that crap is not based on any medical study or scientific research.

Quite right. And I never claimed it was based on medical or scientific research. What I did claim was that youth violence is at its lowest levels in a long time. I then linked to an article which showed graphs compiled by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, a division of the United States Department of Justice. Note that the article author did not compile the data, they did not create the graphs, they did not work the statistics. They simply took the data and graphs straight from the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Admittedly they altered one of the graphs, but in that case all they did was add a time-line of the release of some consoles and games.

Furthermore, reading it on that site is like reading climate change research on exxon.com

While it's fine to be suspect of any research or study funded, promoted, or done by a group who has an obvious interest in the results being one way or another, dismissing it outright is called a logical fallacy. If you have something against the statistics in the article, please discuss.

You are more than welcome to think what you want. Please explain this: Youth violence is at its lowest levels in a long time.

I drove a pickup where the key could fall out of the ignition while driving over a slightly bumpy rode. It wasn't too much of a problem until it got to the point that I couldn't ever take my foot completely off the gas or the car would die in idle (brake and clutch with my left foot, gas with my right). A couple of times I let my foot off the gas a little too much and the truck would die and I would have to start looking for the keys before the light turned green. Fun times.

Then you might appreciate this.

There's not much room on this bridge for anything but cars. Not to mention, the bridge is 7,578 feet (2,310 m) long. So even at average human walking speed the shortest trip off the bridge is going to be 14 minutes (assuming you start halfway in the middle and walk to the nearest side and that you don't get hit by a car while on those narrow sidewalks). To walk across the bridge is going to take a long time. It might be faster to walk across the bridge than drive during rush hour, but that's only talking about the bridge itself.

Just to continue with the interesting facts about these bridges: 4 of the World's 5 longest floating bridges are in Washington state, 3 of which are in Lake Washington. In order they are

1. Evergreen Floating Bridge at 7,578 feet (2,310 m)
2. Lacey V. Murrow Memorial Bridge at 6,620 feet (2,018 m)
3. Hood Canal Bridge at 6,521 feet (1,988 m)
4. Homer M. Hadley Memorial Bridge at 5,811 feet (1,771 m)

And a video of Lacey V Murrow Bridge sinking. The concern with the 520 is that given enough wind, water movement or an earthquake would cause the Evergreen Floating Bridge to sink as well. While the Lacey V Murrow Bridge sank during construction (and TBH, because of construction) so there wasn't anybody on it, the same will probably not be true of the Evergreen Floating Bridge because you never know when an earthquake will hit.

My wife has a Master's Degree in Counseling with an emphasis on families. We have extensive discussions about this sort of thing, especially because we have children of our own. So I'm talking with experience, history, and current Master's level knowledge. You have an un-cited "body of child and teen psychology" on your side.

Heck, just taking an evolutionary stand point, there is no place for humans who are physically capable of being parents, while being mentally incapable of being adults.

Room for growth? Sure, absolutely. Total inability to act like an adult? Only on edge cases. I'm not saying 15 and 16 year old is going to act 100% mature and responsible. We can't even get that out of 50+ year olds. What I am saying is that treating them like adults will create adults faster than treating them like children.

Thousands of years of human history is in a disagreement with the way we treat teenagers. No one said that they aren't still growing. No one said that the transition is instantaneous. Every one knows, and the research will probably agree, that children have to transition into adulthood.

What's different is that we are treating them like some new class of people. Humans are really good at acting the way they are expected to act. Treat them like they don't need to be mature and they won't be. But treat them like they need to be adults and they will be. Again, no one said instantaneously. They'll make mistakes. Even people well into adulthood make bad decisions at times, and we can expect that a 15 year old will make more of those bad decisions than an 35 year old, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't expect them to be mature.

The idea that people in their teens are not children but not quite adults is new in the last 50 years or so. And look at that, the idea that teenagers are hard to raise has only been around for about the last 50 years or so. The more we think teenagers are a different class of human, the more they act like a different class of human. Treat them like the mature adults they are capable of being, and they will be the mature adults they are capable of being. Treat them like they can't possibly be mature enough, and they won't be.

Oh I agree with your point, I was just objecting to the idea that you would have no recourse.

It wasn't that long ago if you were 16 and couldn't fit in with adults, you'd be considered an idiot. It's time we stop this teenager nonsense. It's really only been in the last 50 years or so that there has been anything between child and adult and every one got along just fine like that. Throwing teenager in between those only delays responsibility. Teenagers know, if not explicitly, at least implicitly, that they aren't being treated like adults so there is no reason to act like one. Treat them like adults, and you'll see them mature a lot faster than just sitting around waiting for them to reach some magical arbitrary age.

Not that I am disagreeing with your main point, but...

no one would have recourse against what this school does because it wouldn't be against the law

Assuming this kind of thing could even happen in anarchist conditions, you would still have recourse. That recourse just wouldn't be through the government (which wouldn't exist in this situation anyway). Take the webcam and shove it up the responsible party's urethra. Just be sure the webcam is still attached to the laptop. I'd say that's pretty good recourse right there.

If you don't have a Masters degree or equivalent in a physical science, then you are absolutely not qualified to interpret any climate data or its validity, so stop trying.

Excuse me sir, but your logical fallacy is showing.

If you're going to try bolding the important parts of sentences, at least bold the right parts. Useful arts meant the opposite of the fine arts. I can point you to the Wikipedia page about it, but the first time I realized it was while reading The Count of Monte Cristo: "I have devoted myself to industry; I study the useful arts." Copyrights are contained in the sciences part.

What's the difference between using middle C on the piano as a note and using a brief sample as a "note"? What is the difference between using c, d and g to make a chord or using three samples to make a "chord"? Are you suggesting that a melody and a loop are all that different? No doubt, some people who sample are complete hacks, but some create something new. Note that I said "new", not "something you like" or "on the same par of creative genius as what you would approve as being good". Then again, the classical composers were profane and they were still popular.

No one has a god given right to anything someone else produces, but when it comes to copyrightable works, once you share it with me, you don't have any rights to take it away from me. You may be able to take the physical manifestation of it away from me, but you cannot take the copyrightable portion away. If you didn't want others to have that ability, you shouldn't have shared it with them. That's how ideas (and the expressions of those ideas that are copyrightable) work. It's like nothing else. You can take away all my CDs, computers, sheet music, etc, but you will never be able to take away the song. You can steal my DVDs, but you can't steal the movie. You can burn my books, but you cannot burn the story.

By the very nature of the universe, you do not have to get permission to add something to the public domain. On the contrary, once it is shared publicly, you have to get permission to take it out. That permission is granted by the society you live in through copyrights. We allow you to take works out of the public domain to which it naturally belongs, on the agreement that it will go back after some period of time.

You can argue how long works should be allowed to be taken out of the public domain; you can argue whether they should be allowed to be taken out of the public domain; but you cannot argue whether there should be a public domain. It exists. It is natural, it cannot be taken away, not by law, not by fiat, not by decree, nor by any other means man possesses, unless and until you can change the very nature of the mind.

As for your comments about no incentive to succeed....

You (and a lot of other people here) seem to advocate a system that gives no reward or incentive to succeed. It doesn't seem to matter to you how amazing a work someone produces; the viewpoint I'm reading says they are entitled to the same share as someone else who makes a totally mediocre piece of work.

Right, because James Cameron got the same share as the makers of Pluto Nash.

We, as a society, allow content creators a limited amount of time to take a work out of the public domain. During that time, they have the same opportunity to make money as any other content creator. Some people think that there ought to be opportunities to extend that time, but I've never seen anyone who thinks the time extension should be based on the profitability or popularity of the content. Granted, if the work isn't profitable, the copyright holder will probably not want to pay to extend the copyright terms, but I've seen no extension propositions that prevent it.