Sounds like you watched "House of Cards", too.

No, he didn't. Creating those pre-embryos did nothing beyond preserving the option to have those children later.

From TFA:

She called Szafranski, a nurse, paramedic, and firefighter, and asked if he would provide sperm so that she could freeze embryos for possible future use.

The guy was helping his girlfriend of not that many months preserve the possibility of having children later, not signing up for a lifetime of child care for up to 8 kids regardless of what happens later.

This sounds quite plausible to me. I can't imagine an ENTIRE class full of people behaving the way the prof suggests. Some, sure, but all?

I had a much more minor incident long ago where a prof sent all the students interim reports warning us that we were failing the course. Imagine my surprise, since I had an A average in the class (it was a math class with clearly defined grading, so tracking my grade was possible and easy). When I asked him about it, he admitted he made a mistake. So many people were failing, he forgot the one or couple who weren't. No real harm done, but I can't say my end of course review for him was stellar.

You're still bringing your own preconceptions, not mine. If you want to assume me a bad person, go ahead, but I have no idea if "a lot of beggars" are "master criminals". Those are your words. All I've said is that some nonzero percentage are lying. I don't know if that percentage is 2% or 98%. It's even possible that some who are lying actually need help. Maybe the jail guy really needed money and was just telling a lie he thought was more likely to get him money.

I'm just amused by the notion that anybody anywhere ever thought this would be "good for the consumers".

It's not bullshit, it's just what was reported. Camera footage of panhandler walking to car, then they followed the car to the guy's house. Sounds like it doesn't fit with *your* preconceived notions. I'm not coming at this with preconceived notions, just observations. I've seen evidence that some panhandlers are liars and evidence that some really are living in the woods.

Saying "Here are my observations." is actually the complete opposite of reality denial. Note I never said the guy owned the house. If memory serves, it was shared by a couple panhandlers. I don't remember if they owned, were renting, or something else.

Oh, here's another one. Young lady tells me she's stranded and needs money for gas to get home in adjacent state. I tell her meet me at the gas station at the entrance to the shopping center we were in and I'll pay for her gas. She gratefully agrees. I get in my car, drive there...and she doesn't follow. Drive back, and she's gone. Now, maybe she was telling the truth and got lost (impossible given the layout). Maybe she was lying and just wanted the cash for something other than gas. I'll never know, but if someone offered to pay for the gas I desperately needed and all I had to do was go to a safe, well lit area, I think I'd do it.

One more. Guy comes up to me on the sidewalk telling me how he just got out of jail yesterday and could I help him out with a couple bucks for lunch. Having no cash, I decline. 3 weeks later, guy comes up to me on the sidewalk telling me how he just got out of jail yesterday, and could I help him out with a couple bucks for lunch. Same guy. I reflexively lit into him and called him out for being a liar, and he didn't deny it.

Believe what you want, but the truth is exactly what I said. "...some people are honestly in need of help, and some people are abusing our desire to help people who need it."

Because it's been proven, probably. I've seen video evidence collected by local news media more than once about this. "Homeless" panhandler finishes up, walks a ways to their car, drives to their nice home. That it happens is beyond question. How often it happens and what percentage of panhandlers are genuinely in need of help vs those who are sponging off the rest of us, I don't know.

To be fair, though, I've also seen people with signs like "Homeless, living in the woods", then winter comes around, the trees shed their leaves, and lo and behold...there are tents off in the woods.

It shouldn't surprise anyone that some people are honestly in need of help, and some people are abusing our desire to help people who need it.

The right granted by society when they formed a government.

The short of it is that most people want some kind of government. Most want at least some police capability, somebody to come put fires out, build roads, and that sort of thing. Those things cost money.

You were probably born into a nation that existed for a long time, so you didn't necessarily grant consent personally. You can leave. I understand that can have some financial costs, which I personally disagree with. If it were up to me, I'd let anyone renounce their citizenship at the border on their way out for free.

This is incredibly stupid, morally wrong, and courts have established that it's also legally false. Merely running away does not give police the right to shoot you, nor should it.

Exactly. People miss the point of this all the time. The rights you see granted to criminals aren't there for the benefit of the criminals. They're for YOUR benefit in the event you are brought up on charges but are actually innocent. Which actually happens sometimes.

YOU have the right of appeal in case you, innocent of any crime, are charged and convicted because someone screwed up. It's a consequence, not the intent, that the legitimately guilty also have that right. We can't take it from them without taking it from you because we don't know which is which. If we did have infallible knowledge of who is guilty and who is innocent, we wouldn't need to bother with trials.

You have it backwards. If you DUI and kill someone, you should get a lot more than 3-5.

It's not profitable because you have to employ an expensive human to pilot the thing around.

If it makes financial sense for people to own autonomous cars, it will always be cheaper for n people to share less than n cars. The logical extension of that is municipal ownership of cars.

I don't know, I think he might well be. Insurance only gives me money if you break my stuff or injure (or kill) me. I can live with the first, but I won't make #2 and #3 voluntary trades. If we get to a point where self driving cars are much safer than human driven cars, I can see us getting to a point where you don't get to drive just because you like to. At least not on the same roads as the rest of us.

I like to drive at 100+ mph, but doing so was legislated off the roads because 55/65/70/whatever is safer. I'm not sure this is any different. When I want to drive 100+ mph, there are private places called race tracks where I can still do it.

Disagree. Without that feature, they're not much better than buses. If they don't have it, I doubt they'll exist at all beyond the trial stage.

No, it's not.

It takes me about 25 minutes to drive home.

According to Google, mass transit would get me home in 2 and a half hours, 40 minutes of which is walking, so inclement weather would be fun, and it would cost me about $3.50. It costs me $2.50 in gas to make the same drive. Yes, I'm neglecting the other costs of owning a car, but any way you slice it, mass transit is an awful solution to the problem of getting me to and from work every day.

IF mass transit evolves to the point where it really is any point-to-point, any time I want it, such as publicly owned autonomous cars, then that would be fine. Current mass transit is vastly inferior to owning a car for my needs.