Compare the gun stats for US and UK. There are around 50 times more gun murders in the US per 100000 population. Owning guns is a bad idea and totally unnecessary in a civilised society.

you should compare the US and UK gun homicide statistics per capita. They speak for themselves. The US has about 50 times more murders with guns per 100000 members of the population than the UK. Our gun crime in the UK is tiny can compared to the states.

funny thing that... if no-one has guns, they're pretty hard to steal.

Hrmmm... isn't that kinda like saying, "why should I stop shitting on the pavement, other people do it?". Someone has to make a start! Also, somebody needs to provide energy in a sustainable clean manner that isn't fossil fuel. Isn't this a massive opportunity for the true capitalists out there to steal a march on the energy market? It strikes me that governments and businesses should be getting behind research into new clean electricity-centric nuclear power plants, like the LFTR. I guess whoever figures out a way to wean themselves off of fossil fuel first is going to redefine their economy (and maybe grow it hugely selling cheap energy to the rest of us?)

Yes there is an "email interface". Look up the meaning of the words "email" and "interface", then try a bunch of email programs and it's immediately very clear what the AC up above meant when he typed "standard email interface". It's the layout and operation of the pretty much every program you use to compose and send email. It almost does not matter which email program you try, they all have a familiar feel, to/cc/bcc at the top, then a subject, then a big-assed box-o-text for the body. This is a pretty standard approach to the interface between user and the mail server and has been for a very long time.

Did you have a point worth discussing or were you just baiting the guy? Wait, hang on, this is /. I already know the answer never mind :P

We use Lightning daily in the office and it "just works" we make use of the ownCloud calendar server for the back-end and I must say I don't feel the need to keep the calendar separate from the email because my appointment confirmations and meeting requests are typically emailed to me by my customers and colleagues anyway.

I hear your concern regarding calendar and email being different application candidates, but equally I can see why it ended up that way and it does not impair my ability to work so I don't let it bother me. While it's good practice to have focused single-purpose applications that are easy to understand and maintain; This does not mean it's not possible to make a perfectly serviceable and fairly easy to use monolith/big-ball-o-plugins at least from the user's perspective.

I haven’t used Lighting with Mac OS X Server, so I can't comment on that experience, but it does work well with ownCloud.

I think we broadly agree in terms of how we understand people work regarding emotions, instincts and thoughts. Where we do differ is...

I think religion is largely irrelevant to these questions.

I don't. I think religion is a well worn excuse and motivator used by those seeking to rationalize the bad things they have ordered or the things they want others to do. Religion uses the believer's readiness to blindly and unconditionally accept the will of a higher power with an agenda that often runs counter to human well being. It provides a control mechanism for bad people to turn others bad and to get them to behave is despicable ways. I think that we need to actively remove it from our societies and governments, point it out for the lies it is, and debunk it at every opportunity so that we can stop the rot.

I think you'll find I quoted your entire opening sentence. That is all, nothing more. This is OK. It was not out of context, the rest of your post is plain to read for others. Consider that a sentence is...

a set of words that is complete in itself, typically containing a subject and predicate, conveying a statement, question, exclamation, or command, and consisting of a main clause and sometimes one or more subordinate clauses.

... and the fact that the rest of your post was prefaced with the word "Furthermore" meaning 'in addition; besides (used to introduce a fresh consideration in an argument).' then I'm sure you'll understand why I did not consider the rest of your post as germane to the part I quoted.

I am operating on the (perhaps mistaken) belief that you mean what you are typing and that you understand the words and grammar you choose to use. If you believe that I have misunderstood you then, that's OK, simply use some other words to describe what you DO mean so we can communicate more effectively. Alas, at the moment, I can't agree with you as you're not making sense.

I don't think you can include "extremists" in any group of people being described as "rational". The reason they're referred to as extremists in the first place is that they resort to extreme measures outside of the scope of a normal rational individual in order to achieve their goals. Indeed the goals of extremists are usually erm... extreme in nature themselves e.g. "kill them all" etc

Of course anyone can behave rationally. But my context was clear in my use of the term "irrational"; people often act without thinking, they are genetically predisposed to this way of being. Take "normal" people and put them in extreme circumstances and these instinctive responses can lead them to do some pretty horrific and unthinkable things. As a species, our best hope for self-preservation is to curtail these instincts and try to do what we know is best for all of us.

You don't know anything about me, where I grew up or the sorts of experiences I have had in my life. You seem to have assumed that I am a relatively wealthy, western, sheltered sort that has no appreciation for the difficult circumstances these people find themselves in. In this you are wrong. I have witnessed violence first hand more than once, I have also lost loved ones and family members to the irrational behaviour of others. I know what it is like to go without food for days at a time and I have known hardship. While I live in the UK today, I didn't grow up here, while I am educated and well read I still remember what it is like to be desperate.

People do have very different goals and constraints on them, you are right, but, their are fundamental ways of being that go deeper than culture. All of us who are of sound mind understand instinctively that killing is wrong, hurting others is wrong, hurting ourselves is wrong. We don't need to be taught this, it is part of what we are. Empathy evolved in our species a very long time ago because it promotes the survival of our genes.

People don't naturally want to kill each other. They do so out of desperation and they are very reluctant at first. Even after people have taken this step to kill another, the feeling that what they are doing is very badly wrong never goes away and they NEED to justify their actions somehow in order to live with themselves. This is usually where the extreme (religious) beliefs enter the picture, self-deceptions that allow them to not hate themselves as much as they would without them. It's really very sad. The sooner we can educate ourselves out of religion the better.

No, I didn't just claim that "millions of Christians have died at each others hands", I said that Christians killed each other by the millions over Christianity. And whether you find that observation "useful" or not isn't the point. The point is that claims that Christianity is somehow peaceful or moral, or that it is more peaceful than Islam are ludicrous in the light of historical reality.

Well, um... yes you did. Because if they didn't die at each others hands... then who's hands did they die at? I could understand your objection if I had placed my paraphrasing of your statement in quote marks, but I didn't. I paraphrased your post. That clearly said...

That hasn't stopped Christians from murdering each other over Christianity by the millions.

...that was me quoting you word for word, feel free to take offence if I got it wrong this time. Regarding your other point about deception not being a valid excuse for ones behaviour; I agree to a point. Though I would also say that the deceiver shares some of the blame for the crimes committed as a result of the deception.

People are happy to remain in a state that allows them to feel comfortable and knowledgeable about who they are and the work they live in. It's difficult (though admittedly not impossible) to unlearn what was drilled into you in the first ten years of your life. It's mostly true that people inherit their parents morals and view of the world, including their religious beliefs. Personally I want nothing to do with religion, it's too convenient an excuse for people to use to justify their own questionable actions. I understand why it developed as a way to control populations living in large impersonal groups for the first time, but I think it is an out-dated concept built on lies and one which we would do well to get rid of as a species.

Here's a list of 8 I found... can't vouch for it but google said it so it must be true :P http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/8...

It's an interesting thought experiment; If you take away the reason to fight then perhaps the fighting may stop? Seems like you could at least dilute the problem to a degree by doing this. Of course however, the zealots back home would likely discard the forethought and use the charity of your actions as evidence of your evil-loving ways in order to drum up support to topple your government.

The truly hard part about this is that, in human politics someone is always going to lose (even if only in their own perceptions) and get disgruntled about how their particular bad situation is ALL some other guys fault. These feelings lead to retaliation, which lead to more retaliation etc. Natural selection has unfortunately hard-wired us to polarize our views, summarize, ignore detail and make snap decisions based on feelings rather than objective analysis of facts e.g. I have a feeling that maybe that lion is about to eat me... (the guy that tried to figure out if the lion was hungry prior to running away got eaten) and his pal that run is the one who procreated. While this does not bode well for rational thought or indeed rational problem resolution, at least as a species we are aware enough, that some of us recognize our shortcomings and teach our kids to think critically, considering the consequences of their actions prior to them being made. You never know it might catch on :)

On a less serious note... Maybe their should be a law of human social dynamics concerning the 'conservation of discontent'? If only their was some way we could dilute the ill will at the heart of a conflict into a global 'frown and role of the eyes' rather than the tiny flash-point of extreme violence it is.

My point was and remains semantically close to the part of your closing paragraph that reads...

I dare say that the majority of the deaths would have been because people are, quite frequently, assholes and that they simply used religion as an excuse for them to control or harm others.

I don't think the original post by NostalgiaForInfinity claiming millions of Christians have died at each others hands was useful except as a throw-away statement designed to illicit response. Though I would temper this by saying pretty much every western leader who has gone to war in the last hundred years will have referred to god backing their plans and the fact that the enemy was evil. It's always nice (as a war monger) to get the masses to back you up because the big bad sky-pixie is your best buddy and that you're carrying out his divine will. We can see contemporary examples of this in the sorts of things said by British and American leaders taking their people to war. Even in the most arguably justifiable use of this sort of rhetoric e.g.

"We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask, what is our policy? I will say: It is to wage war, by sea, land, and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us; to wage war against a monstrous tyranny never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be." - Winston Churchill

Personally I'm of the opinion that religious people have been deceived (in order to become self-described as religious in the first place) and have shown themselves to be fairly easy to persuade to believe almost anything you like. In my mind these sort of easy-to-convince people are perfect if you're an evil nutter looking to recruit expendable cannon fodder.

As a point to ponder on the side... Any problem that has been reduced to "they're evil and must be destroyed" has been massively over simplified and people spouting that sort of thing are either deluded (see religious comments above) or they are by definition irrational irrespective of their cause. Reacting to extremism with extreme force simply breeds more extremism. While force may be needed in the short term in order to preserve the most lives, we need to undertake it with the understanding that every person who loses loved ones, property, possessions or even just aspects of a way of life, become significantly more ready to return the favour of violence in the future. So you either have to kill them all (making you far worse than they are) or you have to try to fix the underlying reasons for the conflict in the first place.

I don't know if it's "by the millions" but it certainly exists... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Religion is a dangerous excuse provided by bad people to stupid people in order to motivate them to do bad things. Always has been used in this way, likely always will be. I for one would like to see then end of religion and it's control over people.

There was no structure. There is no "database" the code _is_ the database. I learned enough MUMPS in order to understand what I was looking at and what I could see was a system (I use the term loosely) that was made up of a disparate bunch of arrays with no conventions, arbitrarily duplicated and messy with no design or plan in sight. I'm quite comfortable with object stores and I learn fast, love data and I revel new challenges. In the project in question we'd already successfully and happily integrated around 20 legacy systems written in all sorts of different languages and using all sorts of data storage. I can honestly say, I've NEVER seen a bigger heap of crap than that MUMPS system. As it happened, I wasn't the poor sod who was tasked with the actual integration, just the "smart" person sent to see if it was possible. Based on what I saw, my advice to management was to ditch it and re-write the app as the overall requirements were small compared to the morass of crap an integrator would have to deal with. Last I heard, the company had had three or four failed attempts to integrate this product and eventually it got killed off completely.