The corollary here is that intelligence isn't always an advantage. Or else all chimps would have evolved human class intelligence.
A palaeontologist interviewed here on Slashdot pointed out that this sort of logic only works for the apex predator, and the apex herbivore. They are constantly in a struggle to be the 'best.' For other species, you can find all kinds of weird evolutions as they find their niche in the world.
Any modern quartz-controlled watch that costs more than $10 is a status symbol and nothing more.
I don't know about that. My Citizen WR-100 is a very modest watch. My wife bought it for me about 8 years ago. $250.
Agreed. I bought one of the Citizen watches that was near the bottom of the line, got it on sale for about $80 maybe 5-6 years ago. Before that, I used to buy the $10-20 watch from Target or Walmart or whatever, and it would last 1-3 years before the battery would die. So then I could either go through the annoyance of taking the watch apart and finding the correct random battery (usually at least a few dollars unless you'd buy them in bulk) or I could spend $10-20 on a new watch. I'd do the latter.
After 3 or 4 disposable watches, I decided to buy the Citizen... it has a simple style that I like (though slightly nicer than most of the cheap watches) and no more buying a new crappy watch every year or two.
In a few years, the watch will have paid for itself... it already has in convenience (since twice before I had a watch battery die suddenly and had to go to a store at an inconvenient time and get whatever was available).
Some features are worth a few bucks; it's not just status.
Assad kills on average 300 people per day for the past three years, but that is not news.
Well, actually, that's been in the news quite a bit
We _still_ have 60 seconds to get ourselves and the children to shelter 2 or 3 times per night when they shoot at us and the alarms go off, so nobody is getting any sleep
Why don't you sleep in the shelter?
I'm pretty sure the "regulation is good" crowd are only talking about good regulations.
Maybe you are that way, in which case I applaud you. I've spent too much time trying to get people to admit that there are some regulations that we should get rid of. It's rather annoying.
The worst is when two of those people get in an argument and say, "we need more regulation!" "no, we need less regulation!" and you're sitting there watching, thinking, "hey, how about considering each piece of regulation individually? Because chances are we need more good regulation, and to get rid of bad regulations."
Or another one that is kind of funny, when someone says, "we need to regulate that industry." ok, but what specific regulations are going to make a difference? It's especially funny when they say it about an industry like banking or telecom, that is already highly regulated. Changing the raw number of regulations isn't going to do much there, because there are tons of them. Specifics matter.
Correct. And that's why the voting system has been thoroughly compromised. [snagfilms.com] So the only avenue left is protest. Ah, but we've got "protections" in place to keep you from doing that as well. [theguardian.com]
Protesting is for tools, and people who don't understand the system.
Mine was crazy about Lappland.
I lived in NYC on and off for most of a decade and I can assure you that as a pedestrian the act of stepping into the street was a game of roulette and that yellow cabs were the greatest cause of un-safe living.
This is a common sentiment, but it has been proven to be a myth. People just think cabs are disproportionately responsible for pedestrian injuries because it's easy to lump them into a group, but you're actually roughly 6 times more likely to be seriously injured or killed in New York City by private cars. (Note that NYC has well over 100 pedestrian fatalities per year.) For more details, see here:
Throughout the city, 79 percent of the serious crashes involved private passenger cars; 13 percent involved taxis or livery cabs; 4 percent involved trucks; and 3 percent involved buses.
The story notes that at certain times of day, taxis can make up almost 50% of traffic on the streets downtown, so these numbers may imply that cabs are much safer overall than passenger cars.
Without life, Biology itself would be impossible.
