It is overly simplistic on the surface but it is the correct answer, although the reason is far more complex and students are free to read up on it further in the library, or online.

Who the fuck is Bennett Haselton and why should a give a single shit about what he says?

You seem to forget that Facebook and Microsoft are in bed together. I wouldn't really consider them to be an innovator, though. Facebook's like the internet's Windows '95 -- and they're buying up companies in a fashion similar to how Microsoft did in the 90s.

I disagree. I think kids should be given a good Linux distro and an internet connection. Why do they need Visual Studio and books?

There are tons of crappy open source GUIs but there's also XFCE and LXDE.

Anyway, the guy you're responding to never mentioned open source. A fair Apples to Apples comparison is OS X, which Microsoft hasn't been able to catch up to for almost fifteen years. It's pretty sad that there are open source GUIs like XFCE that are drastically better than XP, Vista, 7, and especially 8.

Tort reform has been aggressively resisted by half of the US political system for decades, despite its issues exerting a pernicious effect on everything from education to medicine to the economy.

https://www.opensecrets.org/or...

Notice which party they're giving to.
Vote accordingly.

The reason for the seasons is a fourth or fifth grade science subject. Of course astronomy graduates ought to be able to answer such simple questions.

Not quite. It's because god squeezed the tube from the middle rather than neatly from the bottom up, leaving a lot left in the tube. So much for omnipotence.

"Future historians will place tremendous blame on China's government ..."

Unless, as many suspect, they'll be writing in Chinese. Then perhaps the 'memory' of events will perhaps be slightly different.

The church doesn't have a monopoly on marriage. The courtroom does. I know someone who was married in a church and then they never got around to filing the legal paperwork. Technically, they're not married (which was a good thing as it made 'divorce' that much easier).

Hate? I didn't read anything hateful in that comment. Incorrectly reframing an argument is one of the biggest problems with this issue.

"I don't believe in gay marriage," for example, often gets reframed into "gays don't deserve rights."

Fifteen years ago no one would have believed that gay marriage would ever become a reality. It was a weird and foreign idea. Now it's legal in a bunch of states and will probably be a national thing before long. Things aren't just the way they are. Things change and that change starts by people talking about it.

Unfortunately, the actual marriage related problems haven't be framed in the proper context and hence the solutions -- gay marriage -- is completely wrong. The problem is marriage as a legal status for individuals. It shouldn't exist and no benefits for it should exist either. Extending it to homosexuals does nothing to solve the actual problems presented by legal marriage.

I completely agree. Legal marriage should be opposed whether it's for gay or straight couples. Why is it the government's business who I've devoted my life to? Why should I be taxed differently because my significant other and I decided to sign a piece of paper? It's an archaic social custom that should have no place in modern society.

Those that modded you troll kind of proved your point. Although I think you exaggerated quite a bit, I agree with what you're saying. When an employer can dictate your politics, what's the point of democracy?

...is that the main barrier to efficient algorithms for exiting Burning Man would boil down to "Rules are a drag, man."

FWIW I was only about 50 miles south of Tower MN when they hit -60F (-51C) and was outside a fair amount of the time that evening.

Honestly, from the POV of a northern MN resident, there isn't THAT much difference in feeling between -50C and -35C (unless there's wind), and the fact that I can say that authoritatively would already suggest that I'm a giant step more psychologically capable of accepting a martian equatorial climate of +20C down to maybe -20C, than is some mamby-pamby Californian or Floridian.