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Comment Re:What about the No. 1 reason? (Score 1) 254

But _why_ are they not interested? And even if there are less that are interested, the ones who still are should be encouraged as much as possible (well, as much as a guy would be) and face no more obstacles from the society or the work/school/etc. environment than a guy going in should.

Comment Re:Science... Yah! (Score 1) 958

Yes, but what then is an individual to do when it comes to all these changes? What science would steer you AWAY from that "course toward obesity, diabetes, and coronary problems"? I know that science needs to change and evolve but what is a person to do? This is not a critique of science, it's actual confusion.

Comment Re: Honest question. (Score 1) 479

Yes, but all that says is something about this particular feminist, not feminism in general (to make broad claims about "feminism" is difficult, because it is a VERY diverse set of viewpoints, philosophies, and ideologies, and of course, with anything, there's also going to be variation from individual to individual).

Comment Re:Creators wishing to control their creations... (Score 1) 268

Why? Although I'm sure a lot of those on this site are partial to Free/Open Source software, that doesn't mean they advocate breaking the law and infringing on other people's legally-granted rights. They just advocate that there should be more software which is Free of such restrictions, through legitimate means.

Comment Re: (Score 1) 571

And that resorting to force means that the LEGITIMATE points you raise then go ignored. And with enough of that belligerency, real and serious issues with society get covered up and go unaddressed, meaning this technique is actually counterproductive to the stated goal. Which means that we need serious people to take up those real and serious issues and tackle them in a manner that does not involve that kind of belligerent approach, but a more civilized one. Gamergate raises very real issues about sexism, but the use of out-and-out bullying and harassment -- by BOTH sides -- is going to do no justice to those issues.

Comment Global Warming (Score 1) 795

This bit I found problematic:

While it is a fact that increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere leads, all else equal, to higher atmospheric temperatures, the idea that we can predict the impact of global warming — and anti-global warming policies! — 100 years from now is sheer lunacy. But because it is done using math by people with tenure, we are told it is "science" even though by definition it is impossible to run an experiment on the year 2114.

Yet if science is about determining reliable predictive rules through experiment, then if we have experimentally shown the reliability and validity of those rules, we do not need to experiment on the year 2114 in order to make predictions. We just apply our reliable rules and they will give us predictions which are reliable to however much those rules are.

Comment Re:No surprise (Score 1) 224

"If that is so, then why are we by far the most violent and aggressive species on earth?"

Are we? Remember: we will tend to notice our own violence more than that in some other species. We hear about it when there's another human war somewhere, but not when some pack of chimps decides to go after another. For this statement to be true, it would have to be that evolution favored the violent instinct far more in the human species than any other, and if so, why. Why would that be? There's only so much violent instinct a species can have before it would destroy itself.

And don't just go "But we've got the atomic bomb!" That is more a measure of how much _intelligence_ we have and can devote to violence than a meter gauging the amount of underlying violent instinct or impulse. One could argue that the combination of violence with intelligence reduces the threshold amount mentioned above as to when there is too much violent instinct for a species to destroy itself, since it makes acting on those impulses more destructive, even if the underlying impulse is not changed. I suppose then you could say humans may be "more violent" in terms of deaths caused, but this is due to intelligence, not necessarily a greater amount of underlying "violentness".

Comment Re:Strawman argument (Score 1) 739

If they're 20 years old or older they probably have some kind of mental disorder (or intellectual disability or developmental disability), in which case compassion and getting them proper care for that are the best responses. Or, if they're older, they may be a senior in a nursing home with some kind of dementing disease. In which case they'll probably be already getting care. Or they're having their mind ravaged in prison by a solitary confinement unit and so being made worse by it, in which case $@#! the abusive prison system. Or their parents totally failed at raising them, in which case the anger should go toward the parents, not the victim of the negligence.

If something "more" than just abuse would include physical violence, then that's criminal and "two wrongs do not make a right".

Comment Re:Strawman argument (Score 1) 739

Yes, you can be abusive, in the sense that you have the ability to be abusive. It is wrong to be abusive.

"If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the process of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence."

Yup! More logic and arguments, not abuse.

Actually, given that a KERNEL was being compiled improperly -- a truly VITAL piece of software on which LIVES may depend -- I think he actually did pretty good in that he managed to keep his anger directed squarely at the COMPILER, instead of actually getting abusive with the PEOPLE. Notice that all his "stupid"s and "retarded"s were directed against the compiler! So he wasn't actually abusing any people, rather the poor, poor compiler, which of course has no feelings or human spirit of any sort, being just a pile of digital information on a computer :)

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