I am a gelatinous orb from Alpha Centauri. I visit Earth as a robot disguised as a human. I use dial-up to post to slashdot, though.

I majored in Mechanical Engineering while minoring in Philosophy. The classical Greek philosophers and political philosophers of the 1800's such as John Stuart Mill and Karl Marx actually had a lot of interesting and valuable things to say about the origins of civilization, law and religion.

I agree with the poster regarding his take on "common-day" philosophers. After enjoying several course sequences on classical philosophy, I had a professor who was supposedly a world-reknowned philosopher. The day we spent discussing whether we could take for granted that we exist here on Earth, instead of being mental projections from gelatinous blobs living on Alpha Centauri was the day I dropped the philosophy minor. Contemporary philosophy, from what little exposure I had, seemed to be nothing more than mental masturbation. A total waste of time that left me no more enlightened.

I got the ME degree, though, and am grateful for what I learned from classical philosophy. What has been most enlightening in my life, however, has been a solid understanding of physics and the scientific method. As far as I'm concerned, people who dismiss science offhand are complete idiots who lack the mental capacity, education - or both - to understand how it is that we have been able to create things like microchips and MRI machines.

These people dismiss scientific theories like evolution as they are just something someone dreamt, not realizing that gravity is also a theory (if I deny it, does that mean I can fly?). These are the same people who are afraid of putting Wi-Fi in their homes, but talk on their cell phones while driving their SUVs to attend the Texas State Board of Education meeting.

Mod parent. TFA is POS.

Agree. Could never pass the WAF (wife acceptance factor). WTF?
And while I'm at it, could Apple please make a Mac Mini, AppleTV, whatever, that was the proper width for my stereo system? Or somebody make me a box I can put my Mac Mini into, and add a 3.5" SATA HD.... but I digress...

And the same fugliness applies to my friggin' silver, half-width cable box (black, please). This crap has got to go. Make it matte black and 17-1/8" (435mm) wide or it will look hideous on my AV rack. It's not rocket science.