I think the flaw in your logic is the belief that democracy is an ideal that ought to be strived for. Also, I question your assertion that the Senate wasn't intended as a check on urban areas. It gave the rural southern states representation they wouldn't have had if population was the only metric, especially considering that blacks only counted as 3/5th of a person. Without the senate the south would have been similar to the thirteen colonies compared to England (which, as the urban centers in the north grew exponentially, eventually happened and caused a civil war).

Personally, I don't think it's right for people in cities a thousand+ miles away from my rural home to dictate the laws around here because there's more of them. Democracy only works on a very small scale. When it's expanded from sea to shining sea it becomes a tyranny throughout most the land, whether it's a tyranny for of most the people or not.

That's a prime example of a Catch-22. The NSA is doing illegal things, but it's illegal to expose the NSA's illegal activities. Conclusion: even is the NSA does something illegal they have every right to do so because they have the power to do illegal things whereas whistleblowers don't. Might makes right.

If that's going to be official government policy, it'd be much better to install a dictator so the whole system runs more efficiently. The Chinese system is preferable to what we have now. It's much more honest, they throw less people in prison, and their economy grows and their standard of living increases every year. That's not to say that I think we should model ourselves after the Chinese -- it's just that our system has deteriorated to the point that their's is better. The United States has become an embarrassment of all the ideals it's supposed to stand for.

Damn straight. Teaching math, programming, or argumentative writing (among other subjects) without logic is like teaching a language without grammar.

The future of Linux: on all devices. You should check out my toaster.

I believe what he was trying to say is that corporate America is unlikely to wean itself off of the Microsoft monopoly anytime soon, but Microsoft's stranglehold of the consumer market is vulnerable if gaming is taken away. Apple has dug deep into one important niche -- the non-gaming, high-end users -- and Steam on Linux has the potential to knock off the gaming niche. This is important because those two niches are where the high dollars are spent.

So while you're right, that the consumer market has the potential change quickly, I think he's correct in pointing out that corporate America will largely remain latched on to Microsoft for the foreseeable future. Two centuries is a bit of a hyperbole, but corporations are much slower to change up the technologies they depend on than individuals. An individual has to set up a new computer. A corporation has to set up thousands of new computers, write software, train people, etc. In the long term, I see specialized Linux systems becoming the standard in most corporations, but it's also probably the stranglehold Microsoft will keep within its grasp longer than any other.

Interestingly enough, humans can only eat a small percentage of plants that are out there, most of which we've modified by selectively breeding them to create large seeds, fruit, or vegetation. Most grocery store vegetables share wild mustard as an ancestor. A few species of cereals (wheat, barley, corn) make up most of human's other plant-derived food. On the flip side, humans can eat practically any animal, even most insects.

So, objectively speaking, it's more natural for people to eat other animals. Until the advent of plant domestication about 10,000 years ago, most people wouldn't have been able to survive on a vegetarian diet and even if they could they'd spend most of their time collecting wild seeds as most plants we think of as food don't exist in nature. People have been omnivores as long as they've been around because 'beggars can't be choosers.' Our ancestors ate what was available that was compatible with their digestive systems.

If they had chose to respect 'animal rights' then civilization wouldn't exist. It was the use of animal-drawn plows that allowed for large-scale agriculture and thus civilization to come about. Animal domestication, or as the animal-rights people would say, 'animal enslavement,' was a necessary part of human progress. Not to mention the fact that without animal domestication cows, chickens, and dogs (to name a few) wouldn't exist as none of those animals ever existed in nature -- they're man-made species.

I kind of got off point but it remained on topic so I'll leave it. Point was, humans can eat many more animals than we can plants, so I'd modify your "homo sapiens eat everything" to "homo sapiens eat every animal, and a few plants we modified to be compatible with our digestive systems." If our digestive system could break down cellulose starvation would be a non-issue (as it is, starvation is just an economic issue, but that's another discussion altogether).

There's no '-1 disagree' option in moderation.

Maybe some particular religion insists on those things, but there's nothing about religion in general that demands unconditional, unquestioning, evidence-free belief. The Dali Lama, one of the most influential religious leaders in the world, has explicitly stated that one should not be so devout as to have unconditional, unquestioning, evidence-free belief. In fact, he's stated that throughout his life he's often doubted his faith and challenged himself to question its basic tenants.

Evidence-free belief also isn't as egregious as you make it sound. Not everything is a science experiment. Moral questions aren't the type that can be answered with empiricism.

The fact that you think that supernaturalism and religion are synonymous demonstrates that you don't understand religion very well. Atheism just means not a theist -- 'a' is a prefix that means 'not.' If you don't believe in God but you believe in ghosts, you're an atheist. Sure, some religions incorporate supernaturalism -- fundamentalist Christians and some variants of Hinduism, for example -- but many do not and supernaturalism isn't a necessary component of religion. Zen Buddhism, Taoism, non-fundamentalist Christianity, and non-Orthodox Judaism are a couple examples.

A common trend you'll see among the religious -- that the stupid also believe in the supernatural -- you'll see among atheists as well. An atheist who believes that aliens built the pyramids is just as crazy as the Christian who believes that Jesus of Nazareth performed miracles. The crazies will be crazies, religion or no religion.

Being skeptical of weird stuff doesn't mean one can't be religious so that's not a valid definition of atheism. Atheism is a strict belief that any form of theism is incorrect. That may not be a very complicated (or rational) belief system, but it's still a belief system.

This is pretty much what I was going to post. This whole "critique of the military-industrial complex" view fails to take into account that the bugs were an actual threat to earth.

Also, the whole "misunderstood masterpiece" bit is absurd. What little satire exists was recognized by the most famous movie critic of all time:

Ebert still gave the film a paltry 2 out of 4 stars. Whether the director was trying to satirize Heinlein or not, it was still a pretty shabby movie.

Blue collar jobs often actually do background checks and just toss out applicants who have criminal records. It's just a supply/demand issue: the supply of blue collar workers is extremely high while the demand for them is extremely low. Therefore, companies can choose to be extremely picky in who they hire. This creates a terrible situation for many who don't have the resources or intelligence to gain the higher education necessary to make them valuable enough for a company to overlook any misdemeanors they've been charged with. I assume that you have either an education or skills that make you valuable enough to your employer to overlook whatever prior offense you have on your record, or your skills in combination with your interview meant they didn't see any reason to bother with a background check.

Unfortunately, blue collar workers, who probably have the most reason to protest, also have the most to lose by doing so. They could make themselves unemployable to all but the lowest paying fast food jobs, which in turn would make crime a more appealing source of income, at which point they become part of the penal system's revolving door trap.

That would be strange considering that she consulted Greenspan when writing Atlas Shrugged and they were good friends.

Although the book vehemently treats all politicians as scum, Rand herself rallied behind certain Republican politicians. In the dystopic Atlas Shrugged the 'collectivists' have already taken over the entire government and it's too late for the 'individuals' to do anything about it. If anything the book is a rallying cry for ultra-conservatives to become more involved in government to save it from the FDR-type liberals that Rand saw as incompetent tyrants who had taken over.

And there's a fourth group and a fifth group and so on. However, I don't believe that the difference Nietzsche's Man and Superman is that between master and slave. My interpretation was that it's more akin to the difference between animal and man. Like how there's a difference between spiders and cats. Spiders are somewhat like automatons -- they do what they do almost purely based on cause and effect. Cats, on the other hand, make good pets because they are closer to man's mental capacity -- even though they sometimes act purely upon cause/effect type stimuli (such as play with string), they also seem to somewhat have a will of their own and they are emotional creatures. Regardless, they have nowhere near the logical capacity as man.

If I understand Nietzsche correctly (which I admit is questionable), then the Superman is a man who lives up to his mental potential. Many people live their entire lives without even attempting to take advantage of their potential -- like animals they can be satisfied with mere carnal pleasure and they only use their mental potential to increase this carnal pleasure. Nietzsche asserts that we ought to esteem to be something greater than what we tend to be; in our ambitions, morals, and our ability to reason.

Ah, yes, blame the French. And when you can blame the French and Communism at the same time, even better. Your red herring is so scary.

I don't even know what to say about this one.

Ding ding ding! We have a winner. It's sad that whenever the bullying topic gets brought up on Slashdot it brings all the crybabies out of the woodwork. I mean, I get that on a site full of nerds, many were bullying in high school, but it's just pathetic how many still haven't gotten over it.

People who think insults can be harmful have never really grown up.

I think the most important lesson a person can learn in life is that they don't matter. Their emotions don't matter. The only thing about a person that matters is what they do with their life. If you choose to take your own life, especially before you've actually done anything, you really don't matter. This life is precious shit makes me sick. People just think life is precious because they don't want to die.

There's are simple solutions to all the problems you mention: Don't use Facebook or G+ or any other social networking site. Go to your cell phone provider and tell them you don't want to receive anonymous text messages because of the problem -- harassing text messages can also be dealt with by the police (but more importantly, they can be ignored). If someone sets up a website with the express purpose of defaming you or harassing you then all you have to do is shoot an e-mail to the company that hosts it. They won't want to deal with that liability.

Or you could just whine about the emotional vulnerability of THE CHILDREN! and tell them they're all unique and special like a snowflake and no one has the right to say anything that might shatter their ever so fragile self esteem. Go last place trophies! And let's charge children with felonies if they dare be mean to one another! Yeah, that's an awesome solution.