Maybe - it (might) be dependent on several things: definition of genius (high level abilities across a range of fields); reaction to competition.

Not being a genius I'd be guessing - and that'd be ironic given my experience with people who consider me "very intelligent" and then say "I don't understand why you don't waste your abilities" (i.e. why aren't I famous/richer/better fit their stereotype of what "smart" people do). My experience is that the smarter someone is - the less certain they are of their abilities (the more you know, the more you know you don't know). One perception is that society (the average) recognises and rewards those that are not as clever as they claim to be (or good). E.g. Not so smart. If you are so smart why don't you cure cancer/old age? Smarter. Because I can extrapolate. (none of those things would improve the world in which I live) Not so smart You are an idiot.

As someone mentioned earlier in this thread - expectation is an important component. One of the smartest people I know lives under a bush - his family had high expectations for him and got him scholarships in the "best" schools. Their expectations were that he would do much "better" than them (make more money, get more respect). He thought (correctly) that they were ignorant and relied too much on the opinion of those "who appointed themselves as peers". So he went the the "best" schools - on scholarships offered to raise the academic ratings in order to attract the offspring of the wealthy, and not surprisingly was victimized and did not get to join the exclusive boys clubs. I don't know whether the unrealistic expectations of his family or the first-hand insights into the lives and realities of those who society calls successful, caused him to reject societies expected standards. He's clean and healthy - and one of the happiest people I know.... so I have no reason to doubt he's still very, very smart.

Some things he's said:- the very smart are a threat to those that are not so smart - so if you're smart, play dumb; the only way to get smarter is to challenge people who are even smarter (so being surrounded by morons might have several effects); most people are too stupid to know how stupid they are; approval is a prison - pick your jailer carefully; most things are without reason or purpose and the dumbest thing is to search for reason where there is none; happiness is a choice; don't ask me - if you can't work it out the answer is valueless.

My point - if I have one, is that I'm not sure "smarter" people are unhappier because the smartest people I've ever met are not obviously smart (they hide their abilities). There is a myth that those that are much smarter than the average have an advantage - which is like believing that because you have 20 years experience at fighting you can beat someone twice your weight who has no experience. Numbers of people is like the weight of your opponent. It also overlooks the fact that in life we rarely get to chose the games we play - you may be much smarter than your colleagues, but they may have devoted their lives to licking arses - and if you are so much smarter than your boss unless he takes advantage of your superior abilities you are of no greater value than your dumber colleague. You are also more cautious about implementing changes - your dumb colleague is not. Perhaps being smarter means that you are unwilling to shit upstream because of the perceived consequences (you drink that water) - your dumber competition is not so constrained and achieves greater financial success.... Does your extra smart make you aware of this? Does your extra smart make you realise that there is no point in trying to educate your dumber competitor or their customers?

Tricky..

Apropos of little - what I hate most is the happiness of the stupid.

Call me a cynic - but if Twitter chose Ireland for "privacy" purposes then it's a huge coincidence it just happens to be cheaper - as well

Switzerland is not as private as Ireland, because, um, CERN is just another name for GCHQ, unless.... oh crap, GCHQ is an NSA partner (cough* we keep the data, NSA keeps the index/metadata*cough).

Never mind, I'm obviously delusional - GCHQ doesn't have access to Ireland, what was I thinking? As you were, carry on, nothing to see here...

Is it even possible? Seller of free stuff....

Yes....

So they stole from IBM. Yes, it's coming back to me now. OS/2. Thanks for clearing that up.

Oh wait, I see the problem - you're equating networking and internet. Networking was easy - little resistance from Bill there, the "internet" was something he hoped was a passing fad (tcp stack was trickier than cifs, and then their was the whole browser thingie - damn standards). Netscape, Mosaic, that's a whole 'nuther barrel of fish in the sun.

Are you simply retarded or serving a Monsanto agenda? Burbank did no genetic engineering. The Chihuahua was the result of selection over a long period of time and comes without patents or engineered infertility.

Good science is not claiming that designing monkeys that glow in the dark is the same things as selecting wolves that aren't scared of humans.

Selection over successive generations for desirable characteristics != genetic engineering. Claiming that it is, is either ignorance (the enemy of science) or sophism (the enemy of intelligent discussion). The only things stupider and more dishonest is: equating those that differentiate between the two methods of engineering a desirable change in an organism are somehow the enemies of progress/science; claiming that all engineered change is good.

The Romans had a quaint habit of making those the made bridges sit under them while a legion marched overhead. The same should be considered for genetic engineering. Not all bridges should be trusted just because the builders say it's safe.

Trust if you want - but verify. Anyone who lobbies to have the new bridges kept secret should have a legion set on their arses. If it's so fucking safe what do the builders have to hide?

Translation: Any system of "ethics" that contradicts my beliefs I deem invalid

Reality: No "system of ethics" denies you the right to self-defence, but I'll ignore that by redefining "self defence" to mean "my right to carry firearms" (and relegate police duties to traffic control only).

Strawman: No guns != No self-defence

Anyone who would deprive free men of the means of any means of "self-defense" TFTFY

Can you point to the issue of Hansard showing the legislation that says I can't exercise "self-defense"? No? (there's a surprise).

Ironically - that is an excellent example of flawed logic. Did you miss the "well regulated" bit of your constitution? How's that confirmation bias working out for you?

Excellent advice - do try it.

From the land where we've had one mass shooting. Which was, before the gun restrictions. A country where we still have a "right" to self-defense - we just don't equate self-defense with arsenals (we just call the police). Obviously us colonial subjects of the Queen would have even less Sandy Hook episodes if guns were not "well regulated" (less tiger attacks if we carried magic tiger rocks, and less rapes in the military if those women had access to firearms). Thanks for the lesson in logic.

You logic is flawed. If self-defense is a requirement for any section of society: only those prepared to shoot first will benefit; you can kiss civilisation goodbye. And before you trot out that tired old cliche about how you "can't rely on the police", maybe you should make the system work before advocating the return to a system that was abandoned in favour of law and order.

Didn't seem to stop you misusing the ABS stats.

• Rifling is done the same way in both countries - most fitters and turners consider it a basic skill.
• I've got a mate who's a gunsmith - he buys his barrels from the US and assures me I could import them without difficulties - no license required (the law does require a certificate - but the sellers don't want one and it's just steel to Customs). .50 calibre? New or used? eBay if you're lazy.

Agreed. I've seen plenty of firearms in PNG and Indonesia that were made by people without lathes. Not as lethal as those turned out by trained and well equipped gunsmiths - but the people they were used to shoot looked just as dead to me.

Not from Mexico, no. And not one way either (we ship drugs both ways - hello Rio, how's the marmalade? - hello France, how's the green skins? - etc). It's true we don't ship a lot of guns to Mexico. We do bust large quantities of drugs coming in (occasionally going out), and while we do blame China and North Korea for the origin of some of those drugs - we also recognize they are just trying to compete to satisfy the demand. Australia does have a history as a being used to route weapons through to other parts of the world - but as far as I know Mexico isn't one of those places (I suspect Virginia has a monopoly on that).

You're trying to compare apples and oranges. It's hard enough to compare any two US states given the huge differences in reporting methods and laws on rape, and damn difficult to compare any US state and Australia. There is very little difference between Australian states in law on rape, the gathering of crime statistics (all based on convictions), and police training and qualification. Most Australians who visit the US are stunned by your bizarre laws and "police". It's not rape if you're married?!! Some states vote to see which untrained people get to play police!!

If you only get your news from Slashdot you might believe a growing percentage of Australians don't think we have a cultural problem with attitudes to women (unfortunately not a majority), and that that's the root cause of the rape problem (though not only women get raped). If so, you'd be mistaken.

One major difference is that is it's rare for Australians to propose that arming women will reduce the problem - quite the reverse. I suspect that may have something to do with huge difference in the amount of money gun manufacturers make in the two countries. Apropos of little - which industries fund the anti-gun lobbyists? (bullet proof vest are illegal for citizens here - so I'm guessing it isn't the ballistic protection manufacturers).

Oh and you might want to take a look at the huge percentage of "sex offenders" in the US. Given the bizarre laws you have in many States it's hard to tell whether you simply cannot be trusted around other people or you're just mostly batshit crazy religious nutjobs. Probably a bit of both.

Clearly you wouldn't recognize a fact if it flew back from Mexico and shot you in the foot. (statistical anomaly, ow, not murder, don't count).

• Not a solution
• Not relevant
• Do you have an authoritative reference that shows the "point of law is to indicate what's OK and not OK"?? And while your at it - find out why we all haven't been getting our weekly Hansard 'cause I don't know what's OK and not OK. OK?

The people who inhale the paper dust? The people whose peace is shattered by the gun shot?

Do you have a point? Or is this simply a "baffle'm with bullshit" exercise?

On the basis of the example given - no one. There's an assertion that the gun will protect the woman. The false logic that a gun is an equaliser. Another assertion that the "ex-husband" is "crazy". Yet another unsubstantiated assertion that somehow being "crazy" means the ex-wife is at risk from something that only a gun can protect her. Emotive, speculative, logically flawed, and totally irrelevant to the legislation that was speculatively proposed.

Maybe to you, but real life not so much. If you removed all the gun laws tomorrow it'd still be an offence to shoot someone (assault). Gun laws are there to keep voters happy as a measure designed to reduce the risk that someone might do "something bad" with a gun. Ownership of a gun, or explosives etc is a risk of behaviour and exposure. "You" might only shoot paper without adversely affecting anyone else but as long as you have a gun and ammunition there's a risk they could get into the wrong hands - so no, the current gun laws are not just about what you might do with a bullet. It's about limiting the number of firearms and ammunition and attempting to "guess" in advance which owners are likely to misuse the bullets (or point the guns at the wrong people - which is anyone).

Keeping voters happy means (amongst other things) limiting the embarrassment suffered by public officials when someone insists on wearing petrol pants to a barbecue. e.g. "Three times that person assaulted ex-partners with a weapon - now someone is dead. How come you allowed that person to get a weapon?".

Good and Bad are personal opinions - like Right and Wrong. Confusing them with what's legal and illegal won't end well. Leads to other stupid expectations like Justice and Meaning (sigh). It's the same sort of flawed logic that says possession of guns means the government won't be evil. 'cause we'll arm up - form a militia, vote for leaders, shoot the government and form our own government. That'll take care of that problem of outsourcing responsibility... (yup, if at first ya don't succeed keep doing exactly the same thing thing in the vain hope that blind optimism will triumph over experience.)

Bullshit. I'm relatively honest - how does the "cracking down on ownership" negatively affect me? It doesn't unreasonably affect me. (I'm assuming that part of your problem is the inability to differentiate between "law-abiding" and "honest". "Honesty" doesn't mean you obey the law - it just means you'll admit breaking it if asked.)

I'm a rural property owner without a criminal record or mental health problem. I legally own all the guns I reasonably need to do my work. I'd like to own a particular semi-automatic high-power air-rifle because it'd be cheaper for silent rabbit shooting than a suppressed .22 - but I can't because the manufacturer decided they could sell more in the US if it looked (hyper-)paramilitary (matt black with rails) instead of traditional hunting style. I can see the point of that, I know people in the grey zone and understand that the black market price is much higher for scary looking guns than for purely functional hunting weapons. I'd much prefer the bolt-action 100 year old .22 tack hammer to a 9mm Uzi machine pistol - and if I was a robber making good on a threat I'd be far more lethal with one. But I'm not a robber - so the NRA Match rifle is worth less than $50 even on the black market and the unregistered highly-illegal Uzi sells for $5K. Do the gun laws work? Get caught with Uzi and decide for yourself.

I'm old enough to remember when the only gun laws were those that restricted gunsmiths from making guns that were dangerous to use, and public access to cannons and concealable weapons (you can save your libertarian self-protection bullshit for the Congo or somewhere else you shouldn't reasonably expect your taxes to pay for police to actually do their jobs). It's a lot harder for people who live in places where they have no reasonable excuse for having a gun now - which may just have something to do with the enormous reduction in the number of water tanks, road signs, bottles, cans, trees, cows, horses, sheep, cars, and houses with bullet holes in them. Certainly it's been many years since I've had to call the police to remove illegal shooters - and that used to be a weekly event. I still have to deal with a lot a people who want me to sign a bullshit letter authorising them to shoot on my properties so they can get a gun license - because they "need" the gun for "self-protection", and so they can spend their weekends " blowing things away". Very, very few actually intend to hunt (and there's nothing to stop them joining a gun club if they truly believe gun sport is necessary). Many I meet at the local gun club (I train so I can hit what I aim at) only join in the hope of meeting people who will sell them an unregistered weapon - not because the laws unreasonably restrict them from owning one.

Wow! You have a knack for believing the exceedingly obvious and totally irrelevant, is relevant and profound. The story is about a proposal to investigate whether being able to print a gun might create loopholes in existing gun control laws - at no point did any politician seriously propose to pass legislation banning 3D Printing, or force printer manufacturers to make the devices unable to make guns. The average politician knows more about fast Fourier transforms than they do about gun manufacturing and with a background of stupid media stories about how "anyone can print a gun" they formally inquired into the realities. No "crack down".

No answer? I'm not surprised - clearly you're too stupid to understand how threads work, and too carried away with your "I would get the respect I deserve if I had guns" bullshit to bother creating a new post instead of just hijacking and existing one.

Looking for something that supports an existing opinion is not research. But don't let that stop you from cherry picking bad statistics (e.g only NSW has reliable crime statistics involving guns). The flawed ABS data you base your claims on doesn't count unregistered guns, doesn't count registered guns, only counts guns when it's the primary offence, and counts the same victim multiple times - an excusable mistake for an amateur statistician if it weren't so clearly and prominently printed as a preface to those statistics.

The reality is that "bad" gun use does not only result in death. Murder is a low probability outcome of criminal gun use. Drive by shooting, armed home invasion, and armed car jacking are all relatively new and growing crimes (you somehow overlooked that when cherry picking the data) - the vast majority involving guns not registered to the people using them.

Most surgeons will tell you that medical system is very good at treating gunshots now - but they aren't asked when compiling death by gun statistics (hint: irregular supply of crack cocaine caused a massive spike in gun shooting in the US - shootings are down, and number of deaths per shooting are down too, the latter mostly due to improved techniques and facilities).

I've spent time in places where you do need to be armed - to stand a chance. Guns don't deter attacks in those places unless you shoot first. In real life the person with the least scruples invariably wins - so much for the gun==equaliser myth (it's only true is the other person is unarmed and less violent).

So is murder and child rape. What was your solution?

Instructing them in what is a crime in this country? (or are conspiracy and incitement synonyms for instruction?).