"Let's say there are 10-15% of psychopaths in society..."

That number is WAY too high. If it was that high we would be in much worse shape than we are. The estimate is 3-5%. Isn't it amazing? It only take 3-5% of the population to really give a good go at ruining it for everyone.

I don't. And since everyone is just spouting opinions I'll add mine. We've been messing with the food supply too much. We're consuming vast quantities of starch and stuff sweetened with corn syrup and who knows what else. I think we might be engineering our way into bad health.

Also, and this is not a character flaw, I don't think people are honest with themselves about how much sugary stuff they consume. I've been thin all my life (for various reasons, not the least of which is a physically active lifestyle) but I went through a period where I was hanging out with some guys who went to the vending machines every afternoon. I ended up eating a lot of candy and I put on 10+ pounds in no time. The great thing was that I realized what was going on and stopped eating any sugary stuff and the weight dropped right back off.

At work I see people who talk about wanting to lose weight and yet get ice cream every day. It's not a character flaw, but it is a choice. If it's not important to you I'm OK with that. We all have our priorities.

You're playing right now, aren't you?

"No politician in this universe wants to be the one who willfully signs the death certificates of highly trained, highly intelligent and skilled people."

I don't know why. They usually have no problem sending large numbers of people to their deaths. All we need to do is convince them that there are probably terrorists on Mars and it'll be a done deal.

I don't know, but the poll question explicitly states "conventionally alive." At this point the usual indication of death is brain death. Even if you choose other indicators you're only changing the granularity of date of death by a little bit in the big picture.

"...do you KNOW how many laws there are at the Federal, State, County, and municipal level there are on the books..."

That's not even the end of it. If the federal government decides they want to persecute you badly enough they will figure out a TREATY that you somehow violated.

"The short version: If you're not forced to skip meals and not forced to sweat your ass off just to put food on the table, you're going to have a surfeit of calories, and neither your metabolism or hunger mechanism got the memo."

In the 1950s the US was not in the dark ages. We did not have to sweat our butts off just to put food on the table. We enjoyed a huge wave of prosperity. And yet, as a nation we were thinner.

You can if you do it right.

You want pictures? Here ya go!

http://more.glacierworks.org/

It's amazing that it then took so long for the invention of the triple axel, however.

Please note that the person you replied to was not advocating for a law to be passed. The poster was advocating for a "movement." That's important. I would argue that social pressures are more important than laws for keeping people acting basically decently.

Yes, I am for free speech as well, but all speech has consequences.

How is misogyny a "non-issue?"

"Further proving that the Stock Market is almost entirely disconnected from the underlying companies."

Exactly. I've been wondering for some time just what IS stock price based on? Since it's not based on the soundness of the company (the company doesn't even need to have a P/E!) it seems entirely based on perceived potential of the company and whatever news makes the traders nervous or ecstatic that day.

Therefore, it seems to me you're better off avoiding fundamentals and instead watching the news and reading sociology books. Oh yeah, and developing ways to do high volume trading one millionth of a second faster than you competitor.

"We don't live in a democracy, and never have."

As popular as it is to make this gripe this country was founded on democratic process. It's only somewhat recently that we became an oligarchy.

" The only way this will ever change is through aggressive 'petulance'"

Whatever that is, a better tactic would be to aggressively contribute to Lawrence Lessig's movement.

"Unfortunately, based on my extensive experience with OS X, I have to say that it is a big pile of shit. "

Don't stop there. Give us some real examples of why you think this. Because otherwise it kind of sounds like you're just making something up that sounds authoritative but really isn't.