>Do you believe rehabilitation is impossible or do you want revenge?

I don't believe that someone who commits mass murder can be rehabilitated, no. It isn't about revenge; it's about public safety.

Someone once pointed out that hoping a rapist gets raped in prison isn't a victory for his victim(s), because it somehow gives him what he had coming to him, but it's actually a victory for rape and violence. I wish I could remember who said that, because they are right. The score doesn't go Rapist: 1 World: 1. It goes Rape: 2.

What this man did is unspeakable, and he absolutely deserves to spend the rest of his life in prison. If he needs to be kept away from other prisoners as a safety issue, there are ways to do that without keeping him in solitary confinement, which has been shown conclusively to be profoundly cruel and harmful.

Putting him in solitary confinement, as a punitive measure, is not a victory for the good people in the world. It's a victory for inhumane treatment of human beings. This ruling is, in my opinion, very good and very strong for human rights, *precisely* because it was brought by such a despicable and horrible person. It affirms that all of us have basic human rights, even the absolute worst of us on this planet.

This is precisely why I lost all interest in Oculus the instant I heard that it had been acquired by Facebook.

But it *is* a federal issue:
- The IRS is a federal agency that collects taxes from individuals and differentiates between "married" and "single" tax payers.
- The "Full Faith and Credit Clause" of the Constitution says the states have to respect the public acts, records, and proceedings of every other state.

I guess my terminology is wrong - I don't know enough about the theory of actual Socialism to know if i support that.

I do support the concepts that current American politics *calls* 'socialsm', which is really more about social welfare (adequate health care, education, housing, and sustenance for everyone in society).

Do you mean to say "I make more money than I spend?" Because that's a lot easier to prove than "I produce more than I consume" - because of the commons. I assume you:
- live in a relatively safe neighborhood / city
- with the infrastructure to support your transportation to & from your place of employment
- where you contribute to the production of some kind of good or service
- that is provided or distributed to your customers
- who pay your company in some form of relatively stable currency
- that you save / accumulate in a banking system that insures your deposits and provides access to your currency on-demand
- so you can pay your creditors, some of whom provided you goods or services in advance of payment
- etc etc etc

The point is - you didn't personally build all of this infrastructure. Yet you benefit greatly from having access to it. You contribute to it (through your taxes and fees to both public & private institutions), and you may argue that your contributions are in excess of your usage (and so therefore you are effectively subsidizing others who 'consume' more then they contribute), but that can be difficult to determine since many of the benefits are indirect.

For example, I've never called the police department to investigate a crime against me. Yet I've paid both municipal taxes and the occasional traffic violation or parking ticket. Does that mean I'm subsidizing the police for others? Not really - because I benefit from having an effective police department that keeps me, my family, and my property safe and secure. If my local PD were not effective, there's always private security -- but I couldn't afford the security it would take to make me feel as secure as I am now, and whatever I *could* afford would certainly prevent me from purchasing other goods & services that I currently enjoy.

I would support Socialism because of the philosophy of "a rising tide lifts all boats".
- I'd rather have those who are poor or destitute have enough subsidized income & stability to not turn to violence or thievery.
- I'd rather those who have mental health issues get the support and treatment they need from robust institutions, instead of being turned out on the street because they can't afford insurance and can't hold down a job (and become poor & destitute)
- I'd rather that everyone get free access to basic preventative health care & acute treatment, instead of waiting until health concerns become urgent or emergent & clog ER waiting rooms
- I'd rather all children get effective and well-rounded educations so they love learning, and become productive, creative adults instead of factory automatons
- etc etc

Now, do I think it is possible to do these things effectively in America's current political climate? Absolutely not. But I hope we can start down the path.

While I agree with your general concept (I think), this example doesn't demonstrate it because you don't have enough context.

Why would the child giggle when dad eats a bite of chocolate? Simply put - the child wouldn't, assuming this is his first observation of the pattern of behavior. The child would have no reason to giggle, because nothing is inherently funny about it. Dad (and Mom, for that matter) go into the refrigerator to get food all the time. Mom (who most likely does the grocery shopping) puts food in the refrigerator all the time.

The child would giggle if he had observed a pattern of behavior where:
1. Mom puts a "special food item" (like a chocolate bar) in the fridge
2. Dad sneaks a bite of this special item without Mom's awareness
3. Mom later discovers a missing bite of her food.
4. Mom (or Dad) respond with some behavior which the little boy decides is funny

So on subsequent repetitions of this pattern, the boy sees steps 1 & 2, and mentally projects step 4, causing him to giggle.

Alternatively, Dad cues little boy during the initial iteration of step 2 that this is a funny action (perhaps doing it by acting in a silly manner, smiling & laughing more than normal, etc), in which case his laughter has nothing to do with a mental simulation, but is merely reflecting Dad's attitude.

The bottom line is -- humans are REALLY GOOD at pattern recognition, and computers less so (currently). What you call "simulations" I see as simply extrapolations of observed behavior patterns -- and if computers got good at autonomously recognizing human behavior, they'd get good at "simulations" too.

And unions are bad again... why?

(making a generalization - I don't know if tompaulco has ever said anything about unions or not.) Many posters comment on this extreme power dynamic differential that they are at the short end of, but then no one seems to be in favor of unions. Not saying unions aren't without their problems, but the simple fact is the only thing that can effectively fight organized bureaucracy & greed (like management) is ... more organized bureaucracy & greed (in the form of unions).

My $0.02, anyway...

I got a parking ticket for parking too close to a fire hydrant, despite the fact that the curb in that location was NOT painted yellow. A block away the curb around the hydrant WAS painted yellow.

I took photos & my ticket to the judge. I was told the curb markings are for convenience only; doesn't matter if it wasn't painted. He did knock a few bucks of my ticket, but he didn't dismiss it.

While I agree with your general sentiment, you are missing two key points:
1. While "me driving to work" and "me driving someone else to work for compensation" are the same physical actions, they have very different intents and motives, so they are NOT the same. As another posted wrote (and I have friends who confirm) - as a private pilot you CANNOT take passengers on flights for compensation, even if you are flying the same aircraft you normally fly alone (or with non-paying passengers).

2. The risks to a passenger vs another driver are very different. If I'm a passenger in an ill-maintained vehicle, I have no control over my situation. If the axle breaks then I have to suffer whatever consequences happen. But if I'm a different driver on the road - I have options in terms of what I can do with my vehicle, when the other vehicle's axle breaks - I can slam on the brakes, swerve around, etc. As a driver, I might be able to avoid the dangerous situation, or I might make the dangerous situations worse -- but being in control of a vehicle I have options that the passenger does not.

So yes, I think it is legitimate for cab / taxi services to be held to a higher standard than regular drivers.

That said, I agree we have too many terrible drivers on American roads (I'm assuming you are American), and I would not be opposed to elevating the standards for everyone! But that is orthogonal to if cabs / taxis should be held to a higher standard than regular drivers - I would support both.

You make the assumption the editor's goal is NOT to use the readers as targeted customers.

I'm not sure that's a valid assumption.

Simple technical solution, maybe -- but I imagine your billing & support costs would go through the roof, with everyone calling in not understanding why the internet was fast yesterday but slow today, or they got charged more this month then last month.

I don't know about Teksavvy, but given it's name I'm guessing it's users probably understand a bit more about what they are doing. A small rural telco coop in Iowa -- not as likely to grok this. Esp if most of them are using 5 GB / month -- I downloaded more than that in a 24 hour period just patching video games.

True - except that it's reasonable to assume that even in a perfectly healthy system, immune function decreases and cell mutations increase with age. So at some point more cells will be mutating than the immune system is able to keep up with. Keep boosting the immune system and reducing causes for mutations and you kick that can down the road, but you can't eliminate that intersection.

I guess you could possibly kick it past some other biological deadline (eg running out of telomeres, perhaps?), effectively "preventing cancer"? Until we figure out how to lengthen telomeres.

This is plausible in the case of an individual, but I put forth the theory that it is NOT true at a macro level -- that 'tribes' (communities, if you prefer) with long-lived members (well beyond reproductive age) would benefit from greater care, knowledge, & experience and would thrive better than tribes that died shortly after reproduction stopped being viable. In this way evolution would not select specific genes for longevity, but rather select populations that carried genes that promoted long healthy lives.

IANA[whoever studies this kind of stuff] so I have no idea if anyone has researched such a theory, but it seems imminently plausible to me that a tribe with members ranging from 0-120 years of age could be more successful than a tribe with members only aging until 30 before dying. More members to hunt, gather, share "eat this not that" type of knowledge, know/remember important environmental events and geographic locations, etc.

Some things don't need regular repeal - some laws are just that good. Like laws against murder.

Right, and copyright -- because everyone agrees that these laws are important, right?

I like the idea of all laws having automatic sunsets - maybe with max of 10 or 20 years out. It's an automatic opportunity to review the legislation again when it comes for renewal. Does it mean that all laws will be re-analyzed in depth? No, of course not - most of the core legal framework would just be renewed without debate in giant, omnibus-like bills.

But it could trigger discussions about topics that might have changed in the last couple of decades - things like copyright, patents, healthcare, taxation, immigration, gun laws -- topics that have had material change and should be re-evaluated.

And it helps prevent old, dumb laws from sitting on the books, like these (most of these happen to be state laws, but the point stands):
Dominoes may not be played on Sunday
Shotguns are required to be taken to church in the event of a Native American attack.
A man may not seduce a woman by lying, and claiming he will marry her.

(etc)