Facebook is not your living room

Posted on August 19, 2012 by Michael

I’ve written on this general topic in the past, but I want to emphasize it once again: Your Facebook page, your blog, and whatever other discussion-facilitating website you use and/or control is not your living room. It seems as though I see someone somewhere claim that the two are one in the same just about every other day. “Why, this page is just like my living room. You’re my guest, so you must only say what I find appropriate.” That’s horseshit.

A person has the right to censor and be a general douche as much as he or she wants when it comes to Facebook, Twitter, blogs, etc, but that does not mean doing so is ethical nor, more importantly, that the right to do so is the same as it exists in one’s living room. First, I can tell someone to leave my blog all I want, but I cannot have that person charged with trespassing. The law does not recognize the comment function of social media platforms as anything like the couch in my living room. Second, no one invites hundreds or thousands of people into his or her living room. It just doesn’t happen. At best, your email or private inbox is like your living room. At best.

It’s legally fine is someone is sensitive to criticism or some sort of discussion and, as a result, decides to insulate him or herself from it all. But that doesn’t mean said critics and others were sitting in front of anyone’s fireplace having a chat over a cup of tea. It’s just a stupid comparison.

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Richard Mourdock: States aren’t people

Posted on August 18, 2012 by Michael

As we’ve learned over the past few years from Republicans, corporations are people. You see, any time people get together to do things, they have the same rights as individuals. It makes one wonder how we’re allowed to regulate any business at all. But that’s another topic for another day. You see, while corporations have been given person-status because they are no more than collections of people, some members of the GOP apparently don’t think that the states are also collections of people:

In 1913, the 17th Amendment was passed to override part of Article 1, Section 3, of the Constitution, which designated that state legislatures, not the people, select two people per state to serve as senators…

Today, [Pete] Hoekstra and some other GOP members couch the argument of a 17th Amendment repeal in the concept of giving states back their full rights under the Constitution.

The Roll Call article lists four other GOP members who’ve made remarks about repealing the amendment since 2010: Representatives Jeff Flake and Todd Akin, Indiana state treasurer Richard Mourdock, and Senator Mike Lee.

Mourdock, a Senate candidate in Indiana, said earlier this year that the 17th Amendment hurts the states.

“The House of Representatives was there to represent the people. The Senate was there to represent the states,” Mourdock said in February.

Got that? The House is there to represent the people. In contrast, the Senate is there to represent something that is not the people. Specifically, it is there to represent the states. You know. Those things that aren’t people. Because only corporations are people.

Filed under: Misc | Tagged: , , , | 1 Comment »

Thought of the day

Posted on August 17, 2012 by Michael

Paul Ryan and other Republicans have been saying that President Obama is incredibly partisan and has changed the atmosphere in Washington more than anyone in recent memory. When asked if they thought it was really fucking stupid and a sign of an inability to ever compromise to sign a statement pledging to never raise taxes, blank faces filled the room.

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Stop assuming men want to rape and molest everything

Posted on August 17, 2012 by Michael

I understand the concerns of Schrodinger’s Rapist. I think a lot of it is a reflection of paranoia, but I understand any person, man or woman, having safety concerns when out and about. However, that does not justify the shitty polices like the ones on the airlines Virgin Australia and Qantas:

Are all men potential pedophiles? If you’re a passenger on a Qantas Airways or Virgin Australia flight, the answer is yes, as both airlines have policies forbidding adult men form sitting next to unaccompanied minors. Dismayed at being so negatively stereotyped, men are speaking out down under to protest this profiling. Daniel McCluskie, the second 30-something man in a week to come forward, told The Age, “It seemed I had this sign I couldn’t see above my head that said ‘child molester’ or ‘kiddie fiddler.'”

It’s one thing to be concerned for unaccompanied children, but it’s another thing to call out a random person for sitting next to one on an airplane. The pilot may as well come over the speaker and declare that the passenger sitting in seat 18A is not to be trusted. “Watch that guy’s zipper!”

I’m somewhat on the fence with the whole “assume everyone wants to rape me” attitude reflected in the initial link in this post. I understand that there are plenty of dangerous situations out there*, but that does not mean any man who dares speak to a strange woman should have to carry with him instructions on how best to deal with the face full of pepper spray he might get. That’s no different than clutching one’s purse because a black man walked into the area. Besides, most sexual assault victims know their attacker. Does that mean no man is to ever be trusted?

*I once acknowledged this fact when in a debate with feminists. Despite it being a cornerstone to the Schrodinger’s Rapist argument, I was chastised for assuming women were too stupid to know that certain situations are dangerous. So remember, if you establish basic facts in any argument, you must think your opponent is stupid.

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Atheism on the rise

Posted on August 16, 2012 by Michael

Since the last Gallup poll was taken, just before the emergence of so-called New Atheism, the rate at which people call themselves atheists has risen significantly:

The poll, called “The Global Index of Religiosity and Atheism,” found that the number of Americans who say they are “religious” dropped from 73 percent in 2005 (the last time the poll was conducted) to 60 percent.

At the same time, the number of Americans who say they are atheists rose, from 1 percent to 5 percent.

I don’t think this is a reflection of changing beliefs. Rather, it is a reflection of changing attitudes:

“The obvious implication is that this is a manifestation of the New Atheism movement,” said Ryan Cragun, a University of Tampa sociologist of religion who studies American and global atheism.

Still, Cragun does not believe the poll shows more people are becoming atheists, but rather that more people are willing to identify as atheists.

For a very long time, religiosity has been a central characteristic of the American identity,” he said. “But what this suggests is that is changing and people are feeling less inclined to identify as religious to comply with what it means to be a good person in the U.S.”

I’ve attributed this change in attitude to a number of facts in the past, including the Catholic Church’s rape problems, but I think a good deal of credit goes to Dawkins, Harris, Dennett, Hitchens, and others who have made the phrase “I am an atheist” something that is okay to say.

via The A-Unicornist

Filed under: Atheism/Humanism | Tagged: , , , , | 1 Comment »

Neat

Posted on August 15, 2012 by Michael

Here is a sunken boat near Antarctica. I presume it sank soon after Nate‘s mother boarded it (which, incidentally, was presumably shortly before the crew boarded her).

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Thought of the day

Posted on August 14, 2012 by Michael

It wasn’t so much the excitement of the actual landing on Mars that got the public going – though, hey, it was exciting. No, instead I think it was the passion and vigor of the scientists behind the landing.

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The genius of Charles Darwin

Posted on August 13, 2012 by Michael

By the time that an animal had reached, after numberless generations, the deepest recesses, disuse will on this view have more or less perfectly obliterated its eyes, and natural selection will often have affected other changes, such as an increase in the length of antennae or palpi, as compensation for blindness.

The above quote comes from On the Origin of Species. It is just one of the numerous instances where Charles Darwin, on the basis of his theory, makes a wonderful prediction that comes true so many years after the fact. In this case, his prediction has been shown to be true over and over; species which have gone millions of years in the dark lose their eyesight again and again. We see this especially in many species of cave fish, but it isn’t limited to the oceans:

With a leg span of only six centimetres and a body size of around twelve millimetres, the spider Sinopoda scurion is certainly not one of the largest representatives of the huntsman spiders, which include more than 1100 species. However, it is the first of its kind in the world without any eyes.

“I found the spider in a cave in Laos, around 100 kilometres away from the famous Xe Bang Fai cave,” reports Peter Jäger, head of the arachnology section at the Senckenberg Research Institute in Frankfurt. “We already knew of spiders of this genus from other caves, but they always had eyes and complete pigmentation. Sinopoda scurion is the first huntsman spider without eyes.”

One prediction the theory of evolution allows us to make today that Darwin couldn’t make in his lifetime is that the genes for vision in these now-blind species should exist but be broken. If they do not exist, then either there is some really funky timeline and divergence activity (that is, these are old lineages that evolved before their sighted brethren) and we should see a lot of other genetic differences or evolution just isn’t true. Neither one of those options is very likely, of course. What we observe instead is that, indeed, the genes for vision are a broken, jumbled mess. That isn’t the case yet for the above spider because, as far as I know, no such studies have been carried out, but it is the case wherever else these sort of species have had their genes analyzed.

One point I think that needs to be made sure with Darwin’s quote here is this: Natural selection is unlikely to be the only factor in the disappearance of eyes among these species*. In fact, it could have little to nothing to do with the process at all. Vision in the dark is a useless thing, so natural selection may obliterate it for the sake of saving energy or preventing potential injury to a sensitive body part, but I believe it is much more likely that it simply did nothing. It neither selected for nor against vision. As a result of the lack of positive selection, mutation and genetic drift took over and vision in these species simply faded away.

*I really have two points here. First is the one I just made in the above paragraph. Second is the fact that Darwin was referencing natural selection in regard to it creating some compensation for blindness, not in regard to it directionally causing the blindness.

Filed under: Evidence, Evolution | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Panoramic view of Mars

Posted on August 13, 2012 by Michael

Well, this is just neat.

Go on. Click it. It’s interactive and all that jazz.

Filed under: Astronomy/Cosmology/Physics | Tagged: | Leave a comment »

The asshole principal everyone loves

Posted on August 13, 2012 by Michael

Remember that asshole dad from a few months ago? He tried to teach his daughter the value of a dollar by idiotically destroying wealth with a bullet through a laptop before telling everyone on the Internet that the child he supposedly loves is lazy and ungrateful – then he told her she needs to get a job. (Who wouldn’t want to hire her now, amirite?) I presume once the camera was off he attempted to show her the need for hard work by having his maid clean up his mess. It was all pretty pathetic, illogical, counter-productive, and was little more than a display of immaturity from someone who is having a hard time dealing with being a parent in the first place. Yet everyone loved it. There’s something about saying “fuck you” to young people that gives people their jollies. I presume some of it is frustration, some of it jealousy, some of it arrogance, but who knows. People love being dicks when dealing with youth. Just read what Northland College principal John Tapene said:

It starts out okay – there’s plenty to do and there’s value in acquiring skills and basic work experience – but it goes downhill quickly. It’s true that no town owes its teen population any entertainment (though it is probably in its interest), and parents aren’t obligated to provide their kids with fun (though the goods ones will play sports and games and activities with their children), but then we get into some horseshit. How is it that no ones owes teenagers anything yet they owe the world everything they can provide? “Sit down, shut the fuck up, do what I say, and like it. And if you dissent at all, then fuck you more, you fucking cry baby!” That doesn’t even begin to make sense.

I think the point Tapene wanted to make was that people as past their prime as he is don’t have the same great potential teenagers do. He wanted to inspire. The only problem is that he couldn’t resist insulting his audience by being a general dick. It’s sort of like what I did in the first sentence of this paragraph where I took a dig at Tapene for his age. The difference is that I’m not trying to inspire him.

But, hey, maybe there’s more to this story. Tapene weighs in further:

However, the tragic truth is that, who is going to teach the young person to cook, to start a lawn mower, to study productively, to wash windows and so on. Instead we adults prefer to push them to one side and tell them to ‘entertain themselves’.

Not only is he a bit of an asshole, he’s an incoherent asshole. “Get out there and find something to do, kids! We don’t owe you shit! By the way, my fellow adults, don’t we owe them something?” Surely there’s an explanation for this overt contradiction? Perhaps:

I think this statement speaks not so much of a youth issue but a call for adult role models to stand up, to teach, lead and demonstrate, to live and lead radically a life fueled by a kingdom vision. Where we all use our talents and time to bring heaven to earth, to partner in God’s mission of the restoration of His creation unto Himself.

Oh. He’s a Christian. That doesn’t explain the assholery, but I at least understand the lack of consistency.

I really wish people would stop spreading these shitty memes.

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