?"
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I like Harris' line ... (Score:5, Funny)
I would go further and say that, not only is she not looking out for us, but Mother Nature is a bitch.
Re:I like Harris' line ... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:I like Harris' line ... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:I like Harris' line ... (Score:5, Insightful)
you... need to go outside more.. mother nature she "loves" you, specifically she loves to attempt to kill you at every chance she gets, that's why we develop technology to enforce the restraining order against her.
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Ron Paul and the war (Score:4, Interesting)
What is war good for? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not because it applied, but because it would make you agree.
Why are they killing people? For liberty! We like liberty, so it makes it okay to kill people: it's for something we like!
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I changed my mind on Ron Paul... (Score:5, Insightful)
In early 2007 I thought I might be able to vote for Ron Paul against certain Democrats if it came down to that (unlikely).
After learning more about Dr. Paul: that he hasn't felt the need to educate himself about the scientific facts about evolution and rejects it, though wasn't willing to raise his hand during the televised debate where the candidates were asked that question; that he calls abortion "Murder"; and, most critically, that he wants to remove the ability of the federal government to intervene in violations of chuch/state separation.
If the founding fathers got nothing else right with our country, they got the separation of church and state right. Integrating religion and state power is a sure path to tyranny.
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Re:Ron Paul and the war (Score:5, Insightful)
The US now faces a 21st century with a rising China (something that clever folks have in fact been predicting for a couple of centuries) and Russia recovering from its wounds and taking back its position as a pre-eminent Old World power. Europe, despite a lot of roadbumps, is making a growing, vibrant political union, and I suspect in the long term it will become a Neo-Rome, controlling the Mediterranean.
The Neo-cons have weakened the United States at the very moment when it should have been mustering its resources to prepare for the new order. They thought they can short-circuit the historical trends, and by flying the American flag on distant lands and bringing democracy that they would retain uncontested pre-eminence. They seriously misread the reconstruction of Japan and thought that it could be a roadmap for the Middle East, to safeguard oil supplies and put in friendly powers.
It's time for Americans to start reading their history, to start understanding that the United States is not some blessed land, but is an empire like any, and that it is just as vulnerable as any in history.
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Re:Ron Paul and the war (Score:5, Informative)
Your point is valid, but your example is not. Plymouth was the second successful colony settled by the British--the first was Jamestown, Virginia. Jamestown was settled by migrant Englishmen looking to simply settle and conquer the New World. And if "this country" includes Florida, then the Spanish colony at St. Augustine, Florida predates both by half a century. But in a purely geographic sense, "this country" was settled by Native Americans centuries before any white man set foot upon it.
Furthermore, the Puritans were tyrannical--which is why Roger Williams, Anne Hutchinson, and other people who fell out of favor with the Puritans settled Rhode Island. In fact, the Puritans were the perpetrators of the witch hunts.
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The price of oil is still too cheap (Score:5, Insightful)
Proof that gasoline is still too cheap: I still see tons of Hummers, Expeditions, Navigators, Armadas, Sequoias and other mondo SUVs (aka Urban Assault Vehicles) on the road.
Re:The price of oil is still too cheap (Score:5, Insightful)
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Linux (Score:4, Interesting)
Windows XP (Score:5, Funny)
Flying cars (Score:5, Funny)
That politicians / legislative bodies ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Healthcare reform, acting on global warming, tax reform, ending a meaningless war, supporting the middle class, fighting terrorism at its roots ( in the Madrases ) and local Muslim populations (versus invading random countries like Iraq or Iran), energy independence
Since a teenager I've been at least tuned into the issues / politics - and would get wrapped up with one candidate or another
religion (Score:5, Interesting)
Emotion (Score:5, Insightful)
It used to be hard to say stuff like that, even to myself. But not any more, personal growth is always a good thing to achieve. And no she wasn't a girlfriend or anything like that either before anyone asks.
Oh and tv. It is now almost entirely out of my life, to be replaced by real life things like skydiving and adrenaline rushes.
Re:I married! (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Outsourcing actually isn't to bad (Score:5, Funny)
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Offshoring is a non-solution to a non-problem. (Score:5, Insightful)
After this sort of ego bruising they are more ready to accept modern and mature practices.
You're part of what makes people hate offshoring, you use it for fear, and not productivity.
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And of course.. theyre also willing to accept.. (Score:5, Insightful)
and of course they have to accept the erosion of their middle class status to the point they will never ever retire and can't ever afford a house.. "as the rents go up, and job opportunities go down"
yes i'm sure our descent into third world status will "only" harm the "immature"
and where do you get off declaring what is and is not mature? did it ever occur to you that you may be the one who isn't mature. Usually the ones who believe themselves far enough above others to pronounce judgment are themselves the fools.
But yeah, go ahead and support the destruction of the middle class for your twisted sense of self righteousness regarding other people's maturity.
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Re:And of course.. theyre also willing to accept.. (Score:5, Insightful)
I would argue it is not destroying the middle class, so much as moving the middle class.
Welcome to the global economy.
There is going to be a painful transition period while the former third world achieves what they have not had for so long.
Blame the old status-quo on imperialism, blame it on racism, blame it on whatever you want. Regardless, the world is becoming an increasingly level playing field - finally.
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Re:And of course.. theyre also willing to accept.. (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm an academic, and the single biggest reason is that I'm a workaholic and if the place didn't almost shut down for 4 months of the year, I'd work myself to an early grave. As it is now, though, I work my ass off 8 months of the year, and 4 months of the year I'm blessed and cursed to be able to get almost nothing done (well, nothing that requires the organization). It's been very good for my health and mental well-being, if not necessarily for my wallet.
Over the last summer break, I spent about a week staying with my friends who work at a major IT company as developers. I saw their lives, and was envious. They make a lot more money, they come home earlier, and it is virtually impossible for them to work at home, so they don't. "Damn," I thought, "I really did pick the wrong career." But then I noticed something: I was staying at their house in a different country from where I live for a week, and that was just one week out of about 7 or 8 in a row that I didn't have to report to work. I was still getting some things done on the laptop, but that had much more to do with my workaholic nature than necessity. "Damn," I thought, "maybe I picked the right career after all."
The point I'm trying to make is that you are ultimately in control of your time. You are. Really. It's your time. Your life. If you feel that you are losing it to a company, and the money isn't worth it, you need to change gears. It's not their fault. It's your fault for doing it.
Now, this decision will most certainly result in a decrease in income. It may mean you aren't buying a house (if you're in the US, this is a terrible time to buy anyway--wait for the market to really crash first--and if you already bought, you have my sympathy), it may mean that vacation is usually spent on the couch instead of on the beach. It may mean you will be hanging on to your old car and just keeping it going until it dies. It means you don't get the "American Dream" kind of life people in my generation seem to somehow feel is necessary. BUT, you will get your life back.
Depending on who you are as a person--whether you value money or time more--this may or may not be a viable lifestyle choice. But the choice is there.
Finally, however, I want to address this idea that we work harder than our elders. I think that is really only the case on Leave it to Beaver. In talking to my parents, both of their parents worked. Mom got home earlier than Dad (schoolteachers in both cases), but Dad (a lawyer on one side and a shopkeeper on the other) got home late. Anecdotal evidence, I know, but I really think that we have too rosy a view of our elders' lives. In my own parents' case, they run a business that is attached to the house, so they were around a lot, but were also usually working. When my dad had to go out, which was/is almost every day, he didn't come home until late (8-9). He also gets called out to truck wrecks (independent insurance adjuster specializing in the hard stuff that companies hire a third party to handle) in the middle of the night fairly regularly, and might not come shuffling back home for 18 hours, after dealing with cops, insurance companies, grief-ridden truck drivers, and the survivors of the family they just killed. That being said, there are down periods with little work and no money, and I grew up being pulled out of school during those periods to drive around the country and learn things. My parents basically made the same choice I did. Time is more important than money.
Further, think of the Depression generation! They didn't work because there wasn't any. Lots of time, but absolutely no money. If they did work, it was long hours in a dusty field. And before that? The agriculture- and manufacturing-based economy. The ag business is still crazy hours (grew up in a little town--had lots of friends who were farm kids and grew up working), and the only reason manufacturing went to 8 hours a day is that in the 20s factories were literally working people to deat
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Re:Republicans (Score:5, Funny)
No he isn't. A quick search reveals that he is a member of something called the United Church of Christ. This does not appear to be a Muslim denomination: the clue's in the word 'Christ'.
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Re:Environmentalist and VideoGame Nuts and Linux F (Score:5, Funny)
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